Feedback from portfolio surgery

I had Mark Howe today for my portfolio surgery and I found it so so helpful. Talking to Mark about the reasons that he got into graphic design in the first place, along with his original passion for illustration was easy to relate to. I did the same thing as him, and embarked on a graphic design career as a way of ultimately finding employment, with an ambition to continue with illustration in the mean time. He worked as a graphic designer for 5 years before becoming a freelance designer, and then illustrator within a few months of that. He said his experience in working with illustrators allowed him to get a well informed insight into what designers want out of an illustrator and enabled him to give his illustration work the commercial angle it needs in order to be desired by graphic designers. With regards to being represented by an agency, Mark commented on how he is not represented as he has not found a relationship with one that he has wanted, however he said that it is very important to get some kind of representation if you want to get bigger illustration jobs. This has made me optimistic about my work experience with Jelly in February as this will give me an insight into how an illustration agency works and the kind of work that they are looking for. 

In terms of my graphic design work, he said that all I need is to make sure that I have pieces like my Waitrose brief that show my ability to apply illustration to design as this will showcase my skills as a designer and also show that I can illustrate.