Our design studio kind of works like this. . I give creative advice and technical assistance to my partners on commercial jobs that come into the studio. In exchange I am allowed to feel at home in their studio and expand my own work in every direction I want to go. Through a growing team of different professions I have insight, possibilities and fun while working in the middle of a hive of specialists. I think it’s often the quality environment and the right people you hang with that make you raise your own quality standard, so I am quite lucky, I would say. The “FLAGSHIP” studio is located in my city of choice, Vienna, and it is going in a variety of directions today, ranging from product or package design to print and web solutions. www.flagship.pro
As an illustrator you need to think of your illustration as a physical package when it comes to a product. Three dimensional layouts for limited edition packs that carry your handmade illustration. That kind of forces you into design. In the beginning I just wanted to be left alone with my work on a illustrated cover I did for a band or a book and I considered my job done as soon as I sold the rights to print the piece. I found myself looking at poster campaigns or record covers with some typo made by a graphic artist, and lets just say, I would have made it different. I used to think of myself as the artist who contributes the illustration, and then there are the other professionals who do all the layout and graphic stuff.
But then I admitted to myself that I developed a certain idea of how the package should look like while painting on it for a week or two. So I started to design stuff around my illustration work, my event projects or my projects where I am involved with film and animation.
It begins with choosing a presentation frame for your original illustration. As an analogue illustrator I still have originals on paper or canvas. A lot of possibilities here, and this is just a small design challenge. Would you let some stranger choose a frame for your original artwork? So design begins as soon as the illustration is presented in any form.