About me

I am an Illustration graduate looking for employment in an art/design-related workplace in London. I would particularly enjoy involvement with a book publisher, a contemporary art gallery or illustration agency, but obviously am very open to other opportunities, as my priority is to get a foot on the ladder of a creative career.

I have spent my time, between graduating and now, living in Brighton - completing personal and commissioned projects, and working full-time in a café to survive financially. I have now left the café (and Brighton) because I know I am capable of better things. I have passion drawing, painting and collage in particular, and believe I have a natural eye for design and composition, and a good sense of aesthetics. I am a reliable and loyal employee, who is looking for a new start in London. In the right artistic and challenging workplace, I know I will feel excited and rewarded by my job. I look forward to opportunities to combine my artistic interests with my workplace. I also believe that being happy with my workplace will feed my enthusiasm to create new work of my own.

I am confident using Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, am computer-literate(on both Mac and PC) with basic administrative skills, can speak and understand basic French, and have a high standard of written and spoken English, with excellent grammar and spelling. I can also offer imagination and an eye for detail, a practical approach to challenges, a willingness to accept criticism (thanks to weekly ‘crits' while studying Illustration in Falmouth), and an ability to combine traditional and digital approaches to image-making.

I am also organised, thanks largely to being left to my own devices during the second half of my degree. It was up to me to decide on my projects, and then plan my time in order to meet the deadline. I am friendly, enthusiastic, and a confident communicator, who is not phased by making presentations. I believe I can work well with anybody, can ‘muck in' to get a job done, and am ready to develop any new skills necessary to expand what I can offer an employer.

I graduated with a portfolio of book-jacket designs, posters and editorial illustrations. During my three years on the Illustration course at Falmouth, I learnt to use Adobe design software, taught myself how to screen print, arranged a meeting with Sir Peter Blake (at his studio in Chiswick) to discuss my dissertation topic (Collage: An irrepressible human instinct to gather fuse and fix), and showed my work to Penguin, New York Times, Time Out and Bernstein & Andriulli (illustration agency) in New York City, and to Random House and The Guardian in London. I graduated with a high 2:1.

Since graduating, I have completed some freelance illustration and design, and shared a studio with graphic designers and illustrators at Morris & Winrow in Brighton. I completed typography commissions for Spindle Magazine, editorial illustrations for Supersweet Magazine, and menu designs and drawings for a couple of Brighton cafés. I have taken part in art fairs and small exhibitions to sell my own limited-edition prints, and have completed a number of private commissions. I also created a logo for Winchester Youth Counselling, which is now in use, and due to be on their new website in a couple of weeks. Jane Hooper, who was involved in this project, said this about me:

“Zoe has produced a portfolio of logos for the charity Winchester Youth Counselling. I am a Trustee of this charity and we are delighted with the work she has done. She has put real thought into the project and listened to us, to develop a terrific portfolio of logos that enables us to select and apply a logo to the medium it is best suited to, giving us a recognisably consistent image across the logos, which readily enables all of them to be identified with WYC. Thank you Zoe.”

In both 2010 & 2011, I exhibited work at the Artists Open House Festival in Brighton. Before that, in 2007, I was part of New Designers in Islington, London, and was also one of only 20 students picked from my year to be part of D&AD New Blood in London. In 2006, I was chosen to display a couple of framed prints (inspired by various London Underground stations) at J Walter Thompson's Eclectic charity exhibition in London. I not only sold both pieces, but was then commissioned (by various JWT employees) to create a further six.