Gillian Blease is an illustrator who was our first guest lecturer at Stockport College in the third year of my degree. Gillian came across as quite a laid back and friendly person who was very direct and straight to the point with her story of how she became the fantastic illustrator she is today. Throughout the lecture she was very modest and explained how alot of her work was through 'being at the right place at the right time'. However I felt her amazing illustrations and pure talent were the reasons behind getting the jobs she has done.
Gillian began her artistic career studying a foundation course at MMU before studying fine art at Newcastle University for 4 years. However, she found herself more as an illustrator and had always been influenced by illustrators such as Terry Frost, Paul Rand and Andy Warhol. She also explained how spending 6 weeks in Japan shortly after her studying has always been a huge inspiration in her work.
You can clearly identify the similarities in the work of Gillian and her influences, as she focuses her designs on colour, shape and line using a minimalist approach. Gillian tends to use lots of empty space in which she explained, "Empty space emphasizes the drama of the main subject". I feel that the minimalist approach using lots of empty space creates a positive feeling for her illustrations.
Over the years Gillian has built up a very impressive client base including Barclays Banks and The Guardian newspaper, where she worked on a weekly project creating over 150 illustrations in 3 years. She described how working to deadlines and having to come up with different ideas each week was an invaluable experience.
As a Multimedia student, I thoroughly enjoyed the lecture, however because of my moving image background I would love to see her work morphed into animations or anything moving image.
On the whole, I found the lecture very entertaining and educational and her work has made me think about trying to come up with my own style so I can be recognized as an individual designer.
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