Why did I do that?

There are a number of reasons I chose to email The School Of Life and frame the subsequent commission as my FMP. If I’m honest I felt somewhat direction-less in my practise and in my study. I found that I was creating illustrations that were interesting aesthetically, but lacking in deeper meaning or purpose; I didn’t know why I was making them or what they were for. Though I feel that spontaneous and unguided experimentation can produce exciting and visceral results, working without an underlying idea or subject matter in mind can sometimes be pretty fruitless. A great example of purely aesthetic experimentation within illustration is Molly Fairhurst’s project ‘There are at Least 1000 Ways to Draw a Tiger’. This project explores the many ways in which a tiger can be illustrated and results in some bold visual experiments in outsider art.

In my case I was working without any philosophy, something that my collaboration with the with the School Of Life has helped me with since.

Another reason I reached out to the School was because of my concerns over entering the design industry. At the risk of sounding self righteous I find it difficult to justify working for companies that are, at their core, unethical. Graphic design is used all too often to make people feel insecure, unfulfilled and generally terrible. I’ve thought a lot more about this after watching Alain De Botton’s documentary Status Anxiety as research, and watching the existing School of Life videos on advertisement and capitalism.

 

What have I done?

On the 29th of April 2017 I emailed the organisation the School of Life with an offer/request to collaborate. I’m a massive fan of the short films The School Of Life regularly produce on the topics of emotional intelligence, philosophy and humanity, and so I was very excited to hear back from them on the 11th of July with an offer to collaborate.

This came an incredibly convenient time as I was still unsure of what my FMP might look like.

As a result my FMP takes the form of a short film, produced in collaboration with The School of Life on the topic of vulnerability. The audio and philosophical content of the film was produced by Alain De Botton (director at The School Of Life), whilst the visuals and narrative were left to me to create.

Essentially I found it was my job to translate Alain’s ideas on vulnerability into a narrative that engages viewers whilst still communicating Alain’s vital and at times quite heavy message.