I experienced my first Big Heads session today with Stan Chow, a well-known illustrator who works with marketing, advertisements, editorials in magazines and website illustrations. He has been working for 20 years after getting a Foundation and HND certificate and reached prominence online for his footballer depictions. This is how I became exposed to his work, as my brother is a big Manchester United fan and owns some of Stan's prints!
• He began with painting but quickly moved into digital illustration as the internet became
more prominent and images were attached to e-mails.
• This way of visually communicating was fast and accessible with a wider audience.
• People began to contact him about purchasing his prints, rather than commissions, so he developed a print shop to sell his illustrations.
• Social media had a big impact on his online presence and the growth of his fan base.
• His illustrations epitomise the things he likes - Manchester architecture, footballers, sci-fi characters and celebrities
• Stan focuses his attention to creating caricatures and representations of people's faces
• His success rate is due to the likeness of the person and how quickly he creates his illustrations
• Quality and speed of the work as well as his impressive clientele
• Earlier in his career he invested more time into bigger projects and making preliminary sketches
but now that is he constantly busy he has developed a process where he is quick and draws
directly onto the screen to maximise his time for multiple projects
• Similarly, his research methods are quick consulting Google images which he will then translate into shapes and vectors
• The majority of his time is spent tweaking the facial features to get the exact likeness of the celebrity
• Simplicity is key and it is important to remove irrelevant decoration to ensure the images are instantly recognisable
• His work has been applied to animation, Get Me There cards in Manchester and USB sticks showing his versatility
• Stan's advice is to illustrate the things you enjoy doing rather than for the sake of getting work. Concentrate in
• Pricing is the hardest part of being an illustrator and it is important not to be polite and feel like you have been undersold
• His influences included Mike Mignola when he was younger
• Making pictures will help you to get better and naturally develop your style. Don't force it.
• Stan feels his location in his home city gives him space to breathe and be more relaxed with his practice as opposed to working in London where everything is very fast-paced and living is expensive
Reflection:
I really enjoyed hearing from Stan Chow and think he had a lot of valuable advice to give as a well-established and successful illustrator. For me, as someone who is also from Manchester, it is great to see someone so local that is globally in-demand and has achieved so much without travelling thanks to the power of the internet and the platform that social media provides. It shows just how robust the digital age is and the impact it has to reach out to an audience - and it is certainly something I will be adopting as my practice develops.
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