Commission and campaign work with Everpress

 Commission and campaign work with Everpress

Because the PPP module is all about my personal practices as a designer, I thought I'd write about my experiences with commission work and campaigns with Everpress. Everpress is a clothing brand based in London that functions as a space for designers to sell their designs on clothing, working on a pre order basis in order to reduce waste. The company is brilliant to work for as their ethos is all about helping out smaller creatives, by making the whole process cost free. 

Holiday card commission 

Just before the new year, I got asked by Everpress if I would be up for creating a holiday card for them that welcomes in the new year; the context of this design is that it would be an A6 riso print design that would be sent out to Everpress' top artists (as explained in the email above). The commission was centred around positivity, which I was excited about as obviously 2020 had been a very shit year. It was also a pretty well payed commission (£150) which was very exciting as I had never been paid a decent amount for commission work at this stage as a designer. 

The design I created for the brief was super playful and fun, with a central focus on leaving 2020 and welcoming 2021 on a positive note. I decided to create an illustrative response, as I wanted the tone of voice to be light hearted and this gave me the opportunity to play around with compositions and playful drawings. The design itself was somewhat simple, and paid homage to nature and positivity surrounding imagery of nature; especially in 2020, this element of nature was incredibly relevant as I wanted to reflect how we have all gotten more in touch with the outdoors over the numerous lockdowns of the year. I had to stick to the riso print colours that Alexa sent over, and decided to go for the green option as it was a somewhat neutral but positive colour. 

Everpress ended up posting the final outcome on instagram which was so surreal; having some element of exposure on social media helped me grow my account a lot, which I feel like is kind of crucial at this stage as a designer in order to gain a better following before I graduate. 

Being featured in the Everpress artists to watch '21 article

Following the commission work I created for Everpress, they then got in touch with me to say that I will be featured in their Artists to watch 2021 article. I was so grateful for this as I felt so happy to be recognised for the first time, and it was so crazy to have my work be posted on their website and Instagram. As part of the article, they also asked me if I would want to release a new t shirt campaign to celebrate, so of course I was keen. In the article they wrote about me, they kind of focused on how my work was playful and light hearted, so I felt like it would be fitting to create a very lighthearted and fun t shirt design. 

The artwork for the campaign focuses on a celebration of community and positivity, linking in with the new year. I feel like these themes of positivity and playfulness are what I'm getting recognised for, so it was nice to integrate them into the campaign. 

Getting my artwork reposted by repostees

My campaign also got reposted by repostees, a relatively big Instagram account that reposts designers' t shirts. I was so happy to have my t shirt reposted, as obviously I wanted to spread as much awareness that I could to sell more. 

Promotional images

I also wanted to promote the campaign a bit more, so with help from a friend we did a little shoot to showcase the products. I think this campaign in particular really pushed me to consider my self branding more, and reflect on peoples' perception of myself as a designer and my style. Part of me thinks that my illustrative work is definitely more popular, but I still want to continue to experiment and move forward with new ways of working. Despite this, the whole Everpress experience has been a massive help to my confidence as a designer, as well as growing my brand online. It sounds stupid to say that, but I really do think that having a strong presence on social media within the design industry as a massive help in growing as a designer.