The Graduates: 2010 Catch-Up Part II

Bryony was one of our 2010 Graduates, but she’s said she’d find it weird to introduce herself as part of our second graduates catch-up, so the responsibility rests with me. As with part one, this post provides insight into what the talented alumni featured on our site this time last year are now, and have been, getting up to. And all you newly graduating students, get your submissions in for The Graduates 2011 soon – the final deadline is tomorrow…

Jordan Chatwin

This is artwork for the band Inca Gold. These are their faces. The past year has seen eight months of solitary freelance design work; four months of sobering agency work; a seventy percent decrease in material possessions; a ninety-five percent decrease in hair; a change of worldly perceptions; a gradually increasing desire (two percent per day) to draw portraits of friends; a sudden rediscovery of music; a slow loss of memory; a sustained and continuing need to make things.
www.jordanchatwin.com
www.itsnicethat.com/jordan-chatwin

James Laurie

A Year in Reading (In descending order): Post Production – Nicolas Bourriaud; The Divided Self – R.D.Laing; The Mortal Storm – Phyllis Bottome; The Conquest of Happiness – Bertrand Russell; The Book of Chuang Tzu – Penguin Books; A Million Little Pieces – James Fray; Man’s Search for Himself – Rollo May; Minima Moralia (Reflections from Damaged Life) – Theodor Adorno; The National Gallery London – Philip Hendy; Art after Conceptual Art – Alberro / Buchmann; Gossamer Odyssey – Morton Grosser; The Optical Unconscious – Krauss.

What’s next? make a five year plan; volunteer for a conservation project; cycle from London to Rome; make more art; grow a new beard; be more objective; be more subjective; run a marathon; run an ultramarathon; make quicker decisions; worry less; read more; open an independent gallery; travel more; recycle more; waste less time.
www.james-laurie.com
www.itsnicethat.com/james-laurie

Tom Edwards

The circle image was taken from a commission from a American D.I.Y magazine about buying your first house, but I thought it represented my year as it’s mainly been revolving around making money so I can live in London. I’ve been lucky enough to work on some pretty good things this year including adidas/diesel, toms shoes, Pick Me Up, ReadyMade magazine and massive floor stickers for an edible gingerbread house. However. The Royal Academy cruelly declined my ‘wizard on a flying carpet’ riso print for their summer show. In the next year I’d like to do more of the same, working on commissions, doing some more personal work and maybe looking towards seeking representation, but generally having a great time.
www.edwardstom.com
www.itsnicethat.com/tom-edwards

Joe Kessler

My year has been completely devoted to comics again! I was in New York for the Art Book Fair and helped out at the brilliant Brooklyn Comics And Graphics Festival. When I came back I started working at Nobrow. I’m really enjoying it, there’s nowhere I’d rather work. We have a really nice studio, a shop stocked with obscure comic books and a new gallery space. My time is currently divided between there and working on my own comics – I’m going to have another one out soon which I’m excited about, though I keep on redrawing/rewriting the entire thing… Throughout the year I’ve eaten nothing but pasta, mostly so I can waste everything I earn solely on comics. I’m very focused, or maybe narrow, or maybe a moron… You can also see my Risograph printer in the photo. Me and my friend Tom have been doing a lot of printing and slowly amassing more equipment. Thanks to him we now have a laser cutter and a relief press and we’re just moving it all into a new studio in Peckham.
www.joekessler.co.uk
www.itsnicethat.com/joe-kessler

Andy Callahan

Since graduating I have followed the inevitable route of the art-school graduate and started designing websites. Throughout university I worked primarily with print but I’ve had to teach myself coding in order to pay the rent. I was always slightly snobby towards web design, now I enjoy coding as much as (if not more) than the design side. I feel the same gratification coding as I did playing computer games when I was a kid, almost like I’ve tricked the computer into doing what I want – solving the puzzle or whatever. I am now living in Toronto, Canada. Working part-time at a non-design related job and spending every other waking minute freelancing. I am always looking for studio work but it’s hard to come by. I never thought it would be this hard to find a half-decent design job! Still, freelancing is keeping me sane… One for the bank account one for the soul as they say!
www.andycallahan.ca
www.itsnicethat.com/andy-callahan

Pete Dungey

Upon graduating, I spent the remainder of 2010 undertaking internships at Established & Sons, Oscar & Ewan and Gregory Bonner Hale. After a festive hiatus in New York, the opportunity arose to relocate to Zürich to intern at a design and photography studio, Studio CRR. Alongside design projects, the new environment and landscape was the perfect subject to develop my photography. I was fortunate to gain season access to shoot the local football team, FC Zurich, alongside taking trips to the incredible surrounding mountains. This image was taken from the highest point in Europe, overlooking the Jungfrau, Mönch and Eiger mountains. Next? I’m currently working an a few exciting freelance projects. A brand Identity for a horse racing stable, an editorial/photographic article for Issue Three of The Green Soccer Journal, building a website for a jazz musician and heading to Wales next week to shoot a short film. In the next month or so I will also be beginning a project with the inspirational Ted Simon, a journalist who circumnavigated the globe twice by motorcycle.
www.petedungey.com
www.itsnicethat.com/pete-dungey

William Cottam

Pretty much straight after graduating I got a placement at a design agency based in London. It lasted two weeks. I decided I wanted to try my hand at advertising before I settled down as a graphic designer. Fortunately an opportunity arose to team up with good friend James Crosby, and before we knew it we were working at MyAgency in London, where we remained for 9 months and learnt a great deal. At first advertising felt like another world to graphic design, but I’m glad I made the switch, no matter how tough it’s been. Monday will see James and I start a new chapter at VCCP, an Ad Agency based in London. All being well this could be the start of an interesting career in advertising. If not, a trip to Shanghai is on the cards where we will try and make something of ourselves in the East.
www.cargocollective.com/crosbyandcottam
www.itsnicethat.com/william-cottam

Milly Freeman

This is a drawing from my sketch book made on mothers day. I chose it because this year I have been enjoying mapping and peddling around London. Currently I am a trainee children’s book designer. A friend and I are also setting up a space to print in, so hopefully lots of exciting things to come!
www.millyfreeman.co.uk
www.itsnicethat.com/milly-freeman

Paul Bryan

Over the past six months I’ve helped set up The Odyssey Media Collective, a freelance family of creative media professionals working in a range of digital disciplines. The image I have chosen is a snapshot from our latest commercial for Jelly Belly due to be released at the end of the month. Our logo has been designed as a symbol of unity that is built up from four individual illustrations, each representing a separate core of the business; Film, Photography, Animation and Design. With the future in mind, we are working on a host of different creative projects on location in Amsterdam, New York, Croatia and London. Other exciting stuff includes the launch of our new website in July.
www.vimeo.com/theomc
www.itsnicethat.com/paul-bryan

Bryony Quinn

I’ve been at It’s Nice That full-time for just under a year now, running editorial features for the site, our What’s On section and writing for the magazine when it comes around. In this misleading photograph you can make out one third of our studio and the desk I share. It’s taken from where you come in so I’m one of the first things you see but that’s not why I sit there (I’m sitting “there” right now, I’ve added an arrow to help in this paradoxical diagram). I am both baffled and pleased daily by my situation – and my view. What you can’t see in this photo is the rest of the team, our commercial studio, a handsome bookshelf and a space where a dart board should be. This is a very good place to work, with good people doing good things. It’s very hard to be “cool” about it all but I don’t think that they hold that against me. They would have moved me seats by now if they did.
www.itsnicethat.com/authors/bryony-quinn