Staff Spotlight on FE Lecturer and illustrator Alan Vest who has joined us as a lecturer on our UAL Extended Diploma in Illustration and Animation programme at our Middlesbrough Campus.
Formerly a student on our Foundation Diploma in Art and Design course Alan has enjoyed an exciting career in illustration working with international clients such as The Guardian, Wylam Brewery, The Brussels Times, The Northern Correspondent, Hodder & Stoughton, EasyJet, Hidden Heights Studio, The Surfer’s Journal, Virginia Quarterly Review, Cambridge University Press and many more private commissions, exhibition participations and live drawing events.
Speaking on why he wanted to join the school and what he wanted to bring to the course he highlighted the importance of industry focused learning within the creative industries. Commenting “My ambitions for the course are to bring my industry experience working in editorial illustration to the projects that we develop, including drawing upon a range of contacts to provide students opportunities to work on live brief opportunities.
Drawing upon his publishing and editorial experience Alan said “I intend to continue to broaden our students knowledge of illustration and animation, potentially developing projects with more of a focus on editorial illustration, narrative illustration, including children’s books and graphic novels.”
Alans personal practice focuses on “keeping a drawing looking like a drawing”, he achieves this “by preserving the coarse, gritty and unrefined qualities of the creative process which are seldom valued in our digitally saturated world.”
This is achieved through keeping the “quality of line at the heart of the image” and keeping “splashes, scuffs and smudges with just about any material within grabbing range to create lively and spontaneous illustrations”
If you are interested in studying UAL Extended Diploma in Illustration and Animation head to our website page to find out more! You can see the other FE courses we have here.