Jill Bryan
Surface DesignerCould you give a brief overview of what your various working roles are?
- Freelance book design and production - layout, project management, picture research and image library stuff
- Web site design - content and structure more than nitty-gritty ‘building of sites’
- Freelance textile design – print, costume, fashion and furnishings
- Teaching - Part-time teaching, both in school and in further education. Subjects ranging over the years from general art and design, screen printing, textiles, design for print, fashion and costume, photography, book design, computer skills, and latterly Personal and Professional Development at LCC.
I did my degree at Camberwell (BA Hons Textiles/Fashion) and then applied to do the Post Graduate Teaching Certificate at Goldsmiths. I suppose the decision to get a recognised teaching qualification must have meant that I was aware of the need for a reliable income, particularly if I wanted to have the freedom to continue trying to establish myself as a designer.
When I started teaching in school (2 and a half days a week) I always thought that if I could get some teaching in college (which was better paid and not quite as stressful!) then that would be a good way to progress - it would still give me some regular money but I would have more time for my own work.
Then I got offered a day a week doing book design, so that’s when I first split myself off onto a third ‘path’ chasing another set of skills. That happened just by accident which is often the way, but I thought it would be interesting to find out about how books were designed and put together.
When you first started out, what was the first step you took?
After completing the postgraduate teaching course I rented a shared studio at Camden Lock (printing my designs there and selling in the market at the weekends). I didn’t have a business plan or anything though, it was all frighteningly adhoc but I could afford to take that chance, as I knew I had a monthly teaching salary coming in.
How do you deal with the practicalities –e.g. how did you find out what to do about things like tax etc.?
At first I was making so little money I didn’t worry about making it official, I have to confess, and also I was still a student at the beginning.
When I started to sell my designs regularly I got an accountant and registered as self-employed for the freelance part of my income.
When I had my children and my income went down I started to do my own accounts in order to save on the accountant’s fee. Having learnt how to do it I then decided to continue doing my own accounts, and there’s lots of help available online. Once you realise that the tax office are actually very helpful that’s a bit of a breakthrough.
Is there any work that you do that isn’t your main area of interest but that you do for other reasons, and if so how does this affect the time and focus you can dedicate to your preferred work?
What occurs to me now is that there are lots aspects of my work that I agreed to do at the time because I needed the money which have ended up opening unexpected avenues of work for me later.
The web site work is a recent case in point. When I agreed to take it on it wasn’t something I was very keen on as it seemed very ‘dry’ requiring a lot of administration, data entry and repetitive Photoshop work with just a small element of front-end page design. But if I hadn’t had that experience I wouldn’t have had the idea or the confidence to work with my students on the MySpace project (http://groups.myspace.com/LccSurfaceDesignBA) which turned out to be an extraordinarily creative time for me.
Then there are things that I have become involved with like specialist knowledge of plants, gardening, garden history and even some understanding of botanical Latin. That certainly wasn’t my main area of interest in the beginning but now its very important to me and definitely gets me work that I wouldn’t otherwise have a chance of getting.
How secure are you, or do you feel, in the way you work?
This is tricky - having got my teaching qualification and taught in school I know that I can always earn money if I need to - that’s always been my ultimate ‘fall back’ position, but I’m not saying that that is the best ‘way to go’. I do wonder if its maybe more challenging NOT to have a fall back position, perhaps that gives you more of a creative edge?
Because I have always worked part-time or freelance, having my children didn’t mean I had to stop work or make a choice about ‘returning to work’, I simply cut down on the amount of freelance jobs I took on.
Working as I do can be feast or famine – my last year or so just about sums up:
- May 2006 - Last payment for big book commission
- I had two massive books, one of which ran late and got squashed up with the second one and meant I was working 7 days a week for about three months.
- June to July 2006 – Unpaid book projects - I worked (unpaid) on 3 presentations for book projects but no contracts came from that work.
- July to September 2006 - I did lots of painting and decorating at home, and enjoyed the summer but was starting to get very twitchy and by the middle of September I was sorting stuff out for car boot sales in order to raise some cash.
- BUT … First week of October 2006 - I get some teaching at LCC, a commission for a 300-page book and a job organising images and text for another website. Then followed 8 months of madness and now its quiet again for a little while.
What’s it like juggling more than one role?
I suppose all my work has a common thread so that helps. Designing the pages of a book is very similar to designing textiles. You are juggling spaces and making rhythms and variations in pace and ‘texture’ in much the same way, so it’s not too difficult to jump from one role to another really.
Then going from designing for myself to teaching design skills is obviously ok because, provided that there is a balance, it is essentially a symbiotic process.
This year though most of my teaching has been more to do with encouraging students to talk about and promote their work online and to look at the work of other artists and designers so my role there has been rather different. It has been an opportunity for me to fuse together some different aspects of my working life but I did have to change ‘hats’ more consciously than I do switching between my other roles especially as I hadn’t done any teaching for a while and felt really out of practise.
If you had to pick out one good bit and one bad bit of what you do, what would they be?
Bad thing -
If you work at home, like I do most of the time, there is a danger of never knowing when to stop - especially when you have ghastly deadlines for more than one of your ‘jobs’. That can be miserable for the rest of the family.
Good thing -
My flexible and varied work means that I have been able to spend a lot of time with my children as they grew up – making costumes and painting scenery for primary school plays and building father christmas’s grotto and stuff is good for creatively frustrated parents.
Would you have any advice for someone considering embarking on a “portfolio” career?
I don’t think it is a brilliant idea to do the whole package on a freelance basis or short-term contract if you get horribly worried about having a set amount of money in the bank or if you have financial commitments. Worrying about money does not help the creative process at all, it’s too distracting.
For me it was initially my 2.5 teaching post that paid me through the holidays and gave me the confidence to pursue my freelance work. It also financed my studio for those first few years after graduating.
Update
Since this case study was written, Jill has had quite a similar year. The last payment for the Kew Books commission came through in June 2007. Jill has been back teaching at LCC and towards the end of 2007 another commission from Kew came through with the promise of a larger contract for 2008.
Cayman Island Book Project
Pink Elm Collage - textile design
