BIRDS
ADVERTISING GOLD AWARD
PROFESSIONAL
2007 – IMAGES 31
Andy Potts is a London based Illustrator and Animator, originally from Kingswinford in the West Midlands. He graduated with a BA Hons degree in Illustration from Portsmouth University in 1995. He has since been commissioned by a wide variety of clients in Advertising, Publishing, Design, Music and Film and his eye-catching images have appeared in many international newspapers and magazines.
Andy’s first large Advertising job was to create a series of images for a worldwide IBM print campaign to promote a new global business innovation entitled What Makes You Special? of which this was one. He worked closely with the Ogilvy creative team and it was one of the biggest and most rewarding commissions he’s ever had.
“Winning the AOI awards have been some of the proudest moments of my illustration career. They’re great for exposure and have been instrumental in taking my work to the next level, attracting new clients and bigger commissions.”
andy-potts.com
andy-potts.blogspot.co.uk
BRIEF: To create an image to promote the idea of What Makes You Special? portraying a bird flying against the direction of the flock. The illustration needed to work in various advertising formats for landscape/portrait billboards.
MATERIALS: Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, scanned in mixed media and pencil drawings.
RESEARCH: Bird photography and movement, American cityscape references from personal photography and internet.
PROCESS: The process started with a rough visual from the creatives at Ogilvy NYC that I was to interpret in my own style. I worked up a composition and colour scheme that was initially approved and after 3 or 4 versions the illustration was finalised. The image was created in Photoshop using photographic collage integrated with scanned-in painted textures and hand drawn line work.
RESISTANCES: The pressure of creating this and four other large illustrations in a short amount of time was pretty daunting. The illustrations were some of the largest I’ve created in Photoshop so the software was pushed to its limit with the weight of all the layers I required. Fortunately it was a relatively smooth creative process with Ogilvy with great feedback and encouragement.
INSIGHT: Don’t let the scale of a job intimidate you to the impediment of your creativity. Mentally treat it the same way you would a personal piece if the pressure feels too much and enjoy the process.
DISTRACTIONS: There were a lot of early morning starts and full weekends of work on this as I was distracted by full-time employment throughout this commission.
NUMBERS: 5 illustrations and 5 am starts.
FINAL THOUGHTS: This commission has a special place in my heart as it allowed me to finally have the courage and financial means to go fully freelance and quit the day job 7 years ago. Still flying thankfully.