Began the Instagram, to start testing the engagement and approach and to start building the platform.- Reposting artists daily ..
Started mixing the content up - considering all of my influences and how this can relate to what my ideal target audiences tastes would be.
- Being creatives/designers I tried to look at a variety of creative work to see which got the best response rates
- From typographical work, to illustration, to motion work, to colour theory, recent famous album arts - reviewing it and asking for opinions, photographers works, posters, trippy visuals, graffiti in the real world, interior design, etc.
- The culmination of work was definitely attracting a larger audience breadth tying various creatives together from all of the world and industry,
AS THIS IS WHERE I STARTED HEARING BACK OFF THE ARTISTS I WAS FEATURING!
Now I had more of a feed coming together with all this various creative influence, the page looked and felt more official. To try and increase its reach even further, unlike bot accounts, I took advice from the research done in the previous post and began getting more involved with the community - liking and commenting on artists works, being nice and complimentary to people - stroking them egos!
I first heard back off a graphic design artist which I have admired for a couple years now called Devin Wilson.. he produces very type heavy but composition considered pieces of work - from album art, to just trippy poster work. - By featuring him and using more of a relatable, approachable tone of voice which was appropriate to the artists background I think he felt more inclined to get back to me because of how I was presenting myself as another designer with a dream and a passion - similar to himself.
The simple comment emoji back lead to me following up and messaging him directly through the account, we had a little chat regarding his background and he even followed my personal account and told me to stay in touch! Safe to say I was buzzing and even though the account is still on such a small level it is definitely beginning to build those bridges and give me the confidence to start those conversations with the current artists I am admiring. Because, why not..
- Started making contact with some of the featured artists after they replied to the feature:
- including @jimtheillustrator (UK based illustrator), @justluckand13 (designer at Vapour Design Studio Leeds), @petergreenwooduk (Freelance illustrator in Brighton), @j.larroc (Chicago based designer), aswell as more local designers on our course.
Started trying to put my research into action with my approach to captions and tone of voice on the instagram page..
Tone of Voice:
- energetic and complimentary
- descriptive / review of their work and the elements within
- deliberately bigging-up their practise and stroking their ego to encourage them to get back to me and say thanks
- Trying to educate the audience and get them involved
- Whilst at the same time reflect my confident and chatty personality, insta convos are just the first step, I want to push this and actually meet/interview people I have successfully featured and started a conversation with.
For example:
"- "Amazingly vibrant and different portrait style by __"
- "Leeds based designer/street artist __ shows us how rollover HUE is a simple, yet effective way to bring illustrations to life!"
- "__ with a seriously badass poster.."
- "Punchy, charismatic type cheekily fitting into the strong cityscape compositions, solid feed by __"
- "Pastel colours, long shadows and nice textures - can __ get any slicker?"
These all lead to either short insta convos or further discussions regarding my own
Continual Development of the page:
- Did a little 100 followers milestone
- Started aiming the posts more specifically at creative influencers
- Continued pushing the page from October to February.
- As you can see, 2 months in and the feed is starting to feel much more considered and curated - balance of colour and design style.
- Deliberately made each line contrast eachother so they each stand out as individual collections / odes to the artist.
- Can then start getting insta stories involved to boost exposure, provide info about that artist or let them take-over the account for the day?
- Starting pushing the use of the hashtags, but engagement was quite dry, was only getting likes at this stage, odd few 'This is amazing' comments which I ensured I was replying to.
Various conversations that went further with some of the featured artists:
By building bridges through the VS Project it has started invoking some conversations on that account and my personal account- also giving me more confidence to approach creatives online in general.
This has led to discussions with a mixture of recent-grads and foreign designers who I'd never thought I'd be able to make a link with!
Ended up having a nice coffee meet-up with recent grad, Josiah Craven, who has taken the leap into freelance design and is doing it quite well to say the least!
He actually has his own research blog so it was nice to chat to him about his experiences and get some insight and advice as to how he has been so successful with his online presence.
Made some links in Indonesia..
And also Vietnam!
- This guy in-particular was very flattered that his work had inspired my own practise and that it had reached audiences in the UK - he was very complimentary about me sharing it and crediting him so he can continue to grow. He went on to say how when he comes to the UK he would love to meet up and talk design! I honestly never thought starting a design blog could put me in touch with such diversity within the creative community!
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