How did you become an illustrator?

Sonia Kretschmar > FAQs > How did you become an illustrator?

My original strategy was to become a graphic designer …(especially if I could work in the music industry) and then, after a few years, become an illustrator. So I went to study Graphic Design / Visual Communication at RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology), but unfortunately I didn’t really learn anything. The teachers were jaded and disinterested – unfortunately…it was also a strange time, technology wise. The first Apple computers began to surface en masse, and it wasn’;t until third year that I saw my first colour photocopier. We learnt typesetting and shooting bromides and finished art with roll-on wax and blue grid board…But I digress! In third year we actually had a substitute illustration teacher for a couple of months – Ron Brooks – and finally I found my direction. He opened up the possibilities of what illustration could be – well designed, poetic, intriguing…After college I spent time recuperating from a car accident and then headed off to Europe for 6 months. When I returned I was brimming full of ideas – so many, in fact, that my design folio couldn’t actually get me a job! So I launched straight into calling myself an illustrator and learning on the job. My first assignment was found through a friend of a friend who knew an editor of an Accounting magazine, and the rest is a shambolic history.

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