BY SAMREH OSBORNE
Last Tuesday third year Bachelor of Illustration students Emily Beaton and Jessica Johnson were at a table in B-Wing selling pins, prints and crafts made by the students in the program to raise money for their next year’s showcase venue. The venue where they had their showcase every year was torn down and they need a new one. Right now they are unsure of where it will be held, but it will be somewhere in Toronto.
“The show is a collection of all of our work throughout the program. It’s our thesis basically,” said Beaton.
“It’s for employees to come by and hopefully hire some of us,” added Johnson.
Most of the students in the Illustration program had to take another program to help provide a portfolio before they could get into Illustration. “Next to Animation, this is the hardest program to get in. The Illustration program teaches us about visual metaphor, information illustration, motion graphics, anything that we need to do out in the field, they want to give us the tools to know how to do it,” said Johnson.
They have a co-op of 420 hours to do before their fourth year. “I’ve found a mentorship which is unpaid but it’s learning from someone in the field and getting as much experience from them as possible. There are internships and co-op all through Toronto but they’re harder to come across than you think. It’s been a challenge for like 90 per cent of students in our program.
There is a little bit of support coming from our co-op office.
“They should have a better understanding of what we do as illustrators, because right now a lot of co-op postings are graphic design. It does relate but not every illustrator is graphically design-inclined. So it kind of puts a little bit pressure on them. There is not as big of variety options, but our instructors are fantastic. They care a lot about making sure we succeed,” said Johnson.
“Our goals are to work in a studio or even as a freelancer,” said Johnson.