Week 6 ITAP - Delivery

The potential market for illustrated work has never been so great as it has been today.  Illustrated outcomes can be found in magazines, billboards, textiles and animation for example.

Some illustrators can have their work defined by the market in which they work (Magazine illustrator, pattern illustrator etc) but every now and again a piece of self initiated work arises which crosses all the barriers into a variety of consumer products.

The example I have chosen is the "Hello Kitty" illustrations which arose out of the Sanrio studio in Japan by Ikuko Shimizu.

Kitty appeared on her first consumer product in 1975 which was a plastic coin purse which caused a fashion storm among young Asian girls and other small accessories and products soon followed.

Since then "Hello Kitty" has become a brand in itself.  The Sanrio studio now has over 3000 shops in the USA alone and the number of consumer products has multiplied hugely.

Today, there is now an artistic team which manages the creative output of the brand, creating new images and deleting old ones from production thus keeping the brand fresh.

Possibly the irony of the "Hello Kitty" brand and images is that what started as a piece of original, self initiated art which found a mass market has now become a very legislative design and publishing house working to a fixed and established artistic formula.