Week 6 ITAP - Medium

In the real world it is more than likely that most illustrators and other creative professionals may find themselves working to client defined briefs (Which pays the mortgage) in order to fund artistic indulgences in what really interests them.

However it doesn't always have to be a battle to juggle both client initiated and self initiated work.  Sometimes the two can coexist happily and successfully.

Since the days of researching FMP for my foundation course, I have been a fan of artist, illustrator and animator, Benjamin Goldman.

He initially rose to fame through his work on the movie "Lemony Snickets Series of Unfortunate Events" where he illustrated and animated the end titles.

I have added a sample of his work from this film below:

Of course this was client led work for which he was working to a brief.

However one of his most famous works was called "New York Divided" which was an animation about how the cotton trade was the root cause of the American Civil War and the relationship of this trade to slavery:

The link to this animation is given below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KyET5gTQ6g

This short film very soon became the centre of a major collaborative exhibition at the New York Historical Society alongside other creative works depicting the effect of the slave trade on the course of American history.

Whether or not Benjamin Goldman benefited commercially from this work only he will know but his professional reputation was undoubtedly enhanced as a result. So at least in that respect the project was a success.