The HoBB

In films, vlogs, tweets, augmented reality, print, and on the streets, it’s all about Image.

The British Image Group, founded in 1987, has now archived its background

Most of its founding members have their own websites or connect through HBC (HoBB Publishing Community) and Jacketflap.

If you are a new writer, illustrator, editor or book designer and want some experience in publishing, become a goalshare partner at Little People Books and we will share all we know with you, freely.

Children’s Book Illustrator, Camilla Zaza, asked about Illustration Agencies and whether it was a good idea to get an agent.

“Picture editors like choice. They collect and retain their own records of illustration styles whilst on the look out for ever fresher ones. Your best aim is to find the picture editors that want to use your style but here’s another aim you might like to consider ….

Imagine what it’s like for a picture editor. They get emails, cards, flyers, calls, visits and sometimes presents from illustrators. They get a lot. To be noticed as an illustrator, proof reader or designer, you need to stick out from the crowd.

One very well known picture editor who loved my work but never used it, told me this : “Grant, I have an illustrator that does wonderful figurative work in pencil. I have another that produces the slickest photoshop work on car engines and everything mechanical. Every illustrator I use has a set talent I can depend upon for specific contract requirement. Go away and only come back when I can place you in my mind as a specialist. There are thousands of illustrators who have great bulging folios of their work, but unless their work burns into my memory on first view, they stand no chance of working with me.”

So yes. I went away and specialised. However, I returned three years later to find the contact had retired.

Another editor once told me: “I like to enjoy my work. I use illustrators I like. It’s not just about the standard of their illustration, it’s about the whole process of putting the team together, producing the book, launching it and celebrating its popularity and sales. Once we know an illustrator and enjoy knowing them as a person, they become part of the team.”

So agents? Some are great. Most are busy. Many spend all their time devoted to getting contracts for those illustrators already on their books.

Self promotion? You can do this in a standard way or better still, you can stick out from the crowd and get noticed.

Is there a third way? Yes. In this plug-and-play world, more authors are teaming with illustrators and designers to create near perfect finished books (pdf format), excluding the legal page. An editor can scan-read these very quickly and spot an illustrator’s skill at adding image to story.

Is there a fourth way? I’m sure there are many more ways for illustrators, authors, designers, photographers, film makers and publishers to combine and create tomorrow’s world of entertainment, education and effective communication. The best recipe I know is through sharing and that’s why I started the HoBB Publishing Community.

British Image Group Founding Members:

Arlene Adams; Andrew Atkins; Lisa Bond; Hilary Brynston; Rob Chapman; Philip Cumpstone; Brendon Deacey; John Dunne; Gary Dunning; Paul France; Yvonne Harrington; The Late Jonathan Inglis; Phil Kenning; Linda Lewis; Sara Hayward; ; Petra Rohr-Rouendaal; the Late Paul Russell; Cathy Simpson; Lynne Willey; Ollie Tomlinson; Peter Scott; Grant Jesse.

Excerpt from rescued web ARCHIVE


	British Image Group


	[B.I.G.] established in 1987 as ‘Birmingham Image Generators’ Birmingham, West Midlands, UK.BIG started as a Self-help and steering group set up by fellow artists in 1986.It is now run as originaly planned to act as negotiation agents to help artists into higher prosperity.

B.I.G. Membership
This Web Site is dedicated to two members, ‘Kathy (Parrot on the left Shoulder) Jenkins’ and our great late founder and digital artist Jonathan Inglis.

You will need to email us initially if you are interested in applying for any one of our B.I.G. Membership categories. Applications are considered twice yearly (Summer and Winter) and we will eventually need to judge your big T.O.O.O. T.O. which is:

Three examples of your work [Print or Photo (35 mm slide) form only]
One very short written summary in your own words about your work to date
One short paragraph about “where you want to go with your stuff”
One sentence from you as to what drives you forward.
Two or three words that capture your style
One word or so that reveals your attitude towards life

We understand different needs and have evolved ‘Membership’ into two forms:

a) Active B.I.G. Members who progress their work alongside B.I.G.

b) Friends of B.I.G. – made up of past active members who are now
self-supporting champions in their chosen field/s or simply wish to
retain an interest in all things creative.

Can B.I.G. be for you? … maybe
.
In the early 1990’s, Jonathan Inglis and others running B.I.G. at that time, realised the impact of new media and the way in which creative disciplines were cross-merging to form new works and new working practices. Since that time, B.I.G. membership has been open to an ever widening group of like-minded individuals, all developing ways to communicate e.g. :

sound experimenters, interior designers,

sculptors, visualists, media mixers,

feature designers, calligraphers,

miniaturists, photographers, muralists,

carnival creators, storytellers, poets, dancers,

musicians, web designers, graphic artists, illustrators

landscape designers, toy makers, animators, visualisers.

The Art of Living

Few approach the mastering of their lifetime use as an art subject. Most take the pallet that is thrown at them, carve very little, dance on thick ice, cling on tight to the song of their Fathers’ – wholly wrapped in a human-nature-bound canvas.


	Nature plays this trick on us and on every other living creature from an A moeba to a Zebra.To understand the strength of this Nature-pull, we need to stand back and see life in sections and Art is a great momentary isolator. One flash of a

camera and a subject is frozen alight. One flick of a switch and even a dark empty room at the Tate Modern comes to life. For some, a Creed helps to enlighten life, for others, the works of poets, composers or computer games programmers.

For us all to feel bright and brighter, we need to be exposed to the ‘wonder of it all’ and this means the magic of life. We all seem to like the wizardry of Tolkein and the now legendary world of Harry Potter, according to box office records, so why do some of us adopt a lifestyle closer to that of a humdrum humanoid?

We humans have come a long way and we need to get further.There is an art to ‘being here’ and ‘getting there’ and life itself must proactively develop that art – the art of perpetual existence – life.

Let this ‘art of living’ be bland for no-one’s palette of mind, body or spirit, and let us continue to learn how to evolve our ‘now time’ into their ‘tomorrow time’.

One of the favourite topics at ‘B.I.G. Meets’ is ‘lifestyle‘ and how too many people, World-wide, ‘end up’ with a lifestyle they did not style themselves. We all adopt some pre-styled facets in life – all born of the past, but we can always try to ‘go one better’ in every field of human endeavour so long as creative thinking is encouraged, rewarded and supported.

Who said ‘Life is not a rehearsal’? Next time you think you have the art of living under your belt, check out your answer to this question:

“Are YOU living the lifestyle that YOU designed?”


	Maybe you need a B.I.G. powerful creative force to gain ground for you.


	Photography on this page by kind permission of Phillip Tussell (© 1999, 2000) who’s work explores what he calls ‘part-stable slow-decay’ and the preceding moments in earth metabolism that create changes within communities.

		At top of Page: WOODEN HANGERS (1999)


	MY BEACHED METAL (1999)

SACRED COW PROBABILITIES (2000)


	If you are NOT on this list but feel your skill should be included, then tell us about what you do and we can spread your news further afield (email us)

Membership Update: (2001/ 2002)

Associate BIG Membership:
Ideal for Students, having limited experience of servicing commissioned work briefs, but having demonstrated a clear talent within their chosen medium.
£10 per annum (2000/ 2001/ 2002)

Full Individual BIG Membership:
Experienced practising individuals, servicing commissioned contracts. Join BIG for the essential networking, net linking and group support)
£18 per annum (2001/ 2002)

Corporate BIG Membership:
Companies commissioning Creative Work through our BIG links – (Join – hey, we do a good job and your first £25 discount will get your fee back instantly on your first commission)
£25 per annum (1999/ 2000/ 2001/ 2002)

Managed Associate BIG Membership: (2002/ 2003)
A Member who likes to get on with the creative work with a non silent BIG partner promoting the stuff World-wide – out there to make money in
the market, today.
£57 (first year only) plus Negotiable % on contracts for minimum 2 or 3 year agreements. (Please read below the article by Emma C. for new details)

Friends of B.I.G. Membership:
Once you have been an active ‘full member’ of B.I.G. for a full a year you can of course continue and renew if you are still finding B.I.G. useful and relevant to your work. All members who have supported the work and aims of B.I.G. are entitled to be included as ‘Friends of B.I.G.’ for life and will always be welcome at B.I.G.

The Creatives’ Law
by Emma C.

“I was amazed that a group like ‘BIG’ existed! I went to see them first in a pub and found them instantly likeable. I am not sure who the **** I spoke to as I was taking notes most of the time! But whatever question I had, somebody there helped me out with the answer, a phone number or some contact. I’d just got through my M.A. and was suddenly mixing it with professionals ‘just instant like’. That’s gotta be about 5 years ago, but even now in Australia I still keep the notes I took on that day and what’s more, I know that if get back to the U.K. at any time, they’ll be there. They have this ‘Creative’s Law’ that works :

‘The more you communicate, the more you have to say. The more things you have to say, the better you need to communicate and the more people you need to support you’.

I found that as I progressed my career I got involved with a load of new disciplines and ways to explore communication. I am not an ‘island’ type of person, but I did feel isolated from mainstream at one time in my life – B.I.G did a lot to widen out my views, help my confidence and helped me to plan out some good routes for my future.

The big things to remember are best left to B.I.G. to explain but it’s all about pushing yourself forward and protecting your work. I was an Associate Member for one year when it was just £8 and a full member for two further years ….. but B.I.G. is bigger than any group I have come across since, because for me, it is permanent. I know I can contact other members and I know that when they say ‘Friends of B.I.G.’ they really mean ‘Big Friends’ “.

IMPORTANT:
2002 Sign up with BIG for a Bonus:
Recent changes to the UK Copyright Laws now allow your Family to benefit from the sale of your work for 75 years after your death so think long term.Your earnings are linked with 3 main points: your creative ability, your style and your marketing methods. Your total earnings during your lifetime must secure your home, your family, health and maybe pension.

Complete your application and email it today to our Membership Secretary


	By registering as a Managed Associate Member in 2002 you and your family can benefit from your Creative Talents to the MAX.

It’s your subscription thus it is YOUR MONEY … let’s spent it on YOU.!

FIRSTLY
We’re going to send a BIG chunk of it to secure your name and your work in an International Copyright Collection Agency, and believe it, this is a useful and vital one-off Payment that lasts for 75 years beyond your lifetime, continually feeding your Family – a marvellously secure feeling; a great gift for their future AND your present.

THEN
This is just the BIG start. Then, we’ll use £2 towards admin. plus £10 for getting you your own page on the net, fitting into your marketing plan and your folio design – this is truly the unique value of a BIG self-help Group run and supported by fellow creatives.

We do all this for a one-off total of £57.00 which also includes Full Membership for a year and Life Membership of “Friends of B.I.G.”


	There is no other UK artist-led group doing this for its UK members …… there should be …. but we’ve not come across any. Even B.I.G. are just ‘trialing’ it for just one year, 2002, at the moment, to see how it goes.

The Art of Science


	Science is but one avenue of art. It studies within mainly known physical palettes of generally earth-held hues. Its thoughts are challenged mainly by the ‘Act of Creation’ itself as it strives to catch-up with this magical beginning point that it never witnessed. It takes a great artist to be a great scientist.

The skill to ‘dream past today’s knowledge and understanding’ is taught in so few schools. BIG have a great interest in education and several of our members teach or have been teachers. One particular member, *Peter Scott, did his MA in ‘closure’ – a study of how people create ‘conclusions’ when there are gaps in human knowledge. He now works freelance for many educational publishers producing effective cartoons that really communicate!

The main art of science lies in quantifying these gaps with new ‘knowledge’ – often being inspired by the artists that dream into these same gaps to write a sci-fi novel or design a new movie’s space ship.

At BIG, we believe that the ‘science of art’ and the thinking of the creative art mind is of great value to the progress of human society.




		The star captains of art, from ‘L. da Vinci’ to ‘Dali’ are as famous for their abilities to ‘go boldly’ as a star ships’ crew ‘boldly goes’ – both to seek out new worlds where no-one has gone before. To all that quest and take on the very challenging task to make dreams appear on the World’s canvass, BIG give pedestals of the ‘Noblest’ kind.




		* Many B.I.G. Members have their own web sites or hold one or more pages on other sites. One such operator is Peter Scott MA. We checked out his dossier. The work stacks. Burning creative day and night hours to nail a brief, Scott delivers. Just like the first day he presented a neat brown envelope of toons to B.I.G. when applying for membership