Kelly Anna

0:00[Applause]

0:09that's why many of you Wow and my name is Carrie Anna and and I'm an artist I'm print designer and I'm going to be talking to you a little bit today about my background and my journey up until this point and and a few little things I've learned along the way time injury so it all starts with this guy here. And that's my dad Amon.

0:37And if you're wondering why his painting colonel I have no idea why like I actually don't know why he's painting the colonel but he's been my biggest inspiration from day one and his love for figure drawing and color always always fascinated me. And so we used to sit together and draw and he kind of was my trainer from day one and so I used to put this into practice at boring monotonous. And I don't ever tell anyone this.

1:09But I have decided to tell the whole of over space I'm a boring Malaysian dancer and my family as well. That's my diet again there.

1:19I did little boy and that's my brother Josh and I was going to show you a picture with Josh's way too much fake tan on but he said he won't talk to me for you so maybe maybe next time.

1:30So I used to sit these competitions and watch the dancers kind of move around floor and the one thing I kind of trained myself to do is kind of capture that movement and really get to understand getting down that kind of the shapes that the dancers were creating and yeah I kind of did this for a few years and the one thing dad always taught me was to look up and focus on the subject anyway said that if you're focusing on your subject and your technique will naturally come.

2:04Anyway through studying your subject and I did this for you.

2:11And then I ended up going into kind of weaving into fashion illustration. And that's kind of how I ended up at university studying fashion illustration and whilst I was there I won a competition to live illustrate at London Fashion Week and this meant sitting front row at the shows and illustrating the looks as they came down the catwalk and I'm sure you've seen a fashion show that fast so my first one has pretty much look like stickman butt but I did I ended up doing this like four seasons running and so I kind of got used to it and obviously the years of training allowing myself to kind of capture that movement kind of really helped and whilst at Fashion Week this is where. I really really fell in love with print design absolutely loved the way that print was kind of used to tell the story behind each collection. And I loved the way that the graphics could kind of were really reflecting culture and in the same way kind of culture was influencing graphics as well.

3:20And this is why I really fell in love with so in the last couple of years I've been working as a freelance print designer working in music fashion Footwear interiors and what I love about print design is not I find it quite funny when people say oh it's like a repeated print but for me print design is so much more than that it's not about kind of taking an artwork and repeating it into a print for me it's much more about understanding your base and by that I mean really understanding the product you're working on and whether. That's a shoe tartan or a bag or a t-shirt and it's really understanding that product and really engineering your artwork to that piece and when I started out I was incredibly naive I'd never even like been taught how to create a textile print and but I think sometimes it's actually better to go into a new role with kind of a fresh approach where you haven't really been taught any rules and so I think this is where I came in with a bit of a new look. So for the last couple of years I've kind of been taking all of these different little things and really merging myself into connect trying to teach myself need print techniques and really allowing myself to just develop as a designer and an artist and I'm really trying out different techniques and one thing I've really gotten into again is collage works of Assiut Matisse is one of my favorite artists and the one thing I love about this medium is the freeness you get and the textures you kind of get some paper cutouts and so the last couple years I've been working lots of collaborations and passion projects and the last year I've really really been looking and studying the mental and physical strength of women in sport and as well as dancing I'm incredibly into fitness and as it youngster I kind of grew up doing gymnastics so it's always been a massive influence on my work. And this particular project got picked up by Nike women so a couple of months back they contacted me to create an install activation for international women today and obviously being a dancer and interesting mastics and fitness there's been my favorite brand from day one so for me it was a real dream and and they really really gave me the freedom to kind of create something unique and genuine to my soul which was nice and so I started the project like I do any other loads and loads of research and on research days I kind of don't allow myself to even pick up a pen I think this is the day that you should kind of or days the issue you to really explore and read and learn about your subject and I knew going into the project that I wanted the copy to be just as powerful as the image it start with and I'm not a writer at all.

6:49So I kind of had to pick up a new approach to copy so I kind of treated it like print design and or I treat it like print design so I kind of scribbled down words cut them out collage them.

7:02And then something kind of genuine tends to come up about other copywriters it was just like so I started looking at these old magazines kind of championing women in sport I find them really really cheesy but in a little way a little bit endearing as well. And I really like the crunchiness of them. And I also started looking at these Olympic stunts it's just something I really really enjoy looking at stunts and I think stamp collecting was actually that boring not I do it.

7:39But I find a really good start for inspiration and obviously the Olympic rings they're actually one of my favorites one of my favorite Legos and obviously designed by the co-founder of the Olympics who said all sports for all people. And this is something I really really believe in and something I really kind of wanted to get across in the project and also legal being a massive fan and I'm really into cubism as well.

8:08So I kind of always tend to work this in and so I once I've done all my research and research the out of the internet and some I loved spending days destroying and I kind of don't allow myself again to move onto digital unless I'm like really happy with the body of work that I've done and I just wanted a lot more of a genuine approach and the briefs was kind of to look at women doing yoga and running and gym workouts so I think I sketched around fifty figures for this one and as the project started to develop they were very like open to me kind of presenting lots of different ideas and I was kind of thinking being a girl in Fitness and kind of came up with sticker boats training guides tote bags and we were also looking at the possibility of doing limited-edition shoe boxes but the lead-time kind of didn't allow us to do that.

9:12So I decided to focus more on the tote bag I do never team again so this really resonates with me I'm not because I wrote it but but because for me especially in this industry it just feels like we all have to just push and I know that sounds really cheesy but it really is true you kind of you just can't give up and you just have to keep going and I really really wanted my activation to have this sort of energy and so we launched on International Women's Day I'm in the women's store we did end up going with the tote bag because literally every girl loves the tote bag but as we go and hear how the tote bag and on the same day myself and a tiger founder of woman who is here somewhere we curated a Women's Day party and we actually met here at nicer Tuesday's and I came and spoke to her because I was actually blown away by her confidence so I was like I'm going to go speak to that girl and that was that was it I think that's actually really really important in this industry is just kind of making yourself known to the relevant people. And that's why these events are so important I think so the event we had a hundred and seventy goes all under one roof at Mother London.

10:44And I hosted a print workshop and the girls got to kind of color in make their own print from the template so I'd created and then print onto the t-shirt and take it away with them at the end of the night and we had go DJ cocktails 600 pens given to us kindly by Windsor Newton I think I ended up with about 20 though at the end of the night I think that goes clots on and there was a really really fun evening and we had such a diverse bunch of women we had like lawyers doctors art directors and it was just really really incredible to see such an eclectic mix of women all together just sitting down and coloring in it was it was really fun and I think that's something really really innocent about coloring in and making print which kind of really allows people to kind of drop their barriers especially at events like this not this I mean that and the one thing I took from the event and was how many girls came up to me at the end of the night and just said how relaxing it was to color in and obviously I do this for a living so for me it's not that relaxing sometimes really got massive deadlines and but that's the one thing I took from it. And so off the back of the event I am happy to announce the launch of my new coloring book. And I've got hundred to give away with me tonight and and my friends over at Park are we get sitting with them so come and grab one the book is called super female guys but please feel free to come and get one if you fancy coloring in some tips and plant and please come say hi I'd love to meet you all thank [Applause]