Malika Favre

0:23 Hello. Okay. Hi, everyone. , that's a lot of pressure there, but , I'll make do. So hi everyone.

0:29 So I'm Malika Fav. I'm originally from Paris and I moved to London 10 years ago.

0:35 So I would describe my style quite quickly as being minimalistic, bold and colorful, pop, sexy, very often, but most importantly always with a bit of narrative.

0:53 So I was asked to come here and talk about 2014 and honestly I had no idea.

0:58 So I was like, okay, I'm going to just look at numbers and, you know, see what comes of it.

1:02 So I realized that it's actually my fourth year of being an independent illustrator. This year I had 51 new clients and I did 86 projects, which is actually quite a lot. Some of them really small, some of them bigger. But when I looked actually at it, I saw it was quite mental. Zero is actually the number of exhibitions I did this year. Two years ago, I did my first solo show at the chemistry gallery around the corner, hide and seek.

1:31 And last year, I did the Kamasutra exhibition at Somerset House. And it's something that's very important to me. So, the reason why I didn't do anything this year is partly because I had 86 projects, but also because I took six very long holidays. So, that's my holiday. Everyone's going to hate me. So, I first went to the Caribbean, then did like a a road trip in California, went hiking in France, see the family in Corsica, then did another road trip in Italy, and finally went to Morocco.

2:04 I think I really needed a break. I really needed to see something else in London.

2:11 So basically today I decided that I'm actually going to talk to you about one project which is kind of a good mix of you know taking holidays and doing hard work. So back in July I got contacted I got an email from this Tenerif based design studio called Venio Cho Medio saying you know telling me about a project which was called on the draw and what it involved was seven illustrators each with quite different styles. So as you can see so that's kind of work from the seven illustrators they wanted to you know to involve and each of us was going to be sent to the Canary Islands.

2:50 So the plan was like you're sent to the Canary Island, you're actually paired up with a local artist from the island that you're being sent to, which is actually secret for one week. And after that week, you have to come back with six illustrations of your choice. You could do whatever you want. It it was a completely open brief. So it was back in June. I actually thought it was a spam because it just sounded too good to be true. And and then I actually realized it wasn't it it sounded like the website sounded quite legit and I was actually free that week.

3:25 So I said yes. So what I did is in July actually I flew to Tener where I got to meet all the other illustrators and also the team from from the design studio and you know we kind of spent two days you know just exploring Tenerife and you know having a look around and getting to know each other and understand the project and as we were going around I started taking lots of pictures because that's the way I that's kind of my process and the way I work.

3:55 So I you know I had my camera and I was starting taking pictures and I was amazed by you know all the colors and the contrast you know obviously it was amazing sky you know beautiful and everything was really interesting you know I started seeing shadows and you know really graphic elements that I thought I'm going to use in my work and I started doing this kind of collage and you know after a couple of days I felt really good and I was like I can very clearly see what I'm going to do there but actually Terif wasn't my island I was going to be sent to Fuventto And you know when I first said yes I kind of the first thing I did was Google image the Canary Island because I had never been and I saw that I was like okay yeah I'm going and then I took then actually I took the plane I left the other illustrators behind and I got to fret Ventura and when I landed this is what was waiting for me. It's only an hour flight and then so basically my host picked me up and you know we kept driving around and it was more of that and then we got into the mountains and there are lots of goats because they do lots of goat cheese and I got quite scared.

5:05 I was like I got quite anxious. I was like this is I have no idea what I'm going to do with that.

5:09 But then I kind of thought, okay, let's not freak out and, you know, I'm just going to start by, you know, doing the usual process and, you know, let's take pictures and see, you know, see things that I find interesting.

5:20 So I started looking at you know patterns on the sand and it's such a strong you know there is such a strong wind that you actually have this really interesting lines and then over the next week I just went around and starting doing this collage of you know things I saw and it all kind of there was a vibe that was starting to come out of that.

5:41 So we went to the mountains and we saw, you know, we saw the boots, we saw how they made cheese and then yeah, we just kept going everywhere and everywhere was this really muted color palette. There was no colorful houses, nothing. The only thing that was really bright was actually the, you know, the sky and then the only thing that really brought contrast was, you know, all the most of the houses were white, which created really interesting shadows. And of course here and there I could see some hints of colors and you know things that I thought I could use markings etc.

6:17 So I just kept going and you know at the end that was one of the gray palettes that I found interesting and then at the end of my week I kind of had this yeah I had this massive puzzle of images that you know when I looked back at it I kind of when I on my way back I thought okay I'm going to start from that and that's what's going to guide the process.

6:38 So the first thing I did is extract a color palette and it was of course more muted but it was you know a color that came about because of the island and it had to be true to the island. I couldn't just make it up.

6:54 And then the other thing that I found really interesting was I had these three pictures that I randomly put next to each other and I thought there was something you know very intriguing in the way these three shapes echo each other and look very similar even those are you know one is from a rock one is from a shadow and one is from the the sea on the black beach. So, I kind of I took that as a starting point of my process and I thought, okay, I'm going to, you know, create a base for my illustrations and I'm going to draw this one line that's going to be the same in every single illustration.

7:24 I'm going to try to tell the story with that one single line. So around that line I could do you know a beach and the sea but I could also do the road in the mountains and even you know a harbor and a kind of I don't know you call that like the wooden thing in a harbor but it could also kind of tell me how I was going to build the architecture because I knew I wanted to talk about all those different you know parts of the island that were as important as each other and And then in terms of the narrative and the content I actually drew up on, you know, personal experience. So actually the the girl at the top is at the top left is the daughter of my host Eness and we went to this massive dune and she was running up that dune like you know like a crazy girl and you know so it was a really interesting moment and then all these other pictures are from moments in my week.

8:25 So I started my first illustration by just sketching it out really roughly and thinking there is something that very interesting about that you know that that line going through the the image and also you know that human presence.

8:38 So I did kind of very rough images and thought okay I think it's going to work. So now I'm going to set myself a brief because I quite like setting myself a brief probably because I come from graphic design originally. So my brief was each illustration was going to contain one element of wind, one living animal or you know human element, one natural element like the sea or the sand and one man-made element like the road or a surfboard or anything.

9:08 And then I just, you know, I got cracking and I started drawing them. And so the first illustration was the one of the dunes where Enes actually became this surfer girl who is going to meet the little kite at the other end of the you know of the dunes.

9:25 And then the second one was the architecture. So again with that you know the element of wind brought by the towel and a little bird flying. And so I kept on going and you know every single one was based on that very rigid structure.

9:40 And then I kind of gave myself some freedom to to do something else. And I love that one because I had to I had to draw a goat. There had to be a goat in my series just because it would be a lie that they are everywhere.

9:56 So I just thought I'm going to have one goat crossing the road which never happens but you know there are always like 150 of them.

10:02 But I just thought so it was you know that's my living element and that's quite interesting.

10:07 And then also you have that little windmill at the top which you find in forto and here for example I didn't know but I kind of I had to hide a little bird in that just little hole of a it's like a a very traditional church. So even if it's not obvious and even if no one notices it they all contain these four elements. And so in the end we you know printed them really nicely you know then I gathered all the sketches because that was kind of those all those collage were my way of sketching it and I sent it to you know the design studio in Tener and what they actually did is I received all the illustrations from you know all seven illustrators and I love when those projects are you know when everyone goes the extra mile to make it extra nice and what they did is actually packaged everything in a vintage suitcase with little labels everywhere. And I just thought it was such a nice touch.

11:03 And one of the illustrators had a had a a hat that everyone could draw on. And the funny thing is that after that, after seeing the illustration, actually the tourism board of the Canary Islands thought it was such a great, you know, mix of styles and it was such a good reflection of each of the of all the Canary that they decided to set up an exhibition. And the first exhibition they did was in London and it was actually in that exact place completely randomly. So it was at Protain Studio and it was probably about a month ago. And yeah, I thought it was a really nice way to wrap it up and you know to really see all of them coming together and see what everyone's been up to.

11:47 So that's it for my air.