Bang!Bang!Studio, Russian illustration agency, celebrated its 10 years anniversary. In order to mark this special event the illustration festival named “Under the gun” was held on September 1-2 at Flacon design factory, in Moscow. My cooperation with the agency began in 2009 and within that time we created a lot of fascinating high-quality projects. This is why, I was especially pleased to receive an invitation to this festival and give 2 lectures there.

The topic of the first lecture was “Bad illustrations. Why it happens and how to live with it”. I spoke about the nature of the appearance of a bad or unsuccessful illustration. And, also, about the fact that each illustrator has his own field, where he can realize his individual capabilities the best. I spoke about care and mutual understanding with the customer. This is a very interesting topic which isn’t discussed frequently; besides, only few illustrators show their unsuccessful works. So, during the lecture I analyzed several of my own unsuccessful projects and spoke about the reasons why they failed.

The topic of the second lecture was "Self-confidence. Ambitions and the ability to defend oneself." Here I spoke about the reasons why the majority of young inexperienced illustrators are unconfident about their works. I also spoke about ambitions, whether they present in implementation plan of a commercial illustration. Else, I told my listeners about the importance of being able to defend oneself during cooperation with the customer, as well as, the ability to defend author's point of view and keep balance.

At the festival, I had a chance to meet the illustrators of the agency, whom I previously knew only by Internet. And it was a great pleasure to find myself in the company of colleagues and friends who I worked with for a long time!