Curies, by Kate Beaton

Established comic artist and Kate Beaton is taking some time to answer questions from the public about getting started in web comics.

It’s been a very good year for me and comics. To celebrate, and to give a little back, I thought I would take on questions from people who are trying to make it in the world of webcomics. If there’s one thing I really understand, it’s that this business can be confusing- knowing what to do and how to do it. I asked a lot of questions when I started, that’s for sure.

http://beatonna.livejournal.com/154330.html

Image by Flickr user Chrisdonia

We were delighted by this story about a mysterious artist leaving elaborate paper sculptures in local libraries around Edinburgh.

Read the full story here

Dropping the carrots and sticks, stepping out of the way, making space for interesting stuff to happen.

Next month at Telling a Different Story, Helga Henry and Noel Dunne will be delivering a unique programme for the leaders of creative organisations. They’ll be sharing tried and tested structures and procedures to help you recruit and develop effective and creative teams. They’ll give advice on the solid communication strategies needed tackle the challenges of managing a multidisciplinary team, as well as an array of techniques, skills and qualities to help your organisation produce effective creative work.

To find out more, and to reserve your place on Telling a Different Story, email bookings@creativealliance.org.uk

“I still felt like I was totally “blagging” it when I went for interviews, and was terrified to show my portfolio. I now have a better awareness of the sort of projects suited to me. It’s really important to not change the core of my art to get more work, but striving at refining and specialising.”

Read the full interview and see her work at Amelia’s Magazine

Running a design business from Design Council on Vimeo.

“Those that are attracted to industries because of aesthetics aren’t necessarily interested in making money. If they were, they’d probably go off and do a business course in the first place. So it’s quite hard to marry those two things. People who have creative ideas are often interested, literally, in the living of having them and turning them into something. So they either have to discover a hunger for business or they have to find somebody who is hungry in the way they are not, and partner up.”

Helen Storey

Who we’re looking for

You will need to know how to use your industry experience to assess the learning of apprentices and have excellent communication skills to provide feedback and support to apprentices and their employers about their progress. If you have teaching or training experience, that would be ideal. You will need to be able to support apprentices to work to and achieve targets.

We expect you to be able to provide evidence of current and relevant industry experience and to demonstrate that you are aware of converging digital technology within the creative sector. Indeed you may yourself be able to demonstrate the industry experience to assess across a number of different digital media fields.

At Creative Alliance we pride ourselves on the fact that all our apprenticeships are designed, developed and delivered with employers within the creative and cultural industries. We therefore expect our assessors to understand our industry and how people earn their living within it.

What you’d do as an assessor

• Meet with an apprentice, assess their current learning needs and complete all the initial advice and guidance paperwork;
• Support the apprentice in creating and maintaining an e-portfolio on our system.
• Visit the apprentice in their workplace to undertake assessments with them and their employers about their progress against the units of learning.
• Provide specific advice and guidance to each learner and employer about how they can progress.
• Provide comprehensive written accounts of observations, professional discussions and project reports to compliment the evidence that the apprentice provides.
• Maintain excellent communication with us about apprentices.

What you need for this role

As an assessor of Creative & Digital Media apprenticeships and Design apprenticeships, you’ll need to show us evidence of the following.

Essential Across all Strands:

• Current and relevant industry experience
• Awareness of converging digital technology within the creative sector
• Awareness of how the industry works:
  1. • How ideas, products and services and developed and marketed.
  2. • The types of jobs people do in the sector.
  3. • What it means to be a freelancer.
• Excellent Numeracy, Literacy and ICT skills
• Ability to work to targets and support learners to achieve targets
• Training / teaching experience

Desirable Skills include:

• Practical understanding of the freelance market through first-hand experience
• Ability to drive as you may need to travel across West Midlands
• It would be desirable to have a D23 / D33 or A1 assessor qualification but this is by no means essential. If you can demonstrate you have the right industry and people skills to work with us, we can provide that training.

The apprenticeships

There are specific units of knowledge skills and understanding that are required for the different specialisms of animation, design, film, music and photography. In essence, apprentices need to show that they have developed the knowledge, skills and understanding needed to plan, capture, archive, edit, produce and disseminate digital media product. Please make sure you research the apprenticeship qualification to check you have the skills and experience to assess what apprenticeships have to learn.

Animation, Film and Photography units.

These units are contained within the Advanced Creative and Digital Media apprenticeship produced by Skillset. This is a generic apprenticeship designed to enable people to develop either a broad range of digital media skills suited to a general digital media company or a very specific skills set suited to a specialist company.

For more information about these units, please see,  http://www.skillset.org/qualifications/apprenticeships/apprenticeship_CDM/

Music Apprenticeships

The Music Apprenticeships are produced by CCSkills.

For more information about the Music Apprenticeship, please see, http://www.ccskills.org.uk/Standards/CurrentStandards/tabid/837/Default.aspx

Design Apprenticeships

The Design Apprenticeships are produced by CCSkills.

Hours and Rates

This is a freelance role paid at £120.00 / day or £15.00 / hour. Successful applicants will join our expanding team of assessors and will be need to be available to start work immediately.

Hours are flexible to suit personal circumstances but you must be able to make visits during 9.00am – 5.00pm. The average time per apprentice is about an hour a week.

How to Apply

Please us an up-to-date CV, and letter outlining how you might apply your industry experience to the role of apprentice assessor.

Letter and CV should be addressed to:

Creative Alliance,
F.A.O. Noel Dunne, Director
116 Green House,
The Custard Factory,
Digbeth,
Birmingham,
B9 4AA.

Application Deadline

All applications must be submitted by Monday 23rd January. Interview dates are to be confirmed.

Any questions?

To discuss this role please email Noel Dunne [noel@creativealliance.org.uk] or Bev Harvey [bev@creativealliance.org.uk]
You can also phone Creative Alliance on 0121 224 7308