(copied from my personal statement)

From the age of nine I was fortunate enough to take part in several youth summits and summer courses outside my home country. Through these life-changing opportunities I became fascinated by the personalities I befriended and the different cultures I experienced, laying the foundations for my love of artistic expression. Art and design have captivated me ever since, as they have throughout my education, and have so far led me all the way to my recent graduation with honours in Multimedia Design.

During that undergraduate study at Northumbria University, I learned to express myself more creatively through the various skills introduced to me; animation, photography and illustration have been particular favourites. To that end, I put my interests in photography to productive use for the Barbour project, which has been featured in the book “Inside Out” (written by Reader for Visual Communication & Interactive media Design, Kathryn McKelvey). In all this, the tutors at Northumbria have been a particular inspiration, and have been the driving force behind my efforts to succeed in the field of animation.

Feedback for my efforts has so far been extremely positive. During the course of the graduate exhibitions of New Designers and the Reveal ‘08 Degree Show, I found my work among the most viewed and have had a number of job offers as a result. I’ve also received interest in other forms: the digital art magazine “Computer Arts” have approached me with regard to an up-coming feature on character design and animation that would include my work. This would complement a previous appearance of my work in the magazine “ImagineFX” in their readers’ showcase section. In addition to such professional feedback, the quality of the work displayed at New Designers in particular has led to me being invited to apply for New Designers Selection ‘08, a distillation of the best of this year’s New Designers that will be exhibited as part of the London Design Festival and published in the Design Week magazine.

Such feedback is encouraging, and when taken with the experience gained from numerous freelance illustration commissions, I am given a confidence in my work and my style that urges me to develop it further.