Cheltenham Illustration competition

Competition brief -

There is currently no brief available on the Cheltenham illustration awards website. However, having discussed this in our college sessions and with Phil, it seems that the brief is normally fairly loose, allowing you to adapt it to the imagery you want to produce.

The brief is to be released in Spring 2011.

Competition Deadline:

To Be Confirmed. (Summer 2011)

Illustrative Practises module deadline - 11th March 2011

If I were to enter this competition as part of my ilustrative practises module then I would aim to submit a completed rough version of my entry for the Cheltenham illustration awards on the deadline of the illustrative practises module. This would mean that if I really felt that the entry needed some further development then I could complete this after the deadline for illustrative practises, but that I would not have so much work to complete my entry that it would conflict with my final major study.

The fact that the brief has not been released yet is a bit worrying however, as it means that I can not start exploring this at the current moment. If the brief is not released soon then I will not be able to enter this competition as I will not have the time to complete the workload before the illustrative practises module deadline. 

Submission Details

* Up to five entries per person will be allowed

(As each entry will involve a sizeable workload, if I were to enter, I would produce one entry only)

* Entries will not be returned
* Contact address:The CIA, University of Gloucestershire, Pittville Studios, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, GL52 3JG Entries will not be accepted without entry fee (2011 fee TBA), paid online or by cheque
* Artwork must be supplied digitally on CD-Rom or emailed
* File format: JPEG high quality
* Include an A4 printout of the image for administration purposes
* Printable size of artwork: Up to A3 at 300ppi
Competition judges

* Judging of entries will take place in August by a professional committee, winners will be notified by telephone and email
No details of the judges are given (although previously judges have included Sara Fanelli) - in order to find out the types of illustrations which are stylistically favourd I quickly reviewed previous winning / highly commended entries. It seems that hand rendered illustrations are the most successful, making this an appealing competition to enter due to my preferance in this approach to my image making.

Competition prizes

The Awards are administrated by the University of Gloucestershire, UK
* An exhibition will be held on behalf of the University of Gloucestershire(exact venue and dates to be confirmed) The selected winners work will be showcased at the exhibition along with other commended images.

As with the other national illustration competitions I have researched I think that the main prize obtained in winning this competition would be the prestige and exposure gained from the experience. Having work exhibited within a well known illustration exhibition would be a good way to begin making contacts within the creative sector and has the possibility to lead to future commission / job opportunities.

As the brief has not been released i don't have too much of an idea of the expected workload, however, having discussed this, I suspect it to be quite sizeable. I like the idea of entering this competition purely through looking at previous entries which contain some really interesting imagery. I feel that presently I need to research a bit further into the previously commended entries in order to try and gain more of a feel for the competition and find out if I really want to enter.