Keeping a creative hold on things

Most Illustration involves an illustrator producing
work to a prescribed commercial brief where they
are expected to stifle their contribution to form and
content, having very little input or control over their
work and its usage. The idea behind Illustration:
Authorial Practice is that students take responsibility
for developing their own ideas and material: they
author their own content.

MA Illustration: Authorial Practice is a
studio-based course focused on the development
of the authorial voice within illustration. Recent
debate has highlighted the need to reassert the
characteristics of personal origination, ownership,
storytelling and literary ideas within the discipline.

Steve Braund Course Leader
from the early 1980's Steve worked in London as a
freelance illustrator where he developed a strong interest in
narrative and sequential illustration. Represented in both the UK
and USA, his client list includes Heinemann, Puffin, Corgi, The Sunday Times,
Lloyd’s Bank, The Financial Times, Radio Times, Reader’s Digest, Mosby
and Volvo Motors. He was headhunted by University College Falmouth in 1987.
In 1994 he was invited to become a member of the Society of Illustrators
in New York. In 1998, Steve started Atlantic Press, which publishes high
quality authorial illustration books and graphic novels.
Steve states that, “Students have benefited from having a publishing
house at close quarters with the possibility to gain direct experience of
live projects. We want students to develop a very independent and enterprising
approach to their practice, and to understand not only the creative process, from
conception through to realisation, but to consider audiences and the practical ins
and outs of aspects such as, printing, marketing and distribution.”