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FUTURES: PAST & PRESENT

Nearly a decade after we launched Futures, Nicki reflects on recent project
highlights, why Futures was started, how it's developed, and the importance of
supporting emerging talent.

Sunday 23 April 2023
By Nicki Field
TalentFuturesExpertise

One of the parts of my job that I love the most is working side by side with
such extraordinary talent. The Agent-Artist relationship exists for a reason and
I always likened it to two sides of a coin. An effective partnership should
complement each other’s skill-sets and together we become a whole unwavering
force.

Our business and the landscape we move within has evolved hugely over the years
but one of our core values has absolutely not - we’ve always had a deep passion
for nurturing and developing emerging talent since Jelly’s inception. In fact,
it was even part of the raison d’etre, offering  a route to young talent into
what is a very competitive market place.

With a roster encompassing Artists and Directors at all different career stages,
eight years ago we decided to begin baking the drive to champion new talent into
a formal offering. We put our money where our mouths were with marketing and
resources plus our weight as a production company behind it - and Futures was
born.



Our first round of Futures were grads including our Artist Alex Tait - swiftly
after, Mariana came to talk to us after working a few years as a graphic
designer and with a developing body of illustration work and ambition of doing
that full time. We worked a lot behind the scenes together and harder still in
the first 18 months to really get her portfolio headed towards her true vision.
Futures has manifested as a pocket of creators, no more than about four at any
one time, we’ve committed to as part of our roster but where other production
companies or agents may have otherwise felt it could be too early to sign.

Part of the struggle trying to break into the marketplace whether that be as an
Artist or a Director - and even more so as a Director - is the absence of the
client list, years of experience and the brand association those top tier
clients expect. A client list isn’t only about the vanity side of who you’ve
worked with, it’s about having experience of those levels of projects; their
production challenges, understanding an agency or brand structure, deftly
dealing with creative calls and feedback and the unexpected curveballs that all
come along on the way to a successful creative outcome and delivery.

That’s a lot to ask from talent who are starting from scratch, all these
expectations from a smoke and mirrors industry. That’s where we can help. As a
company with over 20 years of production experience and jobs of all sizes,
globally, I can safely say we’ve pretty much seen it all. We can fill the gaps,
guide our Futures Artists and Directors - with little extra input from the
client. And the benefit to clients? Access to some of the best emerging creators
out there, with brave creativity - and without the production risk.



Years of experience and exposure to Artists and projects, gives us a gut feel
when we see work that has the potential to be really exciting. There’s some
extraordinary talent out there and it might not always be fully visible in a
whole folio of work or perhaps it's only at the start of where we can envisage
it going.  But most importantly in recent years, the key thing we have learnt is
that we need to look harder, wider, further.

We have welcomed Artists coming into the industry from different pathways, some
with formal Arts training, others without. Tishk Barzanji came to the UK as a
child refugee from the Iraq war in the 90’s – with a background in physics and
architecture – but had a beautiful creativity that we wanted to see if we could
capture commercially together. There’s no ‘right’ way. Formal art school
training is only one route, and I’d go so far to say, it’s not necessary for a
successful creative career. If you didn’t have the opportunity to take that
route, you aren’t necessarily on the backfoot. 



Working with young talent may have been where we started out but it’s equally
important to us that this isn’t only about that – our industry can be so closed
to anyone trying to break in, whether you are just starting out or looking for a
career change. We want to support and further diversity and accessibility into
our corner of the industry with creators and makers. We’ve always been
passionate about transparently sharing the insight, expertise and knowledge that
we’ve learnt from our Industry experience as widely as possible and
de-mystifying aspects of what we do.

Looking back now, we already have a wonderful legacy to Futures. It’s poignant
to me that at the point we’re launching two new Illustration Futures, completely
by co-incidence we’ve some excellent projects launching by previous Futures
Artists who are now very established.



Eva Cremers had the most amazing journey to discovering she wanted a creative
career and she came to us early after she was out in the wild with a burgeoning
portfolio.

Fast forward to last week which saw a full apparel and accessories range global
launch with H&M Kids, and just last week she took the stage at OFFF festival to
reflect on her journey and uncover this to the community as a whole.



Leanne Rule was one of our very first Animation Director Futures and to great
success. Her irreverent, joyful, fun point of view landed her commissions with
ITV for the Love Island trailer.

With support, guidance and co-direction by our expert studio Kitchen, Leanne is
now on her way to having a fuller reel and becoming a more accomplished
Director. This International Womxn’s Month saw her work with MTV on an IWD
trailer.

A beautiful recent project of Mariana Rodrigues was working with Design Studio
on brand illustrations for new Members club The Other House. Her style and
vision has remained true with a fantastic growing list of high calibre clients.



Alva Skog has gone on to develop a wonderful career as a regular Apple
collaborator, a Young Gun and with commissions for clients such as The New
Yorker, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nike, Selfridges and host of so many
more.



Right now we are working with Jordan Robertson as an Illustration Futures and
Ines Pagniez as a Futures Animation Director.

Working alongside Jordan to help him define his style and carve out his niche,
we’ve had many an exciting opportunity (not all we can talk about 😅). One to
recently make it into the world was a series of illustrations as part of the
Eurostar rebrand.

Ines won Most Promising Illustrator at last Year’s Creative Circle Awards and
we’re supporting the growth of her storytelling vision in her clay characters
across stop motion animation as well as developing her point of view as a
fledgling Director.

Our new signings on the Illustration side, I’m hugely excited about. We’ve just
launched working with Wei Wu and Jordan Amy Lee.



Wei Wu is fresh out of studying and has a beautiful style and amazing point of
view as an Artist. I can see her going really far. In her colourful, textural
illustration style, she uses metaphors to explore topics including love,
friendship and nature, and enjoys telling stories about relationships, society
and being a woman, all drawing on her cultural experience.



Jordan Amy Lee has been on our radar for a while, she was an original pick of
BBH’s Unsigned. With a pandemic in the way, we halted taking on new talent to
ensure we committed our resources to our current roster, but now we’re well and
truly ready to push forward. She has a strong, graphic and textural sensibility,
and one thing I’ve learned over the years is that it’s hard to do minimal work
well. I adore her bold shapes and stylish compositions.



The part I truly love that set me on a path to a career as an Agent is
uncovering someone’s true creative voice, hooking into it and really being a
partner in that Artist’s creative journey and commercial career. I can’t wait to
see what happens next.



Find out more about Futures here.


NICKI FIELD

GLOBAL HEAD OF ARTIST MANAGEMENT

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