Last week, we uploaded our latest trend boards to the Advocate art blog, these include ideas for everyday and christmas trends. Since then Advocate’s Hannah has done an insightful interview on trend spotting and our fantastic new mood boards, read on to find out more . . .

When you’re managing work from over 300 artists, supplying most major multiples through to boutique publishers of paper products, wall art, ceramics and melamine, you need to have a handle on not only what is on-trend, but also on future fashions. It is also important to understand what will only be an accent and which looks will have longevity, as well as which ones will have a mass-market appeal and which will remain niche. If you get it wrong, not only will you be sitting on artwork that remains unsold, you may also be selling designs through to retailers that trust your opinion and then end up with stock that won’t shift.

Over the last 20 years, Advocate have made a real effort to establish themselves as generators of trends. Here, Advocate’sHannah explains how the process works.

How do you spot new trends?

Mostly by keeping our eyes and ears open! Some of our artists are great at spotting new ideas and often...

 We has been busily creating these fantastic new mood boards to showcase the new everyday trends for 2012. From Tropical Paradise to Edwardian Etching and Modern Craft to Design Classics there is something here to inspire all you creatives out there! We would love to see some great new greeting card designs and ideas for art licensing in response to these so keep sending us new work. Enjoy the mood boards and keep being creative!

Tropical paradise

Get the look - Bright and fun, with bold and clashing prints – even hints of neon! Tropical motifs – think parrots, palm trees and pineapples.

Featured artists - Hannah Wood // Eva Czapla // Grace Pullen // Jane Heyes

Nautical but nice

Get the look - Icons include anchors, sailor tattoos and nautical stripes (think washed out navy-blues, reds and off-white). Another twist on this trend is British seaside nostalgia – think sticks of rock, carousels, deck chairs and ice-cream.

Featured artists - Laura Coleman // Rossana Novella // Sophia Touliatou // Eva Czapla

Modern craft

Get the look – A blend of traditional hand-applied techniques – embroidery, knitting, cross-stitch etc – with modern, digital looks and subject matter. Colour palette is...

 Two more lovely children’s books turned up on the Advocate doorstep the other day; One Sunny Day and Hey Diddle Diddle,illustrated by Advocate art illustrator Hannah Wood. These chunky board books have lovely soft covers and are full of Hannah’sbright and colourful illustrations.To get yourself a copy of these books click here to visit the retailer and click here to visit theAdvocate art website where you can see plenty more of Hannah’s work.

 Advocate’s freelance illustrator Hannah Wood has finished two new children’s books which have been made into apps for the iPad. Enjoy the stories while your early reader learns about counting and has fun exploring all the characters. To see the demos for these new books click here for One Rainy Day and here for One Snowy Day.

 Advocate illustrator Paul Davidson has recently finished illustrating new Marvel comic X-Club, part of a 5 issue mini series. Issue 1 came out this week in Europe and the USA; it went straight to number one as the best selling coming of that release week and is getting fantastic reviews. Here are some inked and coloured pages of the book as well as a short description of the story:

“In the wake of SCHISM which has divided mutant-kind in half, the X-Mens team of scientists – known as the X-CLUB – remains based on the island of UTOPIA, dedicated to serving as the mutant race’s first, last and only line of defence against all things uncanny and inexplicable. Poised on the bleeding edge of technology, biology and weirdology, their role is simple: To Think Differently.”

To read more about the X-Club series click here to visit the Marvel website, and you can visit Paul Davidson’s online portfolio on the Advocate website here.

 Edward Burns, the founder of Advocate Art illustration agency explains how we package work from artists and illustrators into a portfolio that is in sync with industry needs. Also the importance of samples, why some images are chosen for your portfolio and some aren’t and what artbuyers look for. If you are a freelance illustrator then read on to perhaps gain some useful tips for yourself.

“When work is first submitted to us we can see pretty much straight away where we can place it commercially.

It’s important that this commercial vision or creative direction is shared with the artist and they are fully on board with it before we start marketing their work. It has to be a shared vision, or else the artists may be stuck doing a style that they don’t enjoy or go off in a different direction stylistically and lose the commerciality we first saw. Having the opportunity to meet and discuss what we see in the work and explain this to the artist is important, we call it “packaging with their permission”.

Work is presented just like a product is packaged, easy to understand, the contents are evident, what you see is what you get and the features are highlighted. We want it to say  “this ...

This cute children's illustration by Hannah Wood features a little girl watching her cat sleeping.

This cute festive illustration by Hannah Wood features a Christmas snowman with a happy penguin.

 This cute halloween illustration by Hannah Wood features a purple haunted house.

Because of the snowy day the penguin had a large cup of chocolate.

Children's illustration by Hannah Wood.