Personal Projects: Sam Robinson

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this new revised thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

Today’s featured artist: Sam Robinson

‘Out of Office’

Sam Robinson

As a creative, email mailers are a widely used promotional tool to share work and reach a wider digital audience. Sam began sending a quarterly newsletter like this in early 2013, sharing new projects and things he had been up to as a photographer/director. It became a bit of fun in the studio when the Out Of Office replies started to come back and, mixed in amongst the more standard replies, were a few amusing messages.

The autoreply email is typically skimmed over and probably not read past the initial subject line but what Sam discovered is that some people had taken this automatic process to turn it into something personal. So he collaborated with illustrator Charlie Phillips to create bespoke prints of the emails overlaid upon his photography. He then sent the physical print back to the unsuspecting sender creating a fun contrast to the digital thing it had triggered from.

The response over the years has been amazing, with people sharing their prints across social media as well as people actually taking time to do something different with their auto replies themselves from seeing the project.

To see more of this project, click here.

APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSease.