Response from Macmillan

I got an email from Macmillan Children's Books, which not regarding to take work placement.


Dear Soju,

Many thanks for your enquiry, and for your entry to the competition. Please accept my apologies for the slight delay in getting back to you.

Unfortunately, we very rarely offer work experience placements. We would like to be able to help out with the many applications we receive from students and recent graduates, but this is simply not possible due to the fact that our editorial and design staff must spend the greatest part of their time working hard on our books and publishing them as successfully as possible, as well as developing future projects.

I’m sorry to disappoint you, but wish you all the best in gaining experience and in your future career.

With kind regards,

Ruth Austin

Response from Random House

After posting, I got an email very quickly from Jonathan Cape, Random House.


Dear Soju,

Thank you for your letter regarding work experience at Random House. Please visit our website www.careersatrandom.co.uk where you can download all the appropriate forms and apply directly for our work experience scheme. I look forward to receiving your application.

With best wishes,

Alys Martin
Human Resources

Approach by letter

My purpose of doing work placement is to learn process of producing publications in a professional team by getting involved in the team. I sent letters and CVs to OKIDO, Tara Books, Jonathan Cape, Macmillan, PHAIDON and Penguin, whose publications attract my interests a lot. Especially OKIDO and Tara Books, I had a strong desire to be involved in them so wrote a passionate letter like a love letter and sent it with my zines. Tara Books is based in India. I post the letter to London office but the letter was returned. Maybe they have moved or the office is no longer in London.

The content of cover letters and emails is below.



To Whom It May Concern: (or specific name)

I am a second year student at Camberwell College of Arts studying at BA Illustration course. I am writing to ask if you would consider allowing me to spend some time with OKIDO team.

I love the magazine OKIDO. It is filled with various playable things such as games, handicrafts and easy cooking recipe. They are very enjoyable rather than just reading and that sort of elements in magazines has been fascinating me since my childhood. Also another good element of OKIDO is that it is more like zine than other major magazines for kids. So I feel warm affection from it and it is artistic as well. And the artworks are just nice, especially Rachel Ortas’s and Christie Li’s. I am a fan of Rachel Ortas’s works because the ‘happiness’ I feel from the pictures seems to be similar to what I want to do in my works.

If I was to have the opportunity to spend some time with you, I believe it would be an excellent opportunity for me to learn from artists and about publishing. In return I believe you would be able to make good use of my skills and I would add value to your team. I would like an opportunity to show you my website below to demonstrate the works that I have done at both university and my spare-time.

www.zhibit.org/soju

Thank you very much for spending your time and I look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes,

Soju Tanaka



Bold section varies depending on the publisher.

FREE WING

I designed a logo of a sport team I used to belong to.
It's a combination of FREE WING and フリーウィング in Japanese.











I drew a character for the team as well.

D&AD STUDENT AWARDS 2009 ANNUAL

My animation is now on the annual site.
The thumbnail is bad though.


Now it's good.

D&AD STUDENT AWARDS 2009 ANNUAL