FuelRCA is the Royal College of Art professional development service
We help curious, creative people
up their game & make smart choices
about their professional lives

Rebecca Field, co-editor of Pigeon magazine alongside Tamsin Devereux, on redefining what success means for artists. Pigeon are also running an event on the same subject at 2pm on Tuesday 15 May, also featuring the artist Jasper Joffe, an RCA graduate 

Material Magic (detail) by Isabel Lizardi (IDE, 2009)

Graphic designer and illustrator Guthrie Watson on what to look for when you’re renting a studio

Your studio space needs to suit your practice. For some, practical considerations will come first, for others the social interaction and shared space will be important. Everyone has different needs, but here are a few tips about how to go about finding the right studio space for you.

Following our Introducing Social Enterprise event on 26 March, Sinéad Mc Brearty (far left) and Virginia Gardiner (far right) and have put together their top tips for Social Entrepreneurs including guidance on funding, and recommended reading. They are shown above with event Chair Laura-Jane Silverman (centre).

Here are some art and design career related articles and websites that we've come across this month. As ever, let us know if something catches your eye that you think we should share with other FuelRCA readers.

Conductive paint in action in a Bare Conductive workshop (all images by Bare Conductive)

All procrastination involves, technically, is putting things off till later. But that doesn’t even begin to describe the black hole of pointless activity that procrastination can become. Despite a to-do list the length of a Russian novel, you might find yourself suddenly deciding that now is the time to clean the oven. It’s not the unfinished commission that is the emergency, you decide, at a peak of stress-induced irrationality – it’s the housework.

We're exploring the connections and creations produced by the Royal Designers for Industry Mentoring Programme. We've already heard from illustration legend George Hardie about his experiences of mentoring illustration collective INK. Now Chloé Regan from INK gives her side of the story. INK began while Chloé, Rachel Gannon and Fumie Kamijo were studying at the Royal College of Art.

Here, we explore one of the many connections and creations produced by FuelRCA's Royal Designers for Industry Mentoring Programme. Legendary illustrator George Hardie worked with NTA Studios in the 1970s designing some very famous album covers, and now teaches at the University of Brighton.

Yasmin Hussain, a trainee at RCA lawyers Stephenson Harwood, reports back on our Exploring Intellectual Property event on 24 February, where specialist IP lawyers gave students and alumni advice on how to protect their creative ideas