From Fashion Graduate to Entrepreneur: a look at fashion illustration through the eyes of Gisela Gayleard

Life after graduation can look very different with so many career paths for students to pursue. Past graduates have secured careers in animation, art direction, curation, and freelance fashion illustration - as is the case with alumna, Gisela Gayleard.

Since graduating in 2020, Gisela has used the skills gained from the course to freelance as an illustrator for over a year, where she has been able to hone in on her craft and build her portfolio. During this time, she has also worked with renowned fashion designer Olivia Annabelle.

With a passion for all things creative, Gisela is ready to take the next step by starting her own interior and pattern design brand. With a keen eye for design and a deep understanding of the fashion industry, she has her heart set on making a name for herself as a leading illustrator and creative force in the industry. We recently caught up with Gisela to find out more about her time on the course, her inspirations and all about her brand, Inky Narratives.

After graduating from LCF, you freelanced but also are in the process of developing your own fashion brand. Can you tell us a bit about ‘Inky Narratives’ and what inspired this?

Inky Narratives is a style and a theme of illustration that I have created to make my illustrations original and unique to stand out in the creative industry. After graduating at LCF, I began playing around with different styles and themes for my illustrations, I had changed my style a lot in my final year to make it more commercial and it worked at the time, but it didn’t represent who I was an illustrator at all.

I went back to my traditional ink illustrations that I started illustrating back at the very beginning of art collage and the start of LCF and used some of the digital editing skills I had learned at LCF to develop my traditional style.

I started illustrating themes such as historical events, original narratives and combining patterns, botanicals, and character design into hugely detailed pieces. Over time the style grew, and I started writing short stories, this is where the Inky Narratives began. It was a way for me to illustrate my own stories through enchanting, detailed pictures for people to escape in.

Every month clients would come to me to create an inky narrative for their brand and over the past year, I have created over twenty individual short stories that will soon have their own inky narratives for people to explore.

We hear you’ve recently been back to deliver a workshop to current students! Can you tell us a little more about your involvement with this? 

I was always passionate about research and learning in university, sometimes more than creating the actual illustrations, so I have always known that at some point teaching would be something I would like to do.

I was asked back at UAL recently to teach current students about illustration and create workshops for beginner illustrators. I have also had the opportunity to produce a few different projects for LCF since graduating in 2020, which have involved creating an illustration of the Stratford building, which is now being used for the tote bag designs.