New York-based Rod Berg brings us the first of a series of posts on careers advice and interviews with up and coming creatives. Rod is a professional visual arts career coach and also has worked since 2003 as Associate Director of Career Services at Parsons The New School for Design.

Rod recently had the pleasure of teaming up with Frank Espinoza, an amazing conceptual illustrator and artist, with expertise in comics, graphic novels and animation. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Frank is a rising star in the industry and recently completed a wonderful comic strip promo for Rod’s consultancy.

Camilla Barnard

ARTS THREAD and Designersblock teamed up once again to bring you some of the best and brightest emerging design talents, this time at Interiors UK, Birmingham. From our Call for Entries, we selected six unique creatives from the realms of illustration, ceramics, product design and textiles.

The University of the Arts London unveiled their Future Map 11 exhibition yesterday at the Zabludowicz Collection. Featuring 30 of the most ‘cutting edge’ talent from 2011′s graduates. ARTS THREAD takes a look at a handful of the best creatives on show.

Peter Pontiac- Comix, Hotpix & Tragix

The Graphic Design Museum, Breda celebrates the work of Peter Pontiac, one of the Netherland’s most inventive cartoonists.

Cheltenham Illustration Award winners (left to right) Merlin Evans Brittany Molineux Sandra Dieckmann and Blair Frame/Brittany Molineux, ''Heavenly Reindeer Tale

The winners of the coveted Cheltenham Illustration Awards were announced during the Illustrators Symposium at the Parabola Arts Centre last week. The theme for this year’s competition – which is in its fifth year – was ‘Tree Time Tales’, with entrants encouraged to produce narrative-based illustrations. Oscar winning artist Shaun Tan selected the four winners from over 250 entrants and University of Gloucestershire fellow David Elyan presented the prizes.

Ayme Fitzgerald

Design Event Presents is a new initiative launched as part of this year’s Design Event MART exhibition. For Presents, 8 creatives from the realms of product, jewellery, illustration and textile design have been commissioned to produce an exclusive edition of a new product to be premiered at the opening of the festival.

Ruth Blackford

Kingston University’s MA graduates staged an exciting showcase of their work at Tent, London during the London Design Festival in September. The work on show was diverse and innovative covering numerous disciplines including Architecture, Fashion, Illustration and Animation, Design Product & Space, Curating Contemporary Design, and Production Design for Film and Television. ARTS THREAD selects a few highlights.

Stuart Whitton - 'Innocence' and 'Beauty' Portraits

Welsh illustrator Stuart Whitton’s first solo exhibition opened last night at the Exposure Gallery, so ARTS THREAD popped along to say hello! We were treated to an impressive collection of pencil illustrations that reminded us what drawing – a lifelong passion for Stuart – is all about. This was drawing in its most traditional, stripped-back form, executed with great talent and attention to detail.

Rezwana Ahmed, Textiles

Public View is this year’s exciting Postgraduate Degree Show for the University of Wolverhampton. Held at the diverse arts and exhibition centre in West Bromwich, The Public, it showcases the fresh, innovative and lively talent of the universities Masters student’s.

ARTS THREAD headed down to the Camberwell College of Arts MA show this weekend, and was blown away by the quality of work on show, in particular that of the MA Illustration graduates. Offering a real mix of styles, topics and influences, from simple characterisation to freakish fantasy imagery, illustrated typography and a more graphic aesthetic, to plain good realism, there’s evidence of an impressive breadth of talent on this year’s course.