ABOUT ME
WHO IS SHE?
The Summary
Hi welcome to my little world on the internet, I’m Olivia Tate. I'm an independent illustrator and illustration student.
I have been a freelance illustrator since 2020, starting my first commissioned work in late December of
2019 and opening my online shop in May of 2020.
What is the MANTRA behind her work?
I want my page to be a positive place, a place that holds no judgement or negativity.
My work celebrates female empowerment and the strength of the feminine. I want my work to open up conversations and spread awareness to certain topics such as mental health, body positivity and many more things that either I have encountered in my life or topics that I find important to talk about. I have also spoken about men’s mental health as I feel it is something that still holds a lot of stigma. I suffer with such as anxiety myself and just being able to create posts that allow people to know that acknowledging and understanding your mental health is okay and that they are never alone although it may feel that way. I also explore themes relating to female empowerment such as diversity, body positivity and self love. I think it is so important in today’s society to spread love and positivity around topics that are often surrounded by a lot of negativity and expectations. Life is beautiful and should be celebrated no matter what social stereotype, colour or gender. But do I also delve into negative themes such as sexual harassment and the “asking for it” culture as I find that they need to be addressed and called out.
Since high school, i've never been the 'popular' girl and over the years I have learned to love that. I spent my entire 2 years at sixth form on my own, literally I would sit alone every break, every dinner, every day. So I want my page to also be a place where you, even if its for a brief moment, feel less alone.
You want to know more about her? Fine, read on
My love for art was embedded from a young age. As a child I would always love drawing, I would design wedding dresses, fashion do's and don'ts, outfits that I NEEDED one day or portraits of girls
and I would give them all their own little story in my head. I come from a very creative family so art has always been encouraged, so yeah I've probably been drawing since birth!
In primary school, every Friday we had 'Golden Hour' which was an hour to do whatever we wanted. I used this time to develop my first illustration sequence drawing bunnies. I even started taking commissions from people in the class. They requested 70s disco, grunge, rockstar bunny... all sorts! Looking back at this I recognise I was developing a style whilst I drew these bunnies, I was starting my path to illustration.
Okay back to seriousness...I took this love into fine art at GCSE and achieved an A* .
I then found myself stumbling into the world of graphic design in my A-Levels, which was new territory for me so I took it upon myself to watch tutorials and practise for hours on end as I hated (but also loved) the fact I felt so behind, it gave me a passion to develop myself as a designer... an illustrator. After two years of awful A-levels, starting from absolute scratch I went on to achieve an A in Graphic Design/Communication at Barnsley Sixth Form.
After leaving college in 2019, I decided to take a gap year from uni as I felt that uni life just didn't fit into my routine as of then and I decided to take my mental health into consideration and take it more seriously as A-Levels and teenage life had taken its toll and had allow me to seriously neglect it. I had secured myself a place for Illustration at university for the following year so I wanted to carry on developing my skills and
creating my own ‘style’ (a scary new prospect to me).
This is when I started my page in early February 2019, taking my first commission in late 2019.
Then in September 2020, I started my course at Sheffield Hallam University, studying illustration alongside running my business full-time. If I'm not working on uni projects, I'm doing commissions or my own personal designs.
AND I LOVE IT.
In terms of the commissions I have done up to now, I have done the front cover of Tough Cookie zine, the front & back cover of 'Don't Lick The Walls' by Kitty Riggs and the launch poster for PSSY CULTURE an LGBT+ event in Sheffield that I also had my very first stall at. Alongside working with bands like Bedroom High Club and Edited People. I was the in-house designer at fashion company BEE over the summer of 2021.
Basically so many exciting projects and so many more to come !
In 2021 I also started having my own stalls at events that I hadn't been able to do before COVID hit. I have so far had stalls at the PSSY culture launch, BEE ladies night,