Graduate Spotlight: illustrator and entrepreneur Louise Lane
05 November 2024
Louise outside The Fish Factory in Penryn. Photo: The Fish Factory
For Louise Lane, there is nothing more important than community. Since moving to Falmouth to study Illustration BA(Hons), she has led multiple creative community-based projects. Graduating in 2009, Louise and her family have stayed in Cornwall and continued to support local people in various ways.
If you’ve ever visited any of Cornwall’s independent venues, you’ll likely have seen one of Louise’s projects for yourself: Little Birdie Guides are a series of beautifully illustrated maps of different Cornish towns – each one full of ‘off the beaten track’ shops, cafes and ideas for activities to help people experience Cornwall through a local’s lens. Louise even involved current online Illustration BA students in making Little Birdie Guide designs during a recent live project.
We caught up with Louise to chat more about Little Birdie Guides, her drive to support local communities and her exciting plans to spread her creativity far and wide.
When did you first discover your creative spark?
I made quite technical drawings from a very young age; I would sit outside my house and draw every single brick! I also really enjoyed maths, so when I finished school I had the option to either go and study economics or do an art foundation – I don't know what it is that made me go in that direction, but I chose the art foundation.
The side of traditional illustrator life that didn't appeal to me was working alone at a desk, often in front of a screen. It can be quite a solitary life, which a lot of illustrators love, but I get energised by the social aspect of my life, so that was always important to me when forging a career.
Having completed your Illustration degree at Falmouth in 2009, what did you most enjoy about being a student here?
The gardens! I come from the urban sprawl of Swindon, where grey is the dominant colour, and I remember first entering the Falmouth Campus and it feeling like a different planet to where I’d come from. I really liked the teachers, too. I’d visited other universities, but I didn’t find them as friendly and welcoming as Falmouth.
Where did the idea for Little Birdie Guides come from?
After I finished studying at Falmouth, I went to South America and joined a circus! I was also teaching English as well as travelling around, and when I came back to the UK, I realised I wanted to continue working and travelling. So, my partner and I went to Eastern Europe, and it was while I was living in Prague in 2011 that I came across this amazing map which became our Bible to the city; it had information about all these underground venues and places which became our favourite spots.
We went back to the UK for a few months, and that’s when we managed to create the first Little Birdie Guide to Falmouth, and it has been growing ever since – we now have maps for Hayle, Newquay, Penryn, Penzance, Truro and St Ives. I thought it would drop off, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, but it turns out that people still love something printed, even in our digital age. I also think I’ve created a way to really feel part of the community here; I’ve made so many connections all over Cornwall just from doing this, and I love that integration with the community.
What project in your career are you most proud of?
When the first COVID-19 lockdown hit, my partner was running a street food business and we were in contact with lots of local farmers and producers, so we decided to set up a food box business called Fal Food Box Co. My part in that was behind the scenes – designing the branding, copywriting and pulling it all together – and one thing I'm particularly proud of is that we managed to make it plastic free. We even won an award at the Cornwall Sustainability Awards for our work.
Another reason I’m proud of that project is again, the community aspect; I think in the first week we delivered nearly 200 food boxes to people around Falmouth, and in some instances, we were the only people they had seen for weeks, so we would stand with them and have a chat. The experience really emphasised the value of community to me. In this world where we don't even really need to step outside of our homes, I'm trying to fight against it because I think it's what is pulling us apart as a society.
What does the future hold?
Next year I'm passing on a lot of my duties from Little Birdie Guides to one of the team, and my family and I are going on a big trip; in January and February we will be in New Zealand, and then we are taking our 4x4 on a big adventure with a roof tent to Africa. We are very lucky, but we've also been working for the last few years to set this situation up.
My partner and I have been wondering for a while now if we are fully utilising our creativity, and so we are going to give ourselves loose creative briefs while we're away. I’m going to do the illustrations for a children's book that my friend has written, and my partner is an actor with a YouTube channel, so he is going to have time to explore that. My son is an aspiring actor, so we’ll be dedicating our time to him, too.
I also have an idea for a project that involves meeting people and learning about different customs whilst on our travels. I'm sure I'll be dedicating my camera and a sketchbook or two to that, but who knows what else will unfold.
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