Documenting the trials, tribulations and triumphs of being a young creative

It’s not easy being a creative grad: from making elaborate procrastination lunches when working at home to struggling through tax issues and never knowing when it’s ok to stop working, the first few years aren’t easy. But they can also be wonderfully fun time, too, and offer a chance to explore and experiment with your work and your discipline. Managing to combine this fun and experimentation with creating work that’s not only brilliant, but commercially viable, this year’s Pick Me Up Selects are a formidable bunch, as we discovered when shooting them for a short documentary film.

Each year graphic arts fair Pick Me Up chooses a bunch of recent creative graduates and tasks them with creating a display or installation for the event, which opens this week at Somerset House. This year’s gang is made up of Aart-Jan Venema, Alice Bowsher, Camilla Perkins, Charlotte Mei, Corin Kennington, Dan Singer, Daniel Fletcher, George Douglas, Isabel and Helen,Jack Sachs, Julian Glander, Marie Jacotey, Rachel Lillie.

Filmmakers Sean Stubbs and Tim Ward tracked down Alice, George, Jack, Isabel + Helen and Julian to find out about what life is really like as a young illustrator, how they go about preparing for such a huge show and the day-to-day minutiae of being your own boss. They shot them in their bedrooms, they shot them over Skype, they shot them in their studios, uncovering the many cups of tea, hours of hard work and hoarding that goes into being a bright young thing in the creative world.

Pick Me Up runs from 21 April — 2 May 2016 at Somerset House.