David Sheppard

David Sheppard is a very inspirational man. Even he finds it difficult to label his career, as he does so much. He started on his road to success as a musician in a band, got a deal and toured America. The tour was only small so in order to promote the band David kept a tour journal. By the time the tour had finished the College Music Journal had took note of his work and published it. This encouraged David to change career paths. Whilst talking about this in his talk, David gave us a really good piece of advice. 'you must pursuit your passion but be open minded along the way'. I think this is a really good outlook to have, as you never know what is around the corner and it would be ashame to miss out on opportunities due to being narrow-minded.

David now co edits the magazine Art and Music and co runs Second Language Label.
Art and Music is a fairly niche magazine. Its the only magazine which combines fine art with music. The magazine is very quirky and stylish, and it looks like a lot of fun to be apart of.
David's record label is also very unique. Throughout his speech David emphasised the importance of being different and unique, which I think is vitally important in todays society, as it's so easy to fall into a routine. Reflecting David's attitude to being different. the label creates limited edition records with orginal covers. The cases for the CD's produced by Second Language are all handmade and and very exclusive to the label. The case for Smalls Lighthouse was particularly special as it is clear just how much effort it took to make 100 copies. The case was made to mimic a small book from the Victorian times, containing aged paper and a dark leather-like cover. 'The idea is everything' is another thing that David said that I believe is really good to keep in mind. Its quite easy to get stressed if something doesn't turn out how you originally imagined it.

Art and Music

Second Language

I noted a couple of other quotes from David that I feel are really important to keep in mind as I'm trying to get somewhere in life.
'Sometimes you have a more sustainable career by going the long way round'
'Inivation should be the tattoo on your career path'