I am really looking forward to getting started on the responsive module. Im really eager to get stuck in to some actual briefs, where I can use my own initiative and schedule. My time-scheduling is generally quite good, but even still in the past we've had short deadlines to contend with; whereas now out only deadline is the module submission, which is exciting but a but terrifying.
For study task one we have been asked to analyse a couple of chosen briefs and break down a few pieces of information about them. I've deliberately held out on this task until now as we've only had access to the DANDAD ones, which were crap; whereas now we have the YCN briefs, which are actually really exciting. The first brief that really caught my eye was the Fedrigoni one. Although I have never actually heard of the company, the brief sounds right up my alley.
What problem(s) are identified by the brief? New retail space opening, they want people to know about it!!
What is the brief asking you to do about it/them? Create a campaign to introduce the new space to new/existing customers.
What is the brief trying to achieve? An effective capaign
Who will benefit? Company and customers
What is the message? Able to buy single sheets at a local place
Who is the audience? Artists/ creatives/ wedding planners/ anyone who uses paper
How will the message be delivered? Physical, paper form
Can you foresee any problems in responding to the brief? Using their paper (order a sample)
The next brief that really caught my eye was the Adult Fiction Cover for penguin. I absolutely love penguins new covers, I love the graphic elements and think it really fits the aesthetic of my work really well. The book is To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, which coincidentally is one of the few books I have read cover to cover and not wanted to tear my eyes out.
What problem(s) are identified by the brief? New modern cover needed
What is the brief asking you to do about it/them? Make a new one, duh
What is the brief trying to achieve? Up-to-date looking cover
Who will benefit? Penguin and the winner
What is the message? Old book, still relevant
Who is the audience? Book lovers, new readers, people who already read it
How will the message be delivered? By me
Can you foresee any problems in responding to the brief? Read the book, how could it possibly go wrong.
I had my tutorial with Ben the other day which went really well. It was a good chance to get some feedback on stuff that I may have missed during illness but Ben seemed pretty pleased with the work I had done and was satisfied I had caught up enough.
We talked a lot about my practice, and how I am using shape, in particular we talked about involving a hand made element to my work by using cut paper and the photocopier.
We also talked about how I am producing roughs in my sketchbook. And about using inital really rough images to then develop digitally using vectored shapes, this does make total sense as its really quick and easy to produce a shape I am happy with. However I just need to make sure I am documenting the development of those images properly to blog effectively.
The first thing I thought to do when thinking about ideas for the printed pictures brief was to revisit my original sketches and developed images. I wanted to focus on something quite geometric and shape based, as it would be much easier when doing monoprinting.
I was really fond of one of my final images for the previous brief (see below), and I think this sort of aesthetic would transfer really well to monoprint. I decided that I wanted to stick to a similar idea for this brief, with a 'zoomed-in' composition featuring objects and motifs that influenced Burroughs' life the most.
I think simplifying the below image would make it much easier for me to translate the image to monoprint, but I think the general aesthetic and composition of the image would work perfectly.
I will continue to follow through with more sketches based on the image shown above.
The new brief for this module seems really intriguing, print and presentation of image has never been something I have properly focused on before and is something I am very excited to try.
The main thing I want to get out of this brief is development of the images I am making. I want to evolve my practice and bring in some more handmade elements, which I think this brief is perfect for. I am looking towards to working with mono print, as I think it lends itself really nicely to shape and texture based work, which a lot of my work is.
I think the biggest thing to focus on with this brief is the use of process within my practice, I want to allow the process to direct the way my work comes out, and I'm really interested in seeing how my work will (hopefully) evolve.
The topic this week was 'harvest'. For this weeks illustration, I wanted to focus on playing around with my practice again; keeping to using geometric and angular shapes, but adding in softer elements to create a smoother image.
The most important point in this brief was roughing, I really had to move away from doing roughs how I normally would and think about how I was going to put the image together in a different way, which I thought worked quite successfully. Overall I like the image, I think the message is somewhat there, and I really like the textures used in the final outcome. I think the biggest success was tweaking my practice and production to suit the brief that I'd set myself, I worked a lot smoother than I thought I would, and the outcome came out a lot better than I thought it would.
Overall I have really enjoyed this brief. Exploration of ideas and visualisation is something I feel I needed to work on, as I usually just rush straight into a brief, moving swiftly to digital without really defining how I want my image to look. Throughout this brief I have refined my images to a more specific level and I think the outcomes are better off for it, they have a clear message and mood and I am generally happy with how they turned out.
I have really liked the timeframe of this brief. I enjoy working quickly and to strict working deadlines. It has given me a much better feeling of working properly and I think the short timeframe has definitely pushed me to be much more organised and efficient with the way I am working.
I feel my roughs are much better now, and I feel my ideas are being generated and explored much more effectively.
My illness this week has really set me back in terms of the feedback I have been able to gain from piers. Although I have managed to speak to a couple of people and get some feedback from the roughs I produced, and feel confident in that the roughs I was most pleased with were the preferred ones from the people I have spoken to. So these will most likely be the ones I will continue through and develop. I feel anxious this year about the development of my own personal practice. I am unsure weather I still need to be using different materials and methods when I feel pretty comfortable with the way I am working at the minute (but maybe I NEED to be working in different ways to develop?). I feel like this brief, and specifically the author I have chosen, lend itself quite nicely to my developing 'style', in that the restriction on colour works well for me and the fast and simple nature of the images work well with digitally produced images. Below are some of the more refined images I have chosen to work with and develop towards working roughs.
After being set the task, and been told the reason for us researching our authors, I feel much more satisfied and comfortable about the direction and purpose of the work and feel it is flowing much more fluidly now that I have dimensions and an actual brief to work towards.
I decided to work with some of my original ideas and base my ideas for the editorial illustrations around some of my favourite ones, and using others as inspiration to come up with fresh ideas.
I struggle with editorial illustration briefs set in this way as I find it hard to work towards an image without there being a set piece of text to base it around. The idea of simply basing my work on the life of W.B is quite ambiguous and intimidating in that there is so much I have to work with, narrowing it down to 3 eventual ideas may be somewhat of a struggle.
As I stated before, the most interesting aspect of the research was the anecdotal side of his life, his experiences and stories, rather than characters from his books (seeing as they are mostly semi-autobiographical) or any specific quotes. The most interesting parts of his life for me were his excessive drug use, as frankly most of his life rotated around drug use; his books, his travels, his aims and his experiences. Also his fascination with cats was another interest of mine, the contrast between his seemingly hectic lifestyle and the calmness of his love for cats was something that I found I could work with.
He also talks about a 'dark side'and 'parasitic'aspect of his personality, which is something I definitely wanted to explore through my work, having the idea of a literal dark side and contrast to an image could be quite interesting.
Here are some examples of my initial roughs for the editorial illustrations.
After doing a little more research into W.B. I started producing some really simple thumbnail sketches based around my research.
I chose to focus on the different aspects of his life, as I see him as a really multifaceted character and I found the separate and often contrasting parts of his life fascinating. Aside from quotes and motifs, I found that a lot of the research I was most intrigued by was the anecdotal stories from interviews about his life and experiences.
I have also started reading 2 of his most well known works 'The Naked Lunch' and 'Junky' which are widely believed to be semi-autobiographical and a reflection of his true experiences. These will likely give me the best insight into his life.
Below are a few of the initial sketches I produced to work my way back into working with a brief.
Below are the images from my final zine made for the brief. I wanted to use the zine as an opportunity to experiment in the way I make images, working much more fluidly and rough with my process. I really enjoyed making the images in this way.
I don't necessarily think the zine is the best thing I have produced in the past 2 years but I feel I have benefited in that I have definitely found a new way of getting ideas down on paper, working roughly creating shapes with marker to get some interesting shapes and lining it with a lining pen afterwards.
I have never really been great at 'sketching' to get ideas down, an really think this is a great way for me to experiment with shape, and even though it looks nothing like what most of my final images look like, I am looking forward to seeing how this process will influence the end result of my work in future.
I wanted the zine to somewhat reflect Burroughs' personality and interests. I decided to use a lot of taped images and collage together my own images rather than simply draw them in. This is almost a nod to Burroughs' cut-up method of creating new work by cutting up sections of others. The zine focuses on the most prominent aspects of his person; drugs, cats, drink and writing.
I feel my concept for the zine works pretty well, although on face value it looks quite rough, I think it reflects what I was wanting to show.
Anyway, here is my really, really, really shit zine. Done terribly. Somewhat on purpose.
I have chosen to look at doing the illustration briefs for Responsive. Illustration Friday release a new topic every Friday, with the intention of people creating illustrations around the word in any media, any style, all within a week. The deadlines are quite short, with a finished illustration needing to be produced in just a week; however, I want to push myself even more and try and finish the illustrations in 1 day to really challenge my process as an illustrator.
To make it even more challenging I will only look at the topic on a Thursday morning, to avoid being able to gather ideas through the week.
