Responsive Collab

Following on from our inital meeting, we began to discuss possible themes and ideas that we could explore within the bear brief. 

The brief itself on the YCN website is very fruitful and gave us a strong guide and starting point on where to begin in terms of research and possible routes and paths we could take in terms of storytelling.

We considered the idea of the YoYo cards within the bear packets having a fun and interesting story behind them with the interest of educating and exciting children that collect them. 

I also considered locations, objects and other elements that would be challenging but exciting and innovative to draw and things that I could easily transfer into designs for children as this is something that I haven't really considered doing before within my practice but I feel that i need to start learning to work in a more collaborative way and having a more versatile way of working if I want to succeed!!!

We began to discuss the idea of the bear character exploring the seven wonders of the world as a number of series but for the particular cards we will be designing, focus on the great barrier reef. We disucssed how it would be exciting to explore the imagery of coral, fish and the larger exciting creaters found in the reef. At the same time we would be educating children about the reef and allowing them to learn and explore the ocean in a fun and creative way.

We also began to consider that the great barrier reef cards in particular could be used to have a link to saving the reef in an almost conservation way. We thought about how the cards could be used to in some way link the bear company to a charity in order for the cards to have an impact on saving the coral.

The meeting was so successful and I came away feeling really enthused and excited to start the brief. We discussed our specific roles and next steps to take within the collab.

MY ROLE AND NEXT STEPS

• To research on the topic of the great barrier reef and collect a number of images and references to begin making drawings from them starting to think about how I could transfer my drawings into a more child appropriate mannor.
• Look at other child friendly playing cards and previous bear designs and consdier how I could make something just as creative and imaginative but use my practice to have a step up on the previous designs and make something better and more interesting for the children.

My main role in the group is obviously the illustrator. As the only illustrator within the group, I have the responsiblity of creating the main imagery for the yo yo cards that the texts and facts could be written around. This is a massive responsilbity however I feel that if I put alot of research and work into creating a number of successful images then I will be able to not only please the other memebers of my collab group but create a successful submission.

I am slightly worried that I have taken on too much work within this brief already but I feel that if the workload gets too much I will need to discuss with the other members of the group steps we could take to share the workload.