The Newstatesman - Moby Brief

 The new statesman brief seemed like really big challenge for me, I would say that editorial really isn't my strong point but I wanted to really challenege my self and push my self to create and respond to a something that was out of my comfort zone. 

I started by researching, reading the article, getting a better understanding of the situation and looking at the magazine itself and seeing how my work could potentially fit alongside the articles and how I should create work in a similar method...potentially?

The chosen illustration for the article was very digital, personally, I wouldn't say that I was a great fan of it but I could see that it did the job of illustrating the article in a creative and almost humourous way. I felt that i wanted to challenge myself and look at how I could create an almost 'dark' piece that could run alongside the article.
My next steps was to plan out the main features that I took from the article, I found some aspects of Moby's life interesting and intruging and I wanted to include this somehow within the article.

• Dislike towards hollywood and it's 'culture'
• Living underneath the hollywood hills
• Veganism

Following on from this, I began to make a few roughs and sketches that I feel could represent this. I didn't have alot of time for this brief, so I felt that I couldn't extensively rough and plan out everything as I felt that I have in my other briefs.
I went for a fairly simple design as I felt that an editorial piece shouldn't be over complicated and I didn't want the idea to be overpowered by too much detail.
The basic concept is Moby, looking out of his window almost in a fearful way, overpowered by the large hollywood sign standing over him. He has plants in his house to represent his connection with nature and veganism.

I scanned in my design and for a number of reasons, the main being time restraints, decided to make a purely digital illustration, which is something I ...NEVER do!

I really really struggled with the colour and the design on the whole Moby piece, I just wasn't used to this digital way of working and ended up really not liking my design, I felt that it was basic and I had almost gone back to my first year way of working, I felt really frustrated because I wanted to step out of my comfort zone and for it to be a success but I was proven that actually, this is alot more difficult than that!

The idea of Moby being in the shadow of hollywood was almost overpowered and washed over by the over complication of the details in the drawing and the colours that I used and I was just really disappointed. I feel that I have a better sense of narrative after the 504 module but this, for me, didn't correspond to my editorial skills.

Gerry Brakus' from The New Statesman magazine visited today and I had the opporiniuty to show her my work. I explained how I found it a real struggle and I actually ended up showing her a few different colour designs as I just couldn't really chose between them. I explained how I much preferred a narrative approach and hadn't really had much experience with a digital nature of working and she said she could see the creativity and narrative streak within my practice. She explained how the magazine often look for hand crafted illustrations which was actually very reassuring for me to hear as a future practitioner. 

I'm really glad that I participated within this brief but shocked how much I struggled, I'm not sure if I should continue to practice editorial illustrations or try and work my drawings into it in a different way.