OUIL503 Responsive - End of Module Evaluation

OUIL503 PROJECT REPORT

Design Board - OUIL503 STUDIO BRIEF 1 - Main Individual Brief

Design Boards - OUIL503 STUDIO BRIEF 1 - Mini Briefs

NEST Magazine

The Leeds College of Art magazine 'Nest' have released their new theme 'space'. Nest magazine is something that I have wanted to submit my work to for a while but I feel that I haven't had the confidence or have felt that my work hasn't been up to the standard of the other work that is selected for the magazine.
Seeing as I am creating work for OUIL505 in a similar theme, I feel that I have enough ideas and am confident enough to be able to create a piece that could fit within this theme.

I didn't want to create work in the usual visual imagery of space including space ships and astronauts so began to think about space and how other aspects such as power, star signs, and life in space is another route to consider.
I began to create some quick sketches and roughs and considered how I could make this a piece of stand alone illustration. I have considered working in this way before so i wanted to use a lose of pencil marks with details and small marks in order to make my submission an interesting and detailed piece.
I'm really pleased with my concept of the powerful woman figure in space. I wanted to create the emotion of lust and dreams, I feel that this is particularly relevant within the theme of the galaxy and space.
The planets and stars are almost orbiting her as a powerful force and she is the centre of the universe.

Overall I'm soooo pleased with my finished piece. I feel that I have created this for myself more than anything, using my love of detail and hand made quality I was able to plan out this illustration. 

I submitted the piece to Nest Magazine with the caption reading:

Media: Pencil on Paper and Digital Colouring

This piece looks at the female form and explores emotions relating to love and desire and how they can be compared to the magical and undiscovered depths of space

Oh Deer Greeting Card Competition

 

I came across this brief to create a greeting card for the website 'Ohh Deer'. I've been a fan of the website and shop for a while and I feel that my work would be able to fit in well with their style of illustrators that they choose to sell.

I'm excited and ready for the openness of this brief, similar to the illustration 12, I feel that I have a number of illustrations that I've been wanting to create and put to something for a while, and this feels like the perfect chance to create something!

I started by exploring illustrations and images that I have created in my own time, for myself, I feel that this was a good starting point to expand on.

The competition states that it was mainly looking for valentines and mothers day cards so I tried to keep to the theme of complimentary images that could have a silly or sweet message alongside the design.

This initial design page for one of my illustration 12 designs was a great starting point, I had many ideas that I had started and then abandoned, I ran with this idea, and generated three cards that i felt were somewhat, humorous, endearing but also well thought out and professional looking to be sold in a shop or online. 

The website required small file sizes of the designs to display ready for voting, however, I'm really pleased with the three designs that I selected.

Although a quick brief, I really felt that it was important to display some illustrations and drawings that I work on in my spare time. 

It showed me that nothing creative should go to waste, even though they started as personal sketches, I feel that they are developed and good enough to be able to be displayed in this way. 

I think it's important to enter competitions such as this, getting my work out there, even seen by a few people is a really effective way to receive feedback and also see how other people have responded to the same brief. 

Penguin - To Kill A Mockingbird

Following on from a long design process, I feel that I have completed my book cover to a standard that I'm happy with. I'm really pleased with my use of texture and layering of my drawing and the graph paper.

In some ways I'm disappointed that I wasn't able to create a more dynamic and exciting cover that didn't use the mocking bird as the main image, however, despite this I'm pleased with all of the other aspects such as colour, texture, line and shape that I've used within the cover.

I initially struggled with my use of graphic design, however I think this is really successful element of the cover and I've used my research and eye for design effectively!

I'm so glad that this particular brief is over, I feel like it's been hanging over me for a while, I struggled a lot with the idea behind it but I'm pleased with the 'rough' and 'messy' textures that I have used.

Little White Lies Creative Brief

Following on from my magazine research I began to sketch out a portrait of Kristen Stewart, I've often struggled with making portraits resemble the subject but I feel that I have been fairly successful in this case. I have chosen to stick with a simple line drawing due to time restrictions, however, I would have loved to be more experimental with print and other media.

I began playing around with how I could create a contemporary style fashion magazine but still keep my illustration style within the piece.
I chose the name gradient as a word to represent the forever changing trends and colours within the fashion industry.

 

I really struggled with the layout of the magazine, I felt that it often looked too basic, this was a real challenge for my graphic design skills as I feel that I haven't had much experience within this field but it's definitely something that I'd like to improve on.

WONDERLAND MAGAZINE
I began to look at other magazines that use an interesting way of using graphic design. I like the innovative use of text and layout within these pieces and I began to experiment with using this same method.

FINAL DESIGN

Little White Lies Creative Brief

EXAMPLES OF LITTLE WHITE LIES VISUAL STYLE 

• Bright and bold
• block colours
• very illustrative style 
• portrait as main focus
• each has it's own flair and personality

 FASHION MAGAZINE EXAMPLES

•  Simple
• Focus on face/body
• block colours
• Alot of text or NONE
• Colour Palette

  The film itself has quite a dark twist to it, so I'm wondering whether to design the magazine cover in a darker tone or stick to the conventional fashion magazine style!?

It would be more of a risk to take a darker turn in terms of colour and style used but looking at the covers of the little white lies magazine i think it would really work in terms of their aesthetic. 

 NEXT STEPS

• I will begin to rough and design some covers alongside drawing Kristen Stewart and attempt to create a similarity. This is something that I often find quite difficult but I'm up for the challenge! 

Feedback so far

During the crit I was able to get a strong understanding about the thoughts towards my work so far, it was really helpful to know the standard of work that I was creating and to understand whether I should continue to work in the same way.
General Feedback

• Strong use of colour throughout all of your responsive to briefs, you have used this effectively i order to respond in the most appropriate way.
• I love the moby background, it's interesting to see you working in a digital media.
• Really strong use of screen printing techniques within your album covers.
• I like the concept of the moby design but I feel that you could have used some more textures and skills within photoshop.
• LOVE the foiling on the album cover.

Overall the feedback was really helpful, it enabled me to understand the direction in which my work was heading and get a feelings towards the general response to it. 

It was quite a positive session and I feel that it enabled me to have the confidence to continue to work in the way in which I have been.

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.