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

Design Boards - OUIL503 STUDIO BRIEF 2

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

Responsive Collab - YCN Design Boards and Submission

Following on from the completion of the cards and brief as a whole, the graphic designers in my group went ahead and created the design boards to submit to YCN. 

I think the main thing that I found by working in a group that it was just less pressure as a whole, although when creating the illustrations I felt the pressure of time management and being able to finish tasks that I had set myself in terms of finishing things for the rest of the group. 

In terms of work load, I felt that towards the end of the brief, the work load was fairly distributed when the graphic designers in my group worked on the aspects such as the text, research and elements such as the design boards intended for submission.

Although I didn't have much contribution towards the design boards, I gave some input towards the text and ideas within the boards. I really feel that the graphic designers were able to use their practice to go towards creating sleek and profesional looking boards that display our work in a clean and appropriate way.

SUBMITTED!

Finally! We have submitted! I'm so so glad I have completed the collaborative side of responsive, from the very start when I was worried that I would find the experience stressful, I feel so nicely relieved that I found a group that were determined and in some ways like minded in the way that we wanted to produce work and have motivation to create the work for the YCN brief.

Initially, I found it difficult to adjust to the way that we both came with ideas and worked together, I've found that in the past I seem to have a very specific way of creating and making work, however seeing how students on a different course go through the design process and come up with ideas and research, I feel that I have a new vision of how I could possibly apply more background research both primary and secondary into my work.

I found it really interesting in each group meeting to not only get feedback but see the progress of the graphic designers and look at how they have been creating work as a result of our joint research. I loved being able to combine our practice and see how the final pieces have turned out as a result of three designers, this has been a really successful experience.

Responsive Collab - Final Photographed Images and Design Boards

The back design of the cards

My input: 

• Illustrations
• Colour Choice
• Small input for use of typeface and composition.
• Input for finding information and research for facts

The design of the concertina style collectable that would be sent away for and received as a prize.

My input:

• All illustrations and colour choices 

The front design of the cards.

My input:

• Illustrations
• Composition
• Colour Choice

Overall I'm really really pleased with the final products, a member of my group knew a bit  more about the photography and lighting studio so was able to photograph the final cards and concertina book to a really high standard.

Looking back I think as a group we worked really well together using our different skills and abilities to be able to create the final products.

I do feel that I have done a lot of the work in terms of the illustrations and in terms of the front of the cards, I have done all of the work, however, I'm glad that I had the whole group including graphic designers to give me support including their opinions.

In terms of working in a group, I have found this experience very difficult in the past, however, this time I feel that we all had an equal desire to do work and do well when creating the products. Sharing the work load, especially ideas and research was really helpful and a great opportunity to be able to come up with design choices.

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. 

Responsive Collab - Final Designs

Following on from the group crit, as a collbortatiove group we discuss our time limits, this was a big issue within the whole brief, we all have a lot of work from other modules and wanting to put a lot of thought and effort into this brief used a lot of time and consideration towards the others.

Following the crit and the print out of the previous initial designs, we discussed that the cards needed space around the illustrations yet still needed to work to use the idea of each card joining up as set.

I also had the idea of using the 'bear' logo within the scene as stated on the brief, but in a less conspicuous way as a bubble, almost as another element to add to the scene. My group really liked this idea and I added it in as an addition to the background of the main images.

We worked as a group and played around and experimented with adding different borders, colours and shapes around the illustrations until we were happy with the outcome of the front images. 

FINALLY, I was pleased with the outcomes, at this point I felt that I had done the most I could do within the collab in terms of my practice. The backs of the cards I mainly left down to the graphic designers, they used some elements of my illustrations from the fronts and started to play around with how to improve the use of type, layout and composition in terms of the graphic side of the brief. 

Although i had some creative input to this factor, I felt that I had done a significant amount of work for the front parts of the cards, therefore allowed the graphic designers to create this aspect between themselves.

Overall I'm so so pleased with how the fronts of the cards have turned out, i think they look really

• Clean
• Fresh
• Profesional
• Delicate, yet in a way that appeals to children and is something different to the illustrative style that bear usually approach.

I'm glad that I didn't change my way of working to appeal to the YCN bear brief, they used a lot of thick shape based imagery and I just don't feel that this looked very approachable or visually pleasing, even for children. I feel that I have approached the design in a completely new and individual way, I'm proud that I was able to do this!

I really like my use of colour, I feel that this has been improved so much and especially for a professional student brief such as YCN, I feel that taking elements such as colour and composition into consideration is really important when it comes to the standard of work being created. 

Responsive Collab - Group Crit

Following on from the initial creation of the cards, as a group we felt that it came to a point where we needed outside input into the general appearance of our designs and how we could improve and work on them towards creating the final designs that will fit the brief and stand out among other entries.

In the crit, as a group, we shared our work so far and gave a summary of how we have reached the point we have so far in our development. We ran through the theme of the project and how we thought it was an original and exciting concept to explore within the cards.

It was really interesting and helpful to hear from other illustrators, animators and graphic designers within the crit and explore how everyones different methods and ways of working can help improve my own practice.

Although the collaboration isn't over it, I really feel that I've already learnt alot in terms of listening to others concepts and re creating them in my own practice, it's so helpful to share ideas and learn from eachother.

Feedback from the crit:

• The cards work well and fit as a theme
• If you use the coloured background of the cards, you could change the tone of it based on how deep in the ocean the animal is found, this will make each card different and unique yet still work as a collection.
• Using a similar colour scheme for the illustrations and the top trump style bars really works and creates a consistency to the design and also the use of colour.
• Adding a patterned background would give the cards more dimension, they might seem a little flat otherwise.
• The typeface in the speechbubbles could differ and suggest a different voice for each of the fish characters.
• for the concept of sending off the cards in order to receive a free gift, perhaps it would make more sense to send something else off so that the children could keep the cards.

Overall the majority of the feedback was very positive, we were able to get a general idea of the feelings towards the cards.

There wasn't too many negative thoughts which was a really positive thing to come out of the crit. 

I'm really glad that my illustrations got positive feedback, someone even said 'professional and clean' which made me feel really confident with my designs, especially as my work is affecting the rest of the group!

NEXT STEPS

• Really refine the final designs, think about the feedback given and start to tweak each element.
• Meet with graphic designers and consider their actions and see if I can give any creative input to their practice aswell.

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.

Responsive Collab

Following on from my meeting about the initial designs, I began to create the potential finial designs for the other nine cards.

At some points, this process felt like a lot of work for me to handle alone, but at the same time, I really felt that I had a vision and I wanted to make sure that it worked well and successfully alongside the designers ideas for the text and graphic elements within the cards.

We have been meeting a number of times as we felt that more casual meetings rather than organised group discussions were a lot more relaxed and allowed our ideas to work and stream together more easily.

I designed the cards in a similar way to the initial shark design as, previously discussed, my group felt that this was a successful and approachable appearance for the children when looking and collecting these cards.
We began to consider how we could link the cards up as a concertina style piece, one of the graphic designers sent me some sketches that could be a starting point to begin to consider the linking aspect of the cards.

Although just a quick sketch, I found it really helpful to have the input from another designer. She described how the coral and seaweed could be the linking factor between and the cards and allow the separate segments to be able to link together and join ideas.

Following on from this, I began to add the seaweed onto the designs, a simple step but it opened up a whole new aspect of the design process. 

At the point I felt that the designs were finished enough to hand over to the graphic designers, even if they still needed a few tweaks and extra steps to be completed in terms of the outcome.

The two graphic designers started to add the backs of the cards, looking at the text and information and how they could be incorporated to the illustrations, working around them.

 The graphic designers came up with a number of designs and concepts that we could potentially use and play around with when creating the final designs.

I found it really interesting to see the process of a different course and how their use of programmes such as indesign and illustrator made a progress that I find fairly difficult look fairly simple. I feel that through working together I will be able to gain a better understanding of this progress and maybe even be able to incorporate this way of working with in my own practice.

I particularly liked the use of the bars within the back designs. A top trump style design that will appeal to children and make the cards a part of a game that they will be able to play with their friends.

NEXT STEPS

• Our next steps as a group will be to receive feedback and consider how we can change the designs based on the feedback. It will be interesting to get the feedback from another group that have similar interests and design process'.
• We will need to work as group to add the adjustments needed and continue with the practice so that we will be ready for the deadline of the competition.

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