Travelling Man: Poster Design

To Kill A Mockingbird: Research

To start developing my idea, I did some primary research by reading the book, but also using spark notes(not cheating) as a way to identify the key emerging elements in the book.



Lessons from the book:

- Put yourself in others people's shoes.
(Scout in Boo Radleys' shoes) 

- Don't kill mockingbirds. Mockingbirds don't eat anyone's plants or harm anything.
Mockingbirds make music. Anyone who is weak or defenceless
To Kill A Mockingbird - to take advantage of someone weaker than you. 
To destroy Innocence.
(Black man with 1 working arm, accused of rape to hide the fact that mayella is lonely and tried to seduce him) 
(Boo Radley) 

- Keep fighting even if you know you're going to lose. 
(Atticus with trial)

- The world is very unfair. Justice system is tainted by unfairness.
(Black prejudice, he was never going to win the trial)

I read this book in GCSE and was lucky enough to find my own annotated copy. This list of lessons from the book are an excellent starting point in terms of creating visual metaphors for the front cover. I don't think I will be able to portray all of them so I will just choose 1 to focus on. 

I'm really interested in the character of Boo Radley, and feel that he is so symbolic within the book. I think that making an image from his point of view would be a fresh take on the story.

Target Audience

The book has some very serious/adult themes within it, that are tackled in a very subtle way, making the audience for this novel debatable. Despite the adult themes, there is room for alot of imagination when reading the book, which would be ideal for a younger audience. Also it would be beneficial to them to learn the lessons from the book, so In conclusion I feel that the audience is 12/13 year olds +.

Themes

Racism

Good and Evil

Innocence 

Naivety 

Social Recluse 

Key Quotes

"Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop . . . [s]omehow it was hotter then . . . bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum. . . . There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County. But it was a time of vague optimism for some of the people: Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself."

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

I think from these thoughts and ideas I've got enough to start sketching and exploring visually. Admittedly I feel regrettable that I don't have the time to read the full book again, but from researching I can remember it very clearly. 

Contextual Analysis

I found this cover that I think is really successful. The motif of the feather has been used effectively to depict a black man's face, creating the link between racism and innocence. The way that the feathers are arranged within the image depict the death of a bird, and highlights the representation of Tom Robinson as the mockingbird. I think the colour scheme of blue has quite a somber and reflective tone, depicting a tone of sadness within the book.  

I think that this cover is effective in the way it has used the format of the book in it's illustrative process. The motif of scales reiterates the theme of injustice, with the use of a black and white colour scheme to represent Good and Evil, and loosely the skin colours of the opposing sides within the novel. This cover uses heavy symbolism to convey the themes in a modern and contemporary style.  

With the previous 2 covers, I feel that they are very focused on symbolism and are quite graphical in terms of art genre. I really appreciate the more illustrative quality of this cover because I feel that it has more of an atmosphere, aswell as communicating a story within the image. I think that the colours create a heartwarming atmosphere in a vintage style, which I think would appeal to a younger audience. 

In terms of the competition, I am fully aware that this prize is for Adult Fiction, so the target audience for my design should be solely for adults, which the first 2 covers exemplify. 

Extended Practice: Time Plan

My current action plan for the next 2 months

This is a breakdown of my workload for the next coming weeks - my attempt to organise my time effectively so that I can balance Extended Practice and COP effectively. 

Even If I don't reach these mini deadlines, I know this list will be useful in helping me to prioritise what needs to be done when, in order to meet the important submission ones (although I will try my best).

Penguin Random House: To Kill A Mockingbird brief 2017

Brief

We would like you to design a new and classic cover for this book. The trick here will be to come at it from a fresh perspective and to avoid repeating the obvious iconography from the many previous editions in print. If you can get your hands on a copy of the book in order to get a sense of the beautiful writing, this will only help to inspire your design. The cover should feel timeless and confident, and appeal to a whole new generation of readers.

The winning design will need to: 

have an imaginative concept and original interpretation of the brief 

be competently executed with strong use of typography 

appeal to a contemporary readership 

show a good understanding of the marketplace 

have a point of difference from the many other book covers it is competing against 

The closing date for entries is 12:00 (GMT) on Tuesday 7 March 2017.

Initial Thoughts

Now that the books have been released for this years book design competition, I'm really excited to get started as I regrettably didn't take part last year. The books chosen for this year, To Kill a Mockingbird, In Cold Blood, and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4, are all incredibly diverse in terms of genre. I feel that my particular tone of voice lies with To Kill A Mockingbird/Adult Fiction brief because although it is told through the eyes of a child, it still has serious undertones - I like to think that my work would fit in to a serious genre although it is quite colourful and bold. 

I think this brief fits into my focus of creating work for commercial briefs as book cover design is highly commercial, and demonstrates my ability to use text and image in one product - something that I'm identifying that I enjoy doing in my practice. I like creating the images but also using text to make a finished product, so this brief should be a good opportunity to explore those elements. 

AOI Sounds Of The City: Development + Application

London Transport Museum / Merchandise Research

To give my outcome more context, I thought it would be interesting to develop it into a campaign that I could use in my portfolio in order to display illustrative and graphic skills. I proposed that my image could be used for marketing material for the London Transport Museum(which is part of the prize, but just incase I didn't win):

Though this poster isn't by any means perfectly designed, I feel it has a basic concept that is relevant to what it is trying to communicate. I think that the orange colour works really well and is relevant to the train ticket. I did struggle to place my image into a well designed/composed poster however because I think it is quite awkwardly composed in terms of adding text to. 

Some presentation Boards I created for the next upcoming crit:

Here I mocked up my images onto merchandise, taking inspiration from the research I did previously, which really helps my images identify as commercial pieces of Illustration, and makes it clearer how I am creating work that suits my goals and my practice. I really enjoy creating things like mockups so I feel like I really got the most of my image and created a believable set of products and outcomes. 

Extended Practice: Proposed Briefs

Illustration Friday

Brief: Create bottle design for a cocktail/alcoholic drink, based on given theme once a week (as best as I can)

Product: Bottle Designs, promotional material for product

YCN

To be discussed with my collab partner. (Student from Graphic Design)

Penguin Random House

Brief: Create a design for a book cover, based on given titles. 

Product: front, back cover and spine design.

*** I'm also thinking about extending the brief to create a promotional campaign for each book, shop window displays, bookmarks, posters etc, depending on how much time I have. I think it would be a great way to push it into a more advertising like brief, which was one of my goals for this module. 

Extended Practice - Brief Analysis

Don't overcomplicate things, Be specific!

Statement of intent - what you want to do/why you want to do it.

This module will start to develop a practice that is based on structure

In this group session, we listed a range of the briefs we were considering tackling in our extended practice module:

They ranged from small 1 a week type briefs like Inktober/Illustration Friday, to big significant projects like the Folio Society which require alot more speculation. We then tried to identify the briefs in specific contexts of illustration, in order to be more specific when we come to write our rationale. I understand the importance of being specific when it comes to something like a rationale, because I feel it gives you a clearer focus and helps to make your preparation for the project more direct and useful. 

Pros of 1 a week Briefs

No pressure from clients / Can't get it wrong!

Experimental/playful nature

Short deadlines and quick Turnarounds

Frees you up to make mistakes

Can target specific skills that you want to build on

Efficiency

Freedom to explore personal themes/content

Helps to develop a tone of voice/visual signature - coherency with breadth and variety

Helps to build structure and routine

Keeps you active and upto date on Social Media/blogging

Pros of Live/Competition Briefs

Alot more professional context

Given specifications - tells you the problem to solve.

Professional competencies - e.g how to present your work to professional standard/other things that are expected of you as a professional!

Develop Skills

Gaining Contacts

Working to deadlines

Commercial/Usable/Applied/Functioning process

AOI Sounds Of The City - Final Entry

This was my final entry for the Sounds of the city prize for illustration - I'm much happier with the image now that I have adjusted it. To develop it I added a lot more texture and played around with the composition to make it appear a bit busier and fuller, which looks alot more effective. I also feel that it creates a more dynamic viewpoint. To make my image a bit more bold and fit in with current portfolio I adjusted the colours to be slightly more vibrant, in order to make the image as a whole stand out and be more eye catching. However I have recently realised that I lost focus of using text in my image, and feel that it doesn't lend itself to a graphical outcome. I do feel however that it will look effective for designs on merchandise.

My entry: 'Step Step'

Overall Experience

I think this project has been a really good first one to get the ball rolling for extended practice. It was quite a quick turnaround, but I feel that I've managed to make efficient and effective decisions to develop my submission for a major competition. And even if I don't win I still have some pieces for my portfolio that show demonstrate an ability to create work for commercial use. 

AOI Sounds Of The City: Final Image + Critique

I decided to develop 2 of my initial composition sketches - Upon adding colour and making my images, I was happy with the way they turned out - but something I'm trying to focus on this year is getting more feedback on my work and using that to develop an outcome, so I showed them to some people (and I needed some advice on which one to pick):

Comments 

- Prefer the first image, the other has a very flat/2d feel, looks a bit weird.

- Quirky but really nice colour scheme

- Looks very commercial.

- Doesn't look alot like your work, maybe add more texture?

- Composition looks empty and a bit awkward, try adding more feet. 

I'm happy I took the time to show my work to people who gave me actual useful critique(which I feel like I don't get alot of the time), but it really made me realise some things that I'd perhaps overlooked. I'm glad that the pieces were identified as looking commercial though, which will definitely benefit my portfolio as one of my aims for Extended Practice. Before the submission I would like to take some time to adjust the chosen image in light of the feedback I received.

AOI Sounds Of The City: Development

So today I started developing a colour scheme for my image, that I chose from my variety of roughs. At first I began with typical british colours of red,white and blue to achieve a sense of patriotism that I think would fit with the London Transport Museum's image. However I felt that there were certain connotations linked with those colours that were very typically british, that would not reflect the diverse society that the UK is today. So using photoshop I adapted the colour scheme of the flag in order to achieve an altered scheme. 

I finally came up with this mixture of turquoise, orange and yellow which I think is an effective colour scheme but also quite bold. The main thing I wanted to communicate with this colour scheme was diversity. 

I used my scanned in rough to develop the image a bit further in terms of identifying which areas should be which colour, in order to communicate effectively. I'm glad I gave myself a limited colour palette because it made me consider the composition alot more. 

AOI Sounds Of The City: Initial Sketches

Initial Ideas 

My initial idea to start exploring is Footsteps. I think this idea is perhaps outside of the box from actual vehicles, methods of transport etc. I think that the idea of footsteps is quite romantic in the way that each footstep has a different story attached to it, a different journey, way of thinking etc. I feel that it also relates to the element of diversity as mentioned in the initial brief. 

Here I really utilised roughing as a way of refining my ideas and compositions, helping me decide what elements I needed in the image and which would be distracting to my concept. 

I also tried to consider how text would fit with my images in one image, to give my submission that bit more of a chance of being chosen for the marketing material for the LTM. 

I want/need to...

A list of wants and needs for my practice, in order to start shaping where I want to go with the extended practice module:

1. I need to find out how to get into advertising, because the sooner I know, the sooner I can start making work with more of a focus on benefiting my portfolio, especially in Extended Practice. This means I will be able to build a portfolio of work that is industry specific. 
2. I need to start making work that is based on poster design and print campaigns because once again this is partly the area I would like to go into. This means that I will be able to gain confidence and skills in this specific area which will be beneficial in my later career (hopefully!).
3. I need to gain experience in using colour effectively because this will ultimately benefit everything I make. This means that I will be able to showcase my skills in a carefully considered and professional way, and it just looks good! In additition I think colour is the key to creating an atmosphere in an image, which I always strive to include. 
4. I want to improve my skills with adobe illustrator, because I work quite shape based, I feel that using illustrator is just a key skill that would only benefit me, and give my work a more professional standard. 
5. I want to start using more narrative in my work because in advertising, narrative is often key, especially in adverts for John Lewis.I think using narrative is an excellent opportunity to showcase my ability for ideas, aswell as technical skill, which was a personal aim for this module.

AOI Sounds Of The City - Brief & Initial Thoughts

We are surrounded 24/7 by sound in our cities. It shapes our experiences and our moods. Whether it’s the sound of people going about their daily lives – living, working, visiting or enjoying cultural, sporting or musical activities – or the sounds of nature within the city, the exhibition will show the artist’s relationship with sound, heard within the environment of a city context.

What to enter?

The aim of The Prize for Illustration 2017 competition is to attract artwork for display in an exhibition at London Transport Museum that is colourful, inspiring and celebrates the sounds heard in the hubbub and quiet spaces of the UK’s vibrant, diverse, multi-layered cities.

Initial Thoughts

I'm really excited about this brief as the outcome of it is just crazy! I think that it can be considered quite a short brief, as they are only asking for 1 image. However I would really love to focus on making some pretty decent work to just go in my portfolio if anything! I want to use this brief as a chance to develop my skills in terms of roughing and refining an image, and also I think that the use of selective colour palettes would be appropriate for this brief. I feel that this brief relates to the commercial element outlined in my statement of intent because the winning design will be used for marketing material and merchandise for the London Transport museum, which would also be amazing, also giving me an oppurtunity to explore applying my image to mugs, key rings etc. 

Inspiration

Previous entries for the Prize for Illustration that I found to have admiral qualities in terms of composition, concept and colour. I think colour will have a huge effect on my outcome, so I should consider using a limited palette. 

Extended Practice: Statement Of Intent - Draft 1