Self Initiated – Self Promotion and Website Design

Brief:

For this body of work I am to create and design a live website design to represent myself online as well as other promotional material to support this design. Things I will produce within the design are:

a cover page

a creative cv

a biographical element

a Self portrait

Typography

logo design

decorative illustrations

This would be a product aimed at clients and potential customers hoping to use my services. My main audience could be described as upscale young adult viewers, people between the age of 18-49 who live in high earning households. It is more likely that they are people already working within the industry and are being paid to search for new talent as well as other illustrators researching work.

The context of this item is to be used as a main source of self promotion to accompany other online presences as well as physical materials I produce to be used to lead to this such as business cards.

The main reason I want to tackle this project is because I need to have a place to direct anyone that comes to see my work at exhibition or when in conversation with myself. so that they can use my services and view my portfolio. I want to create I really interesting design that will keep people looking at my work which shows off my design skills and proficiency as well as the concept of myself as an illustrator. making it easier to make a name for myself.

From doing this project I will have a greater understanding of graphic design elements such as creating work to a specific size not commonly used by illustrators. It will also provide me with a good portfolio piece in itself and show off a good range of skills to potential clients. it will give me a few web design skills as a lot of things in recent years need to be created for web as well as print.

AIMS

Complete a refined and sophisticated design to a professional standard
Manage time adequately and work at an appropriate pace
Explore new techniques and materials to broaden my own working practice

Objectives

Double check all specifications and requirements of the products before production of finals begins to ensure a high standard remains throughout
Organize efficiently with the use of checklists, post-it notes and realistic deadlines to ensure there is enough time left over after each stage in the project
Try not to limit myself during the ideas and exploration stages and get locked down in one particular process or idea as to be able to judge with method is most appropriate

TIMESCALE – 10 weeks

Weeks 1/2: Initial idea development and researching all aspects of the project as well as ordering required materials well in time for production.

Weeks 3/4: Design ideas and initial drawing as well as media experimentation.

Weeks 5/6: Continued design work transitioning into digital as the components start to come together.

Weeks 7/8: Beginning production of final piece/ pieces and refinement of designs.

Weeks 9/10: Final editorial adjustments and production whilst having continued updating through out website life to keep it fresh while having a product to show my work at the show.

---

Website Services:

For my website design there are a few possibilities of where I could host the site

WIX.

Wix has a really easy to use website builder which has a lot of variability of customisations. they have a range of templates aimed at different professions including and illustration template. these are useful to use as a base and then you can customise it to how it suits you. wix’ prices are quite reasonable for what you get however you do have to buy your own domain name as with any place.

I’ve been looking at https://uk.godaddy.com/ as they have really good rates for domain names with generous time spans for the active time of the domain. and its pretty easy to connect your domain to wix as they explain everything really clearly so at the moment I’m probably going to go with this service.

BeHance.

BeHance is a very artistic community sort of like an artist social network where people can look at your projects and like them. as far as I am aware its free to use and is easy enough to use. this one would make for a very professional online portfolio but I see it more as an extra presence rather than a main base for my work.

Word Press.

I have recently learned that wordpress offer websites so you can basically take your blog and turn it into a your own domain. wordpress is already nicely customisable as it has a lot of different tools to help construct your blog as well as templates to make it easier to design.

---

Inspiration:

one of my main influences when thinking about my website design is coming from Mcbess’ website I really like how its laid out along with the titles and rolling galleries. its a simple design that shows off the work while considering his own style.

http://mcbess.com/

Another of my favourite artists Luke Dixon uses a very simplistic website. Its basically a gallery portfolio with a low number of pages with options to view the images by category with a brief about section and links to his other profiles and online presences.

http://dukelixon.co.uk/

Other artists such a NHOJ Comics simply use a tumblr to display their work. this is a less professional looking way to advertise yourself however it still works as a website and is quite customisable. a lot of people use tumblr as well so it also gives you the ability for people to follow your site.

---

Useful links:

https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/12-web-design-tips-to-help-you-achieve-success-in-2016

https://www.wix.com/blog/2014/03/5-web-design-tips-for-a-professional-site/

https://skillcrush.com/2013/10/03/5-killer-web-design-tips-that-will-make-your-websites-awesome/

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/web-design-tips

---

Progress:

Here is a quick run through of all the changes made to my website as I was producing it right upto today as I am constantly perfecting it.

---

Finals:

Website:

http://www.mrgoodboy.co.uk

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

^ a running slideshow to show the current pages of the site incase there are problems with the link.

Logo and Portrait:

Creative CV:

The idea of this is I can use it to display my skills on my website and it can be used to send out accompanying work or portfolios.

---

EVALUATION:

For this project I set myself the task of creating a website to use as a base for self promotion and to display my work. I used the elements and nature of my drawings as the base for the look so that I would end up with a website that felt and looked like mine. this way it couldn’t be mistaken for anyone else’s. I think giving myself so much time to work on this project as like one of my main self initiated projects has really allowed it to develop and flourish so it has become a piece of work in itself. I’m very pleased with my outcome on this project however I want to keep editing it continuously to keep it fresh and make it the best it can be but for now I am very content with it. the main difficulties I faced were just interacting with Wix’s website builder, it is pretty easy to use and has a lot of features however so of the pre-setting’s were annoying to have to change all the time and sometimes I couldn’t get what I wanted so I had to alter my images to comply with this such as changing to transparent PNG files. the website went through a lot of changes as demonstrated by my video above but I think the major changes came when I found my style it all seemed to connect when this happened, its almost like I have my own brand now. I think my research was highly important because I never knew how to go about laying out a website before this project or how it could be undertaken. it has helped me to gain new skills as well. I think I have definitely hit the mark on this brief as it allowed me to explore myself rather than just a task. like with the creative CV I have ended with a really solid item I can use I’m various ways now. I’ve really enjoyed this project as it didn’t really feel like working it was more of just an exploratory thing where I got free reign over a design and it worked out for the best.

Creative Conscience – Mens Health

Brief:

---

Ideas:

1. As suggested on the website Movember is a campaign that would be great to illustrate for, the concept is quite quirky which is raise awareness of mens mental health and other issues (prostate cancer etc) and get people talking. So incorporating this in some way could potentially provide a good visual as people who participate in this create all sorts of different mustaches and even women wear fake ones as well as dyed ‘staches. [https://uk.movember.com]
2. Another subject to tackle within the mental health area could relate to suicide prevention. Just over three out of four suicides (76%) are by men and suicide is the biggest cause of death for men under 35. this is an alarming fact which if illustrated nicely could help people to start a discussion.[https://www.menshealthforum.org.uk/key-data-mental-health]
3. There are a lot of websites around that deal with mental health so it could be interesting to take the information from these sites/articles and turn them into a leaflet/brochure to help with awareness and spreading a positive message [https://www.thecalmzone.net/help/worried-about-someone/] < this article hear i feel would be perfect for a printed leaflet as in it has appropriate information on how someone can help a person dealing with mental geo struggles as well as contacts to other resources. if i were to illustrate this it could help make it stand out and make it more interesting to read as well as getting people to pick them up.

---

Inspiration:

Mental health illustrations:

Artists:

Will Barras:

I really love the contrast between the fluidity of the ink strokes and the finely drawn characters and objects in these illustrations the mixture creates a vibrant perspective and the two mediums balance each other out.

http://willbarras.tumblr.com/#

Daniela Raytchev:

these drawings/collages seem to have a really abstract emotional output. the use of the colour to evoke a feeling definitely comes across in a way is sort of adding life to the illustration. the yellow ones in particular give me a feeling of pain and the way the colour are cutting into the loosely drawn figures kind of equates to how the character is being affected by the mental illness.

http://danielaraytchev.com/psychological-foundation-of-mental-health-illustrations-kings-college-london/

Leaflets:

---

Progress

my first idea was to create a poster to advertise and spread word of the movember campaign so I basically drew the people from the website that had shared their support of the challenge. This included women wearing fake moustaches and tons of men with every possible variant of moustache style you can think of. but when I got the collage together and scanned it in this didn’t really seem to work or even fit that well with the brief of mental health so I pulled the plug in this idea and started from scratch. I do think the style works for the project I just think it could be executed a bit better, it comes off as a bit random and if I’m being honest it didn’t get much thought put into it as much as my other idea which I decided to go with. I just got excited by the concept and went with it.

Above is my first attempt at putting my drawings and text together before I decided to draw out better more illustrative scenes such as the bed scene and the baking. I was also using a different font which was a bit clumsy looking and harder to read. I had intended to just slip my moustached character in and out of the text but soon realised this was a terrible idea because it was so boring and uninventive.

originally for the spot illustrations I decided to colour some of my drawings from the previous idea but it was just lacking in terms of how they related to the text. they just didn’t fit. so I proceeded to draw up other ideas for scenes like the cover which could work better.

These are a couple of the more finished drawings I did for the spot illustrations the first 2 are colour variants of 1 however I didn’t feel like it was drawn very well and then when I placed it into the text it didn’t feel right. the last image I actually decided to use as my centre illustration as it worked better on its own page rather than as a spot. I also changed the background colour to be more inline with the rest of the pages.

^centre and cover illustration before background changes. also a text variant which seemed to mismatch with the cover.

---

Finals

Evaluation:

For this project I decided to respond to the brief by taking an existing article dealing with men’s mental health and turn it into and informational leaflet. this included the cover design, a centre illustration and a spot illustration, background pattern design as well as some typographical elements namely the titles. I chose to respond in this way after my first idea failed to fit the brief in a way that was interesting and communicative. This second idea I feel has more warmth to it while still evoking my illustrative style as well as being a functioning product. With this project I wanted to create a light hearted product which would balance out the darker subject which is based on suicide. I feel like I have achieved this in the fact I don’t think the drawings become patronising among the information and vice versa. Within my work as a whole I like to convey a sense of wholesomeness, the feeling that everything is okay and I want this warm feeling to come across. this is why I often use very saturated colours against my harsh black pencil lines. the rough scattered edge of the pencil gives a softer mark while still being quite graphic and dynamic and the blackness sitting against the bright tones level each other out. The inclusion of any sketch lines or planning marks from my under drawing I feel adds a bit of grit and a feeling of time as quite often with digital work compared to traditional work it can feel like its just appeared because of how clean and flat it is. this is why I wanted to draw most of text myself instead of repeating a font to much so this way it feels more considered and interesting to look at as quite often these informational leaflets are so boring to read. during the process of creating this leaflet I had to go through quite a few different versions and layouts as to get it to work and read better. the main changes I made where the inclusion of a faint background, this made the purely text pages less bland and flat. another change was instead of being a booklet shape with pages it is now a lengthier fold out which can be stretched out, I made this change because as my page numbers increased and I reorganised the format it just made sense production wise as well as for usability. originally my cover background was a darker blue rather than the clouds that are matching the other pages, it just seemed to clash to much visually because you were no longer turning the page in the same way so it remained visible and it look too harsh against the next page. During my research if I hadn’t have considered looking at articles to do with the subject matter I don’t feel like this project would have been as fully formed, it really gave me the inspirational boost I need to culminate my ideas. if I had more time to work on this project I would definitely try and include more of the spot illustrations and organise the text a bit more so that they could fit into the space because as the project came to a close I felt this was a little to much that had to been changed within the time constraints. fulfilling this brief has taught a bit more about using InDesign as well as more editorial techniques to do with layout and composition which I was previously unaware of. However in the future I don’t think this will be one of the lines of work I would like to get into but I could certainly use the skills elsewhere. It has certainly been an enjoyable project to work on because it make me consider how my character designs are functioning within an image rather than just being stood there like a character sheet.

International Reggae Poster Contest

Brief:

Rules:                                                            Taking part:

Past entries:

A lot of the past entries have been very varied and I think this competition is a great chance to explore and experiment with materials. This competition allows us to be as stereotypical as we like and this can be seen in these posters. however its evidenced just how original you can be with it. i think a definite use of the green/red/yellow colour palette  is a must.

---

Rastafari religion-heavily influences reggae:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rastafari

---

Artist inspiration:

http://www.graphicart-news.com/30-amazing-reggae-poster-art/#.WJSFTzdaL8t

---

Helpful Videos:

---

Chosen Idea/s:

With the deadline being fairly short I have decided to run with 2 of my ideas, the first is combining idea 1 and idea 2 (refer to sketchbook). This incorporates all the national symbols of Jamaica and Rastafari, which have heavily influenced reggae. As well as some of the most recognised animals from Africa, which is a country that is heavily embedded in the roots of reggae and Jamaican culture.

For this idea I want to create a collaged design that I will then turn into a colourful lino/mono/water marbling print. Using the water marbling and mono prints as a bright colourful background I will experiment with different colours on the lino. This will hold the drawing part. I have an inkling that a white or maybe black lino would work really well on top of the colourful prints but this will need to be tested in the print room.

Idea 2 focuses on my neon reggae idea (see sketchbook again), this would take symbols, instruments and typography into illustrator and using the software I would give them a neon effect. I’m thinking of using some photographic background for this of a rough wall texture such a exposed bricks, as this will give a realistic element to the digital art and provide a contrast to the smooth neon. I am proceeding with this idea as I know I will be able to get it done a lot quicker than the first as there is a lot of drying/making time involved with printing. I also feel this design would give a very contemporary and modern spin reggae while still incorporating all its attributes and colour schemes.

---

Progression:

I overlaid some colour onto the reference picture just so i could give myself a quick idea of what/where/how the colour would look if i turned the animals different colours, its just shows its best to follow the order of the spectrum as the yellow creates a bit of contrast between the darker green and red but i think I’m definitely following through with this.

When drawing my thumbnails in my sketchbook i thought it would be a good idea to make a digital collage using my reference images to get a more realistic representation of how my design would look. I’m going for a more collaged style so this has made it a lot easier to visualise things however the drawing/print will be changed and altered in the process as to not copy someone else photos and to make them all blend together a bit more. I tried to create a towered image almost like a pyramid in composition which gives more of a path for the eye and gives it a powerful look.

Monoprints:

Because I have decided to go down the lino print route I thought it would be a good idea to create a bunch of monoprints to use as a backdrop against the black of the lino print. I’m considering actually doing a white lino print on top of the colour as I hoping the strong white negative space against the bright colour will pop and stand out accentuating the colour palette and the reggae theme. it will be easier to decide this during the printing process and this will also allow for more experimentation when I can actually get in there and use the resources.

Water Marbling:

This is my second time creating water marbling prints and I have learnt that ordering the way you add the colours to the water bath can be important. For example I noticed that when I added the red and green directly after each other the water ended up murky and brown because of the mixing of the inks. however when I used the yellow inbetween these colours there was less of this and it gave me more colour definition on the print. I intend to use these prints in the same way as the monoprints although I expect a different result as the textures are largely different between to two so we will see what happens.

Cutting the lino plate:

I had quite a bit of trouble getting my design onto the plate the way I wanted. I knew if I just drew straight onto the plate to try and copy it, it wouldn’t be the same as my drawing and this irritated me so I tried to find some carbon paper to transfer the design but there wasn’t any around. so in the end I had a massive ordeal trying to find a bit of charcoal to make some make shift carbon paper which worked out in the end thankfully. but this did waste a lot of time in hindsight however once the design was on the plate I was able to cut it fairly quickly. the use of the hot plate in the print room was the main cause of speed.

Printing Results:

unexpectedly the black actually worked better with the colour on the monoprints. however I don’t think the water marbling works to well with the lino as the colours are quite pale and less saturated. so its not providing much contrast on the image. I think I will still probably level out and boost the colour of the monoprints in Photoshop to make them really pop but I don’t think they need much digital enhancement. some of these prints while visually interesting haven’t quite worked and the mashing of colours has made the print become a bit lost in that detail. in hindsight I should have taken a few really good black prints of the image and then I could have manipulated the image more easily digitally and it would have given me more options for colour and composition but this is just something to consider in future which will improve my practice.

---

Finals:

Evaluation:

In response to this brief I had to create a poster design related to reggae in which I chose to take a traditional route with printmaking. my decision to do this was led by the fact most of the entries in the competition were highly digital and I felt there could be room for a more traditional looking piece and it would be more noticeable. I think the strongest part about this project has been my monoprints as without them the piece would be a bit flat. I really love making instinctual marks that you can achieve through monoprinting, I never plan them before hand as I like it to be a really visceral process. the main difficulties I had as I have previously mentioned was with the transfer of the drawing onto the lino. I pretty much wasted a day trying to get that to work when I only really had a bout a week and a half to work on that project so that made it more difficult. it would have been more straight forward if I had gone for some charcoal immediately but I hesitated too much. the process of this project besides the transfer slip up ran quite smoothly so I didn’t really have to change anything along the way the outcome was really great because it came out exactly how I wanted it to. I think researching into the previous entries was useful because each year they accept 100 entries as winners so a lot of it seemed a little repetitive or unoriginal even though each one was interesting in its own way. this helped me to stay clear of repeating or copying anything but I think I was mainly able to do because before I started drawing anything I looked into Rastafari and reggae culture which draws a lot from Africa and that was really interesting. I think if I were to change anything about my design I would try some other compositions and add more fine lines as some of the details I feel became a bit to thick like the whiskers on the lion. I would also like to try a colour version of the lino without the monoprints on a nice white or black card but otherwise I’m very satisfied with the outcome. this year I feel I have really go into doing posters they seem to be something I’m good at and doing this brief I feel has helped me to strengthen this. I would definitely like to continue this in the future and this competition is yearly and open to everyone so I would like to enter it even when I am not a student.

Competitions

http://www.howdesign.com/design-competitions/promotion-marketing-design-awards/

https://www.creative-conscience.org.uk/briefs/

https://www.panmacmillan.com/macmillanprize

 

https://navigatordreams.com

http://www.reggaepostercontest.com/about/whats-irpc/

These ones would have also been good to enter but annoyingly they are only open to students at the high school level:

https://contestwatchers.com/nasa-ames-space-settlement-contest-2017/

https://contestwatchers.com/2017-bow-seat-ocean-awareness-student-contest/

YCN – UK Greetings

Brief:

---

Ideas:

1. to create a card design for 4 different seasons/holidays e.g. Christmas, valentines, birthdays, get well soon
2. create a range of pattern designs to use on multiple items but most importantly the wrapping paper
3. base the designs around the 12 days of Christmas

In my sketchbook I have tried out these ideas through some preliminary drawings based on the four events I selected but I think what will work best is if I try and culminate my ideas together and combine them so that I end up with designs suited to each different product like I think the wrapping paper is better suited for a Christmas design as my feeling and experience is seeing my wrapping designs fro Christmas than any other holiday. where as the gift bag feels more appropriate for a birthday because I personally have been given gift bags only on birthday occasions.

---

Inspiration:

Types of occasions within greetings cards listed on http://ohhdeer.com  >

https://www.paperchase.co.uk/cards/wrap/roll-wrapping-paper  >

the designs from ohhdeer seem to have a quirkier feel to them than at paperchase I think this is because both are aimed at different consumers, ohhdeer is more child friendly and humorous where as paperchase has a refined highbrow style.

---

Progression:

these where my first attempts at the card designs I like the idea of adding my own spin onto these Christmas characters however the designs are quite lacking of context really. there needs to be more interaction between elements rather than just an illustration of a character with a vague background and some type.

so I decided to use my Christmas elements to make my repeat patterns instead. using a collage method I arranged my drawings together into a composition that didn’t go to the edges so I could create a pattern using this method:

https://www.skillshare.com/tutorials/5-Steps-to-Illustrating-a-Repeat-Pattern-by-Hand/59

I later found this method to be a bit inaccurate when transferring the pattern to digital so that it was truly repeatable so I remade it and cut it up digitally, added in my extra elements and this made an unending pattern which I found really easy and fun to do leading me to make another for a birthday theme. I decided to use the birthday paper on the notecards and the notebook because I really liked how the pattern could be used as a whole and as a cropped piece.

http://www.on-a-whimsical-adventure.com/using-the-offset-filter-in-photoshop-to-create-patterns/

 

---

Finals:

Wrapping paper design

Greetings cards

Gift Bag design

note cards / note book

Evaluation:

For this project I was tasked to create a range of stationary and greetings items. for this theme I choose to concentrate on birthdays and Christmas designs for which I developed a range of ideas and drawing in my sketchbook until I reached a good conclusion. my favourite part about this project and what I think is particularly strong was learning to make the patterns. my drawings tend to suit a very collage style and making the patterns out of them kind of makes a smoother collage without the cut edges. and because they are black and white they responded to limited colour really well so they pop against the white. the major difficulty was in making the patterns the first time around when I cut the paper wrong and this prevented the seamless part of the pattern stopping it from repeating so I had to redo this step in a digital method which actually made the patterns higher quality anyway. I think something I would change about this project would be to extend the limited colour palette across all the items so that they appear as more of a range. they become a bit lost in certain cards and some of my colour choices weren’t as informed as they could have been. my research has definitely aided this project as before I had no idea where to start with producing a repeat pattern it always seemed very daunting to me but now it feels really easy. I feel like I have fulfilled the brief although I wish the last two designs for the note type items were more varied like the bag and the cards but I started to run out of time as well so this seemed like an easy way to solve it by creating another pattern. this project will definitely be useful in the future for other branding things I may take on as id like to continue to make more greeting related things and I now have the skills to do so.

Sounds of the City

You f**king what!

My main idea for this project is to capture the distressing sounds of my dads foul language whenever I’m in the car with him. this is something that definitely relates to city sounds for me. usually if we are driving on a long motorway or in the country side he won’t be swearing as much seen as there is less traffic to annoy him. some of the biggest things that get my dad all riled up are bad drivers, loud car radios and cyclists/pedestrians. I’m quite surprised he hasn’t had a heart attack while driving by now to be honest because he seems to getting worse with age. to bring this concept to life i am going to create an exaggerated scene where my dad is exploding with irritation. I’m thinking of turning this into a series of images where my dad reacts to different situations but for the competition (which is only one image) I’m going to focus it onto car radio noise.

---

PROCESSES

Using illustrator –

https://creativemarket.com/fontself/761404-Fontself-Make-fonts-in-Illustrator

^ this would be a great thing to buy in the future as it would allow me to make my own fonts and achieve a more hand rendered effect.

FREE STUFF! –

https://creativemarket.com/free-goods

LYRICS –

https://genius.com/Taylor-swift-blank-space-lyrics

https://genius.com/Taylor-swift-shake-it-off-lyrics

---

PROGRESSION

save 1 & 2: these versions were mainly pieced together from my sketches so it was about putting together all the shapes and the base composition. unfortunately illustrator crashed when making the character so I just wanted to quickly redraw it as it had not saved. which is why i have no screen grabs of this part.

save 3 & 4: after the second save I wasn’t sure how i felt about the colour of the background so i stripped the piece down a bit so that it was easier to compose. i contemplated leaving the character white so that it would have more contrast with the red overlay which represents the burning anger. however i don’t think it worked too well it felt more unfinished rather that stylised. i also added the windows and the chair shape behind the character as there wasn’t much that indicated he was sat in a car besides the steering wheel.

save 5: after changing the shape of the speech bubble to achieve a more emotional outburst kind of thing I added the text. the typography i made just didn’t seem to fit with the style of the rest of the piece which was a set back but i think the simple text i used works. I decided to just draw it straight into illustrator instead as the unprecise wigglyness of the line helps to get across the rage coming from the character where as the other text was too clean and detailed.

^ I made this typography by printing out my chosen phrases in impact font and then rubbing the paper together and scrunching it up which gave it the scratches and wrinkles i also tried scratching it with a scalpel which seemed to work the best.

---

ARTIST INSPIRATION

Risa Rodil

These illustrations based on the Pixar film inside out use strong graphic vectors to communicate the emotions of each character which is what ivebeen trying to do in my poster design. the types of shapes and colours they use really emphasise the personality of the emotion and make the images synonymous with the words and i need to get this across myself with the type as well as the illustration itself.

 

 

After completeing the first version of this poster i really just felt like it wasnt working at all and didnt really look particularly good either. it did convey what i was trying to get across i think but it was doing a poor job at best. so goign back into my sketchbook i did a drawing because i was annoyed with the digital piece and this actually turned out to be way more expressive and accurate of what my dad is like when he drives, it also reminded me of a caricature style because of how id exagerated the face. so i decided to look into this…

Jeff Stahl

stahl’s work is really entertaining to me because of how accurately they depict the celebrities while completely exagerating the features in a comedic way. the works themselves are gorgeously painted digitally (i think i cudnt find out exactly) which i think aids the style of caricature. the images just make me laugh a lot and this is exactly what i want my own work to do!

https://www.instagram.com/jeffstahl_art/

---

FINAL 1

this is the poster i ended up submitting, i wasn’t quite happy with it in the end but i wanted to enter the competition and i had since run out of time. while i feel it has its good points i definitely should have gone back to the sketches and refined the composition more instead of getting carried away in illustrator. however i do have some other sketches i still want to explore.

^this could possibly be the biggest piece of shit I’ve ever made!

i tried taking the original sketch and just giving this a bit of colour as the actual lines on the sketch have a lot more life to them but i don’t the this is what I’m looking for. it does however come across angrier which i think i can take from this experiment.

 

---

Evaluation

Beginning this project, I wanted to create something that was a bit tongue and cheek, something to make people laugh about the things you hear amongst traffic or at least what I hear in my dad’s car. It was the first thing I was instantly reminded of when I read the brief and I couldn’t bring myself to do anything else! But I also I wanted to poke fun at my dad’s driving. One of the main things that gets my dad riled up in the car is other people’s music blasting when they have the car windows open and my dad can’t get away from them because he’s stuck at the lights. So, I have tried to create a piece which I think resembles this. I struggled with this project because I really wanted to display the outrage my dad goes through in the car but it just wasn’t happening. I think the style I chose to do it in, limited it because it’s very clean and cut whereas with the anger it needs to be more loose and free flowing. I do feel like the expression looks angry but it’s still not quite right. I think I could have sorted this better before the competition deadlines if I had stayed closer to my sketches because I feel like I got a good range of exploration in my book but then it all kind of got ignored as soon as I went to digital. That’s why I continued to experiment a bit after submitting my piece. Even though I could no longer submit an entry I have learned more from doing the extra work. I think on this project I could have researched more thoroughly which in turn might have aid the design, on this project I kind of got my idea and just went with it which is usually the worst possible thing to do. From doing this project I have learnt to try and stop running with the first thing I think off because it’s probably not the best I can do. Another thing would be how to go back on myself and regather my ideas as this could be more helpful in the future. I think I did enjoy this project in the end it was just a bit of a struggle in the middle when I was unsure of the artwork but I think you must go through these things to learn more rather than getting it right the first time and learning nothing.

---

FINAL 2

The San Diego Latino Film Festival

Some of last years entries:

Something I’ve noticed about the previous entries is that they are all digital and quite vector based. I’m thinking it might be good to do something a bit more traditional or at least something the incorporates more traditional techniques as this might set it aside from the other entries.

---

Patterns

Since we are not allowed to use any obvious stereotypes I researched into the culture a bit and one of the things I noticed was just how colourful Latino people are, everything is bright and vibrant and full of life! so I thought a subtle way to incorporate this into an image would be with patterns. a lot of traditional Mexican ponchos and dress use these really nice woven patterns with the maddest colour palettes so this is definitely something to bring into it.

---

Processes

Japanese Water Marbling

when researching the patterns I came across this printing method which involves using a troth of water to drip ink onto the surface creating concentric patterns which can be manipulated in a kind of random way so no 2 prints are alike. after the ink is laid on the surface paper is laid onto the surface and pulled back to reveal a really vibrant pattern which can resemble woodgrains or geodes or even like galaxy formations when mixed more.

In the Japanese method only water and ink is used but in the Turkish method the ink is mixed with oils creating a much thicker consistency allowing you to paint more accurately on the surface.

This method of printing can be used to get some really vivacious results with unlimited combinations and I think it could be really enthralling to use in this poster to capture the colour and variance of the Latino culture.

---

Some of my prints:

These are the best results of my attempt with water marbling. It took me a while to get it right as I’ve never tried this before. At first I wasn’t doing it for long enough e.g. I was taking the print too soon, so the ink came out really faint. The paper I’d bought wasn’t absorbent either so I ended up having to use really bad quality photocopy paper (which was fine once dry but it meant I could only get a4 prints). I also tried a few different inks as I wasn’t really sure which was working in the beginning. Derwent drawing inks seemed to work okay I also tried some acrylic ink but I only had a couple of colours of that so I can say the ones I had, worked. However its a really enjoyable process I ended up doing it for about 4-5 hours. At first I tried doing it the suminagashi way with the concentric circles but after a while I decided to take a pipette and just squirt the ink into the water bath which has created these immense bubbly mixes of colour which I’m obsessed with. I think water marbling is my favourite way of printing. I definitely think they will work well in the poster.

---

ARTISTS

Sean Mccabe

one thing I’m not sure of yet is how I’m going to tackle the type on this piece. I really like the geometric uniform style in these drawings. and I think something like this might look good against the vibrant colours of the print if I like cut out the white area and leave just the black.

60 Remarkable Examples Of Typography Design

https://designschool.canva.com/blog/mexican-design/

Simon Walker

This guys fonts are just gorgeous with the most subtle textures. They are really contemporary in the style and they just sit nicely against everything. they have a digital kind of hand rendered feel which I really want on my own fonts. to give me a good cross over and balance between the two.

http://www.simonwalkertype.com/

Joseph Ari Aloi  AKA  JK5

the tattoo artist JK5 has such a unique and illustrative style combining popular culture with tattoo art. his drawings are very much like doodles but really refined and intricate doodles that have a sense of composition. his drawings are really vibrant and loud which in think resonates with the latino culture from what ive researched. the colour schemes are just fantastic almost neon in places which just shows his skills with the materials. this is something I’m really bad at in my work when I doodle it doesn’t go further than one drawing per doodle. this is something I definitely like to be able to do myself and need to practice at.

https://www.instagram.com/josepharialoi/

---

PROGRESSIVES

Typography

Backgrounds

Full Image

---

FINALS

These are the images I submitted to the competition. it was getting close to the deadline and I just couldn’t decide which one I liked better so I took a risk and submitted both. This piece relies heavily on the type as its pretty much the whole image but it called for 2 versions one without type incase they wanted to use their own.

---

EVALUATION

For this project, I decided to take a more typographical direction which is unusual for what I usually do. I developed it in this way because after printing I didn’t want to ruin the textural and colourful qualities of the print. I wanted to highlight them. The shape of the type is inspired by the marbling in the prints I wanted something that fit into the image rather than contrast against it. But I also didn’t want it to get lost with the texture so I kept it to a simple white fill with a drop shadow which just helps its readability. I think my main strengths in this project have been experimenting with my prints digitally and being more adventurous with colour because I tend to stick with black and white most of the time. I think one of the main struggles I’ve dealt with in this project is trying to get my typography to read well while keeping the style in it. I’ve had to adjust the individual letters many times but I feel like it reads now. The biggest change that happened on this project was with the text. I went from a very simple font to a very exaggerated composition. But I think its way more interesting than it would have been with the change. Researching typography more on this project helped me understand what I could do with text more, as typography feels like a bit of a foreign area for me. If I was to develop this more in the future I would test it out with different prints and make a Spanish language version of the text as I originally wanted to do this in the beginning but ran out of time. Looking at this project I think it fills the requirements of the brief I was given from the festival website. I feel like I managed to produce a refined piece good enough for my portfolio and I want to do more work like this in the future.

 

Self-Initiated

Proposal 1

---

REFERENCES

I was struggling with drawing a few things when I was sketching in my book so referencing these pictures I took of Andy have aided me a lot.

---

Sandra Diekmann:

I’m really inspired by the way Sandra Diekmann uses pencils and other media to get a variety of different marks. this is something I actively try to do with my own work. she has a really good use of colour and achieves this kind of printmaking quality with the materials which I envy!

http://www.sandradieckmann.com/

Leon Bowers:

a similar kind of thing is happening in this illustrators work the use of mark making is conveying the textures and shading with really nice sketchy lines. I think artwork looks better as a sketch rather than the finished pieces sometimes, so I’ve definitely been taking more from my sketchbook than before rather than creating a new drawing and trying to make it clean.

http://www.fashionbeans.com/2015/mens-beard-facial-hair-trends-2016/

http://leonbowers.com

Mat Roff:

these drawings of walking dead characters by Mat Roff are also using line as a texture/mark. while these are done in ink as compared to the pencil drawings they still retain a very illustratory feel. the whole cartoon/comic look is exactly what i want out of a drawing and the way this guy does his lines is really inspiring.

http://www.matroff.co.uk/

Patrick McHale

this guys drawings are the best thing I’ve seen in months they are so loose and sketchy and full of style. the tonal range is gorgeous while still being quite contrasting and i love that you can see the paper texture. this animation is so gritty and draw so nicely that it just makes me want to draw i love it.

---

Final Outcomes:

I tried colouring it but I’m not sure I like the outcome it might work better with a more selective palette, which might be easy to change in Photoshop.

---

EVALUATION

For this project, I decided to take the opportunity the just draw. Give myself the opportunity to sketch everything and anything I wanted to. I’ve done it in this way because it has really helped me to develop the way I draw as well as build up a kind of backlog of drawings which I could use however in wanted. I think one of the strengths of this project has been that I have developed my visual style more as well as working towards the deadline whereas other projects have cut it closer. The main difficulties I’ve had during this project have been just simply going through it. I had to develop what the final pieces would look like as I was drawing rather than having a preconceived idea of the final outcome or it being decided by the brief. I had a basic idea of what I wanted the end piece to be but not really what or how it would turn out. Which was kind of freeing in a way. Pretty much the only thing I changed over the project was the way I made the finals. At first I was dead set on redrawing the final image but when I photocopied and collaged my sketches together I realised that this was a good process to create the images with rather than spending the extra time to draw everything again. It also had a great look from collaging as well which reminded me of stickers. I think my research has definitely informed and fed into my drawing. I don’t think it would have looked the same if I didn’t find the research I had, particularly Patrick McHale’s work inspired a lot of the drawing style and helped me to think about how I was using my materials. If I had to change anything about this project I would try working with some different textures to draw on and explore with inks and pens. I pretty much kept with the inktense pencils which I love working with because of how rich and smooth the pigments are as well as the blackness and texture they give my lines. Which I don’t consider a bad thing but it has limited the style a bit. Other than that, I would certainly keep sketching and exploring different subjects and make more collages. I feel like I have fulfilled the outcomes I set out in my brief through sketching and exploring in my book. It has kind of given me a way of working that doesn’t get hindered with something like art block because I can just draw something else or switch to a different subject. I’m going to incorporate this way of working into my future projects and maybe even keep this one going as I think it’s generally useful for improving my drawings skills as well as creating artwork. This has been my favourite project of the year.

---

TANGENT

During this project we got set an extra one day project as part of the city of culture events leading up to 2017. for this project we had to create a self-portrait. this didn’t have to be in any particular style or even represent us realistically and we were allowed to tackle it however we liked. they just wanted something large-scale. so for my ‘self portrait’ I first drew myself as an anthropomorphized dog. basically because I like to include dogs a lot in my drawings and they are my favourite animal and I’ve kind of built up a reputation as a crazy dog person so it felt accurate. then when speaking to the culture people they suggested I challenge myself to draw 21 of these human-dog portraits as this is my age. ANNOYINGLY I only made it to about 10 on the actual final piece. I am really happy with this however, I really enjoyed doing the drawings even if it was a bit embarrassing when the people from the BBC people came to cover the project and I had to talk about my work.

PPF: Helpful Videos

McBess

Holly exley

Robin Clonts

Lynne Chapman

this one was awesome ^

Pascal Anson:

PPF: Work Experience

VISR VR

On and Off for the past year I’ve been working with visr who produce VR content and the google cardboard headsets for various companies and events. From working with them I have learnt how the to put together the head sets and how much goes into the design work when producing them. getting to try out the virtual reality equipment has been a good insight into just what could be done with it in terms of illustration especially on the branding/animation/games side of things as well as a lot of other areas like film.

GARTH WEST

From working at visr I have also been able to work at the factory where the cardboard headsets are made. here I was putting together various different point of sale displays, you never really realise how much work goes into 1 display stand as well as the different components used making them. hopefully this insight will help in future design projects.