Design Process

Being part of the design team was very stressful, having no idea of how to design or about layout in my own personal experience I felt that this was a real challenge. Working with other group members at times was a struggle as i felt that everyones opinions weren't always listened to and the design as a whole struggled from that at first. Through lots of hand work especially in terms of composition I felt that we got there in the end with a very well put together design.

Our criticism were that it didn't look professional enough and layout was and type wise it wasn't right. We made sure each page had more of a collective feel and group feel. The type was changed swell with size made smaller. The lecture of type was very useful here. 

Poem ( Parkinson's)

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I don’t know where my street cred’s gone

I used to know the score,

But now each day I wrack my mind

to find something to say

I’m not the man I used to be

confident and strong

now I seem to worry about

everything all day long

Where has he gone that man I was

he’s gone, I’ve lost my voice

I cannot live the life I knew

I can’t go on like I had a choice

This was the poem I was given to work with. It was a very interesting poem. I got the idea of a surrealist type of image, where someone was lost and struggling with the disease. I liked the image of hands grabbing out and almost dragging the person back. 

Zine

I had never created a zine before, but I was so happy with how this turned out. Id always been a fan of collage and loved placement. I tried to follow the example of Oliver Vaughn's method of creating collages with my own images, not just randomly placed though. I thought about where I wanted to place objects and how I wanted it to look. I was very happy with some unexpected outcomes and experimental compositions I had created.

Can you make a living being an Artist ?

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2012/jul/29/artists-day-job-feature

Is it possible, in the current economic climate, for someone working in the creative arts to make a living from it? Unless you have the good fortune to be a Damien Hirst or a JK Rowling, the answer increasingly seems to be no. 

This was one of the first points in the article I see and it sure as depresses me !. The truth of the matter is unless your a famous artist, there isn't much chance of earning a decent yearly wage in the creative field. Therfore I would have to get a part time job, preferably in something related. The statistic about the average earning of a art student being less than 5,000 a year was very depressing indeed. The article gave various examples of student who have struggled for work and done something just to earn some money. I think articles like this drive me on to be a success and do well for myself, in a field of work I greatly love. 

Exhibition Review " Tallest of Tales"

The piece I have chosen is a modern acrylic painting by Alison Erika Forde. The exhibition is called the tallest of tales. I was drawn to the piece as it is a very playful and imaginative piece of work. The content of the painting looks very surreal, depicting a conga line of different animals, with swapped heads. This in turn creates a very surrealist, almost dream like image, mimicking in my opinion being in an intoxicated state when your awareness is impaired and everything becomes a blur.

Naturally each animal is prey or predator, but in this image the roles are reversed, with emphasis on them having a good time and even though each animal is linked to each other there is no food chain in this. The marks used describe the vibrant mood of the animals and party. There is no outline on the creature’s only blurry lines, which create a distorted form and again create the drunk like state, which helped to create fun imagery. There is shading on the animals, which helps to define features, using simple brush strokes. These help to describe the texture of the animal’s fur and skin, which enable me to imagine more easily what the animal would feel like. This method of working is very similar to the way I have work in class.

I liked the composition of the piece as it was done over four separated images; however the conga line is joined through each image creating a nice balance to the image. It created a kind of mockery of the food chain and it was almost like a set of photographs, again looking back at a good time. The scale of the piece was quite big, but it did help to create that long conga line, in this almost childlike image.

The End of Illustration ? (Article)

http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00073

Digital media, and specifically the PhotoShop extension, has had a profound influence on the way that art directors and designers currently view illustration. Once graphic designers depended on the rendering skills and conceptual acuity of illustrators. Now they can assemble ersatz illustration-collages by themselves. PhotoShop has certainly not replaced illustrators altogether (and many fine illustrators employ PhotoShop as a tool), but this tool is far more threatening than any previous technological development in the history of illustration.

Steve Hellars article is all about the possible end of illustration or illustrators as a general job. He mentions the rise of computer aided design and the general loss of handmade and handcrafted art skills. He recognizes that "Some graphic designers occasionally used their own collage and montage to bypass illustrators altogether; currently with PhotoShop this is a common practice." This is something that I feel like could have a big impact on my own future as there is no guarantee of job security or a stable future in illustration. 

Saying that trends change, and handcrafted art rather than digital art could become popular again just like it did with artists like Craig Atkinson. Who's hand drawn illustration came back into fashions during the early 2000s. I do feel very frustrated in particular with this issue, having experienced many university open days with barely any hand drawn work, most of it was all digital vector images. I felt like I was looking at the same image over and over again wherever I went. 

Illustration that Moves

http://giphy.com/gifs/art-animated-illustration-yOPFV700MV4hq

Todays discussion forum was an interesting one on "illustration that moves". Myself and Danielle Massam did the presentation for the class. We tried to make the discussion link to the illustration industry. The points that came up were about how as illustrators we have to be adaptable and one way of doing that is to work with animation and animate our illustrations. We all felt as illustrators we had to adapt to modern trends, to be relevant and have a sustainable career for the future. You can have your own style, but its always good to used something that will make your work stand out and be different. 

I personally feel like this is a negative within my own work as I need to make it more diverse, rather than just drawings and handmade work. 

Simon Prades research

Simon praxes is an artist that usually works on editorial images and one that I admire. He uses ink and ink Gillot pens to create fast pieces of work. I want to emulate this style in my own images. I feel like it would improve the sped of my work and its something that I haven't tried before so It could produce some very interesting results. 

Social Awareness Ebola

These were the final outcomes of my ebola images. I have tried to make each one different rather than being repetitive I have used different styles like surrealism from my research, different layouts, and backgrounds used. I scanned in various backgrounds and have included mark making within the drawings themselves. Im very happy with how they turned out. 

Isis Images

Looking back I really wanted to create something that showed Isis for the brutal and threatening group they really are and I tried to reflect this in this image. The article was about Isis forcing young middle eastern men to stay in Isis. I used the ink backgrounds i had created earlier and thought it worked well in the image to give it a darker look and reflect on the darker issue a bit more. Id say one criticism would be that image is perhaps to stark and perhaps not suitable for a sunday morning newspaper. 

I used my own typography here and produced this. Ive never done that before but felt it looked and worked with the image. I wanted to try and recreate the panic that is felt with any terrorist situation.

This is by far my favorite image. I started to do mark making and began seeing figures in the marks and people. So I carried it on and began drawing people with the black figures- Isis figures. The article was about Isis being in the west, I think I have adapted a surreal look to this article. 

Ebola Photgraph

I thought why not mix up what Im doing and create a photograph. I thought of the idea of ink being squirted into water in slow motion for this. With the idea of blood being poured into water. I think this was a great success and works really well with the typography. I like the harshness of the image and the way the type is made to fit around the edge of the medical test tube. The tube being another thing that works really well with the issue. 

Ebola Video ( My creation)

Vaughn Oliver

Vaughn Oliver was todays speaker in university. He's most famous for creating album covers for bands like the Pixies, who are one of my favorites and other bands like The Breeders and Lush. He talked through his professional career, which was fascinating, especially working with some very difficult bands throughout. 

What was a core concept, which I keep hearing throughout my time at University from Professionals is creating an image with meaning behind it, Vaughn's case creating an image that linked to the song and had an attachment to the meaning of it. I also learnt about the layers of design and that without cooperation from the client and yourself then the idea can't happen. You have to remember that your creating work to fit the clients brief not yours.



This was a brilliant lecture, with some very humorous moments. It was just great to see so many awesome album designs and listen to someone who's been a huge part of the music industry. One other thing i picked up on was how he uses collage as a way of creating work, a style Im going to try and emulate in my Zine. 

Ian Pollock who created the recent Pixies album covers also came in which was very interesting.

One of my favorite Pixies songs.

Backgrounds/mark making

I wanted to make backgrounds for met social awareness images and felt that ink and experimentation was need for this. I was very happy with the outcome of the backgrounds. I used a wide range of techniques to produce these and love what I have produced.

John Walters Lecture

Club Lecture 

Club lecture is a chance for student like myself to hear from professional people in the design world. Its a chance for me to learn more about a professional environment, learn from talented professionals and hear about what they do. In my opinion it greatly enhances my learning and is a really useful event to attend. 

John Walters ( Eye Magazine ) 

John Walters is the extremely knowledgable editor of Eye Magazine and he came in to give everyone on my course a presentation on his experiences and advice he could give us. I learned that "eye" was a graphic design journal published mainly for designers, students and anyone with an interest in writing and visual culture. 

In the magazine a wide range of topics are covered for example, food. Each image and layout in the magazine is carefully designed and written by designers and professional writers. It was fascinating to learn more about the interdependence of writer and illustrator and how John talked about how the illustrations/designs have to have a purpose and mean something to the text. I also found myself thinking more along refinement and editing in my own work as each process is so carefully carried through, right from design to the printing stage. Each stage depended on each other and was so carefully carried through. The focus was on quality and producing a meaningful publication.  I need to implement that more in my own work and produce quality Illustrations. 

• A very interest point I have listened to is what type of character you need to be to be employed by someone like "Eye Magazine". Obviously the work has to be up to scratch, but you as a person have to be good to work with and easy to get along with. You also have to have a keen interest in what your looking at be that articles, Essays, images- you have to know and understand that to be able to produce a high standard or work. 

This was a very useful lecture and I learned and gained a lot from it. It also helped contribute towards my ideas for the Parkinsons equip editorial with his editorial skills helping me. Especially in terms of different ideas like placement and the use of a context page. 

8x8 - First Published work !

8 X 8 

Over the summer I was asked to respond to a short story written by author Laura Burns. My story was called "The Same Time Tomorrow". It was a moving story about the daily life of a depressed man on a train. He met new people but there was no colour or enjoyment in his life, he was depressed and lived a sad life. The Image above was how I responded to that. I was so happy with how it finally looked in the publication, i think I've really captured the mood of the story and the character. 

Im so proud to have my work published and author also was impressed :). The process really helped me to understand what any future jobs I do, may involve, especially in regards to working with authors. This was a great learning curve and something I'm proud of. 

Raising Money

Creating a beautiful publication is the aim of everyone in the Parkinson's group, but raising money was a core part of what we trying to do. In order to raise those funds some students decided to make cakes and sell them within college. They were delicious and helped to raise a lot of money for the cost of the publication and towards Parkinson's equip. 

Well done cake baking team !!! 

Risograph

As a group we wanted to produce work at  the cheapest cost possibly in order to save money that could then be given to Parkinson's.Risograph printing is a vibrant and economical method of producing anything from books to artist prints. It sits in the realm somewhere between screen print and offset lithography but with a unique aesthetic. 

Jim Stout 

Here is an example of riso work and I really like the style and texture of the print. To me it looks like a screen print and it will be very interesting to see the final images created and printed. I think this a very sensible choice. 

Inspirations - Geoff Grandfield

Dancing like a wheel 

Geoff Grand fields style of simple silhouette shapes and limited colour use was my inspiration behind my creations. I love the figurative style of his work and the story you can tell behind the image. Every image he produces has a story behind it and is compositionally very well put together. I wanted to try and emulate this beautiful style of work. 

Limited Colour Palette

 

I had the very challenging situation where I had to create two images with these two colors, teal green and red. These are very difficult colors to work with in my opinion as they are both quite strong colours, so it was a test to see if I could work with them. It altered the way I thought about my designs as I had to think about block colours, this made me change my design to something more silhouette like. 

Pablo Picasso ( Blue phase)

Here is an example of an artist who used a very limited colour palette. Im used examples like this to help with my own work and designs.

Type Matters

John Williams "Type Matters" 

University lecturer John Williams came in for this weeks lecture talk. He's a university lecturer and professional graphic designer, who has worked for some huge magazines such as the Chase. He came in and told us all about the book he produced called "Type matters", which sets out the basics of typography, the history and the intricate aspects of type. Creative review advertised his book and students all over use it as a useful reference point. 

Not being a graphic designer I thought this would be a unique experience of learning  about something other than illustration. It has opened my eyes to type and producing professional standard type. I have struggled with incorporating type within my work, especially compositionally.

I had no idea when producing type to think about positioning of letters, letter height,spacing and John really went into detail about this, and was very adamant you have to spend as much time and care on the type as you do the images. I will use this book and his advice to help me create meaningful type that looks professional and is the correct format. 

Editorial Research

These are a few modern propaganda/advertisement posters I found on Pinterest. What I like about these is how smart and clever they are in trying to get a message across. The quirky text really helps to bring the image together, so I may possibly use text to help produce a clearer message. The images themselves are quite simple concepts and clearly illustrate the theme. I like the layout of them as well thinking about what colours and composition. I will use this research to help me make a better decision myself. 

             

Censorship

Todays student lecture was all about censorship within Illustration and the struggle artists have now creatively with ideas and being unable to express their ideas.

• We also looked at issues about racism, sexism and gender stereotyping within advertisement, with ethical issues historically,being racist wasn't an issue, and people did it to advertise their produce and it wasn't a big deal to people, but now it's frowned upon, it's the same with sexism and stereotyping, with how most adverts with woman in them are mostly naked or cleaning. 

• Newspapers censor curtain subjects just for profit, to make more people buy the paper, also as an illustrator should we censor out work, depending on what our views are of the brief/ subject

Chapter & Illuminating Verse

Chapter & Illuminating Verse 

http://tumblr.hblythco.com

During the meeting we learnt more about the book of poems " Chapter and Illuminating Verse", which is a series of poems created by Ray, with each poem having an image that responds to it. 
The Images above were created by artist Ghislaine Howard. 

"My studies of the human figure in movement continue to explore the particularities of individual modes of walking. These can be seen in a variety of works, some of unknown passers-by but in particular, a sequence charting my mother’s fight to overcome the effects of Parkinson’s Disease and her very distinctive way of walking."

She tried to capture the movement in people with the disease. I really like the way you can clearly see the  movement in the figures and the way she's used paint to create marks and strokes that imitate the movements. She described her mother as being like a ballet dancer, I can see that in these images. This is the way I love to work, especially with paint.

Parkinsons Equip

Parkinson's Equip 

http://parkinsonsequip.org.uk

An Introduction to Parkinson's Equip /Meeting Ray and Ghislaine 

The new brief we were given was my first live project where I would be working with a charity. The brief was to highlight and create awareness of a charity called Parkinson's Equip. Its a charity that focuses on giving people with Parkinson's support and improving their quality of life, particularly through sport or art. As soon as this brief was an option I decided to pick it, its a very emotive subject and something that effects a lot of people, but I felt like it was something that I feel strongly about and wanted to try and make a positive difference for people who suffer from the condition. I also found the link with art and creativity quite interesting.

In the afternoon we as a group were able to meet Ray Wegrzyn, who is affected with condition and Ghisliane Howard, who is a painter- producing work about her mother, who has Parkinson's. Both of them run and help raise funds for the charity Parkinson's equip. They explained what the charity was about and what Parkinson's is. It made me quite emotional as a person to learn about the effects it has on people  and people who are close to them. I was quite inspired by what Parkinson's equip were trying to do in terms of  help and support. 

I was inspired by Ray someone who had the disease. What got me was he was such a nice bloke that wasn't old ( who you usually associate age with parkinson's`)  and lived a normal life. Some of the facts and figures about it really showed me how much this is having an effect not only on the people affected, but also people around them, the societies we live in and much more. 

Ray is inspirational to me how he used creativity to come up with some beautiful poems for the book "Chapter and Illuminating versus". Despite losing lots of things like movement and speech, he came up with these poems that reflect the emotions of him and the illness.