design juices feature

hello, everyone! i'm just quickly popping by to let you know that i've been featured on the Design Juices website today, and if you'd like to take a peek at the article you can do so by clicking here or on the image above. 2014 has gotten off to a fabulous start for me, and i'm crossing my fingers, toes, eyes and whatever the hell else i can cross in the hope that 2014 continues to be just as exciting for me! *internal squealing*

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university project: advanced digital communication

since starting back at university at the end of september, we've been working on a brief called advanced digital communication. it was split into two parts: the first 4 weeks(ish) focusing on motion and interaction work and experimenting, and the second 4 weeks looking at a 'proper' brief - i say proper because i found it extremely difficult to feel like anything from the first half was going anywhere.

during my many battles with motion and after effects, i decided to give up on the program and opt for a more traditional way of creating motion - stopmotion. i felt much more comfortable working in this way and felt that the outcome represented my personality and style more accurately, and while my final piece was perhaps a little unfinished, overall, i'm not too ashamed to show it.

next on the agenda was to look at creating an interactive piece of work. i was a bit fixated of the idea of touch and how we make decisions every day based on things we do and don't touch and for a while i liked the idea of proposing an interactive keyboard with all the keys made of different materials - some nice, some not - and then monitoring how we adapted our language when communicating based on what we did and didn't want to touch. as it sounds, this idea was a little too elaborate to go about producing or simulating, so i left it there.

still focusing on the idea of touch, i noticed how we're often reluctant to interact with fragile things through fear of damaging them, and i wanted to create something that left someone with conflicting desires as they'd want to look at my artefact, however they also wouldn't want to through fear of damaging it. my solution was this interactive book that was made up of illustrations printed onto tracing paper, and it invites you to unpick the many layers of illustrations with pieces of card that are supplied, however to do so means you're at the risk of damaging the book.

onto the main (and more exciting) part of the module now! we were given a choice of two briefs: one based on mima's contemporary jewellery collection and one based on a british film festival. knowing i'm not much of a film fanatic, i opted to tackle the jewellery brief which within it specific making the jewellery accessible to children which was instantly right up my street. i explored the #wearmima facebook page and, much to my surprise, was really taken by some of the jewellery. i also watched videos from the vimeo page and noticed how the jewellery seemed to bring out everybody's inner child as they spoke of fantasy lands and the characters the jewellery could've belonged to, which instantly got me thinking of potential back stories for the pieces.

after creating back stories for four of my favourite pieces, my solution was to put these stories into a promotional booklet that would then be sent out to primary schools to be read by the children in an attempt to spark an interest and curiosity about the jewellery which would then get them into mima visit the jewellery in the flesh. the booklet also invited them to create and draw a back story for a piece of jewellery from the collection that wasn't covered within the booklet, with some optional starter stickers for the younger end of my audience to use if they needed a bit of help getting started. this feature also linked to an app that i designed where children could read about the pieces in the collection, upload their story and view stories others had created in an attempt to create some sort of community and make the kids and their contributions feel valued.

i wanted to include the final artwork for the entire book, however this post was already extremely picture heavy so i decided against it - hope you've enjoyed reading!

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an illustrator's manifesto

(just a quick note to inform you all that i'm aware of the grey background on all the images i've uploaded, i've no idea what blogger's done with my clean white backgrounds! *sob*)

 
1/3 of my university summer project was to write a manifesto. i'd like to think that my beliefs as an illustrator about what will help me to improve my own skills and build valuable connections with other like-minded individuals are fairly short, sweet and simple, so i didn't want to overdo my manifesto by gushing on for paragraphs about when it was that i first picked up a pencil and why it is that i continue to still pick one up now as an almost twenty year old. after jotting down what it was that i felt was important, i picked out a few main points and shortened them as much as i possibly could to leave me with a list of phrases to help keep me, and perhaps other illustrators, inspired to work hard and persevere within such a competitive field of work!

my visual idea is - admittedly - simple, and is based around the idea of 'dreaming big' - something i feel is very important if you're wanting to push yourself to succeed in this area of 'work'. above i've included some of the colour schemes i had a play around with before choosing my final one (which is the large top image.) colour schemes are something i've always struggled with, however, with the help of adobe kuler and actually taking the time to sit and think about a colour scheme before going mad with colours on the final design (duh,) i've learnt that i can, in fact, throw half decent ones together with a little bit of effort, hurrah!

right now i'm pushing on with the last third of my summer project, which is to design and fold (very vague brief...) something based around an event or topic that you find interesting, and i've decided to look into the ban of animal testing for cosmetic purposes in the EU, something i was really pleased to hear about back in march when it was passed! i've learnt quite a lot already from the small bit of research i've done and already feel a lot more passionately about the cause, so i plan to start taking a more cruelty free route with the purchases i'll make in the future. hopefully within the next week i'll have my finished piece to show you all on here, so stay tuned!

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a designed reflective report

firstly, please excuse the poor photos! i left my camera in my uni room while i've come home for the weekend so i was left with no choice but to use my iphone!

our final task for first year was to write a 1,000 word reflective report regarding first year, then design it and make it into a book. at first i was horrified; a project that was entirely type! i've never gotten along with fonts, i feel that alongside images they look naff, and due to me considering myself an illustrator, i was going to have to include illustrations somewhere within my report, which left me with no other choice (in my own mind) than to make my report completely hand generated, type and all.

i found within this project that i can use type, i just have to keep it simple; so that's what i did, i kept it as simple as possible. i also wanted my report to reflect me as a designer, so naturally, i had to include all the lovely little critters that i find myself constantly inspired by. i think the overall simplicity and light-hearted nature of the illustrations in my report meant it represented me effectively, so i'd consider it a job well done. i understand that it's not neat or perfect, but i didn't want to just hand in a clean, simple report typed up in helvetica 12pt like other students might, because that's just not me! i wanted to inject some fun into this otherwise boring project, and, most importantly, i wanted viewers to smile when viewing my report (good job, little bunny guy!)

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final first year project

so after four hectic weeks of (pretty much) constant working, my final piece has finally been made and presented! i'm really, really pleased with how it turned out and definitely feel it's easily my strongest piece of work from first year.

the project brief was to create a narrative from a source material and create a publication from your newly formed narrative. i chose some poems i wrote as a ten year old about rainforest creatures as my source material, and after piecing together some humorous, nonsensical new narratives i jumped straight into creating an illustrative piece that encapsulated the light-heartedness and innocence that was present within my source material.

my two main themes were day/night and camouflage, with a hidden celebration of all the weird and wonderful creepy crawlies that inhabit the rainforest alongside your typical sloths, snakes and monkeys.

i have another hand-in today and then my final hand-in in two weeks time before attending the end of year exhibition, but then after that i'm free until october! over the summer i plan to get stuck into some new projects that have been floating around in my head recently, so hopefully over the coming months i should have some interesting things to share with you all! thank you to everyone who does follow me, i really appreciate all the lovely comments and tweets i receive!

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one week on

i'm just stopping by to show you all what i've been up to this week as my blog's been terribly quiet! uni work really does entirely take over my life and i'm 100% living for the summer right now; what will i do with all that free time?! (draw, probably.) if you're wanting to keep up to date with what i'm up to, i do post more regularly over on my twitter and instagram accounts!

anyway, my final project is near to completion now and i've experimented with so many styles and it's actually been fairly exciting for me to do, so here's to hoping i'm happy enough with my final piece that i'm willing to put it up on here for you all to see!

p.s. blogger's decided it's not cooperating tonight but i'm too tried to force it to, so please forgive the dodgy composition of this entire post!

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it's all over!

so after spending the last two weeks working like a dog to get everything completed, mounted and and put into a presentation for today's assessment, it's finally all over and done with! so, as promised, here is what i've created for my digital graphic communication university module.

i'll start off by briefly outlining my campaign's ethos and aims. my campaign was to get children between the ages of 4 and 9 cycling for fun while staying safe and improving their fitness, but because my target audience is so young, i also took into account that parents would become part of my target audience, too. because my campaign aims to bring everyone together, both children and parents, i called it 'pedal pals' as it suggests a friendly community and sense of support, but also because the alliteration makes the name memorable and punchy and would so appeal to children.

this is my logo. i wanted to create a mascot for my campaign that would represent its ethos, so i chose to use a monkey because they live within large groups and support one another within them, but also because monkeys are easily recognisable, easy to anthropomorphise and closely linked to humans, meaning they could perhaps be easy to relate to. i suggested cycling safety subtly within my logo through the inclusion of the helmet.

these are my three posters. i wanted to create a campaign that would be promoted through primary schools, so my posters will be on display around schools in classrooms, dining halls, gyms etc. my idea was to make my posters somewhat interactive so that my audience would get involved with them rather than walking past them and dismissing them, so i chose to directly address my audience by asking them to look for something within the posters. i thought this may be a fun idea for a child as they like to interact with their environment, so while keeping my poster entertaining for them, i once again made sure to subtly enforce safety while cycling, so the items my TA will be looking for are linked to cycling safety within different situations. the use of rhyme also makes the posters sound more fun and entertaining for a young audience while the font looks quite childlike and welcoming, giving the posters an overall friendly, inviting look.

this is my animated web banner. the web banner was always hinted at being the least important aspect of the whole project, so i only left myself with a measly three days to plan and complete it. i initially wanted to work with image on my banner like i had done within my posters, however i discovered the dimensions weren't large enough to include images successfully, so i looked at using a typographic solution. i figured that there wouldn't be many 4 - 9 year olds online, so my banner is mainly aimed at parents. my idea was to present them with a cycling fact that they may not know, so i chose the one above to highlight how easily accessible cycling is and how popular it actually is worldwide as it may open a parent's eyes to the different possibilities when thinking about travel, finance and fitness. i kept my campaign's consistency through the use of my font and the textures which i used throughout my three posters.

so, everything's over and done with and i'm fairly happy with the overall outcome (and a lot happier with my work for this project than i have been my last two,) so i'm crossing my fingers that i get a grade that i'll be happy with. only time will tell!

poster draft #2

just a quick update to show you what i've been working on today! in my feedback session i realised that from afar the white title text sunk into the green background so it wasn't really legible, and also the monkey sunk into the floor because the two colours were too similar. other feedback was that the monkey and the table looked too 'static' and that the image and text had equal prominence on the page and perhaps one needed to take dominance over the other.

so, in response to my feedback, i've worked on the title text and composed a text arrangement which i think is more effective than the previous one, changed up the colours that were sinking into one another and i've given the monkey and the table a slightly more dynamic angle. i don't think i've quite tackled the image/text hierarchy issue yet, but i'm still unsure about which i want to take precedence.

that's all for now!

poster draft #1

i began working today around 11.30am, and didn't stop until around 8pm, and this is what i have to show for it! i slaved over scraps of card, paper, magazine cuttings and various tools such as paints, markers and pencils to achieve an illustrative monkey style that i was finally happy with (the amount of hand drawn and collaged monkeys in my sketchbook is something of a joke), then moved onto assembling a background (and i've still to try out a digital style just to see how i feel about it) before finally attempting to tackle the type on my poster.

type's something i don't really get along too well with. there are a handful of fonts that i'm comfortable with because they're just good all rounders, however, when it comes to combining fonts with my illustrations i feel as though the two just don't mix. recently i made a set of font brushes from my own handwriting, and when i've needed to include text on any of my illustrations, i've used those as the style fits in with my illustrative style. the text on my poster was no exception to this rule; i feel as though my font's somewhat childlike and playful, as is the imagery on my poster, so i tried the two together and i think they work pretty well! of course, i'll mention in my sketchbook that i made the font brushes for the purpose of this project, but that'll be our little secret.

the basic idea behind my poster is to promote cycling safety by subtly enforcing the idea that helmets, high vis jackets and waterbottles (there will be three posters in total) are essential items to take with you when cycling, depending upon the conditions, while also getting my audience involved with the poster by directly addressing them and asking them to interact with the poster, keeping it entertaining for them while also educating them.

tomorrow we're having a feedback session at uni so i can get some advice on where to go next with my design as it's obvious it's not quite as strong as it could be, but if any of you had any suggestions, i'd love to hear from you!