Saturday Scribbles

saturday scribbles

this week i've been desperately trying to pull all my unfinished briefs together, including my alice in wonderland and my nhs work. after a few unsuccessful attempts at a book cover for alice, i think i finally cracked it and pulled a design together which is largely typographic, simply because i thought it'd be a nice touch to have some hand lettering alongside the two inner illustrations which don't leave room for any type whatsoever. i think i'm almost there now with my alice work as a whole, and after a bit of feedback and a few tweaks, i think i'll be pretty happy with them. it's been a bit of a slog developing the illustrations, but if i end up happy with the end results it'll all have been worth it; i just have to hope now that the tutors are on the same page as me on monday with thinking that they're almost there!

i've spoken briefly about my nhs project before on my blog, however i've neglected to show any visuals because nothing was really all that solid up until around a week or so ago. above i've decided to share a few app screens that i've thrown together for assessment purposes simply because we need visuals to present our ideas, however i don't think the project is anywhere near completion. for my live projects and competitions module i need to have work handed in by the 13th january, but because the brief is a live one i'll have time afterwards to get feedback from the client and further develop the idea and the visuals from there, which suits me just fine at the moment because i don't particularly have a lot of time right now! now me and my classmate that i'm working with have a clearer image of our idea and a working theme to go with, i think it could potentially becoming a little bit more interesting, but i'm just going to wait and see where it goes over the next few weeks. 

tomorrow i plan on finally getting around to redrafting my entry for the puffin design award, which is a book jacket for carrie's war. i've already roughed out the design i think i'm going to go with, so it's simply a case of getting my head down and getting on with the illustrating. i say that now, but i always find that book covers are a pain to design; if i've learnt anything throughout my first term of third year, it's that designing and illustrating book covers is much, much harder than it appears.

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finished picture book: the sloth who almost stole christmas

today i present and hand in my final *real* piece of work for the year, and i'm so stupidly excited about it that i might just bust! the idea for 'the sloth who almost stole christmas' has been floating around in my head since around october last year, so it's so incredibly satisfying to actually have my thoughts now out in the real world, written down and documented visually ready for people to have a browse through! a few of my friends and the tutors have had a read of my story in its entirety, and i'm pretty much getting thumbs up all round - one tutor even said he'd like to get a copy printed to read to his own children, what a dream! it's fair to say that i'm incredibly proud of the final outcome and i'm just so excited to be able to have it in my portfolio as a testament to the fact that i'm interested in writing as well as illustrating - note to self, explore more story ideas over the summer - and also to prove that i am capable of producing an entire picture book, on my own, from cover to cover. ah.

i'll not babble on any longer, but i am so darn happy to end second year with this hand in. squeeee! i'll leave you with some spread images to have a nosey at, which you can also view through my online portfolio.

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one cannot be unhappy when looking at a sloth

i thought i'd nip by to share with you all a page from my sketchbook from today. someone must've heard my persistent moaning because, at long last, the day/week long project has finally been completed, hurrah! i spent the morning doodling sloths because i found that there wasn't much for me to contribute as a group of people were busy working hard at the main design, however, much to my surprise, the rest of the group were game for including a sloth somewhere in the design, and so the top right image of the sloth taking a dip in a teacup will soon be on its way to berg's office along with the rest of the design that the class has worked so hard on, yay!

sloths are my source of inspiration for the mindless doodles i find myself churning out... actually, they're my source of inspiration for everything, including getting out of bed on a morning. man, i just love sloths. i hope you enjoy the above sloths, and also, the ones below. sloths!

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blog redesign

so if you hadn't already noticed, my blog's recently undergone a complete makeover. i decided it was time to give my blog a revamp to illustrate the fact that it's now going to be used as a personal blog as well as a platform to showcase my work on, and this is what i came up with.

i'm pretty pleased with it all in all, i've really surprised myself over the last few months with my attitude to typography and how i've approached it and increased my confidence when using it, and i'm also pleased with how i'm slowly improving on throwing colour schemes together, this one included as it came straight from my brain for a change, no referring to adobe kuler this time, woo hoo!

here's to further building my confidence as an illustrator, designer, and now, fashion blogger!

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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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my first zine! (it involves sloths...)

a couple of months ago i wrote this little step my step* zine about how to become one with the sloths, and now i've finally gotten around to fully illustrating and finishing it all off! it's taken time (mainly because i've been lazy...) but better late than never, eh? definitely better to have been finished before my move back to uni in a week's time!

if you'd like to read more about my zine or perhaps purchase it, head over to my etsy listing here :)

*disclaimer: this is a very sarcastic step by step guide, please do not take any steps literally...

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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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the wind in the willows: final book cover

here's my final book cover for the wind in the willows, thank you for all the feedback and lovely comments you all left me, i really do appreciate every last one i receive :)

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the wind in the willows book cover: your opinion?

so since making some minor character adjustments to my book cover, i've come to realise that i'm actually pretty happy with the design overall, meaning i won't be making any further changes to composition/colour/type etc. and just sticking with what i've got (because you can overdo it, right?)

since slightly reillustrating my characters to give them each a little bit more personality by highlighting their general feelings towards toad, i've been told that although the personalities shine through more, the overall vibe that the book gives off is fairly negative because of the expressions of badger and ratty, and may therefore put a reader off.

so, my question for you guys is which book cover do you feel is the most effective? the back page from the top spread will be the one used on whichever front cover i decide to go with, i'm just too lazy right now to create another image for the spread below (sorry!)

it'd be really nice to get some audience feedback on this, because ultimately, it's people like you that i'm targeting while you're walking around a book shop! feel free to comment below or tweet me, i try my best to reply to all comments and tweets that i receive!

thank you!

the wind in the willows: draft 1

so as i mentioned, this year i wanted to enter the puffin children's book competition just for fun, experience and to prove to myself that i can manage other projects alongside my university projects, and here is (finally) my first draft of the book cover!

i still want to tweak the back page and i'm considering reillustrating the main characters so that they interact better with the entire front cover (this design isn't how i initially planned it to be, but while arranging all my characters/text in photoshop i realised that my original plan wasn't really going to work,) but other than that i'm pretty content with the colour scheme, background and type (which is a first!)

here's the background pattern i created, it simply features some of the characters that the main four characters bump into along the way and i felt it was important to include them in the book cover design because they help influence how the story moves along.

any feedback on how to improve this design would be really appreciated, so if you've any comments at all i'd love to hear them!

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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!