-craters, shell holes
-hill slopes uphill
-topthorn is ahead
-a few horses behind in the squadron
-wire is hidden among trees

Shonen Knife screen printed

I screen printed Shonen Knife today but ended up with really mixed results with the prints. On the first day of printing I didn't have enough ink and binder so was left with splotchy blues.

I bought more the next day but then found that keeping pressure along both sides of the print (I was pulling lengthways) was difficult. Therefore, I ended up with a lot of prints where the top blue bar was printed well, but the plate at the bottom was faded. I think I should try using the squeegee arm next time  I print, as that allows more even distribution of pressure along the print.

More positively, my registration for the orange text was really good in a lot of the prints, so I'm definitely getting better at that. The non-A format size also looks great.

War Horse developments

I tried out various different things for my War Horse images in order to make them less representational and regurgitative of the text. I thought about using the sheep to achieve this with a new composition to the ploughing one which was pretty boring in retrospect.

I also had another look at Bill Bragg and Victo Ngai and realised that i really needed texture to make the images more interesting, so I tried to apply them quite haphazardly in the right image. Neither of these images were working though, so I scrapped them as well and decided to go for a completely different approach inspired by my recent COP work:

 The idea is that it takes after Modernism - a movement that tried to convey the fragmentation of the world after the Great War. I will convey the world through the simple shapes of Modernism and show how the War fragmented the world. This narrative is introduced in the above image through the crack forming at the back, foreshadowing the shattered aesthetic I plan to continue with throughout as the War becomes more relevant to the story.

Shonen Knife gig poster

I was initially going to do a poster for Fatima Yamaha's gig in London in February, but after the frustration of trying to get the previous solution to work, I lost interest and inspiration. Luckily, I discovered that the all-girl Japanese band Shonen Knife are touring next April.

Their music is really kooky so my initial idea was to do a composition with a clothes line of socks with kooky things on them like cats and flowers (which they sing about a lot) because of this lyric which really spoke to me: 

Feel in your pockets for something fun /Wash your socks and turn them inside out

And I've always felt that socks are a good outlet for people to express kookiness. I also did a couple quick ideas of how to layout their band name - I want to feature the Japanese characters as well.

In the end though, I went off the clothes line idea and thought that the breakfast plate idea was equally kooky and potentially more interesting. I did a quick thumbnail which sold the idea to myself and went for it:

 

In the end I decided I against the bar at the bottom.

I think this makes for quite a funny poster since despite the fact that they're Japanese, maybe they'll be eating english breakfasts all month. Putting in drumsticks by the plate like chopsticks was an idea too, but I really wanted to avoid making the image cultural as it could be quite cliched or even offensive. I feel that the vertical text refers back to their heritage in an acceptable way and this was as far as I was willing to go. I feel as though the type treatment was quite inspired by Sonnenzimmer's posters as well.

What I really like about this poster is the fact that the illustration is not related to music in anyway, yet I feel it works. Definitely an interesting approach. This is also the first posted designed in non-A2: it's 18"x24", like most posters you would find online 

Didactic drawing

So I tried to draw according to the section 'Formal Additive Programs' at the back of the Sonnenzimmer book, but don't think it worked quite as well as I had hoped. I started with a drawing of Holland and ended up with some strange images.

I ended up with lots of sheets, some with some really interesting shapes on them which inspired me to start thumb nailing for the next poster. I was enthusiastic about the thumbnails which had 3D forms like my recent COP work, but when it came to designing the actual poster, I couldn't make the image work which was really frustrating.

While the process has been a bit of a failure this time, I feel as though there is still value if you stop yourself early and evaluate what you have made so far and see where that can go.

Niklaus Troxler's jazz posters

 

Niklaus Troxler's jazz posters have quite a varied look across his whole body of work, but I really like how playful and full on they can be. I don't necessarily make similar imagery, but some of the ideas where the saxophone is subverted are interesting.

Didactics

SONNENZIMMER (2015) Didactics: Warp and Weft: Poster Construction + Formal Additive Programs. Chicago: Green Lantern Press

Didactics finally arrived in the library last week and I've been giving it a peruse for the last few days and can safely say it is the most insane book on design I have ever read. It gives a really detailed report on Sonnenzimmer's various event poster designs in terms of project information, connection between the visuals and the event/music, and the composition, including intended line of sights and areas of interest. Along with each of these is provided a short exercise for the reader to carry out in order to inspire a creative process of their own.

The last part of the book, 'Formal Additive Programs', takes the reader through a process of deconstructing a drawing in order to produce something completely new. I'm excited to begin trying out some of these exercises myself as part of my poster brief and further studio practice.
This section can be found online here:
http://s147083.gridserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/sz.formal.additive.programs.pdf

Some notes:

• Surfer Blood and Turbo Fruits poster: The most energetic images arise from an improvised approach to design, which they can do because they don't show preliminary work due to the payment structure of concert posters. 
• Many designs begin with a quick character count and an exploration of ways to utilise the words' structure in the image "Redundancy is a constant danger in graphic design, and unless used subversively, rarely offers an original entry point to a subject matter". "
• It is important to take note of a band's visual aesthetic in order to steer clear of redundancy or even plagiarism. The downside of this preparation is that it can lead to procrastination through endless ideation. One way we avoid this is to impulsively 'throw down' a colour".

Grimes screen print

I think the colours came out well for this and while cropping took a long time, the edges are a lot tidier than the last prints. I've realised from this though that the registration needs to be pretty perfect if I have text in front of two different bitmapped colours in order to ensure maximum legibility. 

War Horse tests

Not worrying about the colour palette yet, but I think these are a step in the right direction to making the image more graphic. The dotty one on the right is looking most attractive if I can combine it with tight brush work. I also think highlighting with the colour of the sky is working really well. This is helping to push the values of the image further and give it the contrast it needed

The image on the left is a composite of two sheets of tracing paper, one with line work and the other with pencil tone. I thought the pencil tone created an interesting texture but the effect is not pronounced enough. Might need work

With brush pen:

Plus a few areas of solid black for contrast

Some notes from screen printing

I've printed 2/3 colours for Grimes. This is the first print that I am doing on A1 paper in order to crop down.

I think that my registration has been better thanks to being able to use not only the design itself, but the registration marks on the side, to align the prints. Unfortunately the crop marks didn't come out too well so cropping will be another issue, but shouldn't detract from the prints too much.

The colour mixing also went really well; using a few squeezes of fluorescent ink has helped the colours pop more. It may not be appropriate for every poster, but certainly worked for kooky Grimes. Mike said that in general, you should print the lighter colours first and work your way to the darker ones, but if the image is bitmapped, the colours should blend together similarly regardless.

While the colours were mixed well, I'm beginning to notice the splotchiness of the ink more and more as Fred pointed out in the crit. This is definitely due to the quality of the paper I am using. I'm just using cartridge paper from the studio, but maybe I should invest in doing at least one print per run on nicer stock like somerset, or just other cartridge with a higher GSM.

Advice from Patrick

Re-evaluate where War Horse images are going - they are at risk of seeming to patronising at the moment as they are not saying unique that the text isn't already. Look at graphic industrial aesthetic of the early 20th century. Re-think colour palette.

I quite like the look of this image:

Perhaps this aesthetic could be my starting point.

First rough for War Horse

 

This is a rough drawing of my selected thumbnail for chapter two.
While the war hasn't broken out yet at this point, the colour palette seems a bit too bright and fun so I'll need to alter it to make it a bit more sombre. I'm pretty pleased with the composition otherwise though.

I'm trying to keep in mind what Victo Ngai said about an image's quality being measured by how successful it is in black and white too. The image isn't too bad and Joey the horse stands out which is good, but I'm not sure the range of values is great enough; it might need more darks to bring it out.

possible alt colour

War Horse - potential scene list and thumb nailing

This is a list of moments in the book which stood out to me whilst reading as scenes that would be worth illustrating:

• Ch.2 - Albert's father with a whippy stick
• Ch.2 - First morning of horse ploughing
• Ch.3 - Riding to check the sheep
• Ch.4 - Horse getting sold
• Ch.5 - Horse getting drawn
• Ch.8 - Leaping over barbed wire
• Ch.12 - Weakening horses
• Ch.14 - Topthorn dies
• Ch.15 - Tanks in battle
• Ch.15 - Horse resting in mud in No Man's Land
• Ch.16 - White flag raised
• Ch.16 - Coin toss for horse
• Ch.20 - Grandpa selling horse to Albert

Thumb nailing Ch.2 - First morning of horse ploughing:

 

Thumbnailing Ch.3 - Riding to check sheep:

I'm taking Ben's advice of using a limited colour palette, but I think it would be appropriate to change it for each illustration, as the tone could be different throughout - this is early in the book where it is still just about the farm. I'm also consulting Andrew Loomis' Creative Illustration for ideas for dynamic compositions. I might go with illustrating chapter two as the compositions have more opportunity for dynamism I think.

Ch. 8 - jumping over barbed wire

More sombre colour palette. I think the top left and bottom right ones are the most interesting as they offer a more dynamic view of the horse. I'm leaning toward the top left

http://www.colourlovers.com Palette site

Some nice horse drawings

Found these small uncredited images of horses in an article about horse safety. Thought the conservative brush technique might be worth taking on board when drawing for War Horse

OUIL603 crit

Main points to take:

• It's good that the three completed screen prints so far show different approaches to the process - stock, colour number and bitmapping, but the screen printed posters brief needs to show how much I've learnt from these and how I'm improving. Document this, and go back to some of these later down the line to see how much better I've become at them.

• My colours can come out really splotchy and this looks bad.

• From hearing others being given advice on size and format, I decided to have a look at what most posters are generally printed at, and it's usually 18"x24". This is bigger than A2 which I didn't want to have to deal with at first, but maybe it would be for the best in order to standardise my designs with the real world a bit. Sonnenzimmer sell their posters at this size as well.

The next poster I design, I'll try and adhere to 18"x24" and will also print on A1 stock to trim down.
Learning in action

Massive Attack printed

Although the concept is still pretty weak, I feel a lot better about this image now that it's been printed.

Thanks to the messy nature of the bitmapped ink, errors in printing were less noticeable with this design  than with the previous ones. 

However, this is definitely the last print which I print directly onto A2 paper with, as lining the image up against the edge of the sheet is impractical and unreliable. 

The next print will be done on A1 and cropped down, which is what I should have been doing from the beginning really.

War Horse thumbnails

I've begun to make imagery for War Horse by thumb nailing a cover. I like the motif of the barbed wire, especially because there's quite an emotive scene where war horse jumps over some.

I have a list of scenes I think have potential to be illustrated - one of which involves a German and a British soldier settling who gets to keep war horse so I did a really rough sketch of what it could look like. I know that to fit Folio Society's standards, the drawing will have to be incredibly tight.

I went the E.H Shepherd exhibition at the House of Illustration in London for inspiration before tackling the brief.

Grimes poster

I fell behind with the designing of Massive Attack's poster and should've been screen printing it this week. I figure to make catching up easier on myself, I'll just have both Massive Attack and Grimes designed within this two week period, and print them both over the next two week period.

I don't think I've ever done a 3-colour screen print, so this will be a bit more of a challenge than the previous posters but I'm happy with how it's turned out. I'm finding these screen printed posters really inspiring in terms of colour and ambition: http://sonnenzimmer.com/#!/page/26 

next potential pster http://www.villageunderground.co.uk/events/fatima-yamaha

Massive Attack poster

insert thumbnails here

Massive Attack don't have too established an image and haven't even used their fire logo on a release in quite a long time. The idea behind having the text all on a guy's body is to show that the show is such a big deal that it's worth having tattooed, though I admit it's not the most exciting image. I'll have to roll with it due to time constraints.

This is the final poster design:

In the end I decided to create some washy inky textures to bitmap into the background, which I think helps with the balance of the image. I also want to print it onto grey stock in order to alleviate some of the problems I had with the empty white space while designing it.

War Horse

research
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/columnists/article-492582/Forgotten-Heroes-A-million-horses-sent-fight-Great-War--62-000-came-back.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zp6bjxs

not folio style, but some nice book covers http://typeasimage.com/greatjourneys.html

Statement of intent workshop

These are the suggestions from the workshop session which I found particularly helpful/worth thinking about:

Rationale suggestions:

• Be more specific in what I want to be an expert in - screen print/poster design? colour palettes/symbolism etc.

Themes/subjects suggestions:

• Are there any other themes/subjects that I'm passionate about in everyday life that drives my work/inspiration?

Products/Methods of distribution:

• If I'm making big posters, think about how they could be re-distriubted at a smaller scale - digital versions/flyers/badges etc.
• Processes are heavy and will require a lot of time if I want to adhere to my rationale of producing work faster

Skills/media/format suggestions:

• These analogue techniques may be time-consuming especially if I want to get them perfect - this may interrupt your rationale but still create quality work
• Am I giving myself too much to think about and develop if you are wanting to aim for a higher standard of work in a short period - maybe be more specific about improving the skills in particular I work with already

General suggestions:

• Think more bout what themes/emotions drive and inspire me
• What do I want my portfolio to reflect?
• Since my rationale is so focused on time and deadlines, I should probably set some clear deadlines

Brief specific:

• Astronomy book: Think about deadlines for research and production.
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?: How long will I spend on these illustrations? What standard will I be happy with?

Tutorial with Ben:

• Astronomy book: think about audience - illustrated books can seem almost 'patronising' to adults, think about adapting my language rather than outright changing it and also re-consider its format - could be a  series of images, a concertina, etc. Look at Nobrow's products such as the history of aviation.
• Electric Sheep: Work to Folio Society dimensions. Pick a colour palette that will help tie the images together.
• War Horse: Research into the world of it - WWI. Practice drawing horses. Consider graphic nature of Folio Society's covers.
• Folio Society books are made as objects. Other books and their covers are more akin to posters that need to stand out on the shelf. Consider this difference when designing for Penguin Random House and Folio Society style images.

Flight Facilities screen print

This went well

The red/brown section of this chart really came in handy and meant that I had a better idea of how to go about mixing a nice red without ruining it. Turns out burnt sienna is a very good brown to mix red with.

ZELANSKI, P. & FISHER, M.P. (1993) Colour. London: Herbert Press

I e-mailed the design to Flight Facilities too, hopefully they receive it/like it.

Flight Facilities poster cont.

Starting again like this is counterproductive to my brief rationale of producing work quickly, but if it's a case of making good or bad work and as long as I can keep production within the two week limit then I think I can afford to do this.

I looked at Matt Taylor's illustrations (and real clouds) in order to get a better idea of how to draw clouds nicely because I really like the graphic quality he gives them. I did some studies and they turned out well:

I also re-drew the plane in a simplified fashion to make the image more fun:

Really happy with this. I think I'll try and have a read about colour mixing before I go and print it though because I don't want to make as many mistakes as I did with the last poster

OUIL603 Flight Facilities poster

My second poster is going to be for Flight Facilities' European tour. I want the imagery to focus on aviation, as their whole branding playfully references their own interest in it. It will be a two colour screen print so that I can incorporate something of their two colour logo, if not the logo itself:

I really like the idea of having a boxed design as it creates uniformity in the poster. I was drawn to the top right composition and began to draw a biplane.

I drew it traditionally, scanned it in, traced it digitally, printed it out and then traced it again with pen in order to maintain a hand-drawn feel to the line quality. When I arrived at the top right image, I felt that it looked a bit grotesque and didn't capture the fun feel of Flight Facilities' music, so I simplified it to the bottom left image and then began to prep the artwork for screen print.

I got to this point and decided that I really didn't like the combination of the plane and clouds and the composition wasn't as dynamic as I was hoping for, so I scrapped it for looking goofy.

I'm going to start again with the bottom left thumbnail