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

OUIL603 - Manuel Gottsching poster

I've already made a start on one of my Extended Practice briefs and have produced a screenprinted poster for a Manuel Gottsching gig at Hebden Bridge which I went to a couple weeks ago. He's a German guitarist/electronic musician

I started out just by doing a couple of portraits, incorporating a checkered pattern in reference to the album art of the record he performed and then realized that it would be nice to show that he also plays guitar, so thumbnailed this very quickly.
I then developed the thumbnails. I was pretty set on using columns of colour as it mimicked the visual display behind him while he performed. I also decided to silhouette him as it worked better with the strong bold shapes of the rest of the poster.

It took two separate days of printing because I messed up with the mixing of the ink and binder and the ink ended up really uneven and thin:

So the next day I got advice from several technicians about my ink/binder ratio and how to mix the appropriate colour:

I'm really pleased with the final result and the colours; although it was mentioned by a couple people that maybe the kerning of the two Ts could've been adjusted.

http://www.admrwe.com/posters.html

OUIL603 Statement of Intent

Extended Practice Brief proposals

Brief 1 – Events Posters

A passion of mine for the past couple years has been poster design. I think that a beneficial brief for me to carry out would be the regular designing of posters for gigs/nights/events. I really like the aesthetic that screen-printing gives to a poster, and so I would ideally like to produce most, if not all of the posters through this method. Considering this, I think that a suitable time frame for each poster, from design to printing is two weeks, on top of all other commitments. Perhaps I can even find a way to get these posters out there if I contact promoters.

Brief 2 – Solar System Book

I’m quite interested in space/astrology, and this interest has been piqued often by what seem to be some really great strides in the field over the last year or so. I’ve wanted an excuse to just draw/paint planets for a while now so I think I want to do a small educational book/booklet about the solar system. My work doesn’t really suit/appeal to young children, so I think I would design it with an older, teenage audience in mind. Depending on how much I can practice my bookbinding skills over the year, I will either bind the book myself, or get it sent off to a book binding company as the BA Photography students do in the college.

Brief 3 – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

I read Philip K. Dick’s sci-fi novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep over summer and thought that he created such an interesting world that I want to try and visualize it in my own way. Unfortunately it’s 2 years off from a 50^th anniversary so I don’t have any reason to make a big promotional campaign out of it, but I would rather just design a jacket cover and some interior illustrations for it. There are 22 chapters in total, which is a lot of illustrations, so I will have to be selective about what from within the book I illustrate. The illustrations will be for a paperback edition, meaning that the cover will be full colour, but the interior images will have to be black and white. I feel this will be more suitable for illustrating the bleak world.

Brief 4 – YCN / D&AD

I want to enter at least one YCN or D&AD brief this year. I was intimidated by the winning entries for most of the briefs last year and feel as though I was on the wrong track for most of what I submitted, but if I can make something as professional as my Vice animation last year with more consideration to tone and audience, I think it will be a worthwhile experience.

Brief 5 – Secret 7”, Penguin Random House, etc.

I want to re-enter some of the smaller competitions that I entered last year for Responsive such as Secret 7” and Penguin Random House. Looking back at my entries and seeing how they compared to what did win, I feel like I can enter these competitions with a more intelligent approach and stand a better chance of doing well. The list of small competitions will of course grow throughout the year as I become more aware of what is out there.

Brief 6 – House of Illustration Book competition

House of illustration’s annual book competition is to illustrate a binding and three interior illustrations for Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse. As it is in conjunction with the Folio Society, the quality of work would be expected to be of a high standard, and I feel like this task would be considered a significant brief.

http://competitions.houseofillustration.org.uk/book-illustration-competition-2016/how-to-enter/