OUIL603 - Summative Statement

This has been an incredibly rewarding module to complete. Looking at work from last year, my work has moved forward so much more than I thought it would. In my statement of intent, I set myself the goal of getting better at producing portfolio-worthy work in less time. I think I’ve definitely achieved this, looking at the amount of work I’ve produced this year and am happy to include in my professional portfolio.

As a side effect of this, I’ve also slowly remedied the concern that I’d had since last year – my seeming lack of a developing tone of voice. Re-visiting the War Horse brief and updating the illustrations to make them tighter is what really opened my eyes to what my work looks like and how I like to produce it. Seeing how well they turned out afterwards was really beneficial to my confidence as a practitioner.

Although I also said that I wanted to stop relying on digital so much and work on my traditional skills, if digital suits my practice then I’m prepared to just come to terms with it. I’ve at least learnt that the whole process can’t be digital – it has to start traditionally and then be added to with digital. Regardless, I still have the screen print side of my practice, which has come a long way since just the beginning of the year. I learnt something new each time I went down to the print room and now feel as though I can leave here confident enough to continue growing not just as an illustrator, but also a printmaker.

OUIL603 - Project Report

OUIL603 - Updated Statement of Intent

OUIL603 - Presentation Boards

Studio Brief 1: Screen-printed Gig Posters

   

Studio Brief 2: Astronomical (Big Kahuna)

Studio Brief 3: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Studio Brief 4: War Horse

Studio Brief 5: Smaller, Responsive-style briefs (Penguin, Secret 7", Orion)

Studio Brief 6: D&AD x Shutterstock

Studio Brief 7: The Bell Jar

Studio Brief 8: Lolita

Studio Brief 9: Naked Lunch

Astronomical - final boards

Here are the final boards for my Astronomical brief, outlining the material created for the project:

I'm incredibly pleased with how this project has turned out. Even though I didn't get to make my screen printed concertina, or even a screen printed book, I think the quality of my posters is top-notch and the book that I've mocked up looks really slick.

Having the main imagery for the project presented in a boxed design means that it has translated well to the inner book spreads and the vinyl sleeves which I've mocked up. I've been told that some of the poster designs, such as Jupiter would look good on textiles, though I don't feel as though mocking such products up would give me any better understanding of my imagery, especially as I am not a textile designer.

The final imagery was produced as a result of me simplifying both my scientific and visual research more and more. Simplification has been key  for me this module, and has resulted in me making some really interesting images. The lengthy research period was enjoyable as it fed into my practical development very quickly through my planet paintings. Once I understood how I could visualise the planets, I was able to go back to researching and pick out what were the most relevant points to read up about. I feel as though this is an even more organic synthesis than exhibited in my COP module.

Although I can't submit a physical version of my book, at least I have produced all 36 spreads and the binding design. I intend to get it sent off it blurb.co.uk to get it printed soon though, as I would like to have a copy.

This brief has been a great exercise in my abilities as a screen printer and designer - the designs/quality of the posters and the book is well beyond anything I've produced on this course before, making it a suitable end to the module.

Astronomical - Book complete

I decided that for the front cover I would have a big red sun, as I think it's a lot more eye-catching than a diagram of the solar system. It's a bit more representational than the images inside, but I think it's okay to have this sort of contrast existing between the outside and inside of the book.

I'm really happy with how the book looks. Giving the planet pages a white background, while also featuring some full bleed darker spreads in between breaks up the flow in a refreshing way. I also think that having the poster catalogue at the end is a good way to really tie together the print series and the books. It makes the book and prints seem like companion pieces.

It's a shame I don't have time to print and bind it, but I would really like to after submission. I'm not sure exactly how I would go about binding it though. I like the idea of a perfect bind, but perhaps sending it off to a professional printers like Blurb would be the best way to do it.
I drew a mocked up perfect bound version and I think it could look pretty cool:

Very sleek, I'm excited to send this off to a printers. Would be nice to get a couple printed, with one to put in the show.

Introductory spread

I started designing the introductory spread today, which is meant to introduce the solar system and have some information on its origin. I wanted to have a whole image of the solar system as I thought it would make sense before delving into the close up surface images I have produced. I made a rough solar system on Illustrator and then fiddled with it on Photoshop to get the final shape and colours.

I was going to have this kind of image on the front cover of the book, but I felt as though its diagrammatic nature betrayed the impact of the main inner illustrations and the posters. I'll have to come up with something else more interesting to make people want to pick up the book

Holst - The Planet Suite

Adam suggested that my poster designs could be re-appropriated into album artwork for Gustav Holst's planet suite. I really liked this idea so decided I should mock up my images on vinyl sleeves to see how they'd look.

I went to the website Discogs to look through their database of classical records and their sleeve artwork. I found that boxing the illustrations/artwork was a recurring feature in a lot of classical releases, even a Holst Planets one. This is convenient since it means my existing designs should translate just fine to the format.

Holst based his compositions on the astrological characters of the planets rather than physical, so even though my illustrations are representative of the planets' surfaces, I added the astrological symbol on the album artwork in order to uphold this element of the compositions' creation.

The sleeves are shown in the order in which the pieces are played in the whole movement, which is not the same as their distance from the sun.

All posters printed

  

 

I have printed all the planet posters and am mostly pleased with them. All are 2-colour, except for the sun which is 3.

The posters which required bitmapping were difficult to work with because these positives had to be printed on acetate instead of paper in order to avoid getting a moire effect. For some reason, all the positives printed on acetate were 2mm smaller than positives printed on paper, meaning they didn't quite register. I had to tape up 2mm from the top of the paper positives in order to make them work which was tedious, but they've turned out alright anyway.

Venus' red colour was printed with ink that was a bit too thin for my liking, meaning the colour isn't as intense as I'd hoped. It was also printed on somerset paper from the print room rather than from the library, which turned out to be slightly thinner. I intend to re-print Venus for the final show.

Uranus also came out a bit funny since the gradient wasn't subtle enough, making the print look like I had problems with maintaining pressure while pulling the squeegee. I also think I may have done a bad job washing out the screen after exposing it since there's a lot of noise amongst the bitmapping. I'm also a bit unsure about the colour, which hasn't translated that well to print. Uranus will be re-designed and re-printed for the final show.

Apart from these set backs, everything else looks great. The sun and Neptune's gradients work incredibly well and the line and shape work for all the others is super sharp. Really proud of this set - they definitely put my screen printing skills to the test.

Book spreads

The book will be organised into four parts:

• An introductory section with a bit of general info about the solar system and its birth, then a spread about the sun.
• Terrestrial planets: four spreads about the inner four planets
• Giant planets: four spreads about the outer four planets
• Poster Catalogue: a sort of gallery for the screen printed posters in order to really help tie them and the book together as companion pieces.

They'll each be preceded by a little introduction splash page using the spacey background I was going to use for the planet spreads:

Still have to design the introductory section. I have the book mapped out at 36 pages, not including the front and back covers.

Some potential spreads

I made these spreads, but have now received feedback from Fred that the spacey background is detracting from the images themselves and that the white backgrounds I used on the previous post allows the images to breathe more. I will still try and use the spacey background for other introductory pages of the book though.

Thinking about the book

Although I may not have time to actually produce the book, I want to at least design it and submit the spreads that would appear in it.
I think of the book as a companion piece to the posters I am producing, so I thought it might be quite interesting to go for an aesthetic that mimics exhibition and museum catalogs:

I don't think I know enough about graphic design to accurately replicate all the nuances of design that are going on in these examples, but I can at least take inspiration from the use of white space and the placement of text.

I'm pretty into the idea of having the poster image spill across the centerfold since the asymmetric design is quite interesting. The title text would probably have to be turned on its side or moved across to the second page since the patterned nature of some planets means the text could not be overlaid onto the image(as demonstrated with Uranus).

In the third image is a small caption that states "Jupiter, Screenprint on somerset paper 18"x24". I like the idea of the book being like an artists' book and having captions for each image, but all the captions would be the same, making it read a bit silly.

What is a really fun idea though, is having the Sun consume the whole of its own spread in order to emphasize its size. This is an idea I think I can hold onto regardless of the design of the rest of the pages.

The completed solar system

All finished, just need to get these printed now.

Printing

This is going well

Final poster designs

I've made these two posters based on a boxed design. I like the idea of showing a large image of the planet's surface with some information neatly placed beneath it. It's a lot more simple, but more striking. I need to see how the more featureless planets like Neptune and Uranus turn out, but for the moment I'm very happy with this. The aim is to have all posters as 2-colour screen prints. 

I have 4 print slots over the next two weeks, so will try and get as many designs done for each of these slots as possible. I'm beginning to think I might not be able to actually screen print the book in time for the deadline, but i'll propose it and print it afterward if need be. This new approach to the posters means I'll have to re-think the way the book appears in order for them to work in tandem.

Here are the thumbnails which I made when I decided to do a close up of the planets' surfaces.

Posters roughs

Based on the thumbnails I did for posters after looking at Simon Page, I designed the above roughs. I initially felt really good about them, but once I tried to take them into production, I had a lot of problems with actually pulling the designs off.

Venus and Uranus showed some promise, but I feel as though the rough brush aesthetic was starting to fall apart once I applied it to large poster designs and getting the balance of negative space from poster to poster was hard as the set started to look messy.
I think the layout needs to be tweaked to be more uniform and tidy.

Printing developed drawings

Decided to take the more developed ink drawings I have of Mars and Venus and screen print them to see how they were looking, and it turns out they're looking pretty good. The colours still aren't accurate since I just want to get through what little ink I have left, but I colour corrected Mars on the left image to a more intense red to get a better idea of what it will look like.

These two scans are both on Somerset, one white and one off-white. While I initially wanted to go ahead and use the off-white, it's a lot more textured, causing a lot more noise on the design due to not being able to take the ink as smoothly. This is a nice effect in some areas, but where I would like to have block colour, it becomes annoying.

Portfolio

Simon Page's Astronomy posters

https://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2009/november/international-year-of-astronomy-posters/

I discovered this guy and his astronomy posters which, despite starting out as a self-initiated project, were discovered by the International Year of Astronomy organisation and ended up being used by them.
Even though they are more on the graphic design side of things, I really like them, particularly the way each image has its own composition but can be taken as a set just by the consistent type treatment.
It made me realise that the ideas that I had for my posters were really boring and needed sprucing up.

I've decided that I want each poster to be a full bleed design which allows me to convey the character of the planets more easily, as I'm not just relying on the planet themselves - I have the whole frame to play with. The characteristic of the personality that I portray will be linked to the short text on the poster (i.e., Venus' heat, portrayed by fiery brush strokes and Mars' dust etc.)

More of Simon Page's space-related stuff:
http://excites.co.uk/filter/Space

Poster design

In between print tests, I'm trying to get the design of the poster series done.

I thumbnailed a few potential designs, also taking into account how well they would accommodate awkward shapes created by Saturn's and Uranus' ring systems. I then roughly mocked them up on Photoshop:

The first two have made me realise that I thumb nailed too much type onto the posters - I'd better keep the rest of the information for the book. I think the amount of type on the third landscape poster is more suitable, so will now continue to mend the other designs.

Further print tests

Did some screen printing today of the more refined brush and ink drawings of Mercury, Mars and Jupiter. I did them all orange, even though Mercury is actually grey coloured, just for simplicity at this stage. Somerset unsurprisingly takes the ink the best, though I only tested on the off white somerset which alters the colour slightly. 

A lot of the texture behind the linework wasn't supposed to be there - the image didn't wash out very well after exposing. I presume this was because I printed my positive using the studio printer and it doesn't handle solid black very well, but Mike said that if I find the screen hard to wash out it could be that it's been over-exposed and I should try out using only 150 light units as opposed to 170. I'll try that out next time I do some print tests.

This is closer to the sort of colour mercury would be:

Planet ink drawings

These are some larger scale ink drawings that I did in order to try and refine the planets I've done so far - Venus, Mercury, Earth, Mars and Jupiter. Jupiter and Earth are proving to be very difficult to do, and I don't think I've quite got there with Venus or Mars either - I'm pleased with Mercury though as it's simple like the planet (second to last).

I think I need to try and simplify the forms of the planets in order to make them more graphic, but I want to still be expressive with the brush strokes as I think this will help imply more of a sense of character or wonder in the planets. This should be easy enough to do with Venus, what with it being a big ball of fire like the sun.

Screen printing from sketch book

In the latest group tutorial it was said that I've not been pro-active enough for this project and the fact that I haven't started screen printing yet was a big problem - so I scanned in various different types of illustrated planets from my sketchbook and prepped them for screen printing to see what aesthetic translated best. 

Naturally, the bolder line drawings printed really well, but I'm more attracted to the expressive brush work of the larger ink drawings - I think that if refined a bit more and bitmapped, they have the potential to be more impactful when screen printed

OUIL603 Brief 9 - Boards

Full evaluation here.

I think the idea of making multiple images out of one image is a really interesting way to construct images, and a really effective way of making a product range that ties together well.
I think that the type of imagery stands out from the rest of my portfolio, which is counter productive to what I have been trying to do, but having spoken to some people from the industry in PPP, they said that being able to show a range of approaches to image making is good for a publishing portfolio.

OUIL603 Brief 8 - Boards

Most of the positive feedback that I have received for my series of book covers has been aimed at this Lolita one. I was surprised by this since it only took a few hours to complete the cover, and then only an extra day's worth of work to do the rest of the product range, including the animation. I was always pleased with the image, but I am now beginning to be able to see more value in the piece in terms of the space used and composition and the muted colours which are working really well. The colour palette has translated really well across all the products.

I really enjoyed making the animation as well. It is something that I'd like to get better at in order to tackle more ambitious ideas related to literature.

OUIL603 Studio Brief 7 - Boards

Evaluation here and here

Book poster screen prints

I want to sell some screen prints at the End of Year Show Art Market, so decided to adapt the Lolita and Clockwork Orange illustrations I did into posters. I will sell The Bell Jar one as-is.

A Clockwork Orange will be two colour, Lolita will be four colour. This will be my first four colour print.

I don't have time to print these till after the 603 hand-in since I want to work on the Big Kahuna, but since I have a digital print slot tomorrow I thought I should get the positives ready for then. Hopefully whoever is in charge of curating the end of year show art market will think they have potential to be good enough to sell.

Considering I (under)sold my A2, 2-colour Flight Facilities print to that woman for only £35, I want to price these at a more reasonable price on my part.