peer review

My peer review feedback:

- have clear aims and have evidenced a good understanding of the book

- need more consideration into the audience

- lovely textures, colours and imagery

- the darkness in my more developed piece gives the artwork a noticeable atmosphere and definitely communicates the vastness of the wilderness on the island

- proposal could be made a bit clearer; don't say 'maybe' on it

- consider production methods and dimensions of products

- research into making a slipcase

mock up some more finals, even if rough, as they will give a better idea of where you stand and what needs to be done

- have clearly identified my areas of interest; the themes of nature with shape and texture work really well

- lots of visual experimentation, and relevant artist research to help push the process further

- context is definitely appropriate and can see how my work might attract a younger audience

- need to think about dimensions, layout, colour palette

- research into publishers, how they design book covers

- good interpretations of the book quotes

- thumbnails communicate my research into the themes of the book

- might be good to pin down specifically which themes I will be working with, and exactly what my take on the book is; what will I be depicting 

- have covered a large range of products which will be relevant to the LOTF anniversary, will be able to re-apply designs from illustrations so won't be too much work

- pop-up idea at the beginning looks interesting but it could be too time consuming and maybe a bit difficult so if I do decide to do it I could maybe limit the product range a bit

- look at other book anniversary editions and think about how I will make mine stand out from the others.

This is all useful feedback, I feel like I do know what I'm doing and what I need to do, I just need to actually do it. I feel like I have let 505 slip a bit because of the other modules I've been working on but now that Responsive is pretty much out the way, I can focus on this more. 

bookmark mock ups

Made some mock up bookmarks with some possible designs

I made them quickly and just using the cut outs I've already made, but I think the basic idea of them works, I like having parts of the imagery coming out of the bookmark. Also the theme of plants and nature is important as that is what I'm focusing on with my main illustrations. 

development

I've been making a lot of textures and cutting out nature shapes but I haven't actually done a lot with them, so I thought I should probably start trying out some of the compositions I've been thinking about. Here are some of the new shapes I made, I realised it made it so much easier to select the shapes on photoshop when the background was black, so I used black paper on the scanner

I also then realised, after making all the shapes for ages, that it is even easier and quicker to just make the shapes using the lasso tool on photoshop using my scanned in textures, so next time that is what I'll be doing. 

I did a tester for my composition for the quote:

'Now the sunlight had lifted clear of the open space and withdrawn from the sky. Darkness poured out, submerging the ways between the trees till they were dim and strange as the bottom of the sea. The candle-buds opened their wide white flowers glimmering under the light that prickled down from the first stars. Their scent spilled out into the air and took possession of the island'

I had more trouble with it than I thought I would, I thought the layering up of the shapes would be easy but I found it hard to get a sense of depth. So I made a background

I then started layering up the other shapes on top but they looked way too bright and out of place so I multiplied the layers so that they included some texture from behind, but also had to delete the shapes of blue behind each plant so that they were actually visible

 I quite like how it is turing out, I think the colours work and there is a sense that the forest is quite dark and ominous which is what I wanted to create. I added some figures

 I'm not sure about the figures, I need to include them but they look a little out of place. I was also planning to make these compositions very simple and 'Matisee-esque' but this has tuned out quite complicated with so many layers. So I might re-do it in a much more simplified way and see how that looks.

tigerprint - 'make your mark'

I think I'm going to enter into the Tigerprint competition for one of my briefs

http://designcompetition.tigerprint.uk.com/page/CONTESTS/contest/MakeYourMark

the brief is to create a surface pattern swatch using mark making, Although it might be more aimed at printed textiles, I think it relates to my process as I am working a lot with mark making and textures at the moment so I feel it will help influence those designs, while also being quite a fun brief. I've started a Pinterest board to help gather ideas of different ways to make interesting marks and patterns:

https://uk.pinterest.com/astridweguelin/mark-makingtexture/

textures

I made some more textures to work from, focusing on mark making and colours related to nature and jungle plants.

Matisse

I've been looking back into Matisse's work, his cut outs definitely inspired the direction of the style in this project 

I love how he takes a subject matter and strips it to its simplest form but still leaves it recognisable. Also, the colours he uses are so striking and energetic, I want to use a similar way of working with my compositions. I think simplicity is key, I want to come up with a scene and strip it down to it rawest forms, just using shapes and textures - similar to a cave drawing style. 

ideas

Some quick thumbnails

- The boys facing a massive jungle, with an ominous darkness coming out of it

- the boys bringing a pig out of the jungle, to the fire to cook

- showing the mass of coral and sea-life beneath the island

I did a quick photoshop mock up of the fire illustration to see what it might look like using textures:

I do like how the textures work together and it will have good colours. Obviously there needs to be more thought put into the composition but I think it could work. I really like the texture of the fire I made out of this:

I love the energy in this fire but it might be a little too much and be taking attention from the rest of the image. I think simplicity is key with this style. 

final boards (wwf)

Our final boards for submission:

Pleased with how the boards look, I think they flow nicely and have a good image to text ratio where the image is the main focus. The boards are clear, concise and consistent which is definitely important for presentation and gets our project idea across well. 

notepad (wwf)

We managed to take some good photos of a notepad and place the images on well, we decided to make a front cover as well, as it makes it a more complete product

I think the notepad works really well, it was definitely the right decision to take our own photos as it look much more professional, also the slightly grey texture on the front cover implies it might be a eco-notepad which is very relevant. We will make a board especially for this product. 

quotes

Quotes I've picked out from the first 4 chapters to use (might not be final quotes yet) They aren't very character based, but I want my illustrations to be more focused on the feelings surrounding the island and creating that whole setting, and these quotes have such good describing words to work form. 

chapter 1

'The coral was scribbled in the sea as though a giant had bent down to reproduce the shape of the island in a flowing chalk line but tired before he had finished. Inside was peacock water, rocks and weeds showing as in an aquarium; outside was the dark blue of the sea' 

chapter 2

'The flame flapped higher and the boys broke into a cheer. The boys were dancing. The pile was so rotten, and now so tinder-dry, that whole limbs yielded passionately into the yellow flames that poured upwards and shook a great beard of flame twenty feet in the air'

chapter 3

'Now the sunlight had lifted clear of the open space and withdrawn from the sky. Darkness poured out, submerging the ways between the trees till they were dim and strange as the bottom of the sea. The candle-buds opened their wide white flowers glimmering under the light that prickled down from the first stars. Their scent spilled out into the air and took possession of the island'

chapter 4

'When the sun sank, darkness dropped on the island like an extinguisher and soon the shelters were full of restlessness, under the remote stars' 

'The chant was audible but at that distance still wordless. Behind Jack walked the twins, carrying a great stake on their shoulders. The gutted carcass of a pig swung from the stake, swinging heavily as the twins toiled over the uneven ground. The pig's head hung down with gaping neck and seemed to search for something on the ground. At last the words of the chant floated up to them, "Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood"'

final crit (wwf)

We haven't completely finished our boards as we still want to take our own photos of a notepad, but this is pretty much how the boards will be laid out for final submission:

We got lots of positive feedback on our boards which was really encouraging:

- nice concept to add the designs onto a notepad, it adheres to the target market, and small snippets of information are easier to digest

- beautiful media, watercolour is very approproate but font doesn't really work (have changed the font in abve images already)

- don't need email addresses on every page

- clever illustrations to show that the animals are in decline

- spend more time integrating the type with the illustrations

- don't have the pen covering the notepad (in earlier image of notepad)

- water texture and animals work really well 

- maybe put turtle web banner text in white to make it stand out more

- strong impact board

WrappedCo.

We were emailed about a wrapping paper brief which was very open - just design a wraping paper at A2 size. It's only a small brief but I gave it a go. 

I decided to use imagery I have already been working with - the textured pebbles I made for my 505 brief. I really like the pattern on them, they are bright and quite playful so I think they would look good on a wrapping paper. 

I haven't made a repeat pattern before, when I initially started I thought I would just place the pebbles at random places all over the page but then I was told that isn't how you make a repeated pattern. One way of doing it is to:

- make a diamond shape within a square on photoshop, and then place your imagery within the diamond.

- then you move each corner of the diamond, with the imagery, to its opposite corner in the square:

- and then you are left with a white space the size of the diamond with all the corners filled in, so then you just fill in the middle

This tile can then be placed onto the actual page and it will be a repeated pattern. 

Annoyingly when I made it I didn't realise how small I had made the initial square I was working with, so when I put it onto the A2 page the design was far too small;

So I had to enlarge it a bit. Also the lines between each square was really visible because if they were moved too close the pebbles would touch which would ruin the design. I managed to blend the squares on each row going horizontally, but not going vertically, but I quite liked the final design:

Every design entered was uploaded to the website and put up for sale which was quite exciting, and rewarding to actually see it up there:

It was only a small, quick brief but I enjoyed it, and learnt how to make a repeated pattern properly which is useful. And it gave me the chance to have some of my work sold which is always exciting. 

final boards (propercorn)

Final boards submitted to YCN

I'm pleased with the outcome of this project, I wasn't really enjoying the project at first and felt the brief was very vague and hard to understand what they actually wanted. But once I re-wrote it to how I understood it it became a lot simpler also once I started working in a process I enjoy a lot - cut outs and shapes, it became more enjoyable. It is rewarding coming to the end and applying the designs into context - it gives the work a lot more purpose ad direction. 

proof I submitted!

final crit (propercorn)

We had a final crit of our work, it was very informal, just walking around looking at each others work and giving little comments and improvements. I got a lot of positive feedback for my designs which was encouraging

- good colour choice, they correspond to the flavours and suits the tone of voice well

- good contextual considerations

- convincing mock ups

- pretty designs

- maybe don't need so much writing, keep it simple and let the imagery give the information

- possibly a little feminine

I just need to go back and make a few tweaks to the boards and then submit!

filmdoo

I recently heard about this brief to design a film poster for any film, and winners will have their work printed and shown at Cannes Film Festival as well as having the chance to design the artwork for a poster for a new film release which is really exciting

https://www.filmdoo.com/creativity/

I'm not sure what film I want to do yet but I've set up a Pinterest board to help get some inspiration

https://uk.pinterest.com/astridweguelin/film-poster-brief/

I would quite like to do a Wes Anderson film poster as I love the style of his films, they have such great colours that I would love to play around with. But doing quite well known films, or niche films like that already have so many illustrated posters people have designed for them so  have to be careful to not do something loads of other people have already thought of. 

boards

We made presentation boards to help make it clear what our project is about and where we want it to go. They were made for a peer review but I think they helped just clarify in my mind about how I wanted it to look and why I actually am doing it, as I felt a bit lost with this project because I've had to concentrate a lot of my time on responsive recently. 

final illustrations (wwf)

These are our final illustrations to now be put onto products:

I'm really happy with our illustrations, I think they work well together and relate to the appropriate facts well. We used different painting styles to symbolise different information - the washing away to show the decrease in these animals and then the neater, more solid painting to show that these problems are very much still around and will increase if no action is taken to save the planet. 

photography workshop

We had a photography workshop to get a refresher on how to use the cameras to our advantage when photographing our work. I also wanted to get an idea of how to create shadows with work that has pop up bits - as I am thinking about maybe using that for my lord of the flies project. 

First we just used the same object to photograph so that we could get hang of the different features on the camera. 

I found it quite difficult to understand all the different modes you had to think about before even taking the photo - like the white balance, shutter speed and iso. Just getting those right took quite a while, the pictures kept coming out too dark or light or unfocused. It became easier once we brought out the grey board which helped get the right white balance. 

We then moved onto photographing our own objects. I brought some quick pop up plants I made and a little figure, I just wanted to be able to create long stretched shadows which made the plants look bigger than they are. 

I had quite a lot of problems with this, firstly it wasn't a good idea to have bright yellow plants as it just made things difficult when trying to get the photo the right colour as the plants always were way too bright to see any detail. Also I found it hard to get the right shadows, I think it would have looked better if I lit the scene from behind but I didn't think of that then. 

The session was useful but I think it would take a lot of practise to get good at it, it might be too much to take on for this project as 505 is more about you apply our illustration into context rather than the process we use. But I do want to start photographing my work in this way as it will look much more professional. 

carrie's war - final design

I really enjoyed this brief, and am pleased with my outcome. I am very interested in working with book covers and book illustrations, so this was very relevant to my own practise. My decision to do this brief was quite last minute, I didn't manage to read the book but I researched into it and I am impressed with myself for coming up with a design and making it so quickly - as I usually take ages on projects, so this was definitely a challenge. 

Working to a template was something I hadn't done before, but I quite enjoyed having those limitations, it forced my to think more about composition. Also having it look like an actual book cover at the end is quite exciting as it seems so much more real than just submitting imagery - I can visualise it in context. 

I think if I did read the book, I would have had more to work from in terms of motifs and themes to depict, but I am happy with this design. I think it has the right tone of voice for a book set in wartime, it has a sombre feel in the background, but the bright burst of flowers gives it a positive twist, suggesting the story is quite as positive one. 

carrie's war - final bits

I had to add all the other bits to the design - like the puffin logo. But it all got a bit confusing, the brief said to work to an image 198mm x 129mm with 18mm spine and then to also include a 5mm bleed all the way around, which I did. But when it came to placing it onto the template given, it was still too small which was a bit confusing. 

So I had to extend the bleed even more to make sure it fitted. I also added a slightly lighter green patch on the grass on the front cover so that the logo is clearer. But other than that everything worked pretty well! 

carrie's war - full cover design

For the back cover, I want it to lead on from the front - so maybe have the train running onto the back; carrying on the landscape, making it more of a story. 

I carried on the train, while also adding a little end bit to it where people can stand. I added the blue box so I could map out where I want my blurb to be, I thought it could work well to have it surrounded by the flowers. I'm a bit worried about the type and whether the whole design will be a bit too dark and cluttered to be able to read the type, but I'll just have to try out a few different fonts and colours. 

I hadn't really thought about type or where it would go when making this design, which probably wasn't the best move as I now have to work it around my image. I didn't want text that took too much attention away from the illustration - just something clear and simple. 

I don't think the white is very clear against the brown and doesn't really fir the colour scheme, and the black in the corner is too distracting from the planes. I think I will use black where the white font is. 

I'm having a bit of trouble with the blurb, because I left a space under the train for it but it can't be read in black and I think the white doesn't look very good with this design, it is too contrasting. I will have to rethink where I put the type. 

I decided on 'Palatino Linotype' for the font, it is simple and I think relatable to the type of old, wartime classic story this is, as having a really contemporary type would seem a bit out of place I think. I had a bit of trouble with the spine, as having it all at the top seems a bit cluttered, but if I have it going down the spine it would have to be in different colours in order to be visible. 

In the end I went for this layout:

I think it all fits together quite nicely, the white in the title on the spine makes it stand out, also moving the blurb upwards works a lot better. I think it is good to have a bit of breathing space on the back, as there is quite a lot going on in the design. I am really pleased with this design, I now have to fit the template onto it, with all the mandatory elements. 

progress review

We had a review of our work so far and of our project proposal. Fred didn't see any outstanding problems with my idea but thought I could maybe be a bit more ambitious and also think about my work in context - and actually give it a reason for being made. 

I am making a series of illustrations and a book cover for Lord of the Flies, but why? It could maybe be for an anniversary of the book being written and so a new, illustrated edition is being released. Or maybe it could be a regular release in a newspaper, where there is a new chapter each week with a new illustration connected. 

I think I like the idea of creating an event for the book, so I can think about the book maybe being displayed in the book shop and what other relevant things can be made. I could make/design a whole promotional pack to come with the special anniversary book, for example:

- illustrated book marks

- the bag the book comes in

- design on the receipt
- map of the island included with book

And then the release of the book would have things like:

- illustrated book display stands

- shop window display/mural

Some research I've done into shop displays and book marks:

I like the bookmarks that actually relate to the front cover in some way - as if the bookmark is carrying on the design in a clever way. Also the book stands that represent characters from the book, that could work quite well - or maybe having a different character on each book mark. I still need to work a lot on developing imagery for the actual book illustration before I start on all this but it is good to have an end point in mind. 

more context (propercorn)

I tried making the display stand image I had look better:

but it looks so messy and pixilated, and the colours don't work at all, so I will just have to make my own digitally, but I will base it on this structure.

I tried doing it in photoshop, but again it didn't have straight edges so I went to make it illustrator which turned out so much better, much smoother and more professional:

This is a good example of the design being used in in-store environments, which is one of the requirements form the brief. Another way I have used is advertising in supermarkets:

I'm pleased with how this image has worked out, it looks very real! I think adding contextual images is essential because it proves to the judges that the design is achievable and appropriate, also that the design is flexible and can be modified to slightly different formats while still achieving the same effect. 

I also thought that another way I could connect with the audience is through print, as they said most of the audience is made up of women, so I though an example of the design in a magazine would be appropriate.