Brief Analysis - Fever Tree

I went onto the YCN website to see what briefs that might interest me. I went into it with having my interests and skills in mind so I can choose a brief that I can (hopefully) excel in it. The one that caught my eye was fever tree, it's definitely aimed at illustrators and package design is something that I've always wanted to do. So I read the brief and took it apart:

THE BRIEF:

We want you to create a series of designs for our annual limited edition bottle campaign that will be eye catching on a busy retail shelf. You can approach this graphically, illustratively; or in any other visual style you see fit.

Audience - Existing costumers 35 - 65 age

The designs must be beautiful and sophisticated in style (not childish in any way) to achieve stand out and to connect with our premium target audience.

SPECIFICS

• Look premium, beautiful and visually engaging.
• Retain the clarity of the brand name (FEVER-TREE), product descriptor (INDIAN TONIC WATER), and key information (i.e. no artificial sweeteners, 500ml etc.)
• Fit around the existing label. The label should remain the same so the customer recognises the product even with the limited edition design.
• Ideally be instantly recognisable of the continent or country
• Create intrigue and interest amongst existing Fever-Tree consumers without alienating or confusing them.

• Entice new consumers to purchase Fever-Tree for the first time 

I think I might do this brief, as it means I can explore pattern design which I have dabbled in before but not extensively. This brief will give me a chance to see if I have the skills to do it, and see if I am versatile. 

About the Author - Print reflections

The print process of the module turned out to be a lot more stressful than I imaged it to be. It seems funny now that I thought I'd have them all done the first time round and they'd all be perfect, always have been the optimist. But, after something thinking, I realised that I needed to go wrong. I think it was almost impossible for me to be successful the first time round, especially as I didn't really know what I was doing. This has made me realise that mistakes are so important in the success of your work, which sounds silly but it's true. Now I know what to look out for when I screen print next time (which I definitely will because I've realised I'm not too bad at it).

I also think I made it harder for myself in terms of my design, because it has so many different elements that need to match up that it was very hard to do so. By the time I got it to match perfectly my screen would be dry so the print would be patchy - very frustrating. But when it did come out right it was so satisfying! And I do really like my design, the complexity and chaos just sums up Adams so well!

As I have done my prints quite early, I'm thinking of returning to the print room to do A4 versions of my Hitchhiker's print. This sounds silly giving myself more work, but I'm really proud of this design and I would really like to sell them. I think A4 would be quicker for me to generate loads, just far more manageable.

About the Author - The discovery of Handsome Frank

http://www.handsomefrank.com

Ben wrote down to look at Handsome Frank as I really struggle with finding artists, especially ones that I can relate to or are inspired by. As soon as I typed it in I knew this would be the place where I'd always be going to! I think the layout is really smart and is full of artists that I could look to for inspiration! I'm hoping that this is a turning point for me in terms of getting inspired by contemporary artists - I'm actually quite excited.

About the Author - Relevant artists

Some artists that Ben pushed me towards for inspiration for my work. I think one of my biggest fall backs is that I don't really look out for artists or link them into what I do, which I know is stupid. I really want to improve this though so got googling on some of these guys stuff to help me with my work.

MARTIN SHARP

Colour is a clear theme running throughout Sharp's work, bright bold and colourful seems to be key! I like how, differently to my work, he's used pattern work and imagery outside of the face instead of it making the face, which is something I never thought about. Sharp also uses the two tone colour scheme very similarly, maybe having too much of the red but I think it works for this piece. His use of repetitive pattern is great and now I also wish that I had this in my own work. I guess I kind of do with the bubbles and stars, but I didn't make it as much as a running theme as Sharp does. 

ANDREW FAIRCLOUD

This image that I found whilst looking at Handsome Frank reminded me of how I used the frame for my own work - having the head and then empty space outside of it in a square format. But I think this image is beautiful, the palette is so soft and the layering works so well as a composition. I think I want to look at something similar to this in other projects, really considering the frame - don't be a square.

JONATHAN BURTON - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 

Honestly, I'm not crazy about his artwork because it's just not really my style. But it's interesting to see how someone else has interpreted the book into their own understandings visually and how different our approaches have been. I do like how he uses composition so well, it's something I struggle with quite a lot so I stick with quite flat designs which is bad of me. I do really want to improve my composition skills, so Burton is definitely someone I want to look at in the future for improving on this!

About the Author - Print room day 3

After my tutorial I was looking forward to printing, as I had hope that these would be the ones. After spending quite a bit on paper and binder I was ready to go! I kept saying to myself, "In the words of Douglas Adams, DON'T PANIC!".

I kept trying to think about how I went wrong the first three times and tried to keep calm. I've got plenty of time. Don't rush. It'll look shit.

I felt that at this point I had learnt a fair bit about screen printing now, so I definitely felt more confident then I did the first time I printed, which is good! The technicians helped me learn certain tricks and how to react if something goes wrong like bleeding or the screen being dry. So when this happened to me this time, I didn't panic, I resolved the problem, carried on printing.

I'm a lot happier with how these prints came out. Yes, a lot of them still aren't perfect, but I think I've come a long way from not knowing how to expose a screen by myself to producing a successful looking screen print. I'm actually quite proud of myself!

About the Author - Tutorial

I already had finalised my final prints and happy with what I've chosen for my animation, so was a bit wary of this crit. If Ben turned to me and was like, 'yeah this is a terrible idea' I would have been pretty stuck. But it was useful, it gave me hope in myself that I wasn't producing rubbish and made me realise that I could actually sell these prints if done correctly (on nice paper and not wonky). This made me quite excited and I just wanted to run down to the print room and bosh loads of work out!
Ben also directed me to a couple of artists that I'm excited to look at in relation to my own work. This is something that I know I really struggle with and need to get into the routine of doing.

IMAGE OF SHEET

About the Author - Print room day 2

I tried coming back into the print room with an open clear mind. I was pretty annoyed after the last printing session so I tried to look at it positively to 'how can I learn from this?'. So I chose to print the middle design because it wasn't close to the edges like the other two, so I thought it'll be an easier one to start with.

Mistake 3 - DON'T RUSH YOUR WORK!!!

Not really sure what's wrong me. I had told myself to be calm and take my time as there really isn't any rush but of course, that would be far too easy! So yes, I wasted yet more money on paper and binder on my pretty wonky, slightly patchy prints. And, naturally, my worst prints were on my £2 per sheet Fabriano paper and my best looking ones on cheap Illustration room paper. BRILLIANT

Oh yes, also when I went to retrieve my other screen to print my second layer someone very kindly had stripped my screen. Three days before it was even expired. That was very clearly labeled. So I had to re-expose my screen. So that lost me about 1 hour 30.

About the Author - Print room day 1

I was so excited when it came to printing my designs. I had exposed my screens the day before with a little help from the technicians and managed to expose my screens correctly! I couldn't wait to see how my prints were going to turn out so I got stuck in.

Mistake 1 - Don't put twice as much paint into the binder because it doesn't go through the screen.

So the first time I printed I put way too much paint into the binder so when I printed it was very very patchy and just terrible. But at least I knew where I was going wrong so I could resolve the problem and try again in the afternoon, deep breath don't panic I have time for mistakes.

Mistake 2 - Actually use the kodatrace properly so the prints are lined up accurately.

This time I think I was just rushing way too much which is stupid considering the amount of time that I have to do these prints in. I wasn't lining up the base colour print with the second layer so they were a bit all over the place. So I had wasted a day of printing and money on paper and binder... but at least I can learn from this.. right?

About the Author - Design 3

I honestly had no idea what to do for my final print. I didn't have a third subject that I knew just as well as the previous two designs, so I felt a but stuck. But after talking to others that knew about Douglas Adams, they recommended I should look at one of the books that Adam's co wrote - The meaning of liff. Because it's more like a dictionary rather than a story book, this meant that I didn't have to spend loads of time reading it, which is the reason why I was put off choosing another book of his. I could just skim through and pick out definitions that I liked. I also think this would be amazing to visualise, as I haven't found anyone who has put illustrations to match these definitions.

So I researched about the book itself
> Always stamped with 'THIS BOOK WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE' - taken from the mormons (assuming as a fuck you joke to religion)
> Co-wrote by John Lloyd
> Dictionary of things that haven't got words for yet
> Toponyms
> The idea came from an old school game and started when he and Lloyd were on holiday together in Corfu
> Released in 1983
> Words taken from place names in the UK

And started reading, picking out certain words and did some quick sketches. I found the book totally hilarious so I kept forgetting that I actually had to stop and draw the words!

After I had a fair few sketches, I started doing the drawing for my final design! 

I think that I may have rushed this design a little because I really wanted to get it done so I could start vectorising it, so it still looks a bit sketchy compared to my second design. But, I like the elements that I've used to combine together to form the face. I tried to vary in terms of shape and size to make it more interesting as an overall composition. It also makes it a bit more exciting for me, as drawing the same kind of form again and again gets quite tedious. I also tried to have some text in the face to break up between the images to give it more of a balance. Also as my other two designs have a fair bit of text on them, I think they'd work better as a set if the text was equally there. 

After feeling a bit more comfortable with the wacom tablet, I made all of this final design using it. I found it a lot quicker and the shapes came out more fluid. I'll definitely be using it a lot more later on in my work!

I found when I was vectorising my work that my initial design wasn't quite busy enough, so I had to try and repeat elements or add more shapes to it to create more of a face shape. But i'm glad that I noticed this when I was vectorising rather than when I printed it and solved the problem early on. 

Now I've done all three designs I can now get round to screen printing them! I'm really hoping that these go well because I'm actually quite proud of them! I know I will probably have some issues because I've never screen printed without having any help before, but at least I have loads of time so if it does go wrong I don't need to panic. 

About the Author - Design 2 (part two)

After knowing how to improve the first design, it made it a lot easier when vectorising my second design, for example, saving my work as an illustrator file instead of just a jpeg. But I still had problems.

After a fair few hours of vectorising, I thought it would be a good idea to turn it into the colours I had chosen and place them together to see how successful my screen print would be. I'm so glad I did this because it helped me pick out a fair few floors with this. So I printed it off and scribbled over it.

I just thought that it still needed something. Some areas were too messy or just not neat enough to have as a final print as they look a bit rushed. So I went back onto photoshop and tried again.

I added more detail the second time round and refined the shapes a lot more which really polished it off.  The cream colour I made the background is too yellow, but at least thats just a tester so I know I shouldn't use paper that yellow. Excited to see how this turns out!!!

About the Author - Design Improvements

After the screen print workshop, I knew that I had to make changes to my first design, so I wrote it down.

What else to put in?
>More writing? - quotes I like from the book/ the most relevant quotes
>Stephen Fry - narrator of the film and audio tape
> Circles worked well, so maybe fill more of the empty space with circles
>Use negative space more
>Have an even balance of colour

So I put my old designs back onto photoshop to see what I could do. Annoyingly though, I had them as jpegs and for some stupid and very annoying reason didn't have illustrator files so I couldn't move any individual layers. GREAT
After staring blankly at the screen for a few minutes, I thought I could just draw on top using one of the photoshop brushes to add to it and use the rubber to create more white areas! It all seems so obvious now! However, I had never used a wacom tablet before, so I was kind of terrified. But, I thought that it was about time that I should, probably being one of the only people on my course who hadn't used one before. So I just went for it

BEFORE

                               

                               

AFTER

I'm happy with the improvements of this design. The purple layer has more going on, the simple outlined shapes now have different thicknesses and patterns running through them, adding an element of wackiness which is very fitting to the author. It just creates a far more pleasing experience for the person looking at the work I think because there's a lot more going on to take in. It also balances out the colours a lot more which I think was one of the main faults in my first design. I really excited to see how this turns out in screen print!!!! 

About the Author - Design 2 (part one)

About the Author - Screenprint workshop

Screenprint workshop

I was really looking forward to doing this workshop as this determined for me whether I'd be choosing this process for my finals. I've always enjoyed screen printing so I was praying that this would be successful! I also took this workshop as an advantage to test out this design to see if it compositionally works, so I didn't have to come in in my own time to do so - Time saving!!!!

Purple layer

Orange layer 

My positives and negatives 

I scanned in my A2 drawing and put it into Illustrator - tracing it using pen tool. I wanted to vectorise my drawings so the print came out more clean and crisp. I also knew that it would make it easier to create the solid black areas, which is needed to produce a clearer print. I also quite enjoy using Illustrator, so thought it would be silly not to use a process I feel comfortable in. 

Exposed screen

First layer - base colour

Finished Print

I was very happy with how the prints came out, even though most of them were out of alignment, I wasn't expecting them to be perfect as I have only screen printed this way a couple of times. 

Having this test of my design was great, because now I know that I really need to even out the two colour ratio as the orange seems to take over the image. I also think that the use white/negative space works really well as a neutral zone between the two boisterous colours. 

So I've learnt to improve my design I need to -

> Even out the colours - more purple!

>Maybe include more elements? Make it crazy!

> More white space in the elements 

Orignal 

Purple and greeny blue

Red and blue

To open up my choice of colour, I scanned in my print and messed around with the hue on Photoshop. It also saves me a lot of time instead of actually printing them all again in different colours - Time saving!! I think it's quite clear that the orange and purple definitely works the best as a colour combination, as they really compliment each other and makes the image pop! I think it's very pleasing to look at.

About the Author - Progress crit

I found the progress crit really useful, because it was reassuring for me to go forward with my idea that I am happy with and how I can alter it to make it work best. Now I'm going to do other designs in the same style to try and get a series coming along. I'm also going to simplify my first design so I can do a test A4 screen print on Tuesday to see if it will work which I'm looking forward to a lot! I really hope it works!

I still have to think about my animation too which I know I'm kind of shunting away at the moment.. But this crit also reassured me that it can be as simple as the elements of the face pulsating or moving around. I definitely know that I want my animation to link with my prints so you can easily tell that they're made by the same person. 

About the Author - Print workshop - Monoprint & Linoprint

I hadn't done monoprinting since last year and not really done lino printing properly, so I was quite excited for the workshop. I also love printing, so I knew that I would enjoy it.

MONOPRINT

I thought that mono-printing was okay, I don't really like how you just never know how the print is going to turn out. I'm also not a massive fan of abstract artwork, I like producing work that shows a high level of craftsmanship. Although not saying that monoprint is a cop out and that it's easy, I just prefer work that you can tell someone spent hours over. 

But I liked the experimentation and being able to create loads of textures and images fairly quickly. I can use these in maybe my animation or some aspect of my work. They worked really nicely as backgrounds for my lino prints which I realised shortly after..

LINOPRINT 

I really liked doing lino printing, as cutting the image into the lino reminds me of paper cutting which I really like. As I said before, I enjoy doing processes that take a lot of time over doing, which I think is why I also have fun with this. Although, I still think that with the design that I'm looking at, screen printing would be more suitable. But we'll see after the screen printing workshop to see how successful it will be. 

About the Author OUIL504 - resolved problems

I came to a bit of a mind block and wasn't really sure of what I was doing and where I really wanted to go. But mainly just wanting to know if what I was doing was actually any good. I didn't want to carry on aimlessly just for the sake of generating work but for it to not be very relevant and just a waste of time. 

But after talking to Teresa, she told me to look at the artist Arcimboldo. This helped me a lot, because I think my concept wasn't bad, but I needed to try and work more with the objects to mould into facial structures to make it obvious that it is a face. Also by working bigger (A2?) this will make it clearer.

So I went out of my comfort zone and took home some A2 paper.

IMAGES 

I made the author's face first just using shapes to see what direction and size that works best to create a facial structure. This helped a lot, as it turned into a guide for my first proper design. 

I'm really happy with how this turned out. I think it's visually quite exciting, as there's loads of different elements to look at and it's clear what author I have chosen. But I want to see if I can try and make the elements mould more into the facial shape. And also because I want to turn it into a screen print, I'm going to have to think about how to simplify it down and not over complicate with line work. 

About the Author - STORYBOARDING

Storyboarding 

> Key frames! Don't turn it into a flip book

> The whole reasons why we have storyboards is to help people know whats going on.

Animation - 4 key types of movement 

> Positional

> Pan

> Track

> Zoom

From our photocopied images, we tun had to create three different 9 frame storyboards starting with the same 5th frame.. which I didn't do.. I struggled quite a bit with this task. Although others were saying that it got easier as they got on with the frames, I found it a lot harder. I find it hard to come up with lots of ideas that are, running out of compositions I could create. This is making me panic a little for when it comes to creating my actual story boards for my animation. As well as this, I don't think I was put on this Earth to use After effects. I can't see how I can go from moving cubes on a screen to end up creating a full 15 second animation of my work. But at least now I know a career path that I definitely don't want to do..

anyway 

TASK 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyYS-GzBSIg

First animation! This is taken from the modern film of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, well taken from the edits as they don't actually show this clip, assumably because it talks about the non existence of God. But, I chose this because I really like the short animations they have during this film, they're so simple and well done. They explain a lot in such a short period but done in such a way that isn't confusing. I also like the colour schemes they use, never using more than two colours in each frame. This is something that I would also like to do in my own animation, I think it makes the frame easier to absorb as too much colour can get confusing and put you off. It also creates a certain mood/tone to what you want to portray in the animation, blues for sadness or bright yellows for happiness. And complimentary colours are always pleasing to the eye. 

The sound in the animation I think doesn't play a massive role in the storytelling. I think it's more used just because silence would be strange. But because it has a narrator speaking, I don't think in this case that a loud song with singing is really necessary. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a7zewiXt9E&index=1&list=PL1z6a0cQpsXDRUsaeZgr1D6Y9PS6KGOGB

Second animation! This animation I stumbled across on youtube. I chose it because it combines hand drawn illustration with animation, which is something that I would like to look into. It's also really clever, using the tissues as a frame, changing the size as the advert goes on. This has make me think that I could use something else to make a box/outline of a frame within the frame than just using the frame itself (that's a lot of frame). The music is also quite simple in this animation too. I think because it would distract from the images and the tissue, which is the main feature of the animation.   

About the Author OUIL504

About the Author 

After the workshop, I started on character design as this is my favourite. Thinking about what I learnt about using different colour pallets, I tried to apply this to my work. What I found hard about this was trying not to copy what the characters look like in the film, as they are described quite differently looks-wise in the book. I also found myself doing quite Disney styled character faces, which I don't really like because it's not different and doesn't have any original punch. 

I then moved onto the Babel fish (my favourite character, mainly because it's not a person). I started drawing it quite normally, using the colours described in the book and experimenting with materials. 

I then got quite carried away/obsessed with this fish, and kept drawing.. and drawing.. and painting.. and paper cutting this weird little fish. 

All the while working out in my head what's the best way of drawing it in a simplest form that's easily recognisable and how to describe it's function. Also trying to look at different colours to see what ones work best together - especially as the final product is only two colours. 

But I had completely ignored the author, so I thought I should go back to him. Exploring his past life and facial structure. I then wanted to try and combine his face with quotes, trying to show the quote in with the composition. I struggle a lot with giving my work a meaning behind it, so I tried to focus on this more than having a pretty picture to look at. So I went with something simple that expressed what the quote was saying. Not like I actually did a good job on this, but I tried my best. I again tried sticking to two colours, because I thought using loads would be counter productive as I'd stray away from the brief. 

I started using gouache to create these linear based faces, which I really like. I always draw faces realistically which especially for this project just isn't necessary. So I like how I've kind of adapted my style to what's needed from me and not doing what I usually stubbornly do and just draw what I want. This face, I then realised, would work great in lino! So I explored further...

I created bigger faces in gouache and in pencil, looking more into the line structure of the face and how I can simplify features. But still doesn't have any meaning behind it! Errrrrr so annoying!

So I experimented a further to try and combine parts if the story into the contours of his face so it has a lot more meaning to it! Yaaaay!

I then did a lino cut just with the lines and circles without the story in the face just to see what it would look like. Especially as I have never done a lino print before, so thought best to do something more basic to start with. Which, I don't think turned out thaat bad.. but I was really impatient and used acrylic which I have now learned never to do again as it dries far too quickly.. But you can still see the shapes and what I was trying to create. 

Now I'm trying to create different stories I want in the face -  his life, the characters in the book, motifs, locations etc.  First by drawing them out, then paper cutting to see if a lino cut would work!

About the Author OUIL504 - Workshop

About the Author - Workshop 1

Why I chose the author?

• Unconventional 
• Humorous
• Imaginative
• Backwards thinking
• Different

This task made me think a lot more about me and the author rather than the book. I think this was a good task to make you stop and actually think about why you like the author and why you chose them in the first place. It made me realise that I chose my author based on the kind of people that I like talking to and who make me laugh. 

IMAGES (MARK MAKING)

This isn't usually my kind of thing of 'expressing myself through marks', but I did find it quite therapeutic. I do like doing tasks that aren't just sitting down and drawing something conventional. It made me think a lot more about how I moved the pen/brush to create a certain mood.

DRAW MOTIF (IMAGE) 

Because I already had kind of drawn some motifs already, this task wasn't too complicated for me. Although, I do struggle a lot with composition and drawing a still frame of a scene. But, seeing as this was only a little task, I didn't want to overcomplicate things for myself, so just went for something simple. When Teresa told us to use an opposite colour for the mood of the situation - this for me was kind of a breaking point. It made me realise that by using completely different colours, it totally changes the mood, and for me, it reflects my author's abstract personality. So this really got me thinking and experimenting.

GROUP IMAGE

This task was something a little different and fun, which I quite enjoyed. I'm not too sure of the purpose of this though, maybe just some fun. But I guess it focuses on character design and how to quickly make a new character which no one else would every be able to think of. Mostly humorous, but of course there's nothing wrong with that. 

SUMMER PROJECT 2015 - About the Author

SUMMER PROJECT 2015

AUTHOR PROJECT

Honestly, I really wasn't looking forward to this project much at all. Not because I don't like reading, in fact I thought it was a good idea to try and get us to read something that we wouldn't normally do otherwise. I just really struggle with having a piece of writing and then having to illustrate it which, annoyingly, plays quite a strong role in being an illustrator.

I decided to choose Douglas Adams - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. A brutally honest reason why I chose this book is because I had a dream that this book was the one I chose so thought it was almost my destiny to do it. Others may see it as a bit of a cop out but I'm all spiritual like that. Also I do love the way Douglas Adams writes. I love the humour and side ways thinking of things that just somehow works so well together. 

5 CHARACTERS - Babel fish, Arthur Dent, Marvin, Vogons, Zaphod Beeblebrox

 

5 QUOTES - "So long, and thanks for all the fish"

"Ford... you're turning into a penguin stop it"

"The answer to the great question.. of life, the universe and everything... is.. forty-two", said deep thought, with infinite majesty and calm"

"Arthur blinked at the screens and felt he was missing something important. Suddenly he realised what it was. "Is there any tea on this spaceship?" he asked"

"My capacity for happiness", he added, "you could fit into a matchbox without taking out the matches first"

5 MOTIFS - Mundane objects/aspects of human life are glorified - towels are a weapon

Humans play the fool - made fun of looked down on

Having a drink - when anything bad is about to happen

Everything is under-looked - when something bad or weird happens everyone seems to act overly calm

Questioning everything - wanting answers to everything

5 LOCATIONS - Magrathea, Arthur Dent's house, galaxy, earth, Zaphod's spaceship

5 DOUGLAS ADAMS INFO - 6ft 5

Massive athiest - Richard Dawkins dedicated his book 'The God Delusion' to Adams

Wrote 3 stories for Doctor Who

Appearances in Monty Python 

Work was influenced by Pink Floyd and Procol Harum

BUT. Because this book was turned into a film, which I have seen a fair few times. I found it really hard to not draw what I already knew the characters, locations etc already look like. Even though they are described so beautifully in the book, I found it hard to separate the two from each other. This makes me think that maybe I chose the wrong book, and that I should have done something that was totally new to me. 

I struggled the most with locations and illustrating the quotes. I struggle a lot with composition, especially with landscapes. I can't get to grips with how you can put descriptive words into visuals. With the quotes, I also struggle a lot with contextualising my work - trying to make it actually mean something. I managed to throw done some ideas, but I'm really not too pleased with them. I don't feel like they're pleasing to the eye or is visually stimulating. 

But, I did enjoy doing the characters - experimenting towards the end with different materials especially finger painting, which I thought worked quite well. I like the texture that it made and is something a bit different to look at. But as I said earlier, it was hard to not think what the characters already look like, and not just repeating the same thing. 

OUIL406 VISUAL COMMUNICATION EVALUATION

SB3 - Persons of note

PERSONS OF NOTE

>I was very excited by this brief as I have always been interested in portraiture and work with people and faces. I also like the idea of using people that have achieved something and have a story behind them, rather than doing modern day celebrities such as Kim Kardashian who I'm just embarrassed to call a celebrity. 

>With the brief being so open I'm actually a lot more worried about my end result. As I found with previous tasks when I was forced to use one method I created a far less generic result and at the same time learnt a lot more about materials. There's too much option now!

The people I initially got  were Jim Henson, Ivor Novello and Bettie Page. I then did a bit of research on each person to try and get an understanding of each person to make the right decision of who would be best for me.

>I then decided to choose Bettie Page, as I didn't know how to approach Jim Henson without just copying Sesame street characters and didn't have much of a personal interest to Ivor Novello. I also found Bettie Page's life very interesting, being a pin up model and being an evangelical christian then developing schizophrenia - I just wanted to explore further.

RESEARCH
I wanted to find out about Bettie's life in a way that wasn't through wikipedia and reading articles, so managed to find a documentary about her on Netflix. Whilst watching I took a couples of pages of notes that I could work from. The main features of her life were:

>Becoming a pin up model
>Marrying four times
>Becoming an evangelical christian
>Being schizophrenic


Although her life was interesting, I found it hard to start creating ideas as she didn't specifically achieve anything.. She's well known in being a successful pin up model and that was her achievement.. So I found myself just drawing her in different positions.

Because I was finding it hard conceptually with this brief, I decided to experiment with materials and media to see if the results were successful. I really like these bright gouache paintings, because they're playful and show character. The bold pink shows her femininity and sex appeal which she was known best for. I think I'm going to use this material further in my investigation.

>But something still isn't right I'm still struggling to do something other than copying a photograph of her it just seems like a cop out..

TUTORIAL FEEDBACK

>After the feedback I was a little more relaxed as it seems like I wasn't the only one struggling to come up with ideas that again wasn't just copying a photo of her. I need to think more about her and what her life/story was all about and try to portray that into an image.

>So I did a couple of sketches to see how I can put her story into a visual form. But with her being christian and schizophrenic I found it hard to try and show this and at the same time not be offensive. WHY IS THIS SO HARD :( So I returned to doing sexy gouache paintings of Bettie.

>Although this doesn't show much about her life, I really like this painting because of the shapes and colours. I think the pink and the blue work really well together, reminds me of femininity and masculinity which I don't think was really a conscience decision. I think I'm going to explore this style a lot more but try and add some context to it

From the previous success of the postcards brief I thought I should have another experiment with illustrator and see how that turns out. From previous briefs I have learnt to always try something new and never just stick to the same materials. Especially as my postcards showed that I have the potential to be quite good at illustrator, so I want to improve those skills further. - TAKE A RISK!

>I like the way that these illustrations came out. Again I like the colour scheme and style of work by using block colour, and there's actually a concept coming through in these ideas. Although I do think that these could be seen as a little offensive, especially with schizophrenia being such a taboo subject it's hard to try and explore.

>I then scrapped that and tried to think what I was actually going to make. So I created some roughs but was going no where!?

IM OVERTHINKING EVERYTHING
It doesn't have to be that complicated.
Stick to the main points about her.

What's working well for me? the gouache and illustrator route was good, nice colour scheme and style of work - try to embrace and focus on that then the work will create itself (kinda)

CRITICAL INCIDENT 

When playing around with illustrator, I copied the whole image then changed the opacities and placed them around the original image just to see what it would look like as I was curious. I then realised that this shows her schizophrenic side! What a great accident that was! It's not offensive like the previous and still obvious to what I want to say. Although I hate this composition. I think it would work a lot better with just the face because there's just too much going on to focus. 

I think that this is far more successful than my previous one as there's not as much going on to confuse you but makes you focus on her. Also just adding one 10% opacity layer is all that needs to be added to show the schizophrenia element. I also like the solid background colour, as I feel like that's all that is needed. The main focus is her, especially being a modal. 

After the group feedback, I was told to stick to this colour scheme (which I was already happy with, so was glad that people agreed) and to do patterns of token elements of her for my postcards and for my stamps have the same picture of her in a wedding dress but getting older.. Both these ideas really don't excite me, and if they don't excite me then they wont turn out great = fail. I think I have a case of illustrator-itis - spending too much time on illustrator without really knowing what I'm doing just churning out the same kind of thing.. I need to step away and actually THINK about what I'm doing instead of expecting it to jump out of my computer screen.

So I had a chat to Matt for some extra guidance and worked out what I was going to do..

A2 POSTER - Same as above but with two different faces - happy Bettie and a more twisted Bettie, probably screaming/angry - this enforces the idea of her mental health but not in an offensive way

>I used my face to create the facial expression that I wanted

>And put it all together

>I also tried putting the scream face on this smiley face, as I thought her smiling would work better. But the composition I felt looked better in the other image so went with that one instead. 

FINAL OUTCOME 

>I'm pretty happy with this outcome. I really like the concept behind it, as I think it's pretty clear but done in a respectful way. The two faces also line up really well so almost looks like she's turning into this demonic creature, which is kind of scary but works well. I also think it works well as a poster, because I think if it was hanging on a wall you'd want to go and look at it and work out what it was. I like the idea of it intriguing someone to go and check it out. 

POSTCARDS - Stop overthinking it. Keep it simple.

Have the same position but wearing a different outfit each time

Which position? Again keep it simple. Maybe just one hand and a shoulder? Just the back? 

I took a photo of the position I wanted her to be in 1)I didn't want to keep copying her model poses, this would be more real 2)I can make it a lot more tailored to how I want her body shape to be

>So I pentooled the face and my body and put them together to make... 

POSTCARD1!

>This postcard showing her profession 

Im glad with how this postcard turned out as you can really see how I've improved with using illustrator, using opacity and layers to create a smoother aesthetic to that of my initial Bettie ideas. This has actually helped my digital confidence as it shows how far I've come just by practicing! Although I think it may be time to use other tools instead of just pentool to create work...

For my next postcard I decided to do her as a bride and for some insane reason I thought it would be a good idea to make a lace dress.. So I found a picture of some lace and started pentooling..

AND HERE IS WHERE IT ALL WENT WRONG

After finally finishing my second postcard I go to save my work quite happily. Illustrator then crashes and force quits. So I loose everything...

...

..

After a cool down shower and a couple of deep breathes I tried to think of a solution. I saw on my desktop that I had taken a screen shot (image above) of a pretty much complete version of what I had initially done - there's hope. But I had to get rid of the bright green high lighted area which I struggled with a little, but I think I got away with it....

POSTCARD2
>After my panic attack I finally finished my postcard which I am happy with. Although the quality isn't half as good as the others I just didn't have time to redo the whole thing. It was the best thing I could do out of a bad situation. At least I have learned from this that I should ALWAYS save my work as I go along so this never happens again!!!! The only way I should see this as is a lesson for next time.
>But I really like how the lace looks in this postcard, I think that the time I spent making it really paid off and looks dainty and elegant.



>I wasn't too sure what to do for my final postcard. I knew I definitely wanted to add her religion into my work but wasn't too sure how without being offensive. So I decided just to keep it as simple as possible and just subtly add a cross in

POSTCARD3

>Although I am happy with this postcard, I feel like it's a lot more rushed than the previous two because I was behind on my mind schedule that I had thought up. But, I do like how it's subtle and doesn't need any other elements to explain what I wanted to show. As well as the colours again working well together. I also learnt my lesson from last time and found myself constantly saving my work every 5 minutes..

ANND THIS IS WHERE IT GOT WORSE

So after I had perfectly planned out everything to be finished in time for my hand in, I became incredibly ill and had not even done my stamps wooo

 

So I stayed in bed a drugged myself up and created these:

>I knew before that I wanted to create something simple - a token element of her outfit or a specific body part. But as my postcards and my poster was based on portraiture I thought id go for item of clothing. I also didn't want to image trace other people's photographs..

>But I was quite clever with this, as I realised that I could just use the base for the first bra that I made and change the colour/shape a little to create a different bra so saved me half the time! 

>I'm also pretty happy with how these turned out considering, they look dainty and cute, just like what Bettie's bras used to be like. 

OVERALL EVALUATION

Overall I am pleased with my outcomes for this project. When we were first briefed on this topic I would have never thought that I would have come up with the outcomes that I produced. It definitely shows how much I can pick up a new tool and, by practicing a lot, can really start using it to create my own style. It's really exciting to see how much I have learnt in such a little amount of time, it's so encouraging. 

I think where I fell down on in this brief is research, as I got so caught up in the digital world that I didn't spend enough time looking at Bettie herself..But yet again I had watched and took notes on a documentary of her whole life so knew everything that she did and who she was as a person. Maybe what I should have looked into more was about what others thought about her - forums, fan pages etc.

But, the brief is to create a poster, 3 postcards and 4 stamps depicting your chosen person of note and that is what I did! I stopped overthinking everything and just stick to what will work best! I think that is definitely something I will take with me to my next projects, because when I start overthinking everything my ideas just get a bit too all over the place and just rubbish. 

I also think I've done pretty well for not even being able to leave my bed for a few days but still managed to finish my stamps and blog this