Nina Cosford

I know the reason for my illustration is to educate people about Mexico and Frida Kahlo is someone who most people know and is quite an obvious thing to draw when it comes to Mexico, but I really like Nina Cosfords illustrations that she did for her collaboration on a Frida Kahlo book. Her style isn't very similar to my own, but I can appreciate it and like how she uses her illustrations to show her life, like so:

I really like the combination of full images and spot images, I think if I were doing a a saddle stitch book then this would be the kind of layout I would consider, but it wouldn't really work as a concertina. 

She's also done some prints of Birds of Mexico and Dogs in Mexico which would be quite a nice extra thing that would go with my concertina book. Although I think I could sell the big concertina illustration as a flat print... that would be a good idea I think

Just Mexico...

I really wanted to do two publications, but by sorting out this Mexico book out and doing all the research and drawing for it, I do not think I have the time to produce a book about the czech republic.. Well I probably could, but I'd produce two shitter books rather than one really good book that I would be proud to show to the industry. So with this in mind, the most important thing is for me to have something I want to show to publishers and book shops and if that means I have one book instead of two then it will definitely be worth it.
I decided to do Mexico over the Czech republic because the colourful vision i have for this book looks more aesthetically pleasing in my head over the czech book. I want something really bright and colourful in my portfolio that will stand out over others, so it had to be Mexico. Also the way in which my mum has brought me up I feel closer to the Mexican culture than the Czech, even though I've been to the Czech Republic a lot more. I'm just more buzzing about the Mexico book so that will spur me on to create something (hopefully) amazing.

Mexican publication - context

I really need to get on with doing my book, so I asked my mum to give me things for each one of these subheadings that I could draw in my big illustration. I wanted a mixture of things/people that you will probably know already (like Frida Kahlo) and stuff that people wouldn't have a clue about, especially with the food I wanted food that's still really popular in Mexico but isn't the obvious tacos and guacamole. I also wanted to try and make some of the topics link together so it would be easier for me to interlink my illustrations, because this is something I'm really worried about and really need to be able to pull off. I think that I should have enough things to draw that there will be lots to look at and be informed by.
I also want to include some really specific things from my family in my big illustration that only we would be able to pick out just to add a personal touch to it.

Artists:
>Frida & Diego
>J.G Posada - into politics - Zapatistas
>Remedios Varo
>Siqueiros

Music:
>Chavela Vargas (Link to La Llorna legend)
>Carlos Santana
>Pedro Infante (Link to Nostotros los pobres)

Film:
>Pans Labyrinth
>Y tu mama tambien
>Nostotros los pobres (Links to Pedro Infante)
>Amores Perros
>Santo Y Blue Demon (1970s) (Links to Blue Demon)

Sport:
>Football - Tigres
>Lucha Libre - Blue Demon (Links to Santo Y Blue Demon)

Food:
>Tamales
>Pozole
>Atole
>Horchata
>Corn on the cob
>Molcajete (pestle and mortar)

Legends:
>La Llorna - woman who lost her children and cries while looking for them in the river. If you see her then it will cause misfortune. - used to scare children
>Chupacabra

Festivals:
>Day of the dead
>Independence day - 16th Sept

Animals:
>Coyote
>Jaguar
>Iguana
>Chihuahua

Aztecs:
>Cacao beans
>Gods
>Temple

Everything else:
>Green taxis
>Mountains
>Flag
>Marigolds
>Hibiscus flower
>Dahila Pinnata (flower)
>Nopal Cactus (cactus shown on flag)

Colour Scheme?

I think I'm going to start with my mexican book, because if I only have time to complete one of my books (which I don't want to be the case) then I'd rather it was this one. I would like to say I have a reason for this, but honestly I don't really. 

I've been thinking a lot about colour schemes for my book because this is something that I really like my illustrations to excel in.

This is a picture of my desk at uni home. Aside from the mess, I have two big Mexican paintings which I spend most of my time looking at when I'm doing my work. Anyway, these paintings are my inspiration for the colour scheme of my book. I want it to be bright and colourful but not with loads of random colours and shades, I want about 5/6 that will work really nicely together. 

This is another thing that has inspired my colour scheme, the locomotion book (again). Although it has nothing to do with Mexico, the use of bright colours can be used in relation to it and I really love them. These are what I am hoping to use for my book:

I got these pantone postcards for my birthday and they are the best things in the world ever for deciding colour schemes. Anyway this is what I want for my Mexican book, maybe a bit brighter but hopefully not far off this. I will also have white for some negative space to let the images breathe a little. I am very excited to get going with my image but also extremely shitting myself. 

Beyond the surface

This is another concertina publication which is similar to what I would like to produce, although this one has two big illustrations on either side (one above the surface and one bellow the surface). I am getting a bit worried, because there's just so much detail in the big images that I hope I'm not struggling to create it... But I think I just need to set myself a page target so I can get my mind in the right zone. I have this book myself so I can take a better look at it if I'm struggling. 

Reference Imagery - Mexican photos

Family photos in Mexico

do the LOCOMOTION

I've been stuck on what to do for my publication for quite a few days now. I had all the context for my books but I just wasn't really sure how I was going to lay it out, until I saw this book called Locomotion!

This is exactly how I would love my publications to look like. I want one side to be a massive illustration about the country, and the other side to have spot illustrations taken from the massive illustration with information about it. Although the big illustration is going to be really hard to do, at least this will make it easier for me to make it double sided. 

I want my publication to be really brightly coloured but still relevant to the country it represents. I want people to want to pick up my book and want to put it up on their room as a piece of artwork as well as an informative publication. I am terrified for the illustration because this is massively out of my comfort zone, because I only just really do spot illustrations so this is very different. I also want to paint it all so this may take a while... But it would look amazing if I pull it off so I hope it goes to plan! 

Not willing to give money to creatives final illustration

FINAL IMAGE

After not being too sure whether to do this illustration 

(seeing as it isn' really for a brief it's more because personally this is something that annoys me and has been on my mind a lot recently), I went for it! Mainly because I've had such a mind block with my fmp that I needed to paint something to get my creative head on. 

I like the context of this image, but in terms of proportion I am not really happy with it. I think that the hand looks a bit weird, I didn't really want it to be really realistic but the fingers look really strange to me. But I think the colour scheme is great, I really love working with a limited colour palette, I think it makes my work far more pleasing to look at and more of a talking point. I want to really get into colours and how they work together. 

czech mushrooms and mental blocks

I do feel a bit lost with what I'm doing right now, especially in terms of the layout. I thought the best way to overcome any mental blocks is just to paint relevant things and I'm hoping that it will all fall into place. This didn't manage to solve my layout problem, so I'm going to keep painting and see what happens... 

I am unsure of this painting. I liked it a lot more in real life then I do now looking at it on screen because I did the detail so fine that it gets a bit lost in this. So I suppose what I can get from doing this is to make sure not to go too thin with my lines because they do just get lost in the image. 

Another brief maybe...

Even though I've been trying to get away from political illustration for a while, I thought it might be a bit of wasted opportunity to not apply to this competition. Also $10,000 would be fucking tasty right now so that would be great. 

I was looking at the previous winners to see what kind of stuff that they want, and I realised something that made me slightly annoyed... Every first, second & third prize winner as well as the 10 people getting citations for excellence every single year have ALL been men. EVERY SINGLE ONE!????? WHY is this?? This can't be by coincidence surely? This has made me want to apply for this competition even more just to prove a point, the first female winner!!!!!

Czech food - what I remember

Veseli

Something that first comes to mind when I think about czech food is mushrooms. Whenever we went to the cottage in Veselí we would go into the woods with my grandpa and look for mushrooms. I was always amazed that he knew exactly what ones to eat and what ones were poisonous. I used to think this was just something that my grandpa liked doing, but now I've come to realise that this is almost like a czech national sport... This is definitely something that I need to include in my book! 

I want to have something like a little guide that comes with the book about what mushrooms you can forage and then a recipe for mushroom soup (hopefully mum might have one).

Commission! (2)

I got this email asking for collaboration with her final major project after doing a previous commission for her friend (the veggie poster & fur women brief). It's cool to see how word of mouth can really help you out as a creative and how important it is to make a good impression and don't act like a dickhead. 

I'm hoping that I can take on this commission, because I don't feel like I've done enough smaller briefs for this module, and would be nice to have something alongside my fmp or maybe I think I might lose my mind a little bit. But it depends how many illustrations she wants from me because if it's like 20 then I just wouldn't have the time for it which would be a shame. 

Czech Hockey & Football gif

I wanted to experiment more with making gifs, and this is definitely the longest one I've ever made (26 frames woaoaah) and came with a lovely massive file size which I'm currently trying to reduce. 

I wanted to do something on their love for ice hockey, but they also love football just as much so I thought that it should really also be included in the animation. So I came with the idea of having someone hitting a hockey puck and then it turns into a football then goes into a net then repeat. I think what I produced with my limited skills wasn't too bad... Yes it isn't very smooth and it does look a bit badly drawn, but at least it works with the communication and means a lot more then my previous Tigres gif did. A lot more practice is needed but I knew that anyway so I'm not too disheartened. 

Czech Sports - Ice Hockey

> Most popular sports in CZ - Football, Ice hockey, volley-ball, tennis, kickball (like volleyball but you kick the ball over the net).
> Football is also one of the most popular, but this is same in Mexico, I don't want the sport section to be that similar in my books, so I think I'll do ice hockey but still mention football.

My grandpa watching the ice hockey - 2015

> The czech national ice hockey team is one of the top teams in the world 

> Member of the so called 'Big-six' - unofficial group of the best six mens ice hockey teams

> The Czech Republic has 72,075 players officially enrolled in organised hockey (0.7% of its population).

> Competing in the World Championship, the Winter Olympic Games and the Euro Hockey Tour

This is the czech coat of arms which is also on the players jerseys. I think I could work with this image and make the elements move also??? I need to put it into context a bit more though, like have the badge on the jersey or have the birds/dragons or whatever they are wear ice hockey gear. 

To do list

CZ Mood board - What does the Czech Republic mean to me?

I decided to make a mood board so I could get some ideas flowing. I want to make this book personal as well as informative, so I had a look through family photos and chose the ones that I thought would be the most relevant to my project. This has started to get me thinking about what I want to include in the book, even if it might seem a bit random to someone else (like the czech cartoon) it would mean a lot to me. I want to add as many personal touches as I can. 

Christoph Niemann

http://www.christophniemann.com/portfolio/nyercover/

(Better animations on his website check them out they're proper sick)

I've seen Christoph Niemann's work before, but after watching the Abstract series on Netflix I saw his animated front covers for the New York times and I am buzzing about them! I knew I wanted to have some kind of animation in my work and this is so inspiring! Also maybe quite intimidating because my animation skills are not on his level, but it's definitely something I want to work on, I don't just want boring static images like everything else. I really want my publication to be different, and this is exactly how I can do that.

Czech Republic - Family photos

A collection of photos from the Czech Republic from 1970s to now(ish). I'm hoping that I could include some of this imagery into my publications, even if it's very subtle, it would personally mean a lot to me.

Mexican recipes - Family help

Even though mum and my auntie haven't lived in Mexico in quite a long time, they both love making Mexican food pretty frequently which helps me a lot for the food section. The food hasn't changed drastically over the years so these recipes should be perfect for my book! She also said that she'll send me the hand written versions of some of the recipes which might be great to add subtly in the background, very exciting yes! 

(Post revisit) Photos have been sent!

Family research help

The best thing about this project is that almost all of my research will be first hand primary research, using either what I already have experienced personally, or what my family know. Luckily one of my aunties still lives in Prague, so her knowledge will be very current and accurate as she lives it everyday and she is very happy to help me out! So I sent her an email with my sections that I'm interested in doing for my book and hopefully I will get lots of juicy information!

Peer Review

I found the peer review today really helpful. It's made me think about other things that I should include to go with the books, like the illustrations that are in the books as postcards and stamps which would work really nicely. Also how I NEED to consider type and the layout of my publications and really get my sections of what i want to include for my book. 

Now i just need to really get on with it and get my sections down and get drawing and be buzzing and destroy this

Illustration travel books!!

There are some illustrative travel books!! You just have to spend a while looking for them...

Martin Haake - City Atlas

The city atlas book has full page spreads of a large variety of different countries, using type but primarily illustration to educate the reader. Honestly I'm not a massive fan on the illustrative style used, but I do love the concept of having everything on a page and how engaging that is. It's also made me realise that I don't need loads of type for each subject that I want to talk about,.

'This is' M.Sasek

I remember seeing the 'This is London' book in an independent art shop in Brighton a few months ago (might be in the deep dark depths on ppp blog somewhere maybe not sure). Again this isn't necessarily the kind of illustrative style I strive for, I think this is a great concept, especially for kids I think it comes across as extremely engaging and actually makes you want to pick up the book and flick through which i need to have for my books. 

What's already in store?

After my tutorial I decided to go into town to see what kind of travel publications that were already on offer. But I didn't want to just look in the obvious Waterstones & WHSmiths, I wanted to see smaller chains or shops that aren't specifically for books.

LIST OF SHOPS I SAW THAT WOULD BE SUITABLE FOR MY BOOKS:

> Village

> Colours May Vary

> Urban Outfitters

> Joy

> Oliver Bonas

> Waterstones

Village book shop was the first place that I came across on my search. I don't know whether I was looking in the wrong places but these books were the only ones that I could find that were travel based. I found them very engaging, as I found myself wanting to open the book and look through - this is something which is going to be extremely important for my publication. Although these Lost In books (and also the website) are very slick, it's too graphic designy for me. Like the type is cool and the pictures are vibrant, but I'm a bit bored of seeing just photography in these books WHERE IS THE ILLUSTRATION

I already knew that Urban Outfitters would be a good place to find the kind of books that I enjoy producing, so I knew I would find a good travel book here. This one really caught my eye with the front cover, but all of the copies had cellophane over them so I couldn't look through which was a shame. So I googled the book to see if i could have a sneaky peak, I was optimistic because the front cover was illustrated, but again it was just nice type and nice photographs. 

I didn't even realise the lack of illustration in these travel books, but I'm sure I can find some... surely????? 

Tutorial

The second half of my tutorial was on my fmp and what I need to think about it for it. It's made me think about maybe going away from doing a conventional travel book and do something more interesting like a concertina instead. This is because I don't just want it to be a publication, but also something that you would want to display in your room and have out for everyone to look at. 

I also need to think a lot of distribution, where would my work be sold?? and what's already out there??? I need to tie PPP into this too, and when I actually have these books made approach shops that might be interested in having it. 

Test moving image

In my publication I want to include the concept of being able to use your phone to hover over some of the images and for them to move. Animation isn't particularly my strong point, but I know how to make a basic gif so I think that's enough!

I did a simple painting of a Tigres player. The image doesn't particularly say much in terms of context, but I just wanted to test out my animation 'skills' on something simple first.

I wanted to have at least two things moving in the image, just his arm and maybe a crowd in the background? Just so there's more than one thing to focus on when looking at the screen. 

I'm quite happy with how the gif turned out, considering that I don't make gifs very often especially hand painting each element which needed to be moved. But I think it is great practice, so when it comes to doing my actual final image and gif it should (in theory) be far more successful. I think this gif is a bit static, it doesn't really move very fluidly (his arm in particular) this is something that I know for next time that I need to address. It also needs more context for my book, it needs to entice people to want to read the article and want to find out about this unfamiliar sports team. 

Research - Mexico sport section - Tigres

I want these publications to be informative but also as personal as I can, this is why I chose the Tigres as my subject for the sports section because they're the football team from where my mum is from in Mexico (Monterrey). But also because football is one of the most popular sports in Mexico, so is still relevant and informative about the culture of the place. 

Coincidentally, the Tigres are my go to choice for picking my team on Fifa.

RESEARCH ABOUT THE CLUB (just wiki) - general

> Founded in 1960, the club has spent most of its history in Liga MX, the top tier of the Mexican football league system.

> First team of northern Mexico to win a trophy by conquering the Copa MX.

> Tigres is the official team of the public University of the state of Nuevo León.

> The team's traditional kit colours are gold and blue.

Looking at newspapers

Before I could really do anything else, I had to look at what is already out there in terms of newspapers. I needed to see the layout of words to images as well as the sections that they include. So i bought the i and the private eye, although I know the private eye was just political and the i is a daily newspaper, I still wanted to see their layout and design. 

The i actually helped a lot with what sections I should include in my publication, narrowing it down to about eight different topics as well as extras like adverts. I need to be careful with having too many and not being able to get in done in time and the opposite with having too little and a pathetic thin publication. I also need to have a variation of topics so everyone has something to look at. 

Both newspapers were very writing heavy - this is something that will not be in my publication. This is what people said in my survey and why they don't think it is suitable for people my age. I want the writing to be minimal and the imagery to be plentiful. Also of course I'm on an illustration course not creative writing, so it's all about the images. 

Looking at these newspapers were quite helpful, now i have a clearer idea for my sections and how to lay out my publication. 

P.O.A

THE PENNY DROPS

 I've been having a lot of trouble of what to do for my final major project. I found myself going round in circles a lot and coming up with ideas which weren't necessarily bad, but because the thought of having this massive project in my mind since I got here in first year I have these expectations in my mind that it has to be the biggest project in the world and this has made me over think everything. 

So I stopped over thinking it and went back to what I originally wanted to do - create work for people in my generation explaining news stories that they want to know about/know more about. 

But I couldn't get a subject matter in my mind, what am i actually going to draw?? But this had already been answered in my survey?!? so why didn't I listen???? The biggest subject that people didn't see in the news enough or don't know enough about is non-western countries. And they said this is exactly what they want to know more about! So do it!!! 

This led onto me thinking okay so a newspaper style publication providing information all about non-western countries, but this is way too big so I should really pick a country - what ones do people really know nothing about? I felt like asian countries was an obvious choice, but what about eastern european? Then I thought back to what Ben said about making the work really personal, so why don't I do two countries that I'm from, Mexico and Czech Republic, two countries that no one really knows anything about (especially the czech republic).

 

I am honestly so excited about this now! By using these two countries I have so much first hand research that I can use, people I can talk to! Now i have a lot to do so need to get on with it really.

SO MY IDEA SUMMED UP BASICALLY IS:

Create two newspaper/magazine styled publications on Mexico and the Czech Republic. Each publication will contain the same sections that a newspaper contains: sports, economy, cooking etc. It will be easy to read and very visual. The purpose is to educate people my age on non-western culture. 

I'd also like to make gifs so when you hover your phone over the still images on the publication they become animated.