Amber Kaplan OUIL505 Applied Illustration Project Report
I feel like I started this module promisingly. I was excited to get going with it and do some work that I felt like I could really play around with and make something great. I started off by choosing Book Design & Publishing as the area I wanted to work within as initially I wanted to explore nonstandard books, as I found these really interesting to look at and wondered how one would go about making them. However I didn’t actually end up doing much to do with books at all due to several different reasons. This is still something that interests me but it may be something that I will just have to explore in my spare time. I found it very difficult to think of my project in terms of a product as some areas felt quite contradictory. It felt as if we simultaneously were and weren’t meant to know what we want to make for the final pieces and product. I think this is something that I really ended up sabotaging myself with.
Alison Woodward Little One
I thought that I would enjoy setting my own brief but I fell into the all too familiar pit of having too many ideas of things I wanted to do, so deciding on something was a total menace. I kept flitting from idea to idea, I started off thinking I wanted to do something about space but in the end decided to do Greek Mythology as I thought there would be more scope for fun and interesting pieces. I think there was within the field I chose but I definitely got too caught up in always trying to relate it back to book design and publishing, when really I should have has a look at the ideas I had and moulded the area of focus to fit that rather than trying to force what I had made into the setting. Which is what I ended up doing on this module! My initial proposal was to create a series of images based around representing the Greek Gods in a more modern way as there didn’t seem to be a lot of modern representations of Greek Mythology on the market at the moment. I didn’t honestly know what I wanted to do with this whole project when I started it, I chose book design and publishing, as I stated before because I wanted to look at non standard books but also because I felt like there was freedom to look at character if I wanted to without being held down by character and narrative. However, thinking this way was absolutely not a good idea as it made everything too broad: a problem I have started to notice in many aspects of my life and decision making. It made everything difficult because I tried to keep my options open and really I should have been working towards a more solid goal. Like if I had gone with my first concept of creating characters based on space, then I would KNOW that I was creating characters based on space. I made the mistake of not setting a goal for this project other than ‘a series of images’ I think it would have been a smoother journey if I had consigned myself to ‘front covers’ or ‘title pages’etc.
These were one of the first things I did when I started trying to modernise the Gods. I took reference from Greek statues and added these t-shirts to them with modern culture style slogans on them that I thought related to the personality of each God. These are still one of my favourite concepts for this project and I am absolutely kicking myself for not developing something from this because I could have made life easier for myself there. It was well received by everyone who saw them, so I just don’t understand why I strayed so far from this idea. I think in some part of my mind I thought because it was an early idea I should try other things and not stick with it, as when I have stuck with an early idea in previous projects I’ve often has a brainwave near the end and had to turn everything around last minute. I liked basically everything about these images. I think they combined Ancient Greek Gods and modern culture in a clear way and there is a great juxtaposition
Between the Greek statue look and the modern slogans. I also love the texture / colour / look that the ink has given. As I feel like an idiot for not pursuing this idea any further I think I have learned that just because it’s an early idea doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea. This could have easily been continued, so if it seems like a good idea just pursue it! Go for it! And you might actually have a more awesome and put together final product than you would have if you didn’t! I started looking at more aspects of modern culture, such as Jeremy Kyle, social media, trashy magazines etc. Again I tried to make blends of the old and the new but honestly I kept flitting between so many ideas that I confused myself at every given moment because I felt like the project kept losing direction. I kept feeling like I just wanted someone to give me a basis on what to do and then I’d be able to work from there. But it was me that needed to set that basis. I am not to be trusted with setting my own brief.
This kind of thing was fun to make and experiment with as it was something different to what I usually do but ultimately went nowhere due to my terrible indecisiveness on this entire module.
At some point I started thinking about iconic celebrity moments such as Kim Kardashian’s selfie which had recently been talk of the media world. I decided it may be fun to translate these celebrity moments into the Gods. I started off with the aforementioned selfie, making it Aphrodite – with classic long red hair characteristic of paintings of Venus. Instead of the censored bars I added shells as this is a symbol of Aphrodite. This was the idea that I capitalised on for my final images though I think some things went a bit askew. I still used iconic celebrity moments but didn’t really relate them to any of the Gods which is terrible because the whole point of my project was to modernise the Gods. I don’t know how I ended up messing up so badly with this.
A big inspiration for my final images was the aesthetic of Greek pottery. I went through several different techniques including papercut, paint and a process involving painting onto acetate and scratching it off. I found acrylic paint the most appropriate for this style. I really liked the look of the simplified bodies and the colour schemes. It was an interesting process for me as I had to work a lot with shape which is starting to train my mind into working less with outlines and more with block shapes. A skill I think will come in handy in the future, particularly when working with papercut, if I ever attempt that again.
As I said before I found it very difficult to think about a true final product so I ended up creating images and then finding what to apply them to later. I knew they should be applicable to a range of things (Product, range, distribution) but I know a lot of people made one MAIN product and then applied their imagery to other stuff. I however did not and ended up having to work around this whole mistake. It became easier to propose a postcard book when Molly suggested the idea of “Jason Derulo and the Argonauts� as the title, as that combines Greek Mythology and Pop culture and could I easily make a similar image to the ones I had already made with this title on it. This item would be a fun novelty item that could be sold in bookstores. Below are the four vase compositions that were my final images.
Posters / prints seemed like an appropriate use for these images also as that’s decorative and basically a scaled up version od a small postcard print. I think it looks very nice in a frame too.
Doing the crockery mockups was just fun for me. I wanted to do this to relate back to Greek pottery, and I think it’s quite amusing and meta. Especially the vase on the vase. I think it does make great fun novelty items though.
I really enjoyed making a pattern out of this as a fun little extra. While it’s not as up front as the pieces themselves I still think it’s quite a nice idea. It’s a bit niche. I applied the images to t-shirts and bags as my target audience was a young-adult audience who would probably be into wearing this kind of novelty item.
OUIL505 Module Evaluation This module got off to a promising start, I was excited to start researching and do something I was really interested in. I started off thinking about space and stars but quickly changed to Greek mythology as I thought this would have more scope for exploration. In hindsight, I think it might have actually been better to stick to my guns and do something space themed and mould it to fit into what I enjoy doing. I often struggle with deciding what I want to do at the beginning of a project with as much freedom as this as I find it hard to refine my ideas and end up trying to blend too much stuff together rather than choosing one starting point - for example I did think about trying to blend Greek mythology and space (NO). This has always been a problem of mine in different aspects, I really need to learn how to narrow down my ideas. This could have been the best project of the year and something to have fun with but because of how I went around it ended up probably being my worst work. None of the work I made has been good. I don't think any of it's been bad, it's just all painfully mediocre. On the plus side this has emphasised how much I need to work on crafting in the future and dedicating time to doing something rather than thinking "this will do" because I want to make work that's GOOD and I won't if I keep falling into these routines of procrastination and rushing. Because of my terrible planning and time management I didn't keep up with anything well, which lead my blogging to be unsubstantial and not terribly reflective and I didn't visually exhaust each idea I had. I had a few different ideas that kept flitting around still within Greek mythology and how I was going to modernise it, I couldn't settle on anything. I got caught up in the beginning thinking about the area I had chosen (book design and publishing) rather than just on my project, but then when I finally focused on the project I couldn't figure out what I was doing. I realise I should have decided on a final 'product' much earlier than I did, it was a real flaw in my thinking of this whole module.
I thought that keeping my options open was a good plan but it wasn’t. It’s like setting a dissertation question, the more focused you are the better. If I had been more focused with a goal in mind I think that I would have been able to really get stuck in and exhaust good ideas. Despite the fact that I think this project has totally bombed I am glad that I have made these mistakes and been able to realise them NOW rather than at Level 6. I think the realisations that I have made will make it easier for me to set manageable and focused briefs in the future which will hopefully in turn allow me to work on my crafting more. I’m finding that generally my ideas are sound but as I said before fine crafting is something I would definitely like to improve. This was definitely a module of realisations. I don’t know why I’ve made all these realisations so late on in the year but as I said better now than halfway through level 6. This has been another module where I have learned more about making mockups. My mockups are still not incredible but I definitely feel as if I am getting more proficient with digital media. The mockups still give quite a good impression of what the designs would look like on a real product, which could be shown to clients to show that the work would be viable as a product. I was happy that I was still able to incorporate my new found enjoyment in creating patterns during this module, I am still really enjoying it too. I just find it so fun and satisfying to see a pattern come together. As ever time management has been a problem, as I have been busy trying to finish all the work I have not been able to go down to learning support to get help for this yet, but I am definitely going to get onto that for level 6 and over summer. As I am becoming increasingly aware of how much my time management problems are indeed impacting upon my work. I usually thought well I always get the work finished and in on time so it doesn’t matter, I am wrong It does matter because I’m not reaching my full potential because I’m not giving myself enough time to make the standard of work that I should be!