Project report

OUIL503 Responsive

PROJECT REPORT Ellie Chappell

CONTENTS Individual Illustration Friday……………………………………………………………………………4 Secret7…………………………….…………………………….…………………………….…6 Plusnet…………………………….…………………………….………………………………8 Crispin Orthotics………………………..…….…..………………………….……………10 Penguin Design Award…………………….…………….…………………………….…12

Collaborative D&AD: Design Bridge………………….…………………………………………………14

Illustration Friday Illustration Friday was the brief I used to introduce myself to the format of Responsive; having to research, plan and develop a response to meet a deadline.

During the ten weeks that I spent completing these weekly briefs, I challenged myself to only use digital processes, as I lacked a lot of confidence in my existing digital work and strived to learn a range of new skills. This was extremely helpful, as I began experimenting with dierent brushes,

testing out opacity levels with dierent layers, creating textures and many more. As well as enhancing my skills in Photoshop and Illustrator, I also strengthened my methods of interpreting themes and developing strong concepts containing narrative and emotion.

One negative aspect about Illustration Friday is that I feel I spent far too long on each brief, carrying out a rigorous process of research, development and refining, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it essentially took up time that I could have spent on other, more substantial briefs that required a higher level of attention.

However, the whole process has encouraged me to continue developing my digital skills, and think outside of the box more when given a single word to visually elaborate on. I will gladly pursue Illustration Friday briefs in the future, but only in the context of personal development, as opposed to the context of competing.

Theme: ‘Tropical’

Secret7 The aim of the brief was to design record sleeves for vinyl discs for seven given tracks by seven well known music artists to feature in an exhibition. The audience can buy sleeves for £50 a piece, which goes to a charity that Secret7 have chosen to support. The buyer will not know the title of the song, or who designed their cover. ‘The secret lies within’.

I challenged myself to use a four colour palette, and use the symbolisation of birds to visually amplify some of the key themes within each track. This was valuable on a personal basis, however I found that setting these restrictions subtracted away from the main purpose of the brief, and subtracted the importance of satisfying the client.

I chose to do Secret7 on a bit of a lastminute basis, but I really wanted to have a go at designing record sleeves, as I have never done anything like it before.

However, I am really proud of some of my outcomes and feel like the symbolisation of birds works very well, for example the dove of peace in John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’, and the shattered shards of the unlucky magpie in Jack Garrett’s ‘Worry’. Although for other designs, particularly The Jam’s ‘Art School’, I realise that in hindsight this does not necessarily have a strong tie with the nature of the track.

The most interesting part of the brief was the process. Having to visually interpret audible pieces is extremely subjective, and personal to the designer which is a really exciting concept. The theory of ‘judging a book by its cover’ kind of applies within this format too, as the audience choose a sleeve only based on visual principle and preference.

Setting personal challenges and restrictions is really constructive, yet wasn’t the most suitable approach in the context of a competition brief.

In the future I will remember to prioritise answering the brief accurately and efficiently whilst simultaneously having the clients needs in mine as opposed to my own. I will continue to challenge myself and my ways of working in my personal practice.

Plusnet The Plusnet brief in combination with the workshops with mural artist, Peter Barber were amongst the most valuable skills and techniques that I have gained during this module.

Learning the fundamental aspects of large scale and public art projects was fascinating, and held the most exciting concept of my potential designs being visually exposed to hundreds of members of the public.

Working for a real client has been extremely beneficial, especially having to prepare a presentation to pitch my idea in front of a panel of six people and a video camera, which was a slightly nerve-wracking experience but has allowed me to develop my presenting skills in a real situation, which has boosted my confidence a lot. I am also looking forward to the the later stages of the brief, working in a team to complete the winning

design upon the plusnet wall, which will help build my skills of working in a team on a large scale.

The main thing that I am disappointed about within this brief is that I didn’t spend an appropriate amount of time thinking carefully about my final design. I thought too much in detail about what the office employees at Plusnet would want to look out onto as a refreshing break from the computer screen, which made me think of a peaceful Yorkshire-dales scene to distract from the hustle and bustle of the city. However, the panel at Plusnet seemed to prefer some of my initial ideas placing humorous emphasis on the Yorkshire dialect with the two birds discussing ‘making a brew’. In hindsight, I wish I would have carried forward this concept, as it was much stronger than the idea of looking out onto refreshing scenery. I struggled with this brief a lot due to the

requirements being so broad and subjective. In future, I start to consider the importance of the aesthetic details as opposed to the importance of the concept.

Crispin Orthotics The Crispin Orthotics Brief really grabbed my attention due to my interest in applying illustrative processes to health care and the healing environment, and I wanted to produce designs that could potentially help improve patients levels of self-esteem. I responded to the brief by imagining what I would want as a client using orthotic devices, and thought desired a design or pattern that would coordinate with anything in someones wardrobe, i.e. wouldn't stand out too much or clash with certain colours.

I tested out a range of monochrome patterns produced with black ink and applied them to a mock-up of an orthotic leg brace, taking into account the qualities of the material used, for example whether the pattern would warp when being moulded by plastic etc.

Although simple, this is one of the briefs that I am most proud of, simply due to its nature for a cause to help others. If I were to undertake the brief again I would carry out more intricate research, for example interview patients who already use orthotics and ask for their opinion on preferences to designs, to gain a clearer sense of direction.

Penguin Design Award For my substantial brief I decided to take on all three book covers for the Penguin Design Award. These were ‘How To Be a Woman’ by Caitlin Moran for the Adult Non-Fiction category, ‘A Clockwork Orange’ by Anthony Burgess for the Adult Fiction category and ‘Emil and the Detectives’ by Erich Kästner for the Children’s category. I decided to pursue this brief quite early on in the module, and perhaps didn't anticipate the length of time it would require to complete. This was a risk for me as I wanted to read all of the books prior to designing the covers to gain the best possible understanding of the themes within the books that I could create starting points from to produce powerful illustrative responses that would urge the audience to pick up the book and read it for themselves.

One of the aspects I didn’t tackle well in this project was time management. I aimed to read all of the books by Christmas, and spend

However, due to the high amount of attention to detail that my design for ‘Emil and the Detectives’ required, this took up a huge chunk of my time, forcing me to rush my designs of the other two books.

Despite this, my design for Emil is the piece of work that I am most proud of, and has taken a strong contemporary concept and still kept the charm of the original story.

Despite my poor time efforts of managing my time efficiently, I am so pleased with my final designs for all of my book covers, and would be enthusiastic to take on briefs similar to these in the future. I have developed a valuable skill of reading and visually interpreting with visual solutions, which I feel has been one of my biggest strengths within this whole module, and I hope to capitalise on further. One thing I would do differently next time is keep a visual journal whilst I am reading to record immediate responses visual to the text that I can develop on when designing a final cover. I wish I would have done this during reading ‘A Clockwork Orange’, as I was absolutely fascinated by the obscurity of the book and enthusiastic about developing a strong illustrative response. However, having had a huge gap between reading the book and developing a response, my level of enthusiasm dropped, therefore my cover reflects this in some ways.

Overall this has been my favourite brief during the whole of Responsive, and one that has been up there with the most valuable. I can’t wait to enter the competition again in upcoming years!

D&AD: Design Bridge I chose to enter the Design Bridge brief because I wanted to explore an area of design that I was unfamiliar with, as well as increase my knowledge about gender identity and products that will suit meet the needs of a mass market in an equal and ethical manner.

At first, collaboration was a concept that made me really nervous, as I automatically thought of the worst case scenarios that could happen in a collaborative environment. Nevertheless, working with a fellow illustrator and two graphic designers was a really positive and pleasant experience, thankfully!

Our work load was shared out equally in terms of research, planning and production which made things run smoothly and eďŹƒciently.

We came up with the brand identity named ‘Eden’, referring to the story of creation when the first man and women possessed freedom in their appearance and how they presented themselves, covering their dignity with a leaf.

We wanted to adopt the theory of expressing natural feelings and values, in a non-judgemental environment, so we used the symbol of the leaf to reflect these values, in hope that people of all genders will relate and find comfort in using our products.

Carrying out market research helped us to understand existing companies values to ethical an environmental matters, for example the Body Shop holding a non animal testing policy, and ensuring that all packaging is rec yclable and environmentally friendly. Inspired by these policies, we found methods of applying these principles to our three Eden products, a facial scrub, mask and moisturiser.

Mine and Amber ’s (other illustrator) role was to design patterns using leaves and appropriate colours to create striking designs for the packaging of our products, whilst the graphic designers focused on typography, layout and composition of the packaging. I really enjoyed producing patterns for packaging, as well as learning a few important principles from the graphic designers about typefaces and layout, as well as the production process of printing out the labels and applying them eďŹƒciently.

This project has been really valuable in terms of working in a team enhancing communication and collaborative working skills. The only thing I would change is that next time I would maybe work in a smaller group, for example just me and a graphic designer, just so that I have a bigger challenge with more responsibility, rather than having small tasks shared amongst others.

Ellie Chappell OUIL503 Project Report