EXSISITING EARTH ARTIFACT NASA set out the last in the task to communicate to any other life form out in the vastness of the universe, so they created a series of sounds and images which would portray the culture of the earth if any other intelligent extraterrestrial life like us was ever to come across it, they called it ‘The Voyager Golden Records’. The Golden Records were sent up in 1977 and are estimated to reach a constellation in about 40,000 years, although this isn’t to mean it hasn’t already been found. “This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours.” — U.S. president Jimmy Carter With this in mind, this was sent off in 1977, and the culture on earth has changed dramatically in just a short time, so the images and sounds would be really out of date on our accord, unfortunately we can’t update what has already been sent off, but we can design a whole new set of information of society today, which advanced technologies we can convey our lifestyles in an advanced way.
Research
DAVID SOSSELLA I came across David Sossella on Behance to find out that he was the most visisted illustrator on Behance with other 30,000 followers, this is the base of where he has gained his profile up. Since graduating at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice, he then went onto working with a company called Gusto Robusto, but he is already ran a campian for Ray-Ban called ‘Never Hide’ which he created 120 rare prints for the company. 2D prints are his main way of working but he has been involved in creating motion graphics with illustation animations which has has collaborated with others for.
One thing that really stands out to me with David’s work is how intract his pieces are, every single inch of the paper is covered in small detials that makes you appreicate just how much has gone into his work. I am a big fan of illustation with as little colour used as possible, and these work beutifully, the colours that he has used are all working together and layered up to create a 3 dimemtional look on the page without it actually having it implied its for a 3D use. The fact that he can make his own style work just as well on paper as he can on software is a really admirable talent to have too for myself, he finishes both off perfectly and with textures on both.
NATE KITCH Nate kitch is an illustrator that is based in Winchester, Uk. he is a freelancer that specialises in pattern, collage, mark making, photos and textures with that he creates posters. He has worked for many clients including Ted Baker, The Gaudian and Easy jet. Even though he gets comissions, he is approched because of his stand of his own style which stands out there, especially with the trends in design at the moment.
Nate’e work really appealed to me because of how obsure it is. I like the collage look running through his work, which gives off this mordern twist on sureealist peices that we have seen in the past. He used his talent in to create posters that are almost mocking society today, and reminds me of Jamie Reid’s work but a lot more up to date. Normally pieces of work with this rough look are usually made by hand, but he has created them on software which gives just such a nice clean finish that you wouldnt normally see and the colours are a lot more vivid than they would be by creating them by hand.
STEVE SIMPSON Steve Simpson, based in Ireland has been a freelance illustrator for 30 years, applying his own style of working by hand to start the illustations and finishing them off on sofeware to get a really soft but sharp finish. he has worked for companies such as Vodafone, Guiness and Wall Street Jounal, Steve has would countless awards for his work and also creates childrens illustrations on the side which have been used in books, packaging and even speical one off stamps in Dublin.
I decided to look at Steve Simpson because of the textures that can be seen in his work, which really compliment his illustations. he manages to mould illustation and typography together really smoothly and interwind really well which I would really like to have to go on my piece of work as it looks so effortless but takes a lot of skill. the way his work style fits in with any piece of graphics hes creating, he lets the poster work to his styler rather than changing and working to different styles.
NINA GEOMETRIEVA Nina is a quite new freelance designer from Singapore. She works with simple vectors to create beutiful logos, posters and motion graphics. she has created work for companied such as glassware industry, Trivilant, and OUEN. ALthough she isnt as well known as others, she has had her work seen over 850,000 times on behance.
Nina’s work sood out to me because of how simple it was, yet it feels like she fills the whole page with this design. In each piece of work she manages to sick to a really small colour pallet which pulls off really striking astetics on the eye. She doesnt venture from much more than really basic vectors and layers them up to create objects or lanscapes. Her work looks so easy and effortless but you can tell that a lot of consideration goes into creating these pieces of work.
Earth as we know it
My ideas
Ideas
IDEA ONE
My first idea was to create 9 separate inforgraphs, all with a vector of a planet from our universe and the basic infomation that we know about the planets. I would like to keep each poster the exact same apart from the planet and the infomation because then they will look like a set rather than just posters. I really like this idea but Im not sure it really shows a lot about earth, it is a very genral infograph, I could go into more depth into this and do more infomation on all the planets but we have very limited knowladge on the other planets.
IDEA TWO
I had the idea to create a banner infograph, that way I can have a lot of infomation on it. I have drawn three different layouts. One that is mainly graphs and charts, one would be little drawings and one would be mainly based on typography. I really like this idea but my own worry about creating a banner is that it will be too over crowed or not full enough.
IDEA THREE
Another idea I had was to create a little booklet with every page having a static on with a really basic vector image. Each page will have something that I think is important on earth, such as animals, nature, food, etc. Each page would be a different colour but still all fit together if they were in a pallette. I really like this idea because I feel like it would all fit together really well, but Im scared it would be too simple and look a little plain.
IDEA FOUR
My final idea would be two posters, one of the female anatomy, and one on the males. It would explain the similarities and differences between men and women. I would part of the body covered and part of it showing the inside of the body with little snapshots coming off and information about the body. I really like this idea as I think it would be a really good start to showing what the human body is about rather than just a generalisation, but at the same time I am missing about on a lot more on the earth.
DEVELOPMENT IDEA ONE For this i think that making it a long infographic, it will give me the chance to use the Adobe Suite a lot more than what other ideas might do, and there is a lot to do and create. i feel like there is a lot more information compared to my other ideas and with the brief this one will cover it a lot more than other ideas. I am going to keep it really simple throughout the banner with the images because there will be a lot going on with it. I need to consider the fonts I am going to use because its going to be really busy, and i need to consider what Im going to go on it because there is only so much that can go on.
STYLE SHEET
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz - Mango Smoothie
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ - Emmy 3D
ABCDEFGJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ -Springtime Blues
Ive decided on using these three fonts, they all easy to read and will work well together on my banner which is going to be quite busy. These three fonts will work well when I change the colours and will still be easy to read.
DEVELOPMENT OF CHOSEN IDEA
First I set up my page to 2150 x 850 mm in Illustrator, so create a banner. I wanted to work on just one page rather than pieceing it up. I then split it up into 3 sections so that it would be easier to work with because of the size.
Once I was happy with that, i then went onto changing the background colour, I wanted it to look like the sky from out of space to earth, so I made it have a gradient, then added little ‘stars’. I went onto adding the type at the top of the banner with two of my chosen fonts.
DEVELOPMENT OF CHOSEN IDEA
I drew my earth by using simple shapes, the earth was a cirle and the islands were just simple pen drawings and then doubled to create a shadow. I moved it to the bottom of the banner and then cropped it to fit.
I then started to add my images onto my banner, I already had the images all drawn up on another illustator page so it was easy to start putting my banner together.
DEVELOPMENT OF CHOSEN IDEA
I resized and changed colours of my drawings on the other page so that it didn’t complicate the banner. I was really happy with how my imaged turned out, I wnted to stick with simple bold colours throughout.
Once all my images were placed on I then started to add the text where I wanted it. I used DK Mango Smoothie for the rest of it.
DEVELOPMENT OF CHOSEN IDEA
Finally I added arrows so that everythign would connect with the images and type so that it was easier to follow and read.
I decided to add a few shadows on certain images so that they stood out a little better than they did before hand.
FINAL PIECE
FINAL THOUGHTS.
I have really enjoyed this project, looking at different ways to approach it and I am really glad that I decided to base it on a banner and with it all illustator because it isnt something that I usually do. To be able to see other artists that I wouldnt normally have looked at was really eye opening. I am happy with my final piece because I have been able to learn a lot skills through illustator which was the main reason I decdied to do this project this way, and its not perfect by any means but for my first proper attemot I am really happy with my outcome. Next time I think I would do better planning before I started so that I would have a lot more to work with.