Storyboard Sketchbook
by Johan Lindqvist
The Brief Create an art piece derived from the book intervention project. It is to be presented in the form of a narrative storyboard or something that could be explained with a storyboard format.
Coming up with an idea This was no easy task. I had no clue what to do at first. I struggled to find something inspirational and narrative in a geometry schoolbook since it is not the kind of book that has a story per se. I at first considered doing a comic with shapes that come to life and interact with each other. I scrapped that idea though since I realized I do not possess the skills to make it visually pleasing enough nor had I any idea what the comic would be about in detail.
The idea After returning to my book intervention sketchbook and carefully exploring how I came up with the idea for it I realized what I should do as a storyboard. During the process of the book intervention the geometry book “spoke� to me and I realized that geometry is literally everywhere. My idea for the storyboard was to take a walk with my camera and let the environment speak to me with the visual language of geometry. I was basically on the lookout for geometry, man made or natural. In this process I intended to develop my photography, graphic design skills and myself as an artist.
The geometrical expedition During my walk through Ayr with my camera I started seeing my surroundings differently. I saw geometrical shapes everywhere. The towns geometry and I started the same conversation as I had with the book. At first it was all very clear but after I while I started imagining geometrical shapes even where there was none apparent.
“270 degrees of tower”
“Diamond fence”
“Eternal bridge”
“Square go”
“The boxing ring”
“Wave break”
“Organic”
The working process I begun with sorting through the near 300 photographs I took during my walk. It was very time consuming and difficult to pick only the best photographs. Then i continued with developing the RAWfiles I had chosen. I transferred my developed photographs to Photoshop and began the photo manipulation. I imported shapes created in illustrator and used layer masks, the transform tool and the burn tool in order to make the shapes blend into the environment of each photograph.
Conclusions I am happy with my results. In my opinion my storyboard turned out aesthetically pleasing. It has a very abstract narrative since it is a visual representation of my “conversation” with the geometry of Ayr. But I could also argue that it is quite concrete seeing as it is “shapes showing shapes” in the environment. This assignment was very stimulating and I feel as if it has developed my view of how I approach creativity and how I can produce something creative.
topographic projection photography, images I found after I finished my storyboard.
Johan Lindqivst | Advanced Visual Creativity | UWS 2013