I’ve finalised the design for the penguin student design brief. It’s been through countless iterations, colour variations and constant edits over the last couple of weeks, but it’s finally finished. I just need to prepare the image so that it meets the submission guidelines and then I can submit this weekend. If I leave it any longer I’ll just be constantly adjusting small details and won’t get on with other projects. I’m really happy with the final product. It’s a very “graphic” outcome in comparison to my other work, but this was always an exercise in strengthening my design and type skills.
I had a few ideas for the self directed book project I will be working on throughout 603, so as a jumping off point I decided to create an example illustration of what each of the ideas might look like. The first story idea was about bigfoot, which is really fun to draw and I ended up creating a little series of the three images seen above. I’m taking a little too long to get started properly on this, so I need to get moving quick. The next steps are to create another two images relating to the other two story ideas. After that it will be a case of establishing a timeline and potentially a storyboard.
I’ve just finished tying up the latest Poster Spy creative brief. I created two posters for the Fear The Walking Dead brief, with a couple of colour variants of each, totalling in 4 posters which I submitted. As illustrations, I think the final images work well, however, as posters I think all four are still lacking something. The compositions are OK, but they don’t really stand out, and the colours are bold, yet not particularly well thought out. It could be just that I’ve stared at these four posters for too long and no longer like them. But I personally think that I need to improve my use of colour, type, and composition further. This sort of brief definitely gives me a chance to challenge myself in these areas.
The collaborative project is coming along nicely. We’ve now decided on a theme, a set of rules/restrictions that we’ll work to, and a rough idea of what the end product might be. The first step has been to carry out extensive research into the visual culture of the Mayans, the scripts they used, art, architecture, technology, etc. I created a quick mockup of some “Mayan graffiti”, simply to give myself an idea of the potential aesthetic of the wider project. I’m excited about producing work for this, and working on it collaboratively is a great way to get a second perspective on the ideas as well as an entirely different skill set.
Next Steps: ● Decide on an idea for the children’s book. Push the idea, rough, sketch and outline a storyboard. ● Carry out more research into the mayans, start sketching, roughing and producing images that could be used in an art book of sorts. Think about the end product. ● Look at improving my figure/gesture drawing, look at animation drawing techniques to bring more life into my drawings. ● Keep an eye out for other small briefs such as Secret 7”