PORTFOLIO

YEaR 3

LuCY RoSSELL EvANS EGRD6002 SUMMATION & PRODUCTION

LRe

3

INDEX

proposal

Contents: This project will be focused around building imagery in reaction to The Hazards of Love, an album written by Colin Meloy and performed by the Dememberists.

The Hazards of Love

storyboarding Hazards of Love Album

Illustration Pen + Watercolour

characters Character Development

typography Modern vs. Traditional

layout Book Layout

print Screen + Etching

bookbinding Skill Development

boxing 3D Working

evaluation

BIBLIoGrApHY

FMp pRoposal

‘Music is philosophy. Every chord, every word tells a story. If you listen you will know its meaning.’

- Kamanda Ndama

This project will be focused around building imagery in reaction to The Hazards of Love, an album written

by Colin Meloy and performed by the Dememberists. I plan to show this album visually, as a series of publications; I am very interested in the transfer of ideas through different media, turning something which originally was purely intended to be consumed aurally into something which can be consumed visually.

I will reflect the feelings portrayed through the music into experimental illustration and layout design. I feel this is appropriate because illustration is one of my strongest areas, however I also want to

show how I can merge this skill with other, more traditional design. I intend to create a series of books split into three or four parts in accordance to the sections of the story told throughout the album - giving each individual book a colour theme: red green and blue.

Throughout this process I will be primarily working with watercolour, pen and ink when concerned with illustration; however I also intend to utilise the screen printing, book binding and etching facilities available to me. I fully intend to personally bind each book myself, and not to outsource any of the work. Binding, printing, and any packaging will be made by me, by hand.

I am interested in making the pages of these books very engaging: I am intending to include various media throughout my illustration including etching, pen and ink, watercolour and maybe even paper manipulation. I intend to produce the publications as A5 documents, however this is subject to change in accordance to

the specific ‘feel’ of the individual book itself.

The first thing on my agenda will be to lay out the words to the album coherently and in accordance to where illustrations may be situated using InDesign. Then I will begin to calculate how many illustrations are needed and begin to visually portray the narratives throughout the album.

After all of the illustrations are laid out correctly with the accompanying text I will arrange the pages so that they can be sent to print (professionally), meanwhile I transfer the book cover designs from the computer to the printing press and foil them accordingly. I then aim to bind them together by hand.

The intended audience for this publication is primarily for the modern bohemian; who has a respect for poetry and a keen eye for illustration (think of a slightly overpriced, middle class record shop crossed with Magma books).

Brief 1:

SToRyboaRding

position youRself I began this project by listening to the album in it’s entirety and storyboarding each song.

I wanted the final publication to not be limited by song titles, and to flow more like a real story - letting the narratives really flow throughout the book. I am interested in both abstract illustration and literal, I am aware that most music artwork is not taken literally from what is spoken about in the song. However, I really wanted to show how music isn’t just sounds, it is complex storytelling with intriguing characters and settings; this is why I primarily took the more literal route - so it would be easier for the subject to follow the narrative visually.

During a tutorial I was reminded that when we are young we do not notice everything we see in our storybooks - we can go back as adults and discover new things more often than not.

This was when I came up with the idea of layering different types of images together, digitally. This would make the illustrations look more complex and interesting in theory, however, in practise I think they looked a little strange, the layering made them look flat in my opinion.

In response to this I decided to give myself a smaller area to work in: them fill it up with smaller, textural designs.

These looked a lot better than the layering technique, and small area I worked in looked very detailed.

One of the characters in the story told, the Forest Queen is nameless and faceless, and is described more like a force rather than a person. It was this that gave me the idea to illustrate expressive hands instead of a face and a body, as this gives her a mysterious identity.

In the story she is said to have saved a boy from dying by casting a spell on him that turns him into a deer, this is how I came up with all of this Wiccan based imagery around the hands.

Illustration:

ChaRacteR design

On this page as some pages from my sketchbook when I was in the character design phase.

Despite there only being two main characters, there were quite a few overall. Looking at graphic novels and manga, I came to the conclusion that each character has to be strongly identifiable with key features and characteristics. For example, William (top right and above) who is a faun by day and a man by night, I gave the eyes of a deer ( with elongated pupils, each eye spaced quite far from the other), pointed ears, and horns, depending on what time of day it is - dusk, midnight, or early morning, to show his transition to the animal.

Here are a couple more of my sketchbook pages, here concerning the identity of the Rake (a murderer) and Margaret, a maiden. To view more of my sketchbook, click this link: http://issuu.com/lrossellevans/docs/sketch

To give a more vintage feel to the illustrations I experimented with banners and text - none of these illustraations made it to the final publication however, as I felt they did not flow in accordance to the others.

These are some illustration I have picked out because they contain watercolour elements, as well as pen. Even though I made them black and white for the publication, the texture they bring to the overall feel of the illustration is great.

I am fully aware that drawing landscapes is not my strong point, however the imagery spoken about in the source material is so powerful I really had to give it a try. For inspiration I went to places including the Epsom library to browse children’s picture books, Quentin Blake and his use of watercolour wash in landscapes gave me confidence in my lack of skills.

Illustration:

abstRact patteRn

One of the most used phrases throughout the album is ‘The Wanting Comes in Waves’ - both spoken about literally (about Annan Water) and metaphorically (forbidden love).

On the right is one of my favourite illustrations from this project. It is to be used as a double page spread the marking are supposed to represent waves and the abstraction of change. As many of my illustrations are black and white, a way to introduce a further depth would be the use of colour paper and pages, which would give the illustrations a completely different tonality - I have seen this in places like Orbital Comics in their zine section of the shop - different colours and shades of paper are a cheap and easy way of forgoing an expensive colour print cost without sacrificing colour altogether.

‘Annan water, you loom so deep and wide; I would

cross over if you would stem the tide.’

Illustration:

FRaming

When looking at some old poetry books I noticed how many of the illustrations (Victorian style) had built in frames within the illustration itself made of landscapes, leaves and other odd objects.

Coupled with this old-timey framed illustration style I wanted to add a pop of modernity. I tried to make the foliage and flowers ( the narrative is set in a forest) look quite punchy and graphic - inspired by things such as food packaging. I used strong black lines with little shading to make them look more bold, compared to the wishy-washy Victorian etched illustrations.

Illustration taken from the Oxford Book of Nursery Rhymes.

I also tried out creating some of the foliage illustrations with vectors in Illustrator, however I couldn’t get the same level of tone and detail as I could by hand. I wanted to maintain a traditional style of working but with a more up-to-date style of subject matter.

Here is the first draft of my design for the slip cover (centre) and sub-covers (right) for my publications; mixing a traditional serif font with more graphic illustrations of foliage.

Here are some further example of more graphic framing, the use of foliage is a representation of the love that William and Margaret found in the woods.

Illustration:

papeRcutting

To introduce a pop of colour to my illustrations I thought to have a layer of colour paper underneath each book leaf so that when pieces of the image were cut away the colour from behind could be seen through. I chose not to use the laser cutter for this, and to do it by hand because I wanted the paper to be a pure white, and the laser burnt brown around wherever it cut. However this did not necessarily warrant professional results, cutting by hand was not always smooth and consumed a lot of my time.

‘Can you hear me, love?’

‘You’d expect that I would be haunted.’

‘And gave you the form of a faun to inhabit by day.’

Here are some mock-ups of simple binding ideas.

type // scRipt

One of the hardest decisions that I had to make for this project was whether to use hand written script for the writing of whether to use a typeface - traditional book vs. modern zine.

I experimented with different styles of script, using pens, pencils and pen and ink. In a tutorial it was suggested to me that I use a different font for each character - for example the Rake (a murderer) would have a very spiky, angry typeface, but the forest Queen would have a more calm yet unnerving typeface. I didn’t really like the outcomes of this, as I am of the opinion that continuity throughout the publication is best. I was really drawn to the more traditional serif typefaces of old poetry books - this would also inkeep with the time when the story itself was set.

However I was criticised for making it look too much like an old book; being told that if a were to have that many traditional elements on one publication then I should compromise the format - bringing it into the modern day.

type // scRipt

The typeface I couldn’t resist using was Aparajita: it gives a very traditional impression with undertones of a typewriter.

As a compromise to the traditional font, I tried my hand at re-producing it by hand. I really liked the outcome - however it took so much time to trace, and I didn’t just want to turn the alphabet into it’s own front as I really wanted each character to be individual and engaging! Sadly I ran out of time to re-create the whole song in this way, but if I had more time then I would definitely like to go back and try it again.

In InDesign I edited the character formats of the type to make it more unique. One big set back for me was that I desperately wanted very small writing on my publication, however, the lyrics to the songs didn’t actually have that many words in - meaning the page looked very bare. By editing the leading and kerning of the type I managed a compromise around this problem - a small size font edited to take up more space on the page.

Despite not having enough time to hand write the whole album, I happily settled for just using it for the respective covers of the publication. It really went with the illustrative style of the books, and looked modern whilst remaining a typeface without looking gimmicky.

Layout

SpREADS

As I wanted to create a publication with a strong feeling of narrative I made the decision to create a couple of well thought out double page spreads of image as I truly believe that too many individual pages which stand alone distract from the overall read of the book. As the pages would be printed individually I have to fiddle with the layout for two individually folded sheets to become a spread. This was very hard, and I had to give it a couple of prints before I got the slug and borders to how I wanted them - the size of the book meant that the slug would be larger, pushing everything a couple of cm to one side. It was hard to figure out exactly how many, I partook in much trial and error.

To view the full layout please click this link: http://issuu.com/lrossellevans/docs/a5_edited_version_27_3_pages Please note that the layout includes allowance for slug, and is also in French fold format.

Print:

open scReens

Having gone to the open screen printing our own book cover workshop I was fully familiar with the facilities in the Graphics Print Area - printing my own pages would be much more cost effective to reproduce - however the print room is only open once a week!

I printed the colours red, green and blue onto a variety of different paper types in the weeks leading up to my publication being finished - I also tried a variety of different shades of ink - however when mixing my own the consistency was never perfect. Printing my own paper was cost effective but very time consuming seeing as the graphics print area is only open on Wednesdays - this limited me to the amount of paper I could use (and therefore the amount of times I could mess up !) This was a severe limitation and if I could go back and tell myself to get it printed professionally, I would.

Above: Prints and misprints from different colours of inks.

PRINT:

photopolymeR

I had my heart set on foil blocking my cover, inspired by Neurocomic by Matteo Farinella; however after consulting Liz, the print technician she said it was too detailed.

I compromised by trying my hand at printing with a photopolymer etching of my design. I bought the plate from the university shop, but to my dismay it was out of date and created a plate which was horifically over exposed! The light sensitive paste all peeled off! I had to experiment with different exposure times to get a better result - however this sadly meant a shallower bite to the plate.

Above: The overexposed plate! To the left you can see my final plate result, the etching itself was incredibly shadow.

The shallower bite on the plate and limited time I had left meant that I would simply have to experiment with different inks and printing styles t get a clearer print: I had planned on using the FAG Press but the plate would now have to be printed on the Tofko press, more like intaglio printing.

PRINT:

tofko press

Having only done etching once before, I was quite unfamiliar with this process and had to seek a lot of advice from Urjuan and Laura, the print technicians.

I bought a range of paper to print my cover on, including Somerset and other higher gsm, heavy duty papers. To also get an etched imprint onto the paper I had to soak them in water for maximum ‘bite’.

Due to the shallowness of the plate the contrast between positive and negative space on the print was very small, so I had to try many different kinds of ink and paper combinations; including all manner of lights and darks. I wanted the cover to be simple, so black and white etching inks were by best option. White was a very old ink, so it was very hard and sticky - this meant it was almost impossible to get an even coating on the plat for a good print.

The darker inks on a lighter paper worked better as they were smoother, but it was still hard to get a professional looking result and the ink had the be applied thickly and evenly.

Below: white ink embossed onto an offwhite Somerset cotton paper - no matter how hard I tried the prints were not coming out evenly or clearly.

Etching was one of the messiest processes I used during this project, the black ink was especially hard to control.

PRINT:

ETCHING Below: The etching plate inked up with white ink, not a very successful endeavour.

My final outcomes from this process looked very ghostly: which in a way goes perfectly with the narrative or the story.

I particularly like the way it almost looks like a gravestone: the black and grey tones are reminiscent of fires, death and tragedy.

However, the etching ink always remains a little sticky as it is oil based, if I had more time then I would scan it in digitally and create the slip cover as it would be easier for the subject to handle. However it would definitely loose some of it’s tactility.

Below: I applied for some samples of paper from GF Smith, however they didn’t have a thin enough, pliable paper for these kind of prints.

My more successful prints worked better because I created different kinds of pressure when rubbing off the ink.

book binding

In my mind, I wanted to create a hardback book which was traditionally bound at the spine, complete with dust jacket. However, due to the nature of the illustrations I had to rethink this.

After attending the book binding workshop with Mette I discovered that if I were to keep the coloured papercut illustrations I had designed then I would not be able to hard back bind, despite loving the format and being able to put to use my experience in this area. I particularly wanted to create a hard backed book as I feel the design is timeless: some other formats I feel are a bit too ‘quirky’ and wouldn’t create the feel that I wanted my final outcome to have. I researched different book format and tried my hand at creating them, here are some examples (see photo).

Above: Mette Ambeck at her bookbinding workshop at UCA.

Above: A concertina folded book design mock-up.

Binding:

french fold

French fold: the folding of individual book leaves, bound to create the illusion or a concertina, whilst remaining bound at one side.

I chose to bind my book french fold (opposed to any other kind of binding) to maintain the simple black and white illustrations, however, cutting through the paper would create a powerful punch of colour when the folded side of the page was printed. I thought this would add a very necessary graphic element to my work, as well as keeping the costs of printing down: as black and white is far cheaper to produce than colour, and I could print all the pages individually with an open screen.

binding: heat stRips

Heat strips melt when heated up, when placed on the spine of a book this creates an instant binding process with little effort.

Since the publications I had in mind were going to be French folded, the only real possibilities of binding were hand stitching the spine, or using a binding strip - as the leaves could not be connected by traditionally binding at the spine.

Since the paper I was using over 160gsm (so the screen printing ink wouldn’t ripple the paper when drying) stitching the spine was not really an option - I tried it when mocking up my book and the pages were so thick that they broke my binding needle, and because there were so many of them using an ore could be hard to get a precise hole all the way through.

I really like the way the heat strips look, they remind me of an old sketchbook having been looking at publications from authors such as Nobrow Press I feel more confident about giving my work a more hand-made look, so I didn’t mind this.

Left: The electric guillotine gave my books a finished look, but as it was a last minute decision I sacrificed some of my borders.

Binding:

Folding

Since I had printed the pages myself using an open screen I had to then cut down and fold my book leaves to A4 size. Having printed them all on A3+ this was quite a challenge, as not all the prints were a perfect shape. A lot of effort went into individually cutting down each sheet by hand.

For my mock ups I used a folding bone bought from the art shop, taking advice from Mette Ambeck, to create a clean fold. However, when it came to binding the first time round I found that many of the folds I had created were imprecise.

Urjuan assisted me in using the digital folding machine in the book binding area to create a much more precise fold which meant the spine of the book would be more even.

Final publication

Overall, I am fairly happy with this final outcome, though I wish I had more time to experiment with book formats - the thermal binding doesn’t give the impression of something that is particularly high quality. The same goes for the hand cut out shapes, the tactility is unique however if it were die-cut then the look overall would be much more professions, however with each illustration being unique it would cost an incredible amount for just a one off copy. I really like how the spreads look, and the use of blank space and black colour really evokes the messages from the music reflected visually. If I had more time I would love to work on the layout more, I researched Jan Tschichold and have a basic knowledge of grids but have really only taken influence first hand from poetry books.

To view all of the printed publication, please follow the link below: http://issuu.com/lrossellevans/docs/book_ f204f1873c5b1c

unboxing

I also designed a box for my publication to go inside of: it can be opened and then used as a stand for the books and album to go inside of - when looking at limited edition musical albums I noticed that there was usually some kind of extra packaging involved.

All the books fit neatly inside the box which can also be used an a stand.

further development

I know that the internet is a key tool to use when becoming a designer: I have been tweeting the Decemberists (with no reply) with updates of my work, as well as tagging all my posts with as many relevant things as possible for maximum web exposure; as well as keeping my personal blog updated on Tumblr. I recently submitted work to IS magazine, and have been featured on their website. I have also put the finished publication up on the web for people to view it on ISSUU.

Evaluation

This project, overall has been a very exciting journey. The biggest limit, as always, was time. This, as well as visualising myself in a professional context; I am constantly worrying about whether or not people will like my work, and sometimes listening to their opinions overrides how I really feel about what I should do. This term especially when going to tutorials I have felt particularly torn, I always try to follow constructive feedback, however, this doesn’t necessarily mean that I think what I am producing is that amazing. I have tried to follow all feedback, however this has meant that the final product is something which is a sort of half-zine, half book. This is also because of the layout, there was not enough text to make it seem more book-ish, and there weren’t enough pictures to make is look like more of a zine! If I could go back and remedy this I would make the entire book smaller, maybe even reduced down to the size of a CD - this would also make it easier to carry around and would inkeep with and already musically related format. If I

could go back in time I would tell myself to be truer to my own thoughts and feelings, as I am sure this is the secret to being a success. I am not ashamed of what I have produced by any means, and the fact that I have used so many processes and physical skill to build up my portfolio in itself is a personal victory. After being heavily inspired by designs from publishings from Nobrow, and going to events such as Handmade and Bound I feel that there is still a gap in the industry for well thought out, hand crafted design. Personally I like every individual aspect of my project, I even submitted singular images to websites and am even being features in IS magazine - when appropriating my work it is very hard for me to see the bigger picture. I am constantly submitting work to blogs such as Tumblr, but that work is just flat illustration: this project has been about creating a publication which is completely different. If I had more time I would love to send the book out to be printed professionally, I’m sure it would look ten times better tan it does right now!

However, because of the small time frame I had to work in this term I felt like I really needed to be in control of everything that was going on - I printed the publication, made the paper, made the box, created the cover, created all the designs from scratch. One thing that I didn’t anticipate happening was how much the layout of my book would follow the music, I really am quite impressed with how the layout and spacing of the black pages is engineered to fit with the sudden stops in the music, or crashes or long pauses - almost like a read along book. That is why I included the CD in the final package, and that is also why I didn’t put pages numbers on my layout for the publications - I really wanted the music and the book to flow into one another. I tried to add more complex illustrations wherever there were musical interludes so that the subject could keep their eyes and ears occupied. I can really see the concept of an adult read-along book taking off, and being sold somewhere like magma books, but first I think that the look of the product needs to be given a little more time.

skills assessment

I am wholly satisfied with the outcomes that I created, I believe that if I had more time (for example, if the print room was open more) then I could have taken this a lot further, however time is limited. I showed not only illustrative skills in pen and ink, watercolour and papercutting, but also layout skill, three dimensional skills and printing skills. I feel like my photography skills could do with some polishing, when I booked out the infinity tent I wasn’t really sure how to take a

picture with it but I powered through.

This project has not been purely physical: I have also submitted some of my work to magazines and web (taking them further extra curricularly). My layout skills have been challenged, as I have never created a publication like this before - I am not entirely awestruck at the results but I really have tried my hardest in the time frame I have been given.

bibliogRaphy

WEB NOBROW PRESS http://www.nobrow.net/category/products Browsing for Products. 2014. Browsing for Products. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www. nobrow.net/category/products. [Accessed 27 March 2014].

CARSON ELLIS WEB http://www.carsonellis.com/ Carson Ellis | Welcome. 2014. Carson Ellis | Welcome. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www. carsonellis.com/. [Accessed 27 March 2014].

COLLECTION OF IMAGES

print Ary, V, 2009. Musikraphics. 1st ed. Hong Kong: Viction Workshop Ltd. Lijklema, H, 2010. PICTOGRAPHIC. 1st ed. Amsterdam: The Pepin Press.

Shaughnessy, A, 2009. Graphic Design: A User’s Manual. 1st ed. New York: Laurence King.

Meloy, C, 2011. Wildwood. 1st ed. New York: Canongate.

Opie, P, 1955. Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

http://www.carsonellis.com/

Farinella, M, 2013. Neurocomic. 1st ed. London: Nobrow.

Lucy Re (lucy_re) on We Heart It. 2014. Lucy Re (lucy_re) on We Heart It. [ONLINE] Available at: https://weheartit.com/lucy_re. [Accessed 27 March 2014].

Shaughnessy, A, 2010. How to be a Graphic Designer, Without Losing Your Soul. 2nd ed. New York: Laurence King.