OUIL503 responsive project report Molly Fairhurst JJJ
contents Studio Brief 1, Individual Practice: • Fuzzy Logic • The Guardian • War Horse (substantial brief) • Secret 7 • Coffee Shop North Studio Brief 2, Collaborative Practice: • D&AD The Dazed Brief OUIL503 Module Summative Evaluation
Fuzzy Logic Since 2014 I have created and provided the branding and posters for local indie night Fuzzy Logic. During this academic year I have continued to work with them. Largely the work with Fuzzy is not wholly what I’m interested in- I’m starting to find that my own personal tastes of ‘style’ are drifting from this largely digital look that has come to be expected as I continue what is needed of the brand. However, it is mostly an enjoyable experience, and I have and am learning a lot by doing it- mostly time management and learning how to manage projects like this alongside my core university work. I’ve also learned about invoicing, working to clients needs (and when they change their minds) and technically just how posters work- which continues to be a learning curve as lettering and layout are not one of my strengths!
Event posters for Wolf Alice and Slaves DJ sets
Second and third term main poster colour variations, Christmas and Fat White Family DJ set event posters
The Guardian The brief: in 2015 The Guardian teamed up with Leeds College of Art students to create three pieces of editorial illustration to go alongside a campaign on arts education. The topics were: •
Creating a perfect portfolio
•
Careers in the arts and creative industries
•
The revival of crafts and analogue methods in a world of digital advancements
I chose this brief because I am interested in editorial work becoming part of my practice. I found this a really tricky brief. The topics themselves were fairly straightforward, but it was too easy to dive straight into a literal approachi.e., pictures of portfolios or art materials or the stereotypical looking student. I tried to avoid this sort of imagery, and try to appropriate it into something visually interesting when possible- e.g. the perfect portfolio editorial (top right) becomes character based and surreal looking. This became my favourite piece of the three for its simplicity in idea and composition. The piece for the creative careers editorial (bottom right) was my least favourite. Indeed, it probably was the least literal illustration of the three I made but I don’t think it made much sense, perhaps I was too preoccupied with the fear of it being too literal. The plant motifs were there to suggest some sort of growth/ career progression but I think it’s at once hard to understand and an overdone concept.
This was the final of the three images, for the piece on analogue methods in the digital age. I think it is a fun image, but maybe the silliness of pencil hair is not so Guardianesque. As a whole I think the images work together as a consistent set that would largely stylistically suit the readers of The Guardian. I tried to keep them in mind, making sure aesthetically it didn’t look too cutesy (as I often fall into the trap of) and using a limited colour palette.
Below: original sketch for the image to the left, which was later rearranged to create more direction within the image.
War Horse (substantial brief) The brief: create illustrations for Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse to be published by The Folio Society. Three inside illustrations and one cover design. I chose this brief as children’s illustration is something I’ve always considered but not been completely sure about. War Horse, being aimed at older children and with quite ‘dark’ themes was a new type of illustration for me to tackle. I also had to consider the non-child ‘collector’ audience that might buy the book. I am also interested in book illustration so all in all it seemed like a good opportunity. I began by reading the book and drawing as I went along, responding to the plot and the characters. My first priority was to learn how to draw horses! I wouldn’t want to make an obvious response to the book, but at the same time it seemed unavoidable that I would draw a horse! I spent what I think was too much time worrying about how I could illustrate the book- too much thinking and not enough doing. I was caught up trying to think of a way to present the
story in a metaphorical way, but as I started to think about how it was for a younger audience I didn’t want to make it too complicated. I realised there wasn’t really anything wrong with wanting to make an image that is quite literal but instead evokes emotions. I began to think about playing with the scale of the horse in the illustrations- what struck me in the story was how he became less self-involved and I tried to reflect on this in the way the images were composed. The story begins with him very involved with his own emotions so I made him the focus of the image, and as the story progresses he becomes less selfish and so smaller on the page. I made the interior illustrations first before the cover. Admittedly I didn’t really practice the media but dove straight in knowing I wanted to paint it with gouache. Luckily I think it was a risk that paid off (I would have just changed style if I felt it didn’t suit the first image) but if I had practiced I would have inevitably made a better image.
Cover design and digital mock up of book (right)
After looking at other books published by the Folio Society I could see that shape based images worked best as covers. I wanted the cover image to suit the inside illustrations but these were quite washy and less block-y, so instead took motifs I had used in these illustrations- particularly the bright red of the horse- and created them digitally on the cover to tie it together as a set. I considered using type on the front but again, judging by the other designs saw it wasn’t necessary and, perhaps lazily, knew my strengths lay in not using type. As a whole I’m quite proud of these illustrations and I’m glad I took the opportunity to try out book illustration.
Secret 7 The brief: create a record sleeve design for any of the seven selected tracks. I chose The JamArt School, Max Richter- Dream 3 and Tame Impala- The Less I Know The Better. My approach to this brief was to keep it spontaneous and intuitive. I didn’t want the designs to be obvious (I think it ruins the ‘secret’ aspect). I listened to my chosen tracks and sketched quite freely, trying to pick up on the feeling of the song than any literal interpretations. This project seemed to feel very much about freedom, giving the artists the opportunity to do whatever they wanted to do. I took this as an opportunity to do some painting, just because it was something I wanted to practice. I don’t think the images work together as a set but that’s not really what I set out to do. The brief was to create images that suit individual tracks, and I didn’t want to sacrifice what I felt to be suitable designs for the sake of a set that wasn’t asked for.
Design for Max Richter’s Dream 3. The music felt dark but not menacing. I’m honestly not sure where he came from. He feels a little lost.
Design for Tame Impala’s The Less I Know The Better. It’s a surreal feeling song (as reflected on in the real music video for it). My personal approach to this was just “weird but not too frightening”.
Design for The Jam’s Art School. This design went through the most changes to the original plan which I think is wholly reflective on art school itself! My thoughts for this were “art students are always angry about things, but they look good whilst doing it”.
Digital mock-ups of the record sleeves. Part of my learning in responsive has actually been learning how digital mock-ups work (and that they’re not as complicated to make as they seemed). They’re a really good tool to show ideas to clients, if not just a satisfying way to display your work. I didn’t get into the exhibition but that’s ok! I think as a whole I could have gotten more out of the opportunity- on my part, regardless of winning or not. It was fun, but I acknowledge I didn’t put that much thought into it and I wonder if I should have done. Still, making images spontaneously was a different experience, and time is pretty key for a lot of illustration work I suppose!
Coffee Shop North At the Off The Page exhibition I was approached by the owners of Colours May Vary to say that they had passed my details on to someone interested in using my work in a project called Coffee Shop North- a book ‘showcasing coffee culture in the north of England’. The brief: illustrate a poem about coffee by Elliot Day to be published in Coffee Shop North. I had heard about this project before on social media so already I was a little interested. I was in two minds to accept the commission as I wouldn’t be paid for it. I don’t think I would accept *free* work again in the future but took this opportunity to be published (and also use it towards my degree in this module). In the poem the phrase “thick bursts of steam” caught me eye, it seemed like an opportunity to draw something a little more ethereal for a poem that is mostly the literal goings on of the workings of a coffee shop.
Some of the sketches I sent to Dan Saul Pilgrimart director and creator of Coffee Shop North
I had originally intended to use one of the simplistic compositions but as I began to draw it out I found that it looked a little empty scaled up to A4 (the publication size). I added a few elements into the design and sent this to the art director. He was pretty relaxed about the design, and mentioned that many of the other illustrations were very simple so I toned it down a little again. I decided to paint the image largely because that’s where I’m interested in my illustrations being. The piece was monochrome on request. I couldn’t help feel that the combination of washy painted shapes and black and white made it look like a poor man’s Eleni Kalorkoti, but tried to make it my own. I’m not entirely happy with the final image, and have some hope that it might look better printed as I feel it does as a physical painting. Coffee Shop North were happy with it as a final image, which I suppose is the most important person to be happy in the exchange. I wonder if keeping to the more simple compositions of before would have been more beneficial. I still feel unsure of the concept and whether I could have pushed it to be something more loose, but I’m also learning that yes, literal depictions with a focus on atmosphere aren’t all that bad and quite relevant to some projects!
Sketch of the final image
Although it’s a painting it didn’t stop me taking advantage of Photoshop to create small variations. It was decided that the obscured faces were better, and I felt that although I found the composition felt more interesting that the final one was the most balanced. I also discovered that CMYK files don’t really like black.
Final illustration for Coffee Shop North
D&AD: The Dazed Brief, Declare Independence in 15 seconds (collaborative brief) Collaborators: Emma McCutcheon, Katy Mulvey, Molly Fairhurst The brief: Create four videos that showcase independence in fifteen seconds. There must also be a making of video. We knew from the beginning that our interests lay in animating over live footage. Looking at Dazed magazine we identified that there was as strong focus on art, music and fashion. Our idea was to animate over live footage of people doing ordinary tasks, highlighting creative freedom and expression in everyday life. The animation would be of patterns, motifs and clothes, taking particular inspiration from the fashion aspects of Dazed magazine. Our goals were to make something fun and spontaneous. The four film titles we set as guidance were ‘The Dance’, ‘The Book’, ‘The Crowd’ and ‘The Face’. The first task was to design pattern gifs that would then be masked over into the videos. I struggled with the construction of looping gif and worried the group wouldn’t like my efforts. What I found
hardest about working in a group was the inability to judge if what I was making would be approved of by the group, and I would find myself working too much (not necessarily in a good way) to please them when in reality the work was fine! I think I felt more pressure because I was an illustrator working with animators on an animation based project. This project taught me to be open with colleagues about these struggles as they arise.
but they were very helpful and taught me a lot- filming, how to film stop motion, some basics in the photography studio. They also went on to teach me how to animate in Photoshop with the video timeline which I can see using in my practice outside of this project.
I’d had some experience of animating with last year’s GIF project and I put this to use again animating over the live footage. I expected it to not be a quick At this point we also needed some music process but it took longer than I thoughtto go with the videos, and this took quite but nothing a few late nights couldn’t do. a bit of time to find as we needed I animated the dancing footage, and then something free to use but also suited to to help with time animated the orange Dazed and Confused. I put out a call face in The Crowd and the latter half of online to see if anybody would be open the footage in The Book. Emma had to us using their music in a project and made us a timetable to stick to, which we luckily (fellow illustrator) Vinnie Neuberg largely did, but time management was an offered his songs. Another plus of having issue. It was mostly a case of clashing a social media presence I suppose. deadlines in other projects, and it did feel a bit frustrating to not be quite to time We then went on to film the footage for when we had all put a lot of work in. I the videos. At this point we had also had suppose it was mostly an the idea that one of them could be stop underestimation of how long an motion animation on somebody’s face. animation project like this takes. We filmed the bulk of the footage in the park and the stop motion in the AV studio. The team were great- I was and am very inexperienced in these things
As a whole I was quite pleased with the results of the project. I don’t think we put enough thinking into the concept- I don’t think it really yells ‘independence’ or maybe even the cool chic that is associated with Dazed and Confused, but knowing it was a project that asked for some deliverables we knew would take a long time to make we knowingly sacrificed concept for construction. Personally coming out of this project I think I’ve learnt a lot about working with other people and learnt even more technical skills. I’m glad to have done it.
Still pattern designs, completed gifs and screenshots from The Dance
Orange head design and screenshots from the section of The Book I animated
Screenshots from the four completed films
OUIL503 Module Summative Evaluation Responsive has been quite an interesting module!
to be doing this module- I didn’t want it to be considered part of the main chunk of this module so took on enough other I have had some very small experience projects for it to instead be considered a working for other people with my work for side project, but included it here because Fuzzy Logic but when at university and I undertook this work during 503 and felt constantly working on projects for I had still learned something from it. yourself or your assessors it definitely Regardless, with Fuzzy and CSN I find felt different to make work for myself being a little apprehensive when competitions and other clients. And in creating work for it, with less (but still itself too working for competitions feels some) desire and inspiration to be different to working for clients despite experimental with techniques and ideas them both being live briefs- with because of limited timeframes but mostly competitions although it is made for perceived expectations from the clients. someone it feels more free- I feel Dan Saul Pilgrim from CSN found my competitive and enough pride in myself work through the Off the Page exhibition, to put a lot of effort into projects but take and with it I was a little concerned he them more at this point as an opportunity was expecting something just like what I to try and push something new in a had had in the exhibition. relatively quick brief. I felt this notably in regards to War Horse, diving straight into Studio Brief Two saw me work creatively the final images painting when I hadn’t in a group which is not something I’m done very much of it before. I wouldn’t wholly used to. I had worked quite say it’s the completely correct approach successfully in a group for OUIL502 though! But this way I did learn that I PPP’s Life’s A Pitch project but this was very much enjoy painting. entirely creatively focused and involved making rather than just being theoretical. Compare this to Fuzzy Logic and Coffee I found it hard to share creative focus Shop North. Notably, I didn’t take on and struggled with feelings of Fuzzy for Responsive but rather it was inadequacy compared to animators- but work that came along whilst I happened overcame this when I actually discussed
my technical issues with them! Even though I’m not sure the final videos suited the Dazed aesthetic and objective (as discussed in the project report) I think it was a successful animation in itself and I came away from it having learned a lot- about working in groups but also technical things like filming, stop motion and animating. I picked briefs out of personal interests. I have interest in working in editorial and publishing, so The Guardian and The Folio Society’s competitions seemed like prime opportunities. I took on Secret 7 mostly because it sounded fun which I don’t think is necessarily a bad thing- I’m at a point in my life where I can take on fun projects just to do that! Coffee Shop North wasn’t something I would have thought of or maybe even taken a second glance of given the title (I like coffee but am no connoisseur) but being given the opportunity to be published is great I think. Maybe this is a sign that I should pay attention to briefs that don’t have fancy exciting titles- after all a project is what you make of it.
I’m starting to think about how audiences aren’t necessarily divided up by age or gender but rather interests and focuses. War Horse was written mostly for children in mind but I’m sure there are plenty of adults who enjoy it, and when combined with the context of The Folio Society and their types (and prices) of books suggests a collector audience. I think I’ve covered a good range of audiences and contexts through Responsive but wonder if I could have challenged myself a bit more. Admittedly my work for Secret 7 felt so open and non-specific that I felt like I was just completing it for the sake of the module, and at once I didn’t want to limit it by forcing it into a set but also felt that it was directionless. As I go along I’m also learning more about ‘communicating with clients’, which sounds a bit silly but I think it’s worth thinking about consciously. Many times I have rewritten emails because after a pause of looking over it I realise I’m being too apologetic, or too rambling. It seems weird but I think you need a certain
assertiveness when talking to clients! Be simple and direct. All in all I feel like I’ve learned a lot and have largely enjoyed myself. I’ve learnt a lot technically and about where I want to go- the editorial and publishing briefs were what I enjoyed and quite possibly were best at, so might well be worth keeping up.