OUIL503 Project Report Sophie Hargreaves
YCN Pan Macmillan For the 150th anniversary of the Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Pan Macmillan were asking for a book cover design and up to two inside illustrations. The brief specified the size requirements, audience (which was young girls and boys aged 5 to 9) and that the cover must include the 150th anniversary logo. I initially chose this brief because I was a fan of the book and I was interested in children’s story book illustrations. Since then however, I feel as though the focus of my practice has moved onto other areas of illustration. As there was so much time to complete this brief, I definitely made the mistake of ignoring it for a while. When I did manage to regain focus on it, I pushed myself to experiment with digital textures and custom Photoshop brushes. As a result of this I think I was able to produce better quality illustrations. As this was a competition brief, I had to think about what would make my work stand out, so I took a bit of a risk in focusing on some of the darker themes of the story considering Pan Macmillan had specified that this was for a young audience. Presentation was another area I have had to develop with this. In order to make my work look more professional, I chose to show it in context as well as the flat illustration. This is something that I am now trying to do across the whole of my practice – not only because it looks better but it helps me think about where my work will exist before I reach the end product. The pros of taking part in competitions like this would be that if you win, then it’s good coverage for your work and you can create good contacts with people in industry. However, it is also a way for companies to get free ideas or illustrations which you might not even get credited for. Whilst I enjoyed this brief, I’m not sure whether children’s book illustrations is an area of my practice I want to develop further. This could however, be a result of working on one brief for so long.
YCN J2O For this competition, Britvic were asking for new label and packaging designs for two of their J2O flavours, Orange & Passion fruit and Apple & Mango. The purpose of the competition was to get a design that appealed to an older audience as people typically regard it as a drink for younger people. I thought this would be a great opportunity to try out illustration for packaging and I was eager to get started. The brief specified that you must keep the J2O logo and the colour green somewhere on the design which kept it more simple – it meant I didn’t have to completely re-design the whole J2O image. However, what was unclear was whether or not you could change the main bottle label shape. I didn’t think about this until quite late on in the process so I stuck to what I had already designed but this could be the downfall of my design and I am a little worried that as a result, they won’t consider my work. With my designs I was hoping to convey that the drink is a healthier alternative to alcoholic drinks served in bars and restaurants. In retrospect, I actually think that the label looks like it is trying to resemble those on alcoholic drinks – which in some respects, is true because that’s what I immediately thought to look at when an older audience was stated. Even though this might not promote the ‘healthy alternative’ image I was aiming for, at least it wouldn’t look too childish when amongst other drinks in a bar or restaurant. If I were to do this again, then I probably would alter the designs slightly. I would definitely consider using minimal colour and possibly get rid of the more decorative elements. Overall, I’m happy with the way I presented my designs – showing them in context makes them look more like a finished product and demonstrates professionalism, which at this stage in my practice is becoming increasingly important.
Live Brief
This brief came from a market stallholder in my hometown. They were asking for a logo they could put onto business cards, a banner and possibly packaging or stickers in the future. The stallholder commutes to various markets throughout the week so they felt it was important to have a consistent image and look more professional. It was a pretty quick turnaround and I definitely felt out of my comfort zone dealing with type. The difference between this brief and the competition briefs I’ve been doing, is that the client determined the final result. It was unusual to hand over a piece of work that I didn’t necessarily like but it was fun to branch out a little and explore new parts of my practice. Although as an illustrator it doesn’t really fit within my practice to deal with type, I do think it is important for me to find out about the basics of it because a client will inevitably ask for something like this again. The most important thing I learnt from doing a live brief is that a client doesn’t always fully understand your skillset so it is important to be adaptable and willing to put in some research for those areas you’re unfamiliar with.
Black Mass Competition For their ‘Black Mass’ tour, three bands hosted a competition for the poster design. This was published on their Instagram and Facebook pages and the winner was voted by the public. The rules outlined that the submissions were to just be uploaded to Instagram, which lowers the quality, with the competition hash tag underneath which seemed a bit odd to me. Although I’m not really interested in this kind of illustration work, I thought it was worth a try – even though it would just be giving them a free poster design because even if I did win, I couldn’t really accept the prize (VIP tickets to one of the dates on this tour which was overseas). I think the fact that I only had a few hours to get my entry finished and that I wasn’t feeling too enthusiastic about it really shows in the final artwork. I always find that I am never happy with my poster work . This is definitely due to the fact that I don’t do them very often and I need to explore different layouts/compositions. With the artwork, I tried to keep it relevant to the tour name – Black Mass is a travesty of the Roman Catholic Church mass and ram skulls are typically associated with it. This was a completely different subject matter to what I usually deal with. Within my practice, I prefer try to juxtapose darker motifs with typically feminine themes but in this case, it wasn’t appropriate, so I was at a loss for what else to draw. The feedback I got from other entrants/fans about this design was really encouraging and it was great to be able to have that dialogue – something that a lot of competitions don’t enable, perhaps because of the platform they are hosted on. However, I did feel that because all the entries were open to the public to see, there might have been risk of plagiarism/people copying an idea. All in all, I wasn’t too bothered about not wining this competition. If it were hosted on a proper website, rather than Instagram and judged by people in the design industry, I probably would have given it more attention.
Tigerprint Floral Competition For their February competition, Tigerprint were asking for a floral pattern design that could be used on products such as giftwrap, cards or giftbags. The target demographic was Marks & Spencer’s customers and the brief stated that we must keep SS15 trends in mind. As this was the first time I’d made a pattern to a brief, I took the research side of it quite seriously. I looked at spring/summer flowers and the kinds of colours you would see in a flowerbed. I also had a look at the Pantone colour trend predictions and used these for my palettes. When it came to actually producing the pattern, I think I forgot about the target demographic and I think the final resolution looks more suitable for a young audience. I also feel that I made the mistake in not submitting a close-up picture of the pattern. The one that I submitted doesn’t show any of the textured brushes and since the submission required that it be 72dpi, they wouldn’t have been able to zoom in and see the detail. Overall, I wasn’t too happy with my response to this brief and I felt like I was capable of producing something much better. However, since they put up a new pattern competition every month or so, I knew I’d have another chance to make patterns I was satisfied with.
Tigerprint Mark Making Competition For the March competition, Tigerprint were asking for a pattern based around mark making. Since the last brief, I had practised my pattern making skills, so I was more confident and I was eager to get started. Compared with the last Tigerprint brief, I had much more fun with mark making. I just used a brush and ink and covered a couple of pages of A4 with various brush flicks, lines and dots. I then manipulated the most successful sections in Photoshop and experimented with layering various marks. I think that these responses were much stronger than my previous competition entry. I felt quite proud after I had submitted because I felt like I actually learnt something new and I was much more confident that it answered the target demographic (which was once again, Marks & Spencer’s customers). I can see myself using this technique of pattern making again and I really like the textures it creates – something I am constantly trying to achieve digitally when I clearly should just be experimenting on paper. As the competition is still open, I don’t know how well I did or if I got shortlisted – hopefully I do! However, as I learnt so much just from the development of the work, I wouldn’t mind if nothing more comes from this, I feel satisfied with this and I’m eager to respond to their next competition.
Wrapped Co. Brief Wrapped Co. is a fairly new, non-profit online store offering lots of patterned gift-wrap. The brief was completely open, there was no specific theme or target audience, which gave you free reign to play. I’m not sure why I chose to make a watermelon themed pattern but I used the opportunity to experiment with some new texture brushes on Photoshop and work on adding more layers to my patterns. Even though I went into this with no plan, I think I managed to create something quite fun and I think it’s ideal for quirky gift-wrap. Wrapped Co. accepted all entries and will be accepting more soon, so I might have a go at producing some more patterns based on a theme. I think it’s a great way to get work out there. I don’t mind that I won’t get any money from this, I’m credited on the store page and on the Wrapped Co. Behance. I think after responding to so many pattern based competitions, it’s becoming an area of my practice that I’m really enjoying developing and I want to continue with it.
Geisha Wigs Logo Competition This was another competition I found on Instagram. Geisha Wigs is an online wig store and their customer base is quite edgy/alternative. Most of their products brightly coloured costume wigs – definitely aimed at quite a young age group. The brief was to create some sort of logo, including a mermaid-like creature with long hair, the shop name and pastel colours. It must be suitable for application to tote bags, labels etc. The entries were to be submitted via private message over Instagram – this didn’t sound great to me, as it lowers quality and it doesn’t seem very official. However, I went ahead and made a design anyway because it sounded like a fun subject. The closing date for entries has long gone and I have still yet to hear from them. After a couple of weeks, I sent a message asking whether a decision had been made and they responded saying that they were only just looking through the entries. As a decision has still not been made, I do feel as though I wasted my time entering this. Perhaps as they seem to be a small business (with lots of followers!), they won’t always follow through with competitions like this. Hearing nothing back about an entry makes it hard to measure it’s success but I would definitely like to do other briefs like this – just not one I find over Instagram again.
Business Card Brief
As I was designing my own business cards at the time, my brother asked me to make some for him. Initially I was a bit stumped for ideas as my own designs were illustration based whereas these didn’t require pretty images on the front. This had to be a quick turn around so I just stuck to using text and let the client pick which ones they liked – they wanted something simple that would communicate what they did and a phone number. A lot of the time, I forget that ‘non-creatives’ also need business cards but it could potentially be an easy way to make some quick money. Obviously this isn’t an area of my practice that I am going to focus on but it might be a good way to pick up more clients through word of mouth and it was a good way to learn how to print them costeffectively.
YCN Whistles Collaboration
This brief was asking for a concept for the first ever Whistles scent. This included what it would smell like, look like and a possible campaign idea. Sophie Wright and myself chose to work on this brief because we’re both interested in packaging design and had skills within this area that the other didn’t. In this collaboration, it was my job to come up with the image based side of things. For example, designing patterns to apply to the packaging, the promotional poster and finding ideas for the scent. The partnership worked because we set lots of little deadlines for ourselves but as I was the more organised partner, I felt like it was my responsibility to keep the project momentum going. However this isn’t necessarily a bad thing because it meant that nobody was bossing me about. With regards to my personal practice, I’m not sure I really like the idea of just producing a concept in response to a brief. This is because I like to create a physical piece of work and be very hands-on with the entire process. Even though we had answered the brief and had the work, I didn’t feel very satisfied with my efforts because it was all screen based and I only had to do half of the work. I would definitely like to collaborate with someone else again, but I’d prefer it if it were a much more hands-on brief and more spare time to dedicate to it.
Qwertee Submissions Qwertee is an online T-shirt store that accepts submissions from everyone, which the public then vote to decide which ones will be printed. Designs are only open for voting for a short amount of time and the ones that do get printed, are only available to buy for 24 hours. At the beginning of the module, I submitted the top T-shirt design. It was quite popular and got around 800 votes. However, I don’t really think the design is very well suited for T-shirts. What I noticed about a lot of the other designs were how they incorporated the T-shirt colour or used half tones. I didn’t feel like my first design was of a very high quality but I do think that I struck a chord with appealing to the Qwertee user-base because most of the submissions seem to be games/’geek culture’ related. My second submission was much more recent and I think even the presentation of the design has improved. I combined feminist themes with a motif from an old anime to once again appeal to the website’s audience. With this design, I used the full six colours for light shirts and the shape of the image meant it could cover a larger area of the shirt front. As the voting has only just begun on this design, it’s hard to judge how well it will do. It’s been available for voting for around 3 hours now and has roughly 47 votes – which in my opinion isn’t too bad! Although I do regret not taking the time to produce more Qwertee submissions, I think I’ve got a better grasp of what that audience wants now and I think I’ll continue to submit designs. I’ve never thought about designing T-shirts as a part of my practice, but I really do enjoy applying my work to various products, so I can see this being an area I develop further.