Portfolio EGRD3014 Independent Practice Yukina Narita
Fanzine Through the experience of making fanzine gave me an idea of creating something without considering too much, and make a fast action on deciding how I can create images and books in order to communicate with the audience. I could not complete the whole book within a day unfortunately but I could enjoy making images using postcards, leaflets, and tapes I’ve been keep inside the drawer. I always collect stuff but it won’t prove its value unless it will be seen properly or presented as a work. I normally make a scrapbook after I come back from the long travel, but there’s still some piles of papers and stuff which hasn’t been sorted. This Fanzine project was a good opportunity to think about the way how I can present these materials.
Style of Drawing In order to decide on the style of my drawing , I researched some of my favorite artist’s style, and found the common aspects compared to my own style. As I am interested in the abstract pattern that made by something such as shadow, texture, or its shape, I like to capture those shape and arrange it to drawings.
These drawings on the right are based on the inspiration when I travel to Denmark, and I draw them quite simply using colour pencils with observing objects through the photographs I took. I thought it would be good to think about what kind of style I can explore further for my illustration skill. These are done by line drawing which is the technique I usually use. So I am thinking I might try a new style which is using other media, or do collage using photograph of texture of actual object where I get the idea from.
Left images from above: Natsuko Seki Sanna Annukka Martin O’Neil
Simplified Object These drawings are just illustrating objects in simple line, and a few colours, to try how far it can be simple as Im going to express them in pattern‌ At the moment I am thinking not using too many colours,and trying to use straight line a lot to make it more looks abstract.
Left top: A Girl bottom: Road and Light
top: Smoke and cigarette bottom: Fish Left: Mosaic Stones
Collecting As I present my interest in the presentation in the beginning of the unit, and using the stuff I’ve been collecting as a material for the collages in Fanzine, I thought it is quite interesting to finding the way of how to use these collected stuff. I always inspired by the stuff I collect from different region of country or from other countries when I travelled. Different and new things which I am not familiar with looks really fresh to me, and fun to find the different way of Graphic Design style such as use of colour, Language, which is sometimes reflecting its own culture strongly. It is not always about the graphic matter, the textiles and ribbons also can inspires me. Because it reflect folk culture or traditional aspects more. And the patterns and materials on each design can be the identity of its country sometimes, and really interesting.
There is certain image and impression of the country for each person, and the folk culture can be the strong aspect of supporting its images because it is the style of people living in each countries and all of them are different. I thought if I draw the identity of the country over the world based on the folk culture, it would make me try on to different style of illustration as well.
Researching Artists Charley Harper(1922-2007) is American Illustrator/Artist. His work has a simple shaped objects, and uses Nature as a motif. He has done works for some nature-based organizations such as National Park Service, Chincinnati Zoo. Some of his illustrations has a lots of colours at the same time but somehow it looks really tidy and not too complicated, maybe because of the shape of objects structured by curve and straight lines.
Alexander Girard is also American Artist, his art work is famous in not only Graphic Design, but also Textile Design. He is known as a collector of Folk artifacts, and the image above is the wooden dolls he designed for displaying in his house in San ta Fe 1963. Each dolls have unique faces and patterns/shapes.
World Cup Illustrations I drew for the project when I was doing Work Experience in London, summer. I meant to draw the identical illustrations for each country joining the World Cup and tried to get ideas for illustrating the features of those countries, which illustrations can make everybody to guess. It was easy to draw countries having strong identity or cultural/historical aspects, or simply the countries I travelled, but when it comes to the small countries and if I don’t know any culture about them, it was pretty hard to express with the illustrations. For some ideas for those country, I just used the colours or symbol can be seen in their flag, rather than forcing myself to draw the things I don’t really know. So some countries worked well if their flags are really unique or identical. I tired to draw those in different style, or with different mediums(colour-pencils, pens/inks, pencils,crayons…) And this time I want to explore more those techniques, using photograph and software to combine various media…
Silkscreen Experiment I was looking into the world’s folk culture but this time I decided to experiment my printing skills with the image of Scottish traditional figure: A man with bagpipe in tartan costume. I tried to make it simple, and not to draw details to make it looks more like an icon than pure illustration. I quite like the way it looks simple but still recognisable. Although I might try the other ways to express culture, this method can be the main thing I can focus on through the project.
Dialects on English On the process of finding different culture, using text, I thought the Language can be the big part of comparing countries. But as an international student myself, it is really hard to understand those regional dialects even in English. It is almost impossible to catch any words sometimes. So I decided to look into the dialects on English language rather than look into thousands of foreign languages. I started with looking the folk song, poetry, or mythology , but they are quite old and complicated. So I simply started to investigate the different accent in different region inside UK country.
Great Britain (British English) -Black British English England (English language in England) Northern -Cheshire -Cumbrian (Cumbria including Barrow-in-Furness) -Geordie (Tyneside) -Lancastrian (Lancashire) -Scouse (Merseyside) -Mancunian-Salfordian (Manchester & Salford) -Mackem (Sunderland) -Northumbrian (rural Northumberland) -Pitmatic (Durham and Northumberland) -Yorkshire (also known as Broad Yorkshire or Tyke) -In the far north, local speech is noticeably Scots in nature. East Midlands West Midlands -Black Country English -Brummie (Birmingham) -Potteries (north Staffordshire) Southern -Received Pronunciation (Also known as Queen’s English or BBC English) -Cockney (East London) -East Anglian (Norfolk/Broad Norfolk, Suffolk and North Essex) -Estuary (Thames Estuary) -Kentish (Kent) -Multicultural London English (Inner London) -Sussex West Country Scotland -Scottish English Wales -Welsh English -Cardiff
London Accents After I researched about the different dialects on English, I found out there are too many accents all over the country, so I decided to focus the area to London only. And picked up 3 different accents which is are -Received Pronunciation (Queen English) -Cockney -Estuary English When I researching about Cockney English, there is an unique phrases that they use, Rhyming Slang. This is kind of a traditional way of using the phrase/words replacing with rhyming words. I found these Top 10 Classic Cockney Rhyming Slang. -Apples and Pears — Stairs -Adam and Eve — Believe -Kettle — Watch -Pony and Trap — Crap -Ruby Murray — Curry -Butcher’s Hook — Look -Trouble and Strife — Wife -A la Mode —Code -Ace of Spades — AIDS -Barnet Fair — Hair There are also some interesting rhyming slangs using People’s name. -Pete Tong — Wrong -Brad Pitt — Shit -50 cent — Bent These slangs are not necessarily used in London, some are used commonly throughout this country. So these Phrases are might familiar to some of you, but for me, it is really interesting culture and actually exciting to look into.
Research-It’s a small world I used to watch Disney’s animation a lot when I was a kid, and going to the Disneyland with my family was memorable exciting experience in childhood. There is an attraction called ‘It’s a small World’, featuring various countries’ culture all over the world, through the cheerful marionettes(puppets?) in national costume. I like the way they create cute small dolls (mainly children) with much details on the costume and background. And also sometimes you can hear different languages singing ‘It’s a small world’.
Research-Artist I was looking at some illustrators, and came across this Czechoslovak artist, Miroslav Sasek. There’s several picture books illustrating about different cities, such as New York, Paris, San Francisco, Rome. This would give me ideas in order to sum my thoughts up and put all the illustrations together as a book format or any kind of publication. I think the next thing I really need to do is investigating each country’s culture from the different point of view as a Japanese.
10 Countries Selected I thought it would be better to focus on the countries I’ve been travelled in the past, rather than spreading my mind into numbers of countries all over the world. I looked at 10 different countries I travelled in order to get the right concept and avoid making any misunderstand on each culture, because I can be confident with the thing I have experienced. I wrote down a very simple list of words about representative (or remarkable) points on each regions.
Germany (duitsland) Berlin / Dresden Grim’s Fairy Tales / Bauhaus / Berlin Wall Historical / Straight / Clean / Freezing / Modern / Fountain Greece (Ελλάδα) Rhodes / Lindos / Symi 1 , 2 , 3 / Kos 1 , 2 Mysterious Letters / Sunny / Ocean / White / Blue / God / Mythology / Religious / Fruit / Art Denmark (Danmark) Copenhagen Andersen / Toy / Antique Streets / Post (museum) / Mermaid / Colourful Norway (Norge) Oslo Dark / Munch / Tall Buildings / Fairy tale / Forest / Fiord / Fish Clock Sweden (Sverige) Stockholm Classic / Detailed relief on architecture / Traditional / Antique Shops / Picture Books / Old Alley Finland (Suomi) Helsinki Modern / Simple / Pottery (Arabia) / Moomin (Tove Jansson) / Textile / Salmon / Market at the port / Tram France (France) Paris 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 / Versailles / Rouen / MontSaint-Michel Chic / Eros / Artistic / Dirty Metro / Perfume / Wine (Label) / Antique Market / French Food (yum!) / Art Deco / Cafe Italy (Italia) Rome / Florence / Milan / Venice 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 Tradition / Art / Narrow alley / Fashionable / Sophisticated / Market / Mask / Puppet / Mythology / Pasta / Pizza / Gloves / Hats / Leather Czech Republic (Česká republika) Prague Book / Clock / Souvenir / Chocolate / Slope / Stone Brick / Old Town / Museum / River / Mechanism / Puppetry / Mucha / Toy / Picture Books / Astrology Scotland (Scotland) Edingburgh / Glassgow Dark / North / Gothic / Youth in gothic costume / Castle / Soldier / Tartan / Scarf / Green / Red / Ghost tour / Celtic Music / Sports (Golf / Football)
10 Folks Illustration I drew illustration based on the inspirations from 10 different countries. I was kind of going to two different directions, one is looking the national costume of different countries all over the world taking advantage of my experience and memory from travel about them, and the other is about traditions and different region’s dialects/accents in the U.K. But I’ve been wanted to create illustrations inspired by different cultures in the first place, so I decided to go for making those first and see what happens. I know it might confuse me if I look into two subjects at the same time but I want to see how far I can go. So on next stage, I will focus on UK’s culture more and think about the content/ use of the text alongside of illustrations more.
London Illustration I was looking for the traditional folk costume for London, because I have already draw illustrations for 10 countries, and wanted to make the same illustration for UK as well. Then I found the traditional costume of Pearly Kings and Queens, because I was focusing the area of UK to London. And as the way to illustrate London’s folk culture with the traditional costume image, this Pearlies are pretty cool culture to look at, I really like the way they making outstanding patterns and letters with the pearls against the black background of clothes. Very detailed but I think it would look nice if I draw them into simple illustration.
Phrases for 10 countries I looked back my records of journey and scrapbooks, and picked up 3 adjective and 2 nouns for each 10 countries. These words are the description of my personal experience/memory I got from the journey. Basically these words came up in my mind when I remember what the trip was like and how did I feel about them, so the words are really Simple:P and sometimes really random, like the name of object I remember strongly (like Fruit, Lantern…). Germany a: straight / geometric n: Fountain / History / Fairy tale Greece a: mythical / blue&white n: Fruit / Myth / Ocean
And after I selected these words, I tried to make random phrases mixing these words. Then I got following phrases for each counties… Some of them sounds really strange and might be nonsense but they sounds kind of imaginative? (or poetic in a way…) for me, like the title of books, which makes you imagine the story. I put Japanese translation beside to make myself think about the idea more flexibly.
Czech Republic a:pretty / decorative
Germany : Geometric History (幾何学的な歴史) Greece : Mythical Fruit (神話の果物) Denmark : Colourful Fairy tale (カラフルなおとぎ話) Norway : Dark Forest (暗い森) Sweden : Antique Lantern (古風なランタン) Finland: Quiet Port (静かな港) France : Chic Perfume (上品な香水) Italy : Artistic Alley (芸術的な小道) Czech : Decorative Illusion (装飾的な幻) Scotland : Northern Castle
n: Illusion / Astrology / Slope
(北の城)
Denmark a: colourful / cheerful n: Mermaid / Fairy Tale / Toy Norway a: dark / chilly n: Buildings / Forest / Fiord Sweden a: time worn / antique n: Lantern / Book / Relief Finland a: quiet / modern n: Tram / Port / Textile France a: chic / art deco n: Metro / Perfume / Cafe Italy a: traditional / artistic n: Mask / Alley / Religion
Scotland a: gothic / northern n: Soldier / Castle / Ghost
Images for the exhibition For the exhibition we had in the Ebbisham centre, I tried to make the images I’ve been experimenting more easy to look, and simple to be fit in 4 boards. I picked up the typography for the country, because the letters I draw in the first image were all the same, and with my hand-writing. And if I type them using computer, it would make the letter more easy to read and accurate. But after the tutorial I found that I need reason why I picked those typeface for each countries. For example why I choose Rockwell for London, and Chicago for Germany. So I looked into the typography’s history and picked the typography again which is relating to the country in some way. For example, Old London for London, and Bauhaus for Germany.
The typography I choose for each countries ... London - Old London Scotland - Willow France - Peignot Greece - Lithos Czech Republic - Steiner Denmark - Comfortaa Norway - Asphyxiate Sweden - Tratex Finland - Eurostile Italy - Bodoni Poster Germany - Bauhaus 93
Ornament for each country After I draw the illustration and picked the typography, I wanted to explore the idea in different way more. One of the reason is because I still felt like the typeface for the countries are still not completely suit for each countries. Because I choose them from the historical aspects, not from the impression or memory I got from my journey. So I decided to create abstract pattern including the first letter of the country. I designed ornamental pattern based on the phrases I create in earlier stage, and used the line to draw mainly. I did not wanted to make the image looks too obvious, so I used the ornamental pattern and mixed with the drawings and Letter. And the selection of the typography for each countries are: London : Old London
Final Outcome Using all the experimental images I have been created, I create one book using online publishing, Issuu. I put different version of images for each countries, including the typography and illustration using identical colours for each. I was working on two different subject, one is folk culture of 10 countries I have travel, and other is about the Cockney accent in London. But in the final outcome I put all 10 countries and London together, to make it consistent. And I thought it would be confusing if I put Cockney Rhyming Slang together, which does not have a strong concept or big progress. Each country have 6 pages: Phrase of describing country in Japanese, the ornamental pattern in white, Folk costume figure, pattern and figure together with the phrase,country’s name in pickedup typeface, and repeated pattern of the folk costume figure. The reason I put the phrase in Japanese is because I felt the potential in using Japanese character as one of the elements to express identity in different way.
Small Projects
3 Minutes Film This exercise was completely outside of my comfort zone, I just made a film fusing video camera once before, and I don’t really have enough skill to edit the film down using software such as aftereffects and final cut pro...within a week. But I think this end up with nice outcome, after all I quite enjoyed making the sequences with the stop motion and various still images.
Outside of Comfort zone On ‘Things I have never done before project’,I choose drawing something on to the glass. This gave me a different point of view, because I normally draw something on to paper, and won’t show anyone until it’s finished. This time I was using the glass inside the University such as the glass wall between silent area in the library, and the window beside of the staircase. Even it was inside the University, I felt quite nervous because I felt like I am drawing on to the area I suppose not to. So every time people walk pass by me, I felt guilty but also had an excitement of challenging something totally new area for me. So the reason why I felt this is ‘out side of my comfort zone’ are.. 1.Showing people the process of my drawings and I can see them too through the glass 2.Drawing up-side down 3.Feel guilty to draw onto public space 4.I don’t like to film myself and document it as a way to present it.
Creative Things As part of the small projects we have done in the beginning of this unit, we analysed 5 different Creative Things. My Creative Thing was grainedit website, and I feel I was really lucky to get this as my choice. Because the style and atmosphere they after is exactly the same taste of what I am after too, in order to develop my illustration skill. Even after I finish analysing I bookmarked this website and keep checking updated posts often. And it helped me a lot to know the new illustrator, not only from Uk, and it was always interesting to read the article about the biography and interview with the featured artists. It is good that they keep posting new article in nice time span, and each article are written in ideal length so it’s quite easy to make me read.
FMP Proposal title/ Packaging the culture contents/ After these progress of independent practice, I thought I have not challenged the idea in different media. So if I can put my idea into more practical way, such as print them onto fabric or make 3D object reflecting each folk culture... Because I am interested in Packaging Design as well, so it might be a good opportunity to try out the area I want to go in the future. And as I researching the best typeface for each culture, I thought each countries have representative Design history as well. Although the main theme not has to be about the ‘design’, I think there are so many things that people don’t really know about foreign countries. So I thought of making the package of guide for different countries, which include each culture’s traditional aspect, or languages. This might be kind of branding project, and from the point of my view as a Japanese student. outcome/ At the moment I am thinking a book or box as a container for putting different elements explaining the culture, but I might make the countries less otherwise it would need great amount of time to work on 10 (+1) countries. audience/ Travel agency Book shop Travelling people Audience will be anyone who have an interest about the different country, and also for the people going for the travel to that country if I am going to create a guide for the country.