My understanding of the Image and text Brief was to use image and text in a variety of different ways to produce a final outcome, also how you can use image and text together instead of two separate components. This is important especially because last year my feedback was to develop different ways in which I can use type and image together.
Identifying the Audience within both Briefs was important as it can determined whether an illustration is successful once it is put into context. For instance the Editorial brief I conducted research on not only the readers of the observer but also the audience of the TV show (The Great British Bake off). From this I gathered an understanding that this article will interest a vast audience as The Observer is a sister papers from the Guardian it has a lot of readers and The GBBO has almost 9 million viewings in the most recent series. Following reading the article that had a lot of light hearted fun and humor it is important to portray this also within my imagery.
I feel that the best ideas that I produced were the ones which I developed by being playful with the briefs, for instance the Editorial article for the great British Bake off, as I tried to be as fun and light hearted with the imagery as possible to take the editorial away from the obvious and literal illustrations which I could have produced. I also find this approach fitting with the language used in the article as it involved a lot of Bake-off related puns and jokes, therefore I wanted to create an image which replicates the same sense of fun and humor which was within the article.
I referred to many different editorial illustrators including those that are being represented by The Observer to see what styles and type of illustrations are being produced for the paper. An editorial illustrator that influenced my work would be Kelsey Heinrichs his work is playful and focuses on the fun side and distorts it to make them quirky yet rather absurd, his work also is incredibly focused on his use of line and composition as he adds detail both into the foreground and background. His work becomes quite surreal and reminds me of something that you would imagine in a dream. Following this I then decided to look at the Surrealism movement during this brief as inspiration because I liked the way in which Dali and Magritte are able to create bizarre yet fun landscapes by distorting objects in terms of there scale and form. This enabled me to play on the idea of ‘The Great British Break up’ by using a giant mixing bowl with cake mixture being splattered around the image (I decided to use this as a metaphor being the messiest part of baking to reflect the chaos and mess the business exchange has become.) Also Mary Berry is trying to escape the ‘car crash deal’ as Paul Hollywood is sat comfortably being paid by a Chanel 4 boss, this contrast was also important in the image as Paul Hollywood is stated to be ‘The odd man out’ I wanted to show how Paul Hollywood to be superior by sitting him comfortably in the image.
My development process to generate and create ideas has been similar throughout both Editorial and the Image and Text brief, to begin with I would start by using word associations through a mind map which I would then use to create small illustrations of different ideas I could do for each brief, these could be completely different or just adaptations of one another. This allowed me open up to ideas I wouldn’t necessarily have thought of if I just developed a final outcome straight away. It also made me think about what design would be best once put into context for instance for the book cover I had to think about the illustration but also spacing for the Type on both the front and the back cover else it wouldn’t be an effective design.
The Audience for the Image and text brief is younger readers as I chose the Roald Dahl cover, therefore it is important to use bright and bold colours within the book cover to make it eye catching, also using large and simple text so that it is digestible for the younger audience. For the Image and Text brief I researched a variety of different practitioners to help influence and develop the ideas, which I was working on. The most influential for this project would be Jonny Hannah, Jasper Johns, Laura Carlin and Quentin Blake. From referencing the way these artists use composition, colour and type within their work I believe has allowed me to produce stronger final outcomes.
My working process is similar throughout both projects, initially I like to work traditional and hands on rather than digital. I have done this by using a variety of different mediums and techniques including watercolour, pencil crayons, acrylic, mono printing and Lino printing. I like to work larger than the actual image requirements and most of the times I will draw different components of one image separately and then scan my work into Adobe Photoshop where I will edit them together to create one image. I do this because I feel a lot more comfortable either drawing or painting as I have more control, during the ‘Image and Text’ brief however I started to draw on top of scanned in images of spiders digitally and laying them all together this is the most I have used Photoshop within one design this is because I am becoming more confident using digital software within my work.
For the Book jacket I decided to use lino printing, this was the very first time I had tried lino which allowed me to learn new techniques and a new media in image making. The reason why I decided to use Lino was because Quentin Blake who is renowned for his illustrations of the Roald Dahl books, his style uses mainly washes of watercolour / guache with scratchy black outlines. I didn’t want to paint because I felt that this may become another version of what Blake has already created, and I wanted to create a cover which will use bold flat colour which is why I thought lino would be the media to use. I think the final cover is a success as it has incorporated elements of each
Overall I am very happy with the both the editorial and the Image and text brief. I think that the Editorial was successful as I understood my audience and the TV show very well which allowed me to understand and create fun imagery for the article, not only this but I enjoyed the editorial and the process of creating different ideas for one image based on a piece of text. I think I selected key points and themes from the article and demonstrated them effectively in the final piece. In addition I enjoyed the facts which also felt like a similar process to the editorial, I think the fact ‘A Human will eat 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders’ was also successful as I like the way I twisted the imagery based on the language of being like sweets which gave the work a fun and original spin. It is also different to anything that I have produced before as I did lot of it digitally as well as by hand, I am going to try and develop this further within my study.
On the other hand I think that the most unsuccessful element of the project would be the fact ‘There are more vacant houses than homeless people in the United States’ I think my approach of the imagery was successful in terms of using the correct ratio of homeless to vacant houses on the stars of the American flag however I didn’t think about type, and I think I could have found a type that would look more effective. If I had more time I would have redone the type and done something by hand and scanned It in.
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