Emma Tully Illustration

I am a student currently studying Illustration at LJMU

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Children’s Book cover design

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Illustration Two 

Children’s Picture Books

Using Textures

After the second tutorial Mike suggested that I try and use more textures to create my imagery so I began to collage and scene together with texture and photographs. I found that adding photographic elements like the nuts and bolts made the images far more interesting. As I was really struggling to find interesting ways to use textures to create the scenes, so I thought experimenting with collage would give me more options in my image making. It is a technique that I have used before for my ReNarrative project, and it something that I really enjoyed so it made making images for this project a bit easier for me. The collage stands out against the texture, which for children’s books  is important as there needs to be an element that stands out and holds their attention.

Making these physical collages was my favourite part of the project, as soon as I tried applying a digital process to them that was were it became really difficult more me. However this project has made me a lot more competent on Photoshop and forced my out of my comfort zone, which in the long term is a positive thing.

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Children’s Books  Project Summery

Over the course of the children’s book project I have definitely found it the most challenging to date. I have a massive interest in children’s picture books however until this project I hadn’t been so aware of what makes a successful children’s book successful and what devices are commonly used. I tried to take all this on board and apply it to my own practice.

Difficulties with characterisation 

The biggest challenge I had throughout this project was figuring out how to make my characterisation successful. I struggled initially to find a way of working that was visually interesting yet that would still appeal to children. I decided to try and use textures and shapes to create my characters, which made my simplify my designs, so that they were more appropriate for the target audience. This didn’t really click until near the end of the project, and I think in terms of my general practice  is yet to be resolved. However this project allowed me to make a good start and forced me to approach image making in a different way. 

Using Warmer Colours 

Another issue that I had to resolve was my colour palette, as the initial colours I was using were too dark and dull for a children’s book so I tried to use brighter and warmer colours, this was very challenging for me at first as I was trying to combine odd colours, which I quickly found wasn’t working. I also found it really difficult applying colour digitally, and using digital process in general in such a major way throughout the project, as my digital skills are poorly lacking. However, the positive is that it has forced me to approach image making in a different way and resolve issues in my practice generally. The collage and practical side to the project I really enjoyed, and if I try using textures in this way again I will try to apply colour practically as apposed to digitally, as I think it will suit my way of working much better, also I will be able to see instantly how a colour will look when it is applied, instead of having to work out what it will print like. 

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Research: The Dinner That Cooked Itself

Whist using textures to create my imagery, I decided to have another look back at this books my Nobrow, as I think the illustrations are beautifully done using textures, but showed the potential for how using simple shapes can create beautiful characterisation. 

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Research: Hattie Peck

This is one of my favourite books I came across from my research, I love the designs of some go her pages, I picked it  up really cheap as well which is a bonus!

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Initial Character Developments 

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Illustration Two 

Children’s Picture Books

Here are my final double page spreads for my children’s book project. These are the images that I had the most fun making, throughout the project I found that I really like designing images and composition, even from the research i did I found that my favourite images were really well designed and used negative space really well. The part of the project I had the most trouble with was the characterisation and making the characters ‘warm’ enough for a younger audience. Finding a way of making work that was suitable for children and that they would engage with was the real challenge for me throughout the project. I also found it challenging trying to figure out how much information to give the audience and how  work to let them do. I think the work i’ve made for this project is a good start but needs a lot of work and refining.

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Illustration Two

Children’s Picture books Final Images

Here are a selection of my final images for the children’s book project, I tried to take on board the advice Mike gave me about my colours, I tried to pick colours that were warmer and brighter. I also changed my approach to making and started using textures to create the entire image. I think that the changes I made to my approach were definitely an improvement. However the technique still needs a lot of work, Im not entirely happy with all the images and would make alterations If I had the time. 

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Evaluation

Team Project 

I have enjoyed this project immensely, more than I actually thought I would although it has been incredibly difficult at times. I think that overall we answered the brief successfully, despite some of the issues we had with production of there bags or that our graphic design choice were not eye-catching enough. 

The Team 

As a team I think we functioned very well, we all got along and interesting ideas of where we should take the project, working with other people allows you to see things from a different perspective than you would normally in your own practice. I defiantly found this a positive thing, as I have produced work for this project that is completely different than what I have ever done before, which is widely down to working In a group. As I tend to work in a very traditional craft based way, I severely lack digital skills, which is an issue in my practice that I do need to address and this project has made me do it, as almost all the work I have completed for this project has been produced on a computer. It was breath of fresh air to work in such a different way to what I am used to, and it was down to the people I was teamed with that allowed me to do this.

The concept 

Overall I think that we had a very solid concept for our project, our logo conveyed time successfully and when applied to the bags allowed us to communicate shopping in an interesting way. We purposely chose a minimalist design to convey late night shopping in a sophisticated way, which ultimately we received criticism for during our presentation, due to it not fitting with the Liverpool ONE feel. However I still think our approach was very interesting and could be more effective with minor revisions to the aesthetic, whilst keeping to the same concept. 

Our application

One area in which I think we could have improved is out initial execution of the adverts we designed, having deceived feedback from the presentation I can see how they might not work as billboards, due to the limited colour scheme they did not stand out enough. Whereas a magazine or a book is an intimate experience the viewer spends more time with the advert, whereas a billboard only has a few seconds to get it's message across. However I think this is something that is easily rectified and we have all attempted to amend our own versions since the feedback. 

Overall I am pleased with what we have accomplished throughout this project, especially being a team member down for the last stages of the project. I have learned a vast amount from my team members which is all skills and techniques which will all inform my practice and hopefully improve it. 

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Website Advert 

As our feedback suggested redesigning elements of our project I decided to see what the new logo would look like on the Liverpool ONE website. I really liked our first design using the model, but after receiving feedback from the client that the images were not powerful enough/ should have had the model looking at the camera I decided to try using the main logo for the web ad instead.  I changed the text to white and changed the font to Baskerville, so that It was in keeping with the rest of the project, especially the redesigned elements. I think the ad works well to an extent, as it does fit the tone of the website however I think another image may have been more powerful rather than the logo. The designed logo does feel more vibrant and suits the tone of Liverpool ONE much more than our first design, it took seeing the logo in context to make me realise how much more suited to the project it was, and on a whole is far more eye catching.

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Revised Billboard 

Once I had my image for the billboard I tried photoshopping it onto screens around Liverpool ONE. The red is much stronger and far more eye-catching, however the text does become lost and wouldn't be abel to be read at a distance. The type would have to be a lot stronger and in a bolder font in order to be readable. The bag with the larger logo image is also the more powerful image, as I suspected.

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Bag Photographs Re-shoot

Here are some more photos from my re-shoot of my bag designs, I found that the smaller bags were much easier to photograph with the larger ones bevelling out slightly, I also didn't use card that was big enough to allow the bags enough space to breathe, as it felt I was severally restricted by the size of my background. This is something I will be aware of if I ever decide to shoot on coloured backgrounds again, as the images where that object has room to breathe and doesn't look cramped into the image are by far the stronger images. 

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Bags Reshoot

In response to our feedback from our presentation I decided to try and reshoot the photographs of the bags. Our biggest criticism was the minimalist design not being eye-catching enough, so I decided to try and retake the photos using a strong red background, as I thought the red itself would be more eye-catching but also that it would elevate the bags themselves more, making them more prominent and not blending into the background as they did when photographed on a white background. 

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Billboard Ideas 

After receiving the feedback from the clients at the presentation it became clear that our adverts needed to be bolder. Because of this I photographed the bags again with a red background, as I felt they became a bit lost in front of the white background. I then photoshopped my revised logo onto the front, I experimented with making the logo bigger which I think would be necessary for a billboard design, as the smaller one would be more difficult to see. However I personally think that the more successful image is the top one with the smaller logo its just not appropriate for the format. I also decided to use white text as it links back to the Liverpool ONE colours but also because its stands out a lot more against the red background.

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Advert on screen

Once I had redesigned the advert, I could then try adding to screen in and around Liverpool ONE, the softer text works on an advert meant to read from this close but would not be suitable for a billboard. The coloured objects really lift the design and make it stand out, when designing it i tried to choose items with shapes and colours that would work well together. I also opted to make the  images of the objects bigger and include less of them, by doing this I was hoping that the design would become more eye-catching. The biggest challenge when redesigning the adverts was how to make the designs themselves stronger but not loose the concept. As it still needs to convey shopping and time but looks aesthetically consistent with Liverpool ONE. 

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Logo Re-design

After receiving our feedback Ant suggested that one of the changes we could make is to use actual photographs of the images instead of editing them, as this would make the design stand out more and be more noticeable. I tried to choose objects that were varied but that were similar enough in colour that they would blend together, after my initial attempt with different coloured images, I tried only using red items, however I found that the 8 was not noticeable at all, and suffered the same problems of the initial design, I also tried not to position the images too close together or make the too big as the design began to look cluttered. I also found that using the regular Baskerville type instead of the bold worked better, although it's softer it looks more natural in the design, the bold type looks far too heavy in the context of this design.

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Bags re-design

Ater I had redesigned my pattern/ tile idea I thought it would be interesting to see what it looked like in the context of the shopping bags. I think it is far more noticeable than my first version however I don't think the portrait design necessary works with the rectangle bag, but I wanted to give the design space as my first design was quite hectic. I then experimented with the colours of the photographs themselves to try and elevate the bags more.