illusteresa's research

Maria Teresa Costa - 18050727 - MA Illustration

[illusteresa]

Methodology

From Pragmatism to Piracy

I must start by stating that I had never done research as a means to an end within my practice before. I had always gone with my gut or accumulated knowledge as a process towards a final outcome. Blinded by my own random thoughts, I had no notion whatsoever of the insights the research could provide to a creative designer/illustrator. I believed fiction and innovation had to be all new things and that there was no gaining from whatever was already done since it was indeed already done. I found out I was extremely wrong as soon as I began.

My method starts with reflective research. I found that it always begins with an emotion, a doubt or an impacting visual that triggered me in some way - just like in the creative process - followed by thorough objective research or an attempt to improve an issue I might have encountered (Mainemelis, 2002). After such I go back to reflecting on my findings.

My objective research allowed me to understand my focus subjects, helped to inform my search with quality texts from reliable and viable sources such as academic books and peer-reviewed articles. This objective search also showed proofs to my reflection, it defended my point of view and, sometimes, it even changed my view of certain subjects with the provided knowledge. It made sure that whatever I was writing about was not biased or incorrect since there were random things I used to believe in when I was young and now I question all of it till proof is given.

I have little use of subjective research since I made no extensive interviews nor any enquiries. I noted responses to my work for one of my blog posts because they were the focus of the experiment and the rest of the subjectivity within the posts is more reflective and critical.

In terms of reliability I focus on peer-reviewed texts as I believe they are at the top of the hierarchic chain of quality references due to their trustworthy content. However, when I gathered subjective research such as in the “Visual Irony” post, I asked colleagues, friends and family members for their insights knowing how their education, culture and beliefs would bias their responses. Opinions could easily vary but, as a designer, the public’s take on what is produced is a must for it to be effective.

From my recent reading on research methods, I found out I’ve leaned towards the grounded theory method by gathering theoretical sampling. This because, just like Glaser and Strauss in the sixties, when a problem would arise, I would gather the evidence from what is directly there by questioning its content in order to prove a point and find a solution to it (Bell & Waters, 2018). New data would always test my ideas in order to add to or break my theory. Once the solution was found, I would distance myself in order to see its faults since it is my belief that the best tool we have rests in our brains, in reflecting on the issues that we stumble upon.

On the other hand I believe I could have gone deeper as I acknowledge that by being critical and reflective I don’t do as much objective research as I think I should in order to support my theories. There is, also, a lack of originality in terms of research methods in my opinion.

Being very introspective, I found reflection to accompany me everywhere I went and in whatever I researched, either for visual inspiration or for when I stumbled upon situations that intrigue me. I used subjectivity when describing the feelings that I experienced so I could show the idea behind most posts as I wanted the reader to feel what I felt. I inspect my research in the end of each post where I relate the objective research I gathered to final concluding thoughts. Nevertheless I do not examine my argumentation’s effectiveness since I would lean towards overthinking and auto-validation until now.

Some of my posts have books defending their subject that might not be considered by all researchers since they might be mirroring my own opinion specifically. Even though I mention the contrasting thoughts on the studied subjects, I lack the consideration of other researchers views when referencing.  

Leaving out most of the visual experimentation was my biggest foul provided that my master bases itself on visual language as a priority.

I am, though, limited by my interests, my understanding of only four languages (some articles I might only get access as a pdf of a scanned version where there is no way to translate it) and my education and formulate most conclusions based on my experience since it is my belief that, as I said in the “The Growth of an Idea” post, our actions are connected to us as rational beings since most of our research route’s choices depend on our gut, knowledge or personal taste.

Now, I like to think of my method as an adventure. A journey where I jump on my imaginary boat filled with tools in order to gain knowledge. I stumbled upon some obstacles in the way, gathered more tools and kept drawing my way. I might not even know to where it will lead me. In this sea of research the aim might be reaching land or finding a treasure but I ultimately believe that the richness we end up achieving comes from the whole experience of roaming this ocean of research.

To conclude, I trust it wasn’t only the research itself but the research methods that made me grow as an illustrator and designer opening paths I never knew before.

References:

Bell, J. & Waters, S. (2018) Doing your Research Project: a Guide for First-time Researchers, Open University Press

Mainemelis, C. (2002) “Time and Timelessness: Creativity in (and out of) the Temporal Dimension.” Creativity Research Journal. [Online] 14 (2). pp.227-238.  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1207/S15326934CRJ1402_9?needAccess=true [Accessed: 21st November]

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Consent to Plagiarize

Instagram’s trendy art hashtag

The artists and illustrators who use Instagram have been using the hashtags #dtiys and #drawthisinyourstyle since at least two or three years ago and it has grown in views and followers ever since. This tag provides consent to use a certain art work from the artist itself and create a version of said drawing in your style.

A lot of people participate, specially artists struggling with art block. Sometimes there is a giveaway to encourage illustrators to participate and this way the host of said challenge gets their art shared all over the web wining a lot of free press.

It is a great challenge and artists get their work noticed from both sides, either while hosting the event or taking part of it. It allows viewers to see the differences between styles of loads of artist but what is most seen is repetition of the structure of the host’s drawing, using the same pose and same colours.

A matter of identity

A teacher once said to us students “You don’t need a style, you need a voice”. However, in the challenge, most of the artists seem to forget that they have a voice. They bring nothing extra to the work itself. It misses interpretation and creativity, something that defines us illustrators making us stand out in the crowd.

On the other hand, I do understand that some artists just do it for fun and I respect that. However that cannot be considered great art since, for me, art depends on the idea behind it. Great art is not only outstanding in skill but shows intention and innovation and there are a lot of ways we can innovate. Great art brings something else to the table. And that is what defines an artist.

I have participated with some interpretations over time too. Without a defined style per say, I would try tweaking the colours a bit to make them brighter by creating my own pallets and only working on such if I liked the artist and had an interpretation for his or her art piece. I find it to be comforting to know it is not just a simple copy of an idea but a new point of view: my own point of view. 

My entry (second image) on Alex Gold Art‘s challenge (first image). Not my most creative piece but still I managed to add a bit of myself to the late entry. As soon as I saw her work I knew what I wanted to do for it. A quick sketch was the only thing I needed in order to remember the idea and after some time I came back to it and made the final work. The idea was that it wouldn’t be the character, outside, in the snow, holding the bouquet. I would transform it into a bright environment where the background was a wallpaper and the character was portrayed inside a flower vase with her jacket’s colour since it was the same hue as clay.

I must add that the host’s work excels in creativity when she participates in these challenges and that was how I got to know her work, proving the hashtag’s efficiency when it comes to spreading the artwork beyond frontiers. As an artist, she has a distinct style and identity.

The sense of identity is not just a signature. We have opinions and they matter. They can be by using a new medium, an extreme distortion, a background story or mood, a controversial setting, a metaphorical interpretation and much more. Creativity has no boundaries.

Of course the tricky part is making sure the original art piece is still recognizable. A good balance between remake and originality is a must and that is where lays the difference between good art and excellence.

Defining oneself

This throws me towards the challenging issue of what is the role of identity in creativity. 

First and foremost, there have been loads of studies about what identity is. While M. B. Brewer (I had no access to any of her works directly unfortunately) believes in a social self, showing how we portray ourselves in groups and end up “belonging” to a collective being, she also recognizes that one has an identity alone, a self-concept that comes from our own background and experiences (Jaussi, Randel & Dionne, 2007). These experiences define our interpretation and ultimately our own creativity.

Identity is what feeds the artistic style and its voice. Our identity may vary through the social environment if we connect it with behavior and influences but there are always some key features that stay within our personality. Obviously I won’t go on to define personality since I could go on forever with this, from how it came from the greek “persona” which lays in the performance we dress to present ourselves to others. The important fact is that personality is connected to identity which is connected to creativity.

As artists, nowadays it is incredibly important to have something that brings contrast to our work so it can thrive and in the end we should be truthful to what we like and what we have to say. We are humans and our opinions matter. Being creative and having the skills to show our ideas to the world is a blessing that some of us forget to use.

At long last, whatever we do, we should able ourselves to bring out a statement and the louder the better. 

References

Alexander, T. (2019) New #drawthisinyourstyle event! [Online] 11th November 2019. Available from: https://www.instagram.com/p/B4u50KIj-nk/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link [Accessed: 14th November 2019].

Jaussi, K., Randel, A. & Dionne, S. (2007) “I Am, I Think I Can, and I Do: The Role of Personal Identity, Self-Efficacy, and Cross-Application of Experiences in Creativity at Work.” Creativity Research Journal. [Online] 19(2). pp.247-258. Available from:  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10400410701397339#aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudGFuZGZvbmxpbmUuY29tL2RvaS9wZGYvMTAuMTA4MC8xMDQwMDQxMDcwMTM5NzMzOT9uZWVkQWNjZXNzPXRydWVAQEAw [Accessed: 12th December 2019]

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A Hive without Hierarchy

Art Market Abelha VIII Overview

On Saturday 9th November I went to visit the Abelha VIII (Bee VIII in Portuguese) planned by the Hive Art Studio, an art market mostly dedicated to illustration in Porto and, for my delight, rare was to see a vendor (shall we call them bees?) without business cards since getting your work known through social media is a must for a business to thrive in Portugal (Yogev & Grund, 2012). It is growing fast and lots of different and unexpected types of art were in display.

I found roaming through the booths easy, there was no obstacle other than the crazy amount of people that visited the market. However, it rendered me confused. Took me a while to figure out why but when I sat to think about the whole visit and found it was hard to place the artists by mind mapping and it was definitely not due to quality. 

But what drove me out after only two hours inside? Why didn’t I stay longer?

Somehow, after what seemed like endless thinking, I finally realized it was due to the bees’ random location.

Immediately I found myself in trouble, doubting if I should be truthful or if I should just avoid talking about the event but, truth is, every art fair has their artists randomly placed and this is only an example so I decided I’d be true to my research analysis and unfold it here in a blog post.

Great works were displayed but I got lost in the middle of a crowd of diversity. Every artists’ table was laid out well but the bees themselves were not ordered in any way: tatoo and gore sided with crochet artists, photography in the the middle of commercial art and so on. It was curious how this sensation of randomness made me feel.

Imagine a mall, for instance: There are areas dedicated to woman’s wear and areas for decor, eating areas and so on. These are meant to ease the client’s flow and draw its attention to smaller retail stores (Brown, 1991). Inside the stores you have, for example, clothes arranged in sections of either age, colour, typology, style or whatever makes sense in such store because the order will allow the client to have a cleaner mind map of the options he has. Same should happen in all markets to increase their clientele. I believe that this is why well organized shopping malls are always thriving.

In this case, as I have learnt with a class of mine, we should find the order that fits the fast-growing hive the most.

I don’t believe that artists should be ordered by popularity, for example. This market stands for freedom and opportunity giving chances to all Portuguese illustrators and helping them get their work out there. It truly resides on pure taste when it comes to deciding how to order this hive. I believe that if these bees were ordered according to areas and styles, they would profit more while the client would walk the market without feeling lost. Order is one of the basis for a good user experience.

Being an inverted U, this space is located in the Centro Comercial de Cedofeita or CCC as we call it. It would be fitting to arrange the crafts at one point of the market and in the other corner of the U it would be all about photography. The rest of the U would be illustration since most people come to see exactly that, specially the modern illustrators. This way people would be drawn in and would pass near the other arts in order to see the great works of all bees.

I know there might be some disagreement with this but my organization of the hive would be: crafts, children illustrators, commercial artists, modern styles, realistic, goth, design & calligraphy, photography. There are plenty other ways to organize the booths but I found that by category and style would fit the arts costumer better, they could see it clearly this way without loosing interest and would show the immense variety better. It would appear to be a curated space, thought thoroughly.

This way quality products would not be lost in the midst of areas that make no sense to their target audiences and people that would come to visit these markets with a specific artist in mind would also get to know other bees with similar traits in the tables nearby. Also, artists would feel like they belong, being surrounded by those similar to them.

I think by now the hive must have felt what I felt too. For it to become a win-win situation, I would advise the Studio to at least give this a try, to assign places to the bees beforehand. 

With that said, I must congratulate the Hive Art Studio for the incredible initiative and for being one of the few that fight for freelance artists and art culture by giving them a chance with a place to show their works to the world. A big vow must be given also to the CCC for allowing the use of their halls for this art and culture shout out, a wonderful idea for the touristic flood that has been taking over Porto (Adam, 2014) and a huge help to placing artists on the map.

Lastly, the artworks showed overall quality even if missing a queen bee to order the hive.

References

Adam, G. (2014) Big Bucks: The Explosion of the Art Market in the 21st Century. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing.

Barragán, P. (2008) The Art Fair Age. Milan: Charta.

Brown, S. (1991) “Tenant Placement in planned Shopping Centres: Implications of an Observational Survey.” Journal of Property Research. [Online] 8 (2). pp.179-187. Available from:  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09599919108724032#aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudGFuZGZvbmxpbmUuY29tL2RvaS9wZGYvMTAuMTA4MC8wOTU5OTkxOTEwODcyNDAzMj9uZWVkQWNjZXNzPXRydWVAQEAw [Accessed: 16th November 2019].

Yogev, T. & Grund, T. (2012) “Network Dynamics and Market Structure: The Case of Art Fairs.” Sociological Focus. [Online] 45 (1), pp.23-40. Available from:  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00380237.2012.630846#aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudGFuZGZvbmxpbmUuY29tL2RvaS9wZGYvMTAuMTA4MC8wMDM4MDIzNy4yMDEyLjYzMDg0Nj9uZWVkQWNjZXNzPXRydWVAQEAw  [Accessed: 11th November 2019].

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Picture Book or Picturebook?

The Beauty of Word Evolution

I always wondered as I rambled about these books on why it was commonly assumed as an error to write picturebook as one word. I knew it was accurate since the peer-reviewed texts I had read wrote it just like I did and it was not a matter of “americanized” english as one might suspect at some point. What was it then?

As I was reading “How picturebooks work” by Nikolajeva, I crossed paths with an explanation that brought me to peace. In summary this is what I got from it:

A picture book is a book composed of text and pictures that can live separately. A picturebook, on the other hand, is a book in which its content resides in both languages, the visual and the textual, undetachable.

This last one, being the protagonist of most of my blog posts, shows part of the identity of postmodernism in a single word. Like a symbiotic relationship, text and imagery fill each others gaps in order to fully understand the book’s purpose. One brings meaning to the other creating a child’s world in the case of children’s literature.

A picture book, however, can be a gathering of texts where the illustrations are merely decorative. It is a book with sided pictures as the name says. Examples of this kind of book can be encyclopedias and some collections of tales. This because we read each word apart from the other. We find each one easily in the dictionary and it is not at random that some authors use picture book and not picturebook when referring to books with pictures. A picture is “a painting, drawing, photograph, or other visual representation on a surface; esp. such a representation as a work of art” (OED, 2019), a picture has her own life, is her own self. A book is “a portable volume consisting of a series of written, printed, or illustrated pages bound together for ease of reading” (OED, 2019), a book can have, as described, pictures in his midst but can also live without. A book is an object where language resides.

Still, a picturebook is and must be considered a type of picture book. This generates confusion because the first kind of book to appear was the picture book and its description was a book with text and illustrative pictures which is what, in fact, a picturebook also is. This is a new word and is not known to people who aren’t from the field as I found out recently. It is commonly assumed as a mistake due to being so recent.

And it is not out of nowhere that one is older than the other. Back in the days parental figures would read to their children, siting next to them in bed with the book open. This would allow the child to look at the imagery in one page and the adult would read the other page out loud. It was a picture book, where images where purely decorative and never seen as an important language. Still, they added to the child’s imaginary in unforeseen ways. In addition, printing techniques have changed making it easy to obtain imagery that directly overlaps the typography and even interacts with it. Most children learn how to read in early childhood and become independent readers faster too, they require less being read to and when they request such activity they like the choice of looking to both sides and trying to understand what is read to them since children are incredibly curious and fast learners. Now, with the digital age of gadgets, printing made easy by computation and adults not spending as much time with their children as before due to work, there is little to no use for this layout organization.

I decided to create an illustration, as seen above, that could depict what I am trying to say since as a visual designer I believe it is the best way to capture an idea. Can you spot the difference?

In my opinion, the picturebooks not only provide interaction but also encourage the child to learn how to read. The layout can be used to the story’s advantage providing meaning to the text and imagery itself this way (Pantaleo & Sipe, 2008).

For proper distinction between a picturebook and a picture book nowadays we should try undressing the text of its illustration. If the art adds to the text something new not only by its content but also by its shape or format, it is a picturebook. If not, we have in our hands a picture book or illustrated book where text and image can live independently.

Just like the world itself, language changes and symbiotic words like this are born from the need to differentiate new concepts from the existing ones.

References

Nikolajeva, M. & Scott, C. (2006) How Picturebooks Work. London: Routledge.

Oxford English Dictionary or OED (2019) Oxford: Oxford University Press [Online] Available from: https://www.oed.com/ [Accessed: 20th November 2019].

Pantaleo, S. & Sipe, L. (eds.) (2008) Postmodern Picturebooks: Play, Parody and Self-referentiality. London: Routledge.

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A School called Time

Process and Learnability

Time is a complex subject. We can’t control time but we surely can control what we do with it. It seems pointless to me to waste it as we have no notion of when it will run out. It is my belief that whatever we do with our time we should able ourselves to learn from it.

These thoughts on time waste and learnability came to me when I was faced with a project that was meant to present ourselves in front of our entire class. It took me what I perceived as wasted time to figure out how to start it. I even questioned my own abilities as an illustrator as time was running out.

However, I found out that the creative process cannot be rushed but we still can give it a little push: Frustrated, I spilled a cup and I drew it in an attempt to portray my clumsiness for my assignment and that was all it took (Mainemelis, 2002). The idea started to grow. And I had no notion of where it was heading.

I thought about this a lot and found that the week I thought I wasted searching for an idea was not wasted at all. I learnt with it. I learnt that frustration was a great linchpin for my project to start. I learnt that sometimes all it takes is to sketch. And, finally, I learnt that ideas take time and can be developed through the process.

We don’t need to know the final result when we start. And we have to able ourselves to give up on a certain idea for another to flourish. I learnt to accept, to let go, in order to find other pathways. And it only happened with time.

The result I came up with is the actual process itself in a storybook:

I learnt to create the story as the journey went on and it ended up surprising me. It was very personal to me and it almost made me cry when I finished because I learnt something about myself unexpectedly. I untangled my own feelings throughout the book.

This proves how time is a great learning tool if we just get up and start using it. 

When I concluded this little book I thought to myself I needed an ending. But, truth is, we never know the ending of our own stories and, through the journey, we keep living, time keeps passing and we keep learning.

References

Mainemelis, C. (2002) “Time and Timelessness: Creativity in (and out of) the Temporal Dimension.” Creativity Research Journal. [Online] 14 (2), pp.227-238,  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1207/S15326934CRJ1402_9?needAccess=true [Accessed: 21st November]

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Pinkwash

Stereotypes in Picturebooks 

At the airport I passed by this little shop filled with all kinds of things where, in the area for picturebooks, the shelving aesthetics and colours immediately stabbed my eyesight.

I knew for a fact that gender in picturebooks was evident but I was not expecting it to still be this much. Lgbtq+ movements these past ten years have been a big influence in culture while breaking barriers but apparently not as much in the area of children literature. 

Princess fairytales in all shades of pink and a dash of violet and pastel colours with a white unicorn and long blond haired fairies flooded the top shelf. Pink all over. My spine shivered as I cringed at such sight. At that moment it dawned on me that we may be going forward in terms of society but the children will always be brainwashed into a world of gendered children literature.

And it is our fault. Or at least it was. By providing pink imagery and constantly associating it with the feminine we end up molding them since they were little. They make assumptions about things and imitate others in order to learn. A child picks up from what the surrounding people do easily so if most people the child identifies with would pick a yellow book to read from a shelf of colourful varying hues, the child would know to find such book to be of its interest (Schulz, 2015).

Ultimately parents want their children to have a good childhood without prejudice (Solomon, 2013). They want their children to avoid issues in school, they want them to fit in. But instead of encouraging a broad non-stereotyped mind, they unwillingly categorize in order to protect their young because they believe it is the right thing to do (Bradley & Gobbart, 1989). This educational strategy is already supported by a pile of generations, of living proof, that have shown efficiency for now so it is understandable that some parents might not want to change that.

Of course we have to keep in mind that maybe the colour code also makes the standard parent’s life easier as this way they have no need to roam the bookshop to buy a book in the children section for their daughter. A lazy aunt that knows nothing about her niece’s interests might just go buy the pinkest book she can find and actually be a huge success.

We must note that such success is not due to the niece’s fondness towards pink. The actual story inside the book might delight her, leading to one more pink book on her collection. It is a vicious working cycle with pros and cons and changing it will take a very long time.

I will put things in a different point of view, the picturebook’s view, so it is clearer: A book in itself is submitted to stereotypical judgement due to its cover if we truly give life to it. In the middle of all pink books, if a book is blue it might be perceived as not so good since it doesn’t follow the trend.

Looking at a possible future, if there was a broad range of hues within picturebook covers, we might have to know the child for whom the book is for way better. Styles of children literature would find their own ways to identify themselves as groups, children literature would go through a revolution and would be fully rewritten in its definition by then. These categories hopefully would focus on the child’s interest or taste rather than its gender.

References

Bradley, B. S., & Gobbart, S. K. (1989) “Determinants of gender-typed play in toddlers." Journal of Genetic Psychology. 150 (4). pp.153-155.

Schulz, L. (2015) The surprisingly logical minds of babies. In: TED Talks [Online Video] Available from:  https://www.ted.com/talks/laura_schulz_the_surprisingly_logical_minds_of_babies#t-1150179 [Accessed: 18th November 2019].

Solomon, A. (2013) Love, no matter what. In: TED Talks [Online Video] Available from:  https://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_solomon_love_no_matter_what?referrer=playlist-stories_from_the_front_lines_of_parenting [Accessed: 18th November 2019].

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The Growth of an Idea

Processing Information since Day One

I always thought of ideas like moments of sudden epiphany until very recently. Such a complex thought could never mature out of the blue. I went on to research about the origins of the idea and now I can track back some of my good ideas to certain key moments in time and it was never something that came from me alone.

My best works come from experience. Not with materials or with pure visual research. They come from something that happened to me or to something or someone I care for or even from a series of events that led to a certain feeling within me. Caring, in my personal opinion, plays a huge role in idea development.

They also come from conversations with family, friends and other likeminded enthusiasts of the theme we might be discussing (Johnson, 2010) and being open minded is a must for innovation to flourish.

Our social culture, the way we were raised, the relationships we have grown and lost through time, they are also part of the research that we gathered in our subconscious. We created an environment where such idea was already incubating but wasn’t yet bubbling out of the pot so we could notice it. It takes time to cook an idea and we don’t usually recognize we are cooking something until it spills.

Way before the process of gathering information relevant to the final result which I find to be of easy to  explain since we all have our own methodologies, I’d like to focus on the idea itself and how it came to be.

I must argue that some ideas might start the day we were born without even noticing. Our personality develops from what we perceive from the world around us and small linchpins connect our thoughts after what we see, hear and feel. This is the observational part of the process behind any idea. Might seem like small stuff but it can turn into the pillars of our education.

After such, we start experimenting and gathering information (through primary and secondary search) of what is right and what may not be. From this process of elimination we grow to have opinions on a variety of subjects and these will become our priorities and our beliefs, our position towards the world and our thirst for information will determine how far we will reach. We gain an intention and a need that can also lead to a big linchpin in the map towards the unborn idea.

Additionally, research capacity and learnability are also crucial, as we might pick up from others what they might have missed and innovate from such basis of inspiration (Chan, Dow & Schunn, 2015).

Finally, we also connect with people and events from the most random conversation to losses or births and the feelings they bring with them will pull the idea to the surface (Björk & Magnusson, 2009). All linchpins get connected with an imaginary string and with the blink of an eye the idea is finally out of the womb.

And yes it seems like it was out of nowhere but an idea comes from the most absurd of places if we really take time to think about where such a complex thought came from.

To conclude, I believe this is why the ideas not only define the creative thinker but also his surroundings and personal relations. To undress a creative mind from its context will take away how and why the idea was born thus erasing the idea itself.

References

Björk, J., Magnusson, M. (2009), “Where Do Good Innovation Ideas Come From?: Exploring the Influence of Network Connectivity on Innovation Idea Quality.” Journal of Product Innovation Management. [Online] 26 (6). Available from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1540-5885.2009.00691.x  [Accessed 9th November 2019]

Chan, J., Dow, S.P. & Schunn, C.D. (2015) “Do the best design ideas (really) come from conceptually distant sources of inspiration?” Design Studies. [Online] 36. pp.31-58. Available from:  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0142694X14000611  [Accessed 8th November 2019].

Johnson, S. (2010) Where good ideas come from. In: TED Talks. [Online Video] Available from:  https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_johnson_where_good_ideas_come_from#t-44685 [Accessed 8th November 2019].

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The Pre-Render Age

Review on the 3-Dimensional Illustration Awards Annual from 1995

The dusty book came to my attention after researching how to use clay for illustration purposes and bumping into the handcrafted 3D illustration’s world.

For some reason which I have yet to understand, this big book was in the top shelf all covered in dust, signs that either made me believe it was not used much or maybe he was labelled incorrectly (which would make more sense since all sculping and handcraft books are in the sculpture and fine arts area, not on the illustration area) showing how 3D illustration is very limited if handmade.

I immediately fell in love with him once I saw the semi ripped dust jacket. For a book with my age he displayed an illustration of modern taste with simple ephemeral typography, something I was not expecting at all. If I was not aware of the book’s age I’d assume he was at least from 2005. Unknowingly I was yet to be surprised even more by its content.

Once I opened, the book was like new, like no one had ever foiled him before me. The black glossy pages and the swiss grid design showed that the designer knew what he was doing by creating a timeless editorial piece.

Even though the book was poor in text, the images that entered the annual were judged by field experts such as Joan Hall and Tom McManus. It’s amazing how the photographs were brilliantly done. This book made me realize the importance of a skilled photographer and great light for the message to get through as pretended. 

How God Lost His Hand

I remember vividly how the gold winning piece made me feel. So modern for its time till the tiniest detail, “The hand of God” took my breath away. I obviously interpreted the work in my own way, according to my cultural background and my research on the subject, as every other pieces that were published in the book.

First and foremost, the reader must know the intent of such illustration but, truth is, it was never published so we only know the title for interpretation purposes. This piece was done by Christo Holloway, founder of Clockwork Apple in New York City and ingenious model maker now joining forces with 475 Kent Avenue (Niedan, 2015). I strongly believe his intention with this piece was critical since to understand it we have to fully be acquainted with the notion of The Hand of God and know Michael Angelo’s fresco of the Sistine Chapel where God is portrayed pointing at the human.

As a historical, religious and anthropological concept, The Hand of God is a widely covered subject. Back when there was no rational explanation for drastic natural events, populations had the need to attribute it to something else, something powerful such as a God. Not only to the bad events but also the good ones like a great harvest season for instance. No science to explain it so it must have been god! The fact is that the all mighty Gods were believed to not only be rewarding but also punishing so people would try to do the right thing in fear of their god’s wrath (Johnson, 2016).

Nowadays we have science and technologies that can explain floods and tornados and spread information to keep people up to date for example. There is no need blaming a God over tragedies nor to praise Him for making the sun come back up again. But still people believe He is the reason for most existing things. And if people didn’t believe there was a God somewhere out there, they would probably feel lost in this vast universe. So you can imagine what Holloway pocked at when he made the Renaissance’s painting of God’s hand as a fake amputated limb. It’s like he was saying it is just an act, that there is no god’s hand to hold us through our journey: we are all alone in this and all we have is each other (Johnson, 2016).Truth is, the most recent catastrophic events were due to human acts leading to environmental loss. So, it is time to take responsibility, stop waiting for divine intervention to give us a happy ending after what we did to the earth we live in. It is all on us and only we can save our world. If God does exist and is as just as it is believed to be, we would all be dying with the planet we ruined within 50 years or so.

The Bronzes that Stood Out

“Doggy bag” is an illustration by Nancy Fouts and Malcom Fowler for an advertising campaign about the new lounge of the British Airways. The vertical poster piece portrays a man’s legs and his red bag in front of him which has the shape of a dog sleeping all cuddled up in the floor. This one caught my eye because of the colour red. Red is eye catching, and being on the centre of the image, it stands out even more. If it was black it would not bring the same feeling to the target audience that it proudly does, a great campaign choice since this bright red is also the British Airways color. It fits the purpose of the campaign like a glove since in brings feelings of comfort, trust, cosiness and it was a great pun for the time it was made. It brings to my mind an insurance company we have in Portugal called Fidelidade (fidelity in Portuguese) which uses a red dog as its symbol since dogs are commonly associated with trust, loyalty, friendship, care and, at last, fidelity (Szabolcs, 2018). An astonishing marketing strategy.

For a South African banking company named ABSA, Douglas Watson was commissioned a landscape poster for their literature awards. It is not an incredibly creative piece but its clay texture is visible in the gigantic head, dry as the African desert, with carvings on it like it was an ancient statue. It looks made of stone, inspiring, mysterious, like a book cover of a novel. Stone reminds me of god’s statues and war heroes, which makes sense with the size of the portrayed head, leading to a belief in greatness when achieving such award (Ma, 2015).

Back in the days when house telephones were a must, Toshiba commissioned Gavin Lindsay a challenging idea since they were in a merger and somehow “Telephones” was born. The illustrator conceived a beautiful piece for them where two distorted house phones would be in a sensual scene, one was black portraying the male and the other was white as the female, tangled around each other. The photograph brought the impact of the humanization of the objects to another level with the contrast between light and shadow turning it into a sensual yet classy portrait. I look at it and I see the bride and groom’s nuptial encounter, a romance in their beginning. I believe that the marriage association was a clever and bold approach that would have definitely captured the audience at that time by the mental association to the controversial theme of sexual intercourse and romantic feelings.

Detailed simplicity

The execution of such pieces was done to the tiniest of details. Yes, their ideas were simple objects however they shout their intention clearly and have a heavy process behind each one. The best ideas sometimes take the simplest of forms. These gain from their materials a greater dimension, a bigger impact.

Nowadays we can easily achieve such results with programs such as Blender and Ryno and we forget how long the process was back then just to capture that one perfect shot, that one perfect target reaction. We take for granted the production and the objects we have but we should take a step back and look closer. This just means one thing: we should appreciate the process, not only of illustrating and producing, but of life itself.

All in all, a worthy visual ride in time.

References

3-Dimensional Illustration Awards Annual: the best in 3-D advertising and publishing world wide (1995) Beverly, Massachusetts: Rockport Publishers.

Johnson, D. (2016) God Is Watching You: How the Fear of God Makes Us Human. New York: Oxford University Press.

Ma, J. (2015) Statues as Images. In: Statues and cities: honorific portraits and civic identity in the Hellenistic world. New York: Oxford University Press.

Niedan, C. (2015) Kent Avenue Interview Series: Christo Holloway. [Online] Available from: https://www.nomadicpress.org/interviews/christoholloway [Accessed 2nd November 2019].

Szabolcs, E. (2018) “Dogs in the paintings of Greuze: accessories, symbols or family members?” Ostium. [Online] 14 (2). pp.1-9. Available from: http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=4f1c6269-c570-47ca-a535-c90912fd2bfb%40pdc-v-sessmgr05&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=130368920&db=hlh [Accessed 6th November 2019].

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The Book I’ll Never See Again

Passive Adventures of a Book and its Reader

A few weeks ago I borrowed a book from the LRC about a subject that we had to research for a module. I spent a long time with this fine book, he had so much knowledge inside his pages and I even felt anxious while working with him due to the short period of time I had for this assignment.

I lived a whole journey with this book. I took him to the laundry with me to be studied, I roamed around campus trying to find people with him under my arm, I ran after the bus carrying its weight on my back, I slept with him laying on my desk.

I know how weird this might seem but I started to work with this book that isn’t mine and then I needed to return him to the library and for the first time I had the sensation of loss towards an object of no value to me. This feeling probably only appeared now because I never had such a good library at my disposal back in Portugal. Seeing him being taken away for shelving with the unknown crowd of books I know nothing about, he disappears so quickly that he leaves a hole inside my chest knowing how hard it would be to find him again. I guess when I close myself to study and end up studying day and night non-stop I create a relationship with the studied object, some sort of attachment to it (Kwok, Grisham & Norberg, 2018) and he became a memento of feelings, a ride through knowledge, a week’s companion.

Of course the feeling didn’t last much but still, to my surprise, it happened. I get easily attached to things I own or make but never to things that don’t belong to me. It was evident to me that book’s subject had no connection whatsoever to why I got such feeling. This was a feeling I had to research about: it was seriously worrying to me the fact that I missed a book that wasn’t even that impressive in his content. It´s like I was a lover to someone who never saw me as anything other than that since books have no feelings. I felt a piece of my journey was being taken away. And it was. And now this book is back in the shelf where it all started and it will take probably a year until someone picks him up again.

The Power of a Book

I knew that if I started to research about the pure relationship between someone and an object I would find loads of fiction and non-fiction regarding hoarding, mementos, souvenirs, memory boxes and more so I decided to stick to the book theme for now.

There are some great romances about the importance of books to one’s memories and how relationships bloom from them like Markus Zusak’s dramatic novel “The Book Thief”. Other publication’s rely on the books content and how life changing such information was for them like the historical fiction “People of the Book” by Geraldine Brooks, “Reading Lolita in Tehran” by Azar Nafisi, “Fahrenheit 451” written by Ray Bradbury or Molly Guptill Manning’s non-fiction book “When Books Went to War” whose idea was sparked by an event in May 1933 Germany where books were burnt in a huge bonfire in the middle of the street (Ritchie, 1988) just like Geraldine Brooks and Ray Bradbury’s books. This triggers me in such a way but I am not going to focus on how outrageous this act was even though it was a symbolic act by university’s graduates. Still, one should never burn a book, ever. Give it away if you must, but never throw it out like that (I could go on and on about the book bonfire of 1933 but I’ll leave it for another post).

A title I found with some similarities to what I felt was “The man who loved books too much” by Allison Hoover Bartlett which talks about a thief that steals books due to loving them so deeply. Of course his feelings towards these books come from its content which does not relate to what I felt.

In juvenile literature I found one book about a similar subject which is “O Caderno Vermelho da Rapariga Karateca” (the karateka’s red notebook) by Ana Pessoa which shows the main character’s relationship with her notebook where she writes and rambles about her life, makes up stories and questions the world and other philosophical subjects while interacting with it. But still it has no resemblance to what I felt: There is an end to it but she doesn’t feel loss since the notebook is hers. Another Juvenile publication I found compelling is one where the book is the narrator of its history since the invention of the alphabet till nowadays’ ebooks simply named “Book” by John Agard. Both of these have graphics that will amaze any reader despite his or her age. The Illustrations are splendid.

Caldecott honor book “The Red Book” by Barbara Lehman also revolves around a book but what resides inside of the book is what hooks the reader through the sequential narrative. This red book brings people together and is lost and passed to other people’s hands constantly - if the story where to keep going, a lot of people would meet due to stumbling upon the red object. Though the story’s primary focus is a book, it is only a portal to another place on earth, to another person. Since it is a postmodern wordless picturebook, this is my personal interpretation but it can vary immensely.

A book with some similarities in the sensation of possession is a fantasy called “Inkheart” where there is a magical book who trapped the protagonist’s mother inside when she was young. In this book the attachment is visible but is due to having someone imprisoned inside, not due to the object in itself which is the craved subject of every character for the powers he holds.

One intriguing book I found with a much similar subject to my little adventure was “Too Loud a Solitude” by Bohumil Hrabal where the main character’s simple way of living among books and his immense knowledge is portrayed. This one relates to what I felt since the only company the narrator has is its books which he has connected with until he loses his job along with the access to more knowledge. 

In terms of art with books I found this beautiful project called “The Book” where the author Julius Friedman, a designer, made series of collages and photos from old books that were given to him by a librarian. Funny enough it was not the book’s amazing imagery that I found compelling but how he was bugged by them being in his desk alone waiting for him to do something with them and how he ended up doing so. How the fact of the book pile existence made him change from not being able to cut books up to making them into art pieces shows the power the book has as an object and not only as a source of information.

None of these books about books portray the book as the main focus in their plot. They do not show the feeling I had. The more research i made on the subject the more I was convinced: there is a lack of literacy portraying this subject, specially to children who I feel need it mostly. So what if I filled this literary gap? Children often get attached to their toys but what about being attached to a book? The value of the book as an object itself is not a subject that has been approached yet in children literature and I sincerely believe that, if it was, it could change the way kids look at a book by showing its value throw a postmodern way.

Now I look back after researching and I feel amazed with my findings so I decided to sketch a little story (see images below). My effort for the module’s assignment hopefully paid off, I had an idea for an exploratory illustration series about the romance between a book and her reader and I gained culture and learnt a bit more about myself and literary history.

References:

Agard, J. (2014) Book: “My Name is Book and I’ll Tell You The Story of My Life...”. London: Walter Books.

Bradbury, R. (1953) Fahreheit 451. New York: Ballantine Books.

Brooks, G. (2008) People of the Book. Danvers: Penguin Books.

Friedman, J. (2016) The Book, Louisville: Old Stone Press.

Funke, C. (2003) Inkheart. Somerset: Chicken House.

Guptill Manning, M. (2014) When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Hoover Bartlett, A. (2009) The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession. New York: Riverhead Books.

Hrabal, B. (2007) Too loud a Solitude. London: Abacus

Kwok, C., Grisham, J.R. & Norberg, M.M. (2018) “Object attachment: Humanness increases sentimental and instrumental values.” Journal of behavioral addictions. [Online] 7 (4). Available from:  https://akademiai.com/doi/full/10.1556/2006.7.2018.98 [Accessed 26th October 2019].

Lehman, B. (2004) The Red Book, Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Nafisi, A. (2003) Reading Lolita in Tehran. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks.

Pessoa, A. (2012) O Caderno Vermelho da Rapariga Karateka. Lisbon: Planeta Tangerina.

Ritchie, J. M. (1988) “The Nazi Book-Burning.” The Modern Language Review. [Online] 83 (3). Available from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3731288.pdf [Accessed 25th October 2019].

Zusak, M. (2006) The Book Thief. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

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Visual Irony

When the design doesn’t match the content

I have to say it: it is pitiful when these cases appear. Of course some design relies on personal taste but I believe in this case it was purely the time’s trend. Or at least I hope it was since I researched the trends that could possibly fit this book’s unusual graphic style and came up empty handed anyways.

The book I’m talking about is Thinking Visually (Wigan, 2006). It has great content, is well structured and filled with relevant and fun information from its interviews with illustrators to field specific grammar usage. The problems with this book are 2 things that for me stand out the most: breathing space and graphic language.

It has hierarchy even though sometimes it is not easy to figure it out due to too much fonts and font variations that don’t change much in size (Muller-Brockmann, 1996). Some of the book has fake organic graphics and suddenly it changes to geometric and then to rendered calligraphic marker’s writing, a big  mesh of graphic languages. Too messy, not cohesive. You don’t use a modern typography, a heavy condensed typography and a strong serif font and more all together like in this book. No designer does unless it is a trend like maximalism or something similar (Rivers, 2004).

The visual content excels in curated work but then it was assembled like this. It looks like a big massive pile of layers that take up all the space without allowing the reader to enjoy the curated items. The only time when no space is acceptable for a book like this is when they make a pocket version of it. The style used to illustrate a book about visual process and illustration should allow the illustrations to breed and in this case it makes me want to drop the reading due to blue coloured pages and no space for us to process the information due to being so full (Rolo, 2004). Books like this usually have a thick margin to take notes onto if we want to. This one has no space even to hold the page with your thumb which is a must in books like these (Muller-Brockmann, 1996).

Another design rule I believe in (and this is probably a matter of taste) is never to stir away the reader’s attention from the content itself. Design should only enhance the subject, not overshadow. Unless the intention of the publication is to outshine and became a work of art or an independent design piece even though it is quite rare.

That is why it is ironic to me that a good beginners book on the process of illustration and on the importance of prior research has not had research, experimentation, leading between lines and has post-it look-a-like labels over the illustrations.

But enough complaining and more doing. I’m going to address some of these layout issues and see if I can come up with something less stylized that credits the illustrations and text properly. Of course I cannot make promises since my taste is not the same as everyone else’s but I hope the spreads become readable this way.

Thinking Visually - original random spread.

Thinking Visually - my layout version of the previous spread.

Being part of a collection, Thinking Visually has the colour blue as its identity so I tried to simplify the graphics by geometrizing the horizontal line using the publication’s colour.

I made sure that, in my version, I would allow the reader to have a full view of the page without a thumb covering parts of the text and also gave breathing space to the images and text since they gain nothing by bleeding out of the page. This way, the reader has space to take notes on the side bar. Notice how the text leaves more space in the sides than the images since most notes that the reader will want to take would be from the written content and not the imagery.

I also deleted the extra title making the first one more obvious since the publication does not gain from the repetition of content.

As part of my research, I decided to have people compare both layouts to see their reaction and I ended up being quite happy with my findings. People would rather trust the content of the new layout. They didn’t bother to read the other one at all because “It is painful to read” and “too noisy”. These quotes were extracted with consent from mostly friends and family members and it is anonymous. Of course there is a detail where the original layout wins over my layout: The images are bigger. Even so, they are purely an example of “Art Brut” and there is no gaining on having them that big.

Overall, the experiment proved positive by showing that a simple thought-through design can actually help with making the content seem believable and reliable as well as providing the reader a fine learning experience.

References:

Muller-Brockmann, J. (1996) Grid systems in graphic design: a visual communication manual for graphic designers, typographers and three dimensional designers. Salenstein: Niggli.

Rivers, C. (2004) Maximalism: the graphic design of decadence & excess.  Sussex: RotoVision.

Rolo, E. (2017) White Space in Editorial Design. In: Advances in Ergonomics in Design. Berlin: Springer;

Tschichold, J. (1991) The form of the book: essays on the morality of good design. London: Lund Humphries.

Wigan, M. (2006) Thinking Visually. London: Ava Publishing.

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Pick a Card

2019 Brighton Illustration Fair overview

I got on a train early in the morning and went to the BIF, one of the illustration fairs I always wanted to attend hosted by the University of Brighton. I went with the curiosity for the overall market and the kind of illustration style the participants had so I could gain more knowledge. So many booths and so little time to see it all and Brighton School of Art was full in every square meter you could find with not only beautiful art pieces, their artists and editorial companies but also with a big crowd of art lovers.

The urge to augment my visual culture made me spend 5 hours on my feet that seemed like only 30 minutes had passed since its beginning. The way time is perceived when we are enjoying ourselves seems unfair to me especially since I am a forgetful person and wanted to take it all in. This lack of memory made me collect mementos everywhere I go since I was a young girl. So at BIF I was set on collecting business cards.

These, in the business of illustration world, are most effective for elevator pitching and events like art markets, when illustrators want those who pass by to notice their work and to reach them with potential commissions. For the client, fairs are just like window shopping, they will pass by the booth and if interested in what the illustrator has done they will stop, ask stuff, maybe buy stuff too but, in the end, no one wants to lose these clients so making sure they get a business card is incredibly important for the art business to prosper since it’s the fastest way to give your contact and social media just by handing out a simple card.

Being a designer I found these mementos quite interesting since I have a different perspective on illustration business cards and I emphasize the importance of a good card design specially to the illustration field.

Most books underline that the “perfect postcard” or the promotional piece is the right way to get your work seen by Art directors (Rees, 2014 and Heller & Arisman, 2004) but nowadays it is my belief that the social media is way more effective and a business card does the same trick as the postcard since nowadays people value one on one elevator pitching more than the mail loads they receive each week. 

To my disappointment, some illustrators didn’t bring enough or just didn’t make those. Two mistakes I learnt myself through experience: always make 100 or more for an illustration event, never less and the illustrator should always have at least 5 of these in its wallet wherever he goes because you never know who you might bump into (Graham, 2012). This exemplary network starter called business cards runs out quicker than we think. 

Social media is the most important thing illustrators should write on the cards and I thought actually that this was common knowledge but there were a lot of illustrators without their Instagram or Facebook on the cards they had on display. Social media nowadays is the portfolio of the illustrator’s journey first hand and people who are interested on our work will always follow us because it is as simple as clicking on a button. 

Others made the big mistake of printing cards on 70g paper which to the future client just looks like we don’t care at all about our work. It is that kind if disregard to the business that clients avoid. An illustrator does not print in shitty paper. We print in high quality. Every detail of a business card design portraits the work quality of the holder if he takes himself seriously. Or at least it should!

Talking about the graphics and typography, overall I have no big comment on it. There was an obvious lack of knowledge in some cases where the typography had too much of an impact and took the attention from the work itself due to exuberance or inadequacy which is something an illustrator should avoid. Others just had a lot of fonts on it instead of settling for one or two at most when they lacked the typographical skills of a professional designer. Another aspect I found worrying in terms of graphics and typography was that there were some illustrators who had only the name and a colour on the background. Even though a freelance illustrator can actually give those away and be effective, in these events there are more than a hundred illustrators so if the artist doesn’t brand himself with imagery or a good logo he will easily be lost and forgotten in the middle of the other cards. This is always worse than having a card that is badly cut or a little pixelated.

Looking back on the cards I collected, I can remember most of the artists’ works as if it was yesterday. Some better than others, some displayed their work in a modular way, others in a more random way. Some artists’ work matched well with their cards and others didn’t. But I can easily say that I feel that their care for their business was as good as their cards. It mirrors them not only in their work quality but also in their attention to details, time and organization.

Every person will know that carrying around 100 different business miniature cards is complicated since no one has enough storage space for them in their wallets. Viewing all the artists as a whole, I decided on making a digital collage using their business cards graphics in order to portray my visual memorabilia in one single image: the BIF’s business crowd. 

For such, I started by displaying the cards with paper tape in three A3 sheets of paper so I could scan them. With the scan done, I made the collage in photoshop. No changes were made to the originals other than cutting and pasting.

After doing this piece out of the mementos I accidentally shaped it like a head in profile. I found it very intriguing since most memories are kept in our brains and the feeling I got after the event was of a massive amount of information that filled up all my head with colourful imagery. A perfect protrait of my overall experience.

Illustration’s credits

Lizzie Lomax - Anna Soba - Dommy Sullivan - Bárbara Malagoli - Catherine do art - Alice Monvaillier - Shake Bristol - George Manson - Kissi Ussuki - Flying Eye Books - Nobrow - Angela Hadrill - Mia Minerva - Monosodium - Ewe Rynkiewicz - Ella Willson-Smith - Lloyd Stratton - Jo Dertili - Olivia waller - Aysha Tengiz - Illwookie - Meneer Heirman - Robert Sae-Heng - Honey Parast - Maya Doyle - Printed Goods - Hannah Peck - Hayley Wells - Wingki But - Arabella Simpson - Kate Lorton - Yuk Fun - Evie May Adams - Jessica Smith - Owen Davey - Beya Rebai - Pencil Bandit - Sundance Goods - Michael Vankehem - Alex Norris - Hazel McCoubrey - Aga Giecko - Laura Girling - Jayde Perkin - Lauren Morsley - Marie-Yaé - Fern Eleanor - Family Store - Amber Timm - Guy Field - Ellie Fryer - Playtime - Jack Snelling - Shanti Rai - Nikoo Bafti - Stacey Thomas - Hiffy Ulrich - Leanne Rule - Lineette - Brandon Seager - Rachael Presky - Carlett Li

References

Graham, A. (2012) Chapter 47: Business Cards. In: From Business Cards to Business Relationships: Personal Branding and Profitable Networking Made Easy, New Jersey: Wiley.

Heller, S. & Arisman, M. (2004) Inside the Business of Illustration. New York: Allworth Press.

Rees, D. (2014) How to Be an Illustrator. London: Laurence King Publishing.

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Radical Enlightening

The Rise of the Picturebook

Yesterday I went to the College Lane LRC to research as I usually do when every class day ends. Unlike my usual work plan, I went to focus on the final master study thesis since I knew it would take me a while to decide my focus on such important research.

I don’t quite remember how exactly I came across this topic but I do know that I was reading through a study on postmodern picturebook analysis (Pantaleo and Sipe, 2008) when my heurískein moment happened.

In Postmodern picturebooks: play, parody and self-referentiality by Sylvia Joyce Pantaleo and Lawrence R. Sipe, there is a chapter about what is called Radical Change Theory by Eliza T. Dresang and her ideas instantly resonated with me.

This change began when people started to realize that, with all the new technologies available and its easy access, youth is becoming an incredibly difficult audience in terms of attention grabbing and books are no longer their go-to source of information. Literature for children had to be improved in terms of interactivity and all new kinds of picturebooks started to appear with innovative graphics broadening the notion of what children literature is supposed to be.

What I found to be most interesting on Dresang’s theory is how current it was even though its idea started in 1990, which was way before the technology boom of the smartphones, tablets and laptops. It got me thinking how far will children picturebooks have to travel and how they have to keep up with rapidly changing technology in order to grab the attention of generations to come.

Everyone knows how the internet is changing the world, allowing an incredible amount of information at an unbelievable speed and easy access but we forget about the advantages of the handheld book. In my opinion, the leverages printing has in comparison to the new technology and the internet are divided in three aspects: trust, health, and dimension.

First of all, the material books provide is usually curated by editors and publishers which make it far more reliable than the internet. Relying on the internet for information and education depends on prior notion of where to search and what is a sound source of knowledge. There is so much unreliable information in the internet that we need to filter its content. To browse through handheld books allows us readers and researchers not to worry so much about the trustfulness of the content since a whole information sorting process has already been done in order to provide us with good well written sources.

In addition, the Internet is highly addictive and new mental disorders correlated to its usage are being brought to our attention specially amongst youth (Lopez-Fernandez, 2019). Also, the excessive use of screen devices can cause eyesight diseases such as Computer Vision Syndrome (Blehm, Vishnu, Khattak, Mitra & Yee, 2005) which seems to affect most of the recent generations. Not only do these illnesses appear but also human on human interaction becomes limited and we begin to see behavioural changes. Books, on the other hand, don’t rely on us looking at a light source and they require breaks between themselves, if only for a few seconds, bringing us back to the real world. They provide trustworthy content and make us interact in person, providing that social opportunity that we end up avoiding if glued to a monitor.

Moreover, books have something that screens don’t: they have the ability of extruding from the 2D to the 3D thanks to pop-ups brought by paper engineers (Crupi, 2016). The notion that books are a static objects is now overrated. They can be felt with our hands and we can experience real textures, they can be playful just like a treasure hunt all throughout their book pages. Books vary in shapes and sizes which can help with the overall narrative too in most postmodern picturebooks, something screens can’t (Pantaleo & Sipe, 2008). Screens can play pretend and make you believe that what you see is 3D but you cannot truly touch or interact with your own hands. Being virtual content, the internet and the ebooks depend on devices that rely on bateries which aren’t always reliable for more than 5 hours of non-stop use from my own experience.

With that said, knowing this is an unconventional opinion for a digital graphic designer to have and that opinions on this subject do vary, I aim to work on how children perceive and interact with such extraordinary literature which has started to change the way we see picturebooks and bring paper back by analysing new postmodern books that fit the Radical Change Theory (Dresang & McClelland, 1999).

References

Blehm, C., Vishnu, S., Khattak A., Mitra, S. & Yee, R. (2005) “Computer Vision Syndrome: A Review.” Survey of Ophthalmology. [Online] 50 (3). pp 253-262. Available from:  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0039625705000093  [Accessed: 15th October 2019].

Crupi, G. (2016) ““Mirabili visioni”: from Movable Books to Movable Text.” JLIS.[Online] 7 (1). pp 25-8. Available from: https://www.jlis.it/article/view/11611 [Accessed: 16th October 2019].

Dresang, E. & McClelland, K. (1999) “Radical change: Digital age literature and learning.” Theory Into Practice. [Online] 38 (3), pp 160-167. Available from:  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00405849909543848 [Accessed: 13th October 2019].

Lopez-Fernandez, O. (ed.) (2019) Internet and Mobile Phone Addiction. Health and Educational Effects. Basel: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute.

Pantaleo, S. & Sipe, L. (eds.) (2008) Postmodern Picturebooks: Play, Parody and Self-referentiality. London: Routledge.

[illusteresa]

Introduction

Illustration, design and the world we live in

This blog will focus on the importance of illustration and design to the world we live in, specially illustration’s influence and role in children’s picturebooks and my own creative process and findings. 

All posts will be for the module of Research and Enquiry of my MA course but I aim to continue after it finishes if I end up enjoying. I will be critical and try to post with a certain regularity but truth is that some ideas take time to boil and reach the surface.

Being constantly bombarded by imagery, we live in a world where visual communication is of the at most importance hence my theme.

My blog will be divided in four sections: The Critical Analysis, where I will criticize an article’s argumentation and effectiveness; The Annotated Bibliography, where I will write about the usefulness of such references to my blog theme; The Archive, that ables the reader to se my timeline of posts; The Blog Posts, which will be seen as soon as people open the page itself.

To sum up, it is a purely academic blog that will include mostly my research process and opinions supported by references.