People and Places Evaluation
After being given the project brief to ‘People and Places’ along with the words Prejudice and Stagnation, development process of our collaborative group soon began. Shortly into this project it soon became apparent that as a whole our collaborative unit were not really working well together as from two members of our group there was virtually no input or development ideas being produced therefore it was decided that the collaborative aspect of this project from now on would consist of myself and Christopher Harris.
Throughout the initial first week of the project various factors towards the projects progression were decided such as the location, and the two supporting words. From these factors I was able to generate ideas for potential outcomes. Supported by location visits and ideas of how to incorporate the working style of Chris, we decided as a whole to create a Zine. I created a variety of thumbnail sketches alongside mind maps in order to fully document the ideas of which I had generated, these enabling me to begin exploring with experimental development work.
Initially I went to visit the location of which primarily is made up of Corporation Street, Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Aston Student Village. Whilst at the location i took photographs of the places I felt caught my attention the most, these mainly being the Victorian Architecture of the Central Methodist Hall along with the Magistrates Court on Corporation Street as well as the minimal and modern approach to the Teenage Cancer Ward of the Children’s Hospital. From these photographs I began to experiment with my initial drawing process initially creating a series of quick continuous line drawings. From these drawings I began to experiment with the use of colour as well as forcing myself out of my comfort zone by attempting to create a more fluid selection of imagery inspired by the work of George Butler and Lucinda Rodgers, however I feel that despite my best efforts and endless experimentation I felt that nothing I had produced was aesthetically pleasing to myself. Therefore I decided to look at potentially applying colour first and then layering linear elements over the top much like the work of Sunga Parks and for me this worked a lot better, this process allowed me to incorporate the fluid style I desired whist also being visually appealing.
After creating these images myself and Chris began to plan out the content of our zine using my chosen style it was discussed that together my work and Chris’ graphics would contrast well against each other as well as working together. We both created a series of thumbnail sketches planning out our pages and the way of which they would support each other.
Within our creative team Chris and I used our chosen words as the starting point for our development looking at the buildings of which had being there the longest as well as the people of which are interacting with the area, we felt that the best way to incorporate these factors as well as our contrasting working styles would be a zine. The next factor of which we decided on was the target audience for the zine, we felt that for the area the most suitable audience would be both male and females of 18-35 as they are the majority of people of whom interact with pour area, I also feel that this target audience will fully understand and interact with the zine in the way that myself and Chris desired.
When initially starting this project I became intrigued with the reportage illustrative style by the likes of George Butler and Lucinda Rodgers, therefore my initial development work shows this as there are various different pieces of which I created using this style however I wished to develop my style further by adding colour and more fluid elements after being inspired greatly by the work of Sunga Parks and this is where my working process fully began. I created numerous watercolour and ink pieces of which I then worked back into using dip pen and ink allowing me to add more detail and character to my illustrations much like the work of Parks ad Rodgers. There has being very little editing done to my illustrations digitally as I personally didn’t want them to look to polished or pristine as I feel that if they were to be perfect they would not contrast as well with Chris’s clean graphics.
After completing all of my illustrations I scanned them in so that Chris could develop the layout of our Zine looking at page orders in particular and the best ways of which his work would begin to interact with mine. When completed we printed my illustrations on to cartridge paper and Chris’s graphical elements onto tracing paper so that when in the form of a zine both interact visually with each other. I hand illustrated the front and back cover using fine liner and white ink in order to once again create a contrast between the cover and the rest of the zine, this was then all hand stitched together giving it an individual aesthetic of which we both felt it deserved. We decided to hand stitch the zine due to wanting to use the different papers to print upon as well as the number of pages of which we wanted to include a traditional folded zine would not of being functional.
Overall I feel that I stuck to my initial planning sketches well, allowing me to have a rigid idea of which to work from, I also think that as a whole myself and Chris worked really well together in order to get the project done on time, as we both knew what we were expecting of each other and I think that both of us delivered. I feel that the most unsuccessful element of this project was the initial issue with collaboration between the rest of the initial group however I feel that myself and Chris worked really well together in order to complete a finished zine within the time frame of which we were presented with. The only modifications to this project of which I would make in future would be to add more pages of our chosen area in order to explore it further and make more of a comment about the people of whom interact with it.