Evaluation

The practical skills I have developed throughout this module include book binding, screen print and knowledge of Illustrator. I think I could have explored screen print a lot more through using more colours, and it maybe wasn't the best process to use for the book and range of gift products when I was only using black and it was so time consuming. I am not sure if I will use this process again; I will definitely try to decide on the most appropriate process next time, rather than the one I want to do for the sake of it. My Illustrator skills have improved through the Guardian postcards brief and I learnt some new techniques and used this to develop a distinctive style for the project. I went quite wrong with the print production in this brief because I forgot about things like pantone matching and spot colours so I don't think it wouldn't have worked if they were to be printed for real. I think I should have found out how it would be done if it were to be mass printed (whether it would use spot colour or CMYK and what process is best for runs with these specifications). This would have given me a better understanding of design for print and would have made me think about if I were actually designing for thousands of copies and how that affects the decisions and costs.
Others skills I think I have improved are concept building and time management. I managed to come up with an idea for the competition brief in a day, which is usually the part of a brief which I get scared of in case I can't think of anything. I think my time management has been good as I did 4 briefs, although I didn't produce as much work for the last brief as I would have liked to so I will have to remember to stick to mini deadlines throughout the next module.
Through this module I feel I have developed a way of working which works for me, and I have gained more confidence from this. More confidence towards the end of the module gave me the ability to get through a brief in a week and not get stuck because I was a bit more sure of my decisions. I think I can do work quite speedy and this is a lot to do with the confidence I have gained.
I think the strengths in my work are different in each project but overall I am mostly pleased with the amount of work I have done, and the idea based work like the PJ's smoothies brief. I was pleased with the amount of gift stuff I made but I think I could have been a bit more experimental with the format of some of the products and thought more about how I could have applied my drawings in an original way.
A weakness of my work is that I haven't investigated print enough and factors which can affect the production of design for print like stock etc. I also didn't research very much contemporary design/designers and this probably would have helped me a lot. I think some of my work looks very childish and I would like it to look more professional but still keep the 'style' my own.

Collage illustration

i was looking at some illustrators on the internet that use collage in their work, especially mixing photographs with drawing, because this is how i made the 'its not innocent' posters. I came across this illustrator Roger Chouinard who works as an artist, animator and illustrator. These illustrations incorporate found objects, photographs and drawings. i really like how he juxtaposes these different styles and the funny images he creates. i have also learnt from lookin at these that my fruit and stuff looks like its floating around and not sitting on anything but he uses shadows to give things weight so i think i need to do this on my posters.

Final Crit

at the crit today i took my work for the pj's smoothies brief. i have two concepts which i've developed.this one is just for fun really - its not innocent. I wanted to do it because i thought it was funny but probably not suitable to actually enter, although i might not enter any, im undecided...









my questions for this were
- are they too busy?
- do they look better with the black outlines?

The feedback i got was really good, i am going to try make them less busy to see what it looks like and add the black lines but using a good pen. Also i was given the suggestion of doing teasers for this concept which could just be one fruit running away or with a knife in its head which could be on a bus or billboards. i think i might have to make this a second part to the brief (it did say to put in context in the actual brief but i might not have time) because i've very sillyly not worked quick enough and i would rather get these posters up to scratch and concentrate on developing it further over christmas, and then i can put the whole thing in my portfolio.

my second concept was these chewing sucks posters. they are quite simple but because the other ones are so busy i quite like the difference.

my questions for this were
- which composition is best?
- does it need another strap line underneath?

noone thought it needed another strapline and everyone said the one with the bottle around it looked best so ive changed them now so they all look like this...

my own range of stuff

I have finished my 3rd brief - the 'i love/i hate' range of paper based gift products. my camera is shocking I wish I had hired an SLR but oh well.
i think it makes the screen printed book a lot stronger to have a whole range of stuff in the same idea supporting it. i've just realised i didn't include the book in this photo.
There were some problems like the paper is a little too thick for the bag and the greeting cards packet doesn't close properly but overall i think its turned out ok and i know how to do it differently next time.
i want to show this in context on one of my boards but i don't really know how to. I don't want to photoshop it into Paperchase or anything. I might make a gift set out of it and put a price on it or something i don't know.
I was wondering how i would produce this stuff after i leave college, if i want them to be screen printed. i will need to look into it and ask some people who do this for a living, like juicylucy design from a previous post. I will definitely keep producing greeting cards if nothing else.

Got Ads Blog & Al Murphy

For my research for the PJ smotthies brief i have been looking at creative advertising, especially ads that use illustration. I have mostly been looking at adsoftheworld.com and also came across a blog called got-ads. Here there is loads of creative advertising from all over the world. My favourites were these ones by The Jupiter Drawing Room, South Africa for the AAA school of advertising - 'when you know you're a creative thinker.'






I also came across adverts for perrier water which are illustrated by Al Murphy and Paul Davis. (Paul on the left and Al on the right below) I like them because the drawing, especially Al murphy's, reminds me of david Shrigley :) The brand was trying to appeal to a younger audience and based these adverts around a series of words - healthier , riskier, younger etc. Usually you would see this kind of campaign for beer so its nice to see a non alcoholic drink with such a strong campaign.



As well as print ads there are some tv ones which use the same concept:




Al Murphy graduated from Liverpool School of art in 1999 and has been living in London. His current and past clients include, MTV, Universal, EMI, Parlophone and Merury Records, the BBC, Orange telecommunications and Coca Cola. For the past couple of years Al has been lucky enough to work in the studio owned by Tank Girl and Gorillaz artist Jamie Hewlett who i also love. Here are some of his illustrations on Tshirts

screens for brief 3

I have prepared my screens for my 3rd brief - the range of gift stuff - and im going to do the printing this week. On these screens are:

A calendar
Boxes - 2 sizes
Bag (for chocolates)
Stickers
Round and rectangular Badges
Greeting cards
A packet for the greeting cards
Gift tags
Key rings
Fridge magnets
Wrapping paper

I have also sent off for a mousemat and 2 mugs. i think i'm going a bit mental but the bigger the range of stuff, the stronger it will be in my opinion.
I realise that all this stuff is pretty ambitious because i have to make up all the stuff once its printed and i need to remember that i don't have much time left and i've got another brief to do, which i've pretty much neglected because this one is so fun :) i think i'm getting on with this one quite quick though and i think i'm quite good at time management so i'm pretty confident i will have everything done.
I want to have the printing all done after thursday evenings drop in session and then i want to make all the stuff on fiday and over the weekend. Next week i want to take photos of all the stuff and make up my boards by wednesday so i can concentrate on PJ smoothies.

brief 3

This is my third brief which has changed from one about signage for an exhibition, to a continuation of brief 2, the screen printed book. This is becasue i was a bit confused about the exhibition brief and i had already made a few greeting cards with the book so i decided to make them a separate brief. I will enjoy doing this more than the brief i was going to do and it will strengthen the idea of the book.



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