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.



click to make larger

interim evaluation

Put this on a bit late so some of it might not be relevant anymore...

Interim Evaluation.

I am focusing on illustration and it is process led because I wanted to practice and learn about different printing processes like screenprint and digital print. I haven't really investigated this area in much depth so I need to do more research
My research is mostly on my blog and there isn't very much of it. I'm having problems knowing what is relevant to research for my projects. There doesn't seem like I’ve done much work for either brief but I know how long it has taken to produce – especially the book - to draw, print then screen print, then bind the book and it was quite a long process. I think the processes I have used are worth developing further because I didn't really experiment with book binding or screenprinting very much – I just chose perfect binding which didn't really challenge me or allow me to learn something new. My audience seems to be people who like collecting things.
I feel like there isn't enough time to do everything I want to do because I've spent too long on the first briefs. I need to work quicker because I've got 4 weeks left to do 2 more briefs and finish off the first 2. Because I am doing a work placement from the 15th of Dec, I will have to submit a week earlier so I will have to plan my time extra mega good.
I need to re-look at my 3rd brief and clarify what it is about because I'm a bit confused about it. I'd like it to be a quick one because I don't want to sacrifice the competition brief.
I am using my blog to document the progression of projects – changes in briefs and decisions that I have made – I update it whenever we have a crit.
Problems I have identified are that I don't have a consistent message/audience/area of focus apart from print. My intention is to continue doing print work and image making but I want it to have a purpose: I have moved on from my initial starting point because I made both the briefs more commercial – imagining them in an appropriate context and how they would be sold etc.
I need to research printing processes/techniques more. I was thinking of using screen print again for the competition brief I'm doing but I think this will have to be a matter of how much time I have. I would like to develop my knowledge of digital print and colour and also editorial illustration (although this might be pointless because I don't think I want to be an illustrator as my main job – at least not straight out of uni).

contextual research

I took a trip to Paperchase yesterday to see what kind of paper products and general nice stuff was being sold so i could start a list of things i want to make for my 4th brief - (continuation of book brief.) There were lots of good greeting cards there, i was hoping to find some illustrations/designs that were across a range of products but they didn't have much variety.




juicylucydesigns.com
This is an illustrator with a business team who produce a wide range of products all based around fairies. As well as cards, they make stationery, magnetic products, magical message notes and even babywear. I think they would be good people to ask for advice if I were to sell my stuff.\







knit & purl - felt design. I cant find anything about the makers of these on the internet but they were my favourite. They were all photographed knitted objects and reminded me of violent veg.



Vimrod
These designs called vimrod are created by lastlemon productions ltd and are very well-known. They have over 4600 different designs and a wide range of products including books, cards, mousemats, coasters and mugs. Illustrations like this always appeal to me where there isn't much detail or drawing skill but something witty is said.



Weenicons
Weenicons created by urban graphic, are a set of cards which show characters from popular culture in a really simplified way but you can instantly tell who they are meant to be from certain features/objects and signifying characteristics. I like these because it feels personal to get someone a card with a character that they particularly like. I think with my cards I will make a few different ones with different food and drink on to give people a choice, or i will propose to make custom made ones from a list of loves and hates.









I think the best thing about these cards is that you get a free sticker with it - im going to copy off this and include badges and stickers or maybe make a little gift set. This has also reminded me that i need to consider designing the back of the cards.


Other items of stationery and printed products in Paperchase were things like badges, letter writing kits, packs of thank you cards and paper bags. I would like to try and make a bag like this edward monkton one. I think it would be pretty easy. Now i need to make a list of things i want to make, do more ink drawing which will work on each format (I want to change and add to the collection of drawings) and then do more screen printing onto these paper products. i will have to send away for mouse mats and mugs.

lovely books

I went to the royal Armouries last Friday and in the gift shop I saw these lovely books. They were guides for soldiers from various wars, reprinted on brown old looking paper. The covers were very simple and looked hand printed. They were covered with paper rather than buckram, which i used, and they were very nice to touch, the brown one was especially nice. They almost looked like ration books or something from the second world war. I would like to copy this sometime because it seems very easy and looks really good especially when there's a set of them.

finishing 2 briefs

I have just about finished the first 2 briefs now - the postcards and the book. Originally I was going to do a competition brief and then one about some sort of signage for an exhibition but i am now going to make the book one brief and then with the valentines cards i made, make a new brief to develop the 'i love/ i hate' thing across a range of products and paper stuff. Im going to do badges and more different cards as well as some badges and stuff.




For the final postcard packs I made them the same shape and size as the postcards and made them more like envelopes rather than boxes. This would make it easier to be something you put in your pocket when your on the go, as my target audience is professionals and people who travel lots. I also changed the magnifying glass to handcuffs on the crime packet because it was agreed that this would suggest crime more.





I kept the square box packets and thought they could be for if you want to subscribe to get them sent to you, more as items to collect. For these I made large square postcards which I think work well especially when the image on the front sits in the middle of the frame.

The main things i would do differently now are:

- I should have used the pantone books earlier on and made sure i specified the spot colours on the computer but i forgot to do this as i was in a rush to finish it.
- I should have maybe included tints in the images to make them more interesting and give them a range of tones. I didn't do this for the same reason as above.
- I didn't research very much design for packaging/postcards which could have helped me.





Final screen printed book. It is black and white throughout and is hard back and section stitched. This will form the basis for the next brief where I will apply the printing technique and content to other formats.

Things i would do differently:

-I would experiment more with different binding techniques and forms of the book
-I would make a copy of the book with colour in it

Greteman group

I researched the companies which featured on my last post about envelope design and my favourite was Greteman Group which is situated in Kansas, USA. They were my favourite because they had a really organic feel to their work and they use lovely colours in their print work and use a lot of illustration and imagery. I also liked them because of their clients - this is usually what attracts me most to designers or companies - and also their environmental design.

Environmental -

Oklahoma City Zoo






I have got quite interested in exhibition design recently and i might be doing design for environment for my third brief. I love the zoo because it looks engaging and fun as well as informative.

Print work


Book


This is a book they have done called nuts for nature which gives you a guide to getting animals and nature into your own garden. I like the subject matter and the imagery suits it perfectly. Again it looks like it was hand printed with silkscreen or even a sponge! but i dont think it is. i love the different textures they have achieved and the colours are very sophisticated for a book that could have easily looked too childish. you can buy it off amazon so i think i might have to do just that.

condom and lube kit



this condom and lube kit, cleverly disguised as a box of matches looks amazing and is a really good idea. I think i might just love it because i have a thing for brown paper and the yellow black and red printed on top looks really bold. the information on the inside is in-keeping with the whole package and they've obviously thought a lot about the audience and format. I would like to print on brown paper in the future and try to get some really bright colours , maybe through screen printing.

Cigar case



this box is also another of their designs i like. they seem to have a way of making colours really stand out and it instantly says south america through these colours, the illustration and the typography.

These print items were all under the category of 'fun' on the website so i dont think its their main work thast they make money from, more like side projects. I would love to produce work like this as a job because it uses print, looks organic and hand made and the colours and textures are lovely.