Book cover final set

These are all of the book covers as a set. I am happy with how they have turned out. They work really well together as a set. My thinking on all of these was to pick out some symbols in the books. I detailed in my rationale that I did not want to pick cliche symbols to show for the books; I think that I have achieved that. I also think that they work well together because of the consistency that runs throughout them all, the work focusses on 2/3 motifs and a background colour that suits the book (with care taken to not pick the same colours for each). I honestly feel that the colours suit the books so well and it was lucky that they work like that as a set. 

If i were to do more on this brief, i would of liked to of spent more time reading the books so that I could be more aware of the motifs in the books. 

This brief has showed me that when I put my mind to it, I can produce good looking book covers. This adds versatility to my practice and will show art directors/those looking at my portfolio more of a scope in my practice. 

The context for my project

This is the exhibition that I am creating my work for. I will create wall decals,, bespoke prints and products for the museum shop. 

Poster for hunger games book launch

This is my poster for the book launch of the hunger games trilogy. I had to use my graphic design skills (which i don't normally use) to create this poster- I feel that it has gone ok. I feel like it is quite simple which is good and maybe challenges the way that people look at the Hunger Games brand (the current brand is quite dated).

Leaves

These are some of the leaves that I am doing as part of my set of 5 screen prints. I am most likely going to add a few more to the page so that they is a breadth of leaves that are in the amazon rainforest that are being displayed. A challenge that I am having on this piece is that the leaves are majority green. This means that the screen print is going to be majority green! I feel that trying to seek out more colourful leaves might be the best idea- I have documented a few in this pice but I have a feeling that there are way more weird and wonderful leaves to help make the image 'pop'. 

I like the aesthetic that I am achieving with these screen prints- they are not as graphic as before yet still are graphic enough to be able to be produced as a screen print.  I did what I said i would try- I tried out the Kyle T Webster brush set to see if it made any difference - and obviously it did! I will continue with these brushes on this brief.

Screenprint- Insects

I have made up this 3 colour separation screen print for my main brief. I quite like how it has turned out however I feel that I need to add in more insects to the work to make it look a bit more full. I don't think that enlarging the insects would have the right effect as when printed at a2 it will just look strange I feel as some insects will be almost a4 size. 

Some sketchbook pages

These are a few of my sketchbook pages that I like. The sketchbook has really helped me to refine my idea and enjoy the process of drawing. It has helped me figure out what works and what doesn't. It has kept my practice fresh and given me ideas for my work. There are a few pieces that didn't work so well but they have been really good to learnt from.

Brief

BA (Hons) Illustration - Level 06

OUIL603 Extended Practice

BRIEF TITLE The Amazon Rainforest

Brief

Create some informative yet playful products on the Amazon rainforest, (specifically focussing on 5 areas- mammals, insects, birds, reptiles and plants) for a current exhibition ‘Images of Nature’ at the Natural History Museum. Create 5x 3 colour screenprints.

Product	Tone of Voice
1x Set of 10 large scale wall decals 5x bespoke 3 colour screen prints Extra products: Set of products for the museum shop	Fun Engaging Informative Playful
Audience	Context
People interested in nature and botanical drawings People who enjoy screenprints People who visit the Natural History Museum- mostly targeted towards families	Natural history museum- walls, & shop Could also translated for use in..                                              A classroom                                              Tropical world, leeds                                              Exhibition space                                              Interactive space

Additional information/Considerations

Mandatory Requirements	Deliverables
It has to be based on the rainforest It has to appeal to the audience	5x Screenprints 10x Wall Decals- 2/3 metres tall Set of products for the museum shop

Dragonfly pattern

I took one of my notable pieces that I created previously and made this really lovely pattern. Although its not massively linked to the current stage of the brief, I just wanted to see how it would look. I feel that it would be a great piece of wrapping paper. I may have to pursue this on the side to this brief as I feel that it isn't in line with the current brief. 

City Talking- Finished product photos

In the end the city talking used 2 of my images (despite one being referenced in the article and it not being printed! ha). I feel that this was because my interview was joined with TONE and he only submitted 2 therefore it seems fair that I have 2 as well. It feels great to have my work actually in print as so far my work has only been published on online sites. It was also really good to have people get in touch with me for my work and because they have seen it out and about in Leeds.

Screen print of parrots

I have been making some progress on my main brief. I have chosen to do a set of 5 screen prints that illustrate the nature in the amazon rainforest. I will look at 5 areas:

1. Birds

2. Mammals

3. Insects

4. Reptiles

5. Plants

Above you can see the screen print preparation work. This work is designed using just 3 colours but allowing transparency for them to overlap to create an extra 4 colours- 7 colours in total. I am really pleased with how they are progressing at the moment, they look free flowing and natural to say that they are for screen print. I am happy with the colours too; I spent a lot of time testing colour palettes for colours that would overlap well however none came close to this particular palette.

The next steps are to keep preparing screen prints for each of these categories. Once I have done all of these I will move onto the actual screen printing- this may take a long time, it may be best to propose this and create it after the submission but before the end of year show. Or on the other hand I could just print 1 screen print as an example of how I will print the rest.

Darts Competition update

Here's an update on the darts competition, i am excited to see what the results are. There are a few really good contestants that I am up against!

Tutorial with fred

After the tutorial with Fred I feel as though I have a lot to do and complete before the submission. 

These are some of the notes from the meeting:

Hunger Games- need a range of products and window display

Need more books for Penguin- make it a range and a set of penguin classics

Document the colouring book event and collaboration

Rainforest brief- project needs more scope and ambition as discussed. Write a brief and consider wall art and installation. 

Evaluate more on the blog

I need to also add more pace to my work and explore briefs more in order to try and test different things to see what works and what doesn't. This will also make the work well informed. 

Bauer Brothers Nautral History

I have found the exhibition that I was looking for. I was wanting to find an exhibition that was about the amazon rainforest and this one is perfect. There is an exhibition on at the Natural History Museum called 'Images of Nature' and features the Bauer brothers. 

Creating large scale wall decals/stickers would be amazing alongside this work. It could provide a more rounded exhibition- the watercolours for generally the older people and the massive decals for the children to be inspired and occupied by. I will begin to make work for this more defined brief. 

All of the books

I have finished the book covers. Here is a mock up of how they would look when printed. I feel as though they are very effective as a set. This GIF could also be used in promotional work. I purposely not looked at promotional work on this brief as I cover that side on another brief that I am doing and also feel that this job would not be down to me as an illustrator- this would be down to the marketing team and art director. My job on this brief is to simply create the book cover for these books

Leaves that I like and want to research further

As part of my screen print on leaves and plants, I have been researching different leaves of the rainforest, these are my favourite ones. It is more of a note for myself (no images) so that I can research it further.

Sheffleria
Bowenia
Fan Palm
Impatiens Omeiana
Arum
Prestoea
Orchid leaf
Elatostemma Sp Urticeace
Anthiorium
Philodendron (various species)
Dieffenbachia
Alocasia Cuprea
Monstera
Browneopsis
Banana Leaf
Licuala Ridleyana

final images

Here are the final images that I sent to the City Talking. I am really happy with them and am excited to see what they will look like printed and which ones they will use. The feedback that I got from these images was that they really liked the last one. The last one was fairly easy to do but was the best received of them all. They loved the clean lines and gradients. On a side note regarding my practice, I have had a few pieces of work of buildings that have been very well received- I feel that this is an area to pursue upon finishing university. 

Creating the work for this brief was really fun, I have learnt more about my enjoyment of drawing buildings. Drawing buildings has been something that I touched on in second year, in this years Brief 4 and then just now. As I noted in Brief 4, it is something that I will explore more when I leave university and have a little more free time! I also noted in Brief 5 that I wanted to work more with hand drawn textures, this is something I have incorporated into this brief to add a bit of character to it (see the canal and park image) personally i love it!

 Its going to provide some really good exposure for me around Leeds. This newspaper doesn't produce these papers that often- around 6 times a year or so- this means that many, many people will get their hands on it in that space of time, hopefully some influential people and people who will want me to do work for them. I've learnt a lot about brief interpretation and that in some cases you need to regroup with the client to discuss the project further in order to create something that they want, in this case all 3 of us that were working on the brief were a bit confused (me, TONE and Tom Joy). In the end it has turned out really well. 

Second meet up for coffee - interview

Today I had a meeting with The City Talking's Daniel Chapman and the other artist who is working on this piece with me, Tone (https://leedsgallery.com/whats-on/exhibitions/tone-the-eden-diaries/) . We met in the Southbank of Leeds.

We spoke about the project and the culture of Leeds; The City Talking's Daniel Chapman recorded the interview for the issue. It was quite a strange and a little daunting experience as I knew that everything that I was saying was being recorded. I guess this made it quite exciting too. It was also a challenge to talk about my work, I think its something to definitely work on for the future.

I have been fortunate enough to of been paid by TCT- very well in fact. The issue of The City Talking will be in about 2 weeks time and will be in the Evening Post newspaper on the 22nd April too.

This experience has taught me so much. I have learnt how to work on briefs that aren't straight forward and are quite conceptual. I have learnt how to talk about my work in a better way. I have learnt more skills in being professional yet at the same time being able to speak to the client in a friendly way- for example when meeting the client for the first time over coffee. Overall a really good experience where I learnt a lot about Leeds, its culture and the City Talking.

Brief refinement and product proposal

I have been working on refining my idea more. I have decided to create 5 screen prints focussing on 5 areas- plants, reptiles, insects, mammals and birds. Each will contain a number of different animals all composed in 1 image like in some of my sketches (see an example: here)

Also after looking into spacial design I have decided that it would be really good to produce some large scale wall stickers. I did look into this a little previously when thinking about making a massive piece that documented the different layers of the rainforest to go on a wall. Instead of this I am thinking of simply creating massive wall (and even floor) stickers to go in exhibitions on the rainforest/ schools and even Tropical World, Leeds. I will look into finding a specific exhibition to plan the brief around.

I have decided that this is not enough by itself and that it will need some extras so that I will of explored more avenues of this brief. I have wrote down a list of products that could be sold in the shop:

-Bespoke prints
-Stickers
-notebook

Potential products:
tote bag?
posters?
pencils
colouring book?
t-shirt?
mug?
pencil case?
cards?

I don't want to just create products for the sake of it, I want this brief to create some work that is special and tailored exactly to the purpose. I believe that some of these products will make the final cut but many won't.

Testing out ideas

I have been using my photographs that I have took to create this illustration. I have been struggling with the idea behind my work so I decided to almost 'think through drawing' by creating this image. I took direct swatches from the photograph to create the colours in this image.

I am happy with how the piece went, it has helped me to realise what I like and what I don't. I feel that simplifying the colours down more could produce some exciting results. I also think that its almost trying to be too life-like here. I think its a good idea to look at the process of screen printing.

main point- simplify colour palette so it would work for screen printing.

Hunger games- products

These are some products that I have created as part of the promotional work for the brief. These products will help to promote the brand more and hopefully the massive fanbase of the Hunger Games will be drawn to them when they are promoted by the brand.

Hunger games - website

I have mocked up my book covers onto the banner of the hunger games website. I feel like it fits in well and looks professional. I am no graphic designer but I have done my best to show off the book. Having this on the moving banner of the website means that whoever visits the site will be able to see this notice and click the link.

Other places that this banner could be put:
- youtube advertisements
- Waterstones website and store
- Other book shops
- Online bookstores
- Amazon ebook

http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/leeds-launch-for-book-filled-with-colour-1-7808340

It was nice to have the colouring book featured on the evening post website. It may provide good exposure to us as illustrators and our practice.