Summative Evaluation

Summative Evaluation

During this module I think organization has really been a key factor as all of the competitions had different deadlines and I had to be careful with how much I spent on each one. I think my time keeping has definitely been much better with module. My Photoshop skills have also improved during this module as I learnt how to apply my work to templates that were given to be (particularly during the Penguin Random House Design competition) and also improved my skills of bringing in analogue work and changing it without losing that hand drawn feel to it. My team work skills were also improved during this brief, I learnt that the best way to keep everyone on the same level is to have a group chat or group email sent round rather than just assuming others would hear from another person.

This module was really great to expand on my image making with as each competition asked for something different. In this module I have experimented more with gouache than previous modules and have also played around with collage (particularly in the John Lewis Brief). I’ve learnt that gouache carries across really well into Photoshop and doesn’t lose its hand made feel if you edit it properly, I also learnt that I’m beginning to find collage a great way to organize my thoughts before starting a purely digital piece of work (which is good because I’ve always thought I hated collage). 

I feel like the main strength my work this module is my concept work. Normally I come up with one concept and tend to stick with it, but for this module having criticism and feedback really helped me home in on better ideas, particularly in the John Lewis brief where I was constantly evolving my ideas to fit the brief as we progressed with it. I will capitalize on this in the future by ensuring that I continually exhaust my concept ideas before picking one, as during this module that worked well for me.

I think weaknesses in my work this module is the lack of research into other artists and what else is out there. It was something I really didn’t give much thought too until I would be designing colour palettes and start to wonder what else was out there. I realised I was doing this towards the end so in the last brief (John Lewis) I made sure to double check existing things. I feel like not doing my research properly has hindered some of my submissions, in particular, A Clockwork Orange, I think that more could have been done to push the concept in a more alternative direction if I had seen more preexisting book covers. In the future, I think I need to start delegating more time to research (rather than just a day or two) and make sure I have a rounded view of what exists and what doesn’t in the illustration world before setting off to complete a brief.

Overall I enjoyed this module, It challenged me in a different way to previous ones as it was so time sensitive but it also gave me an insight into what being a illustrator in the real world is like. There isn’t too much I’d do differently next time, other than perhaps try out more mediums and create a time table right at the start of each brief so I could allocate myself enough time for research, development and feedback on concept ideas before starting on a final idea.




My Project Report

This my project report, showing a complete summary of my actions, thoughts, concepts and development throughout this module. 

Individual Artboards for Collaborative: John Lewis D&AD Brief

These are my individual boards for my collaborative. They show my involvement in the brief and my thoughts and concepts throughout. 

Artboards: The Guardian Brief

These are my art boards for my quick Guardian Brief. Just showing my concept ideas, thoughts and finals.

Artboards: Secret 7 Brief

My art boards, just showing a summary of my thoughts and development on Secret 7 Brief. 

Artboards: Penguin Random House Brief: A Clockwork Orange

My Artboards for A Clockwork Orange, they show my initial thoughts and summarised my developmental work throughout the brief.

Artboards: Penguin Random House Brief: How To Be A Woman

These are my art boards for Penguin for Caitlin Moran's book How To Be A Woman. They show my summarised thought process and development throughout the brief.

Artboards: Penguin Random House Brief: Emil And The Detectives

These are my art boards for Emil and The Detectives, summarising my thoughts throughout the brief. 

Collaborative: John Lewis: Submission Boards for D&AD

This is the final submission PDF document we sent to D&AD for submission. 

Collaborative: John Lewis: Final Mock Ups

Here is the image of our final mock up! We photographed it before including it into the final boards for submission. Although I was very hesitant early on to make something physical for an entirely digital submission I am glad that I was coerced by my group into taking that leap of faith. I think for us it paid off well as you could really see our vision and where we were heading with the concept. If we had had more time before the deadline, I would have liked to spend time painting the inside of the box and also seeing if there was a way of experimenting with lighting. All the things we were unable to do were explained in the submission.

Overall I felt like the John Lewis Brief was one that I worked the hardest on, which was a good thing and a bad thing. It was good because it was nice to see how many ideas I could generate for one brief and i enjoyed receiving feedback and criticism and being able to go away and generate more ideas until one stuck. It was a bad thing too as I do feel like at the start we should have made a timetable for our time and also delegated right from the start what people would be doing. It was only a group of four but we did struggle at numerous points throughout the project to all be in the same place at the same time. It also caused some confusion (with the mockup being made to fit the polaroids EXACT dimensions and us having to scrap the lazer cut boards made for the polaroids) and some disagreements over the direction of the project.
I was however, very pleased with the quality of our submission boards to John Lewis as I feel like they met the deliverables and that we invested the right amount of time into research for our work to be slightly more engaging than some other entries.

Collaborative: John Lewis: Presenting the store window/ typeface for vinyl

Whilst three of us were working on the illustrating of the polaroids, the fourth member was working on the physical making of the store front. It was made to the scale of being a tenth of the size of the actual store front, with the idea that seeing this the judges could more accurately see our vision. 

One thing that we were stuck on was the typeface for the vinyl. Taime had suggested using his own handwriting but it wasn't chunky or neat enough to be seen from afar. As I had been practicing calligraphy in my other work, I created two typeface's (with our chosen words) on for the box. 

The first was done in a smaller nib so it would be a little more delicate and the second was done with a chunkier nib. We decided on the chunkier type as it could be seen from far away. This was then taken into photoshop, traced and then was made into vinyl. From here we made a small photoshop file just to figure out which words to place on which piece of plastic. 

Other problems we faced were that the model had been made to almost the exact size as the polaroids. This caused us to change our polaroid picture size at the last minute (as it was easier and cheaper than making a new mock up). Luckily for us it worked much better smaller and meant that we could also have it hanging so it wasn't static within the box. 

Collaborative: John Lewis: Making Submission Boards

These are the submission boards that we made for the PDF deliverable. Me and Janice worked on these, we wanted to showcase what our scenes would look like inside the polaroid and show that all of the products were taken from John Lewis (so we included them on the left). By illustrating the scenes we saved more time than we would have done if we had decided to illustrate them and then lazer cut those drawings (which was a suggestion made after we looked at layered store fronts). Instead I suggested that we should mention to John Lewis that the polaroids could potentially be LED TV screens and that each of our scenes could move. At this point we were running out of time so rather than animating all of the pieces we chose to stop-motion animate the kitchen scene (as it had the best products in there to move around). We did this by printing off two copies of the kitchen scene, cutting out the pieces and then sticking small bits of foam board to the back which allowed certain bits to be raised but still to be able to move (to take different frames with). 

Although it wasn't in the deliverables, the brief did allow for extras to be added onto the submission if it would supplement the entry. 

Collaborative: John Lewis: Making My Polaroid

After picking my colour theme and my products I decided to make a visual collage just so I could size things up before illustrating them. By doing this it let me get the angles and colours just right and let me think about where the mannequins would go best in the scene. 

I found that this process really worked for me because without having the collage there I didn't really have much of a reference for the objects. Rather than illustrate all of it I left some things (such as the book case and curtains) in their original collage form just so it added a bit of realism for the viewer. The dog was a last minute addition but I'm not really sure if it works as well in the scene as the two main characters do. 

Collaborative: John Lewis: Researching Existing Products

After our visit to John Lewis, We all came back feeling more inspired and with the brochures we had a proper place to start looking for potential items. 
In the studio we also discussed how we were going to go ahead with the deliverable (a PDF presentation of our ideas). One of the team suggested making a physical mock up of the store front and photographing it so that it would be more realistic for the judges looking at it. I personally felt like making a large scale mock up was too much of a time risk at this point as we were already too close to the deadline with not as much work as others had. There wasn't much discussion apart from my objection, so the team member continued on and made the physical mock up. 

At this point I started to delegate workloads as we were behind on schedule (at this point we should have had the mock up complete and concept clearly designed). As we had already decided on splitting up the store front into three separate sections, three polaroid "moments" so it just made sense for each of us to pick a theme (electrical, home, fashion) and three of us work on those designs, whilst the fourth member worked on the physical mock up and vinyls (which were also a deliverable). 
This worked well as the workload was spread reasonably easily, although there were some things that we could have delegated slightly more evenly (such as the creating of the submission boards). 

The idea behind the polaroid "moments" was to show people enjoying their products and it becoming a memory for them. I picked home as my theme so decided to centre it around the evening and the end of the day. Coincidentally Janice and Jess had similar ideas and so we ended up with a morning polaroid (kitchen, electrical), an afternoon polaroid (outdoors, fashion) and an evening (living room, home). We all chose colour themes from the brochure to work our concepts around. 

Before I started, I looked into some existing home products and began to book mark them to potentially illustrate and tried to fit them into my colour scheme I had picked. 

Collaborative: John Lewis: Deciding On A Concept/Visiting The Store

After the weekend, We met back up together as a group to discuss our different ideas and which ones we felt would work the best. As a group we all liked Jess's idea for having polaroid pictures involved, we combined that with my idea of set scenes (such as the kitchen) to present a product range (electrical, home, fashion). 

We drew up some very basic concepts but all decided that visiting an actual John Lewis store would help as we could see what kind of displays they have in store and what colour schemes they use. This was really helpful because we had been stuck in a creative rut as a team and with lots of other briefs going on, we found it hard to meet up as a group so having a day out visiting the store was well worth the time. 

This was really useful because we got to see how they arranged their stuff in store and how they drew attention to certain products. Whilst there we also had time to grab some brochures. Once back at the studio, we spent some time looking at the colour schemes they had and how we could apply them. It was at this point we decided that instead of having lots of polaroids we would split the store front into 3 and each polaroid would have its own colour palette (with a fresh complimentary colour in the background). As well as this, we all agreed that having something layered for the polaroids would be far more eye catching than just flat pictures. 

Collaborative: John Lewis: Initial Ideas

It took us longer than usual to form our group, after christmas we were finally settled on four members. Our first meeting was on the 25th January where we each brought in briefs that we were interested in doing, all of us brought in the John Lewis Brief so it just made sense that we picked that brief. This Brief was to create a clear concept for an Autumn John Lewis shop window that would be showcased in their flagship store. It asked for innovation but also keeping in with the values of John Lewis. It also asked that it cover John Lewis' main areas - Electrical, Home and Fashion.  

We decided that the best thing to do was go away for the weekend and each come up with some inspiration and concepts for what we could possibly create. Each of us researched into a different bit of the company. From my research I looked into their customer and company values, they value customers and have been running for a long amount of time. As for their company values, every member of staff owns a small stake in the company and each team at every store has the potential to make the changes they want to see in the company. 

Any helpful research that was found was posted into our facebook group so everyone was informed. 

I had three initial concepts for the shop display: 

Trees of life: Presents landing on top of trees, some opened some not, each with something containing a product from the three main ranges (electrical, home, fashion). With the possibility of fashion being represented as animals (shirts and things coming to life). 

Heaven Sent: Maniquins holding onto presents, each containing a product range. These presents would have parachutes so it would look more like they were safely falling. The potential here was to have clouds that lit up inside (so it would be visible at nighttime). 

The Borrowers: Inspired by the little people project (by slinkachu) I had found, I thought it would be nice to do something similar in the window displays. With a small scene, such as kitchen, with the products in but the characters using them in a different way (spoons for diving boards etc). 

Responsive: Penguin Book Finals

These are my finals that I have submitted for the Penguin Random House Design Awards. 

FINAL THOUGHTS 

ON CAITLIN MORAN: 

This was the book cover that I had no trouble coming up with ideas and concepts for but am least pleased with the final outcome. I'm think it's the lack of texture in the piece that has left it feeling too "digital". Even though I did scan in and go over the ink pieces and figure outline, there is something that got lost in the transition from analogue to digital. If I were to do this one again I think i'd spend more time on the font, I did like what I came up with but I don't think it suits certain parts of the book cover (her name should be clearer.. neater). I would definitely research more into how to texture backgrounds or perhaps half tone bits. I feel like that has really let me down on this book cover particularly. 

 ON EMIL AND THE DETECTIVES 

This was the cover I invested the most time in. I really wanted each element to be playful and engaging so children would want to pick it up. I chose orange and blue because many of the book covers for Emil were yellow and I wanted to step away from that. In contrast to the Caitlin Moran book cover, I think the inked drawings for Emil's cover really came through well onto photoshop and when I went over them they didn't loose any of their intent. If I had to do this again I think I would spend a little more time developing the type because that was something that was lost on this. Although I think the written "emil" works well, the rest of the text looks a little too sensible for kids to pick up. I would have also spent more time on the back trying to get the subsidiaries more eye-catching (my fault for not realising we had to add these in, these were rushed in last minute).

ON CLOCKWORK ORANGE 

This was the cover I was least interested in making at first but surprisingly is my favourite out of the three that I produced. I've never watched the movie or read the book so had to read the spark notes for this. After a few attempts I just found it really hard to step away from the cliche of using orange and oranges on the front cover. I really wanted to not be that person but in the end I gave in. I used textures and used a hand written type for this book cover and I thi k the reason it works so well is because its so cohesive as a whole. I was also super proud with my hand drawings on this one. 

Penguin Brief: A Clockwork Orange: Defining Ideas/Making the cover

DEFINING IDEAS/ MAKING THE COVER 

Once I had the idea in place for hands instead of cranes, I began to scan in my hand drawings (drawn from my own hand as the reference) and go over them in a charcoal brush on photoshop. I kept each hand on a different layer as I knew that eventually I would have to move them around the type. 

The brief for A Clockwork Orange wasn't particularly fussed over having hand drawn type but for this book I felt like it was something I wanted to develop. I invested in some new nibs and ink and had a go at writing the words over and over until I saw a set that I could bring into the actual cover.  In my issuu pictures I have shown the selected type next to the final type. 
At first I just scanned them in and put them into the book as ink, but as I placed the hand's next to them it looked out of sync. This lead to deciding to go over the type in charcoal on photoshop. 

I went with black white and orange as the colour palette because I wanted something simple but very powerful and I worried that messing around with complicated colour palettes would take away from the immediacy of the cover. Although it was very cliche to stick to those colours, I don't regret it because I think it works so well. 

Out of all of the book covers done, this really was my favourite just because I got so involved with it, listening to the soundtrack and drawing ideas down. 

Penguin Brief: A Clockwork Orange: First Ideas

FIRST IDEAS 

I had never before read or seen A Clockwork Orange but for this project I had to look into some of the defining moments of the book. I made a small list of things I thought about when I read the sparknotes and started forming an idea in my head. For this book cover I actually went with an alteration on my first idea. 

CRANE

My first idea was a crane, or a toy crane at least. What I got the sense of from the book was this feeling of ultimate control from the government and the deliquents having little or no power of what happens to them. For some reason it made me think of toy cranes you get in arcades, when you have the power of the crane and you get to choose which object/you want (government choosing what to do with your life/ who to punish). There was something dangerous and scary about a crane that I liked so I started looking into the claw bits of them and drawing them (with a little bit of pencil etching either side, just casually thinking about colours to match).

CLAW AND HEAD 

Claw's alone weren't impactful so I played around with the concept of heads in the machine and gory injuries caused by being selected by the claw (meant to be representing the damage physically/mentally done when doing prison time). I received some feedback from other people on this idea, most of them really liked it but agreed that it was just too much for a book cover and it wouldn't be selected. The general feedback was that I should still allude to the idea that the government can control lives. 

FREEHAND DRAWING 

I liked the idea of doing some none stop pencil work just to play around with something other than cranes, I tried to show two sides to a person when drawing the people. I also started thinking about hands as the book itself is quite violent, hands are used as weapons but also can be used for positive things (such as making the music that Alex loves so much in the book). 

From this the idea came to make hands instead of cranes, with oranges instead of heads.
I hated that I chose something so cliche to replace heads but I liked how peeling an orange can also look a little sinister. I wanted something that could be a good cover, eyecatching and seemingly innocent but once you had read the book would allude to something completely different. 

Penguin Brief: How to be a Woman: Defining Ideas

DEFINING IDEAS 

I started to get a bit lost with the Caitlin Moran book cover, out of all three that I made for my substantial this was the one I had the biggest vision for and was least pleased with. 
I was still doodling for a while, thinking of all the things that made you a woman (first picture) but it just didn't feel like I was moving forward with the project and the deadline was getting closer. With the other two book covers finished, I really need to make a start.

INSTAGRAM INSPO

I went back to instagram because that's where I felt I should be going to find enpowering inspiration, when I was there I came across Mellunz and Thetinysmallgirl who are both quite alternative and confident ladies. I really like the vibrancy and composure of their pictures and decided to draw a tiny mock up. I was drawn to the idea and started turning it into a photoshop file almost immediately. 
This is a decision I regret because I think I should have continued to draw from the inspiration and thought about composition more. 
I realised this about 4 hours before the deadline, when it was unfortunately too late to turn back with what I had. I decided to put the pictures of the girl I drew inside polaroid-esque boxes. Looking back now I can see that they look quite static and that perhaps if I had painted them and scanned them in it would be a different result. 
The one thing I was quite pleased with about this book cover was the typography, I practiced calligraphy a lot over the weeks when I was doing the penguin book covers and a lot of my own type went into the Caitlin Moran one which was perhaps one of the only things I was pleased with for this cover. 

Penguin Brief: How To Be A Woman: Initial Ideas

INITIAL IDEAS 

For Caitlin Moran's How To Be A Woman, I had some pretty clear first ideas of what I wanted for the cover. I wanted to show a clear representation of a woman and have an empowering feel too it. 

BRA AND PANTIES SET 

I started by drawing up my own personal underwear sets, as well as researching into other types (there were a lot). I was put off by this idea as when I went to do research I found a lot of photoshopped women on the websites and felt like it wasn't liberating at all. I liked having the underwear as I think it's something that defines every woman, out choice of underwear. Everyone has a favourite style, favourite pair of "comfy pants" and a pair that really hurts but looks fabulous. So although I didn't want to draw models in underwear, keeping underwear in the cover was definitely something I wanted to do. 


EMBRACING BEING A WOMAN 

This lead to the notion of 'embracing being a woman'. I made a list of things that made me feel female - having a shower, shaving and the all time struggle to fit into my favourite jeans. I also looked at some other empowering woman such as DirdyBirdy on instagram, who is a professional pole dancer who performs for herself to strengthen her body and performs to others as an art form. This helped me with some of the referencing drawing for other things. 

FREEDOM 

I liked that pole dancing represented a choice of freedom, that was the right direction to go in. I looked at some other instagram girls who were tattooed and also liked the idea that getting a tattoo was a choice of freedom. I listened to a spotify playlist of strong female singers, and whilst I was doing that drew the girl on the bike to represent the freedom (that you feel when you can finally take both your hands off the steering for a minute). 

Guardian Brief : Short Brief

The Guardian Brief was given to us within the first few weeks of september. We were given a week to create three different spot animations for The Guardian Online. They were to correspond to an article which tackled the following issues: 

• Career's In The Arts and Creative Industry 
• Revivals Of Hand Crafts In A World Of Digital Advancements 
• Creating A Career Portfolio. 

INITIAL IDEAS & FEEDBACK  

I thought about having a small box inside the mind, to symbolise how to get out of your mind and how to start doing things. Almost straight away I knew I wanted Green, Red and Blue as the main colours. I wanted to keep it primary but "fresh" colours. 

I started off with 'creating a career portfolio', I used blue ink in my roughs but moved onto blue gouache as it was more consistent and vibrant. I outlined someones head and created a small box inside the mind, thinking that I wanted to show someone getting out of the box in their mind 'being organised' being a key to having a career portfolio. The small town was there to illustrate the world you are getting into. I'll admit I was pretty stuck when I was creating it, I took it to a feedback session and the response was to get rid of the head/hand outline etc because it was too generic. We didn't know exactly what The Guardian was looking for, other than it being students work and being something exciting on the page. 

I tried creating a hand for 'revivals of hand crafts in a world of digital advancements' at the same time as the head and it felt the same as the head.. too static and too generic no matter what I tried with it. 

CREATING A CAREER PORTFOLIO (Blue box, chicken) 

The response to my tiny boxes were good so I decided to develop on these. The 'Creating A Career Portfolio' was the first one I finished. After some messing around I created a tiny chicken to put inside the box, I didn't want the character to feel like it had a gender too much I just wanted it to be quirky and eye catching. 

When I finished the box it was entirely blue, but after bringing it into photoshop and tweaking the colours I realised that it was.. dare I say it.. too blue? 

I decided to introduce another primary colour just to show motion through the box, hence where the yellow dot lines came in. I think it added some needed fluidity to the piece. 

For a while I toyed with keeping all three pieces 3D boxes but I thought that it was a tad boring and wouldn't look great on the website. Instead I looked into other shapes, I came across hanging terrariums and liked how they could contain a whole little environment inside them. Being inspired by that thought I came across the two shapes I would go on to use: the pyramid and the icosahedron. 

REVIVALS OF HAND CRAFTS IN A WORLD OF DIGITAL ADVANCEMENTS (red icosahedron, fox) 

I started with the icosahedron because it was the hardest shape to draw and I knew that it would take the most time to get right. I chose red as the colour and decided to make it for 'revivals of hand crafts in a world of digital advancements'. Once I had got the shape down, I started putting things inside it. I made a list of hand craft items that are still used today as well as some popular digital items. 

I then chose to make another little character to put inside to show that it was a little world. I decided on a fox because it went best with the colour red. Most of the objects were drawn in block colour as my paintbrush wasn't small enough to get the detail I needed. To solve this problem, I went onto photoshop and drew (on a wacom) onto the gouache solid blocks. This worked well for me, again I added in the yellow dotted line afterwards using the wacom. It kept it looking hand drawn but without me having to redraw the whole thing if I made a mistake. 

CAREERS IN THE ARTS AND CREATIVE INDUSTRY (green Pyramid, moose man) 

After finishing 'Revivals of hand crafts in a world of digital advancements' I set upon the final spot illustration - ' Careers in the arts and creative industry'. I saved the colour green and the pyramid especially for this one (just because I thought triangles looked way better in green). It didn't take as long as the other two just because I knew the process. I decided on a moose for the little character just because I thought his antlers would be good juxtaposition to the triangle. The problem I did have with this creating this was that there was smudging issues and a few pencil lines that were hard to get out without snagging the paper. To counter these issues, I changed the levels in photoshop so most the pencil marks were removed. On the ones that didn't budge I had to use the clone stamp tool on. I also drew in the yellow line on this one, in gouache before it came into photoshop because I wanted to be able to see that it had been painted on rather than a solid yellow line. 

FINAL THOUGHTS 

My spot illustrations weren't selected for The Guardian but I still had a lot of fun making them and it was the first time I felt really confident in my photoshopping skills. It was good practice bringing in something analogue and tweaking it without losing that hand drawn feel to it.