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).