Creative Review-- Books

I’ve read a couple of books recently that have given me some great advice, motivation and steps to aid my illustration work. These books are great tools to go into my final major project with, as they are simple and pretty obvious at times!

The first book is “A Technique for Producing Idea’s” by William Bernbach. This book has been around for nearly 50 years, but the same principles apply now just as they did back then. The key points from the book are that there are five stages to producing ideas, and I’m definitely going to follow these through in my next projects:

• ·      Gather new materials—research
• ·      Work over the materials. Sketch. Doodle. Think.
• ·      Leave it for a while for your unconscious to mull over
• ·      THE IDEA ARRIVES
• ·      Develop the idea to fit your needs.

See, simple! The other point I got from this book is about the fundamentals of simply having an idea. It has two general principles—that an idea is simply a new combination of two or more things and that the ability to make new ideas is heightened by an ability to see new relationships.

Then I read Paul Arden’s “It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be.” I’m sure this is a book I’ve been encouraged to read for years, but only just got round to it recently. It’s pretty amazing, it gets across simple ideas, and has helped unclutter my mind recently. I’ll just share some of my favourite points from the book as there are so many I could talk about:

• ·      Do it! Then fix it as you go
• ·      If you get stuck, draw with a different pen
• ·      Have a goal!
• ·      Find inspiration from everywhere
• ·      Don’t aim to win awards—that’s following the fashion!

Website Research

In the coming year we will be focusing a little more on getting our work out into the real world. The real world: a scary concept! Anyway, one of the best ways to get your work out to the public is to show it off via your own website!

Now, I have no idea what I’m talking about in this area, I wont lie. There are people in the class who already have their own websites, own domains, online portfolios etc. I guess in this case I could do with catching up!

However, what I lack in website design ideas I already have in a small fanbase. I started my facebook page a few months ago and I have over 100 people following me there. I also have links to this blog where they can see my ramblings and regularly post on twitter, so I’m good at promoting myself over social networking sites. As soon as I get a portfolio put on a website I’m sure the ball will really start rolling!

What I think a website needs to be to start off with, is simple. Stuart  Price mentioned in his talk recently that a portfolio should be a labour of love, but your website just needs to be simple and I agree. I think all that I will want on my website is a page for my contact details, an introduction about me (every time I go on an illustrators website there seems to be a little info about them and I think it might be good for potential clients to get an idea of who we are) and a link to my twitter and maybe this blog. This would be if they are really interested in my ideas.

I think that it would be a good idea to maybe have a separate section for my portfolio, where the audience can get an idea of what my work is like all round. I think it would be best if I have a single introduction image first, then a click to enter kind of thing, depending on where the audience wants to go.

I’d really like to include a section showing off some of my other work as well, like maybe my sketches or doodles. This would be a good motivation for me as well to make sure there is enough work going up regularly!

Websites I have visited recently that I’d like to make notes from:

http://www.bertoneeduardo.com/ although my site wouldn’t be as crazy or colourful, I like the flashing enter sign, and it’s just an easy site to maneuver!

http://www.illustration.de/il/illustrator?id=75  There is no chance I will ever have enough illustration for this page but the idea of splitting all of the work into sections is good. I’d make a home-page though, which was clear and concise.

A lot of people in my class are currently using layouts and going through the cargo collective website. I’ve yet to decide if this is a good idea to follow in their footsteps or not. It might be more beneficial to create something that stands out from the rest of the class, but it’s something I’m going to think about over the Christmas holidays!

James Jarvis

James Jarvis is an illustrator who has intertwined himself into many different areas of the design world. He has been involved in commercial illustration, comic strips, making of toys and t-shirt designs, so he knows what it’s like to experiment with many types of media.

Jarvis is another illustrator who focuses with his linear pen drawings, and enhancing it with colour if needs be. The only comment I can make about his work that isn’t really my “thing” is that his work seems very digital at times, with not much texture. However, this works in his favour as it makes his compositions look very clean.

Another branch of design Jarvis has worked on is moving image. He made the images for his first film, ONWARDS, a collaboration with Richard Kenworthy. I think it’s amazing! He has taken one of his characters and taken it on a journey through this fantasy world of black and white drawings. Steps appear where they once weren’t, cool camera angles are used to show the horizon moving and there are some really cool effective yet still simple effects used when the weather changes to rain, and lightning, back to sunny!

I think James Jarvis is a great illustrator to keep in mind when I’m working on my final major project because he has covered all of the areas I want to in the future, and successfully. Even the simple idea that he’s made his work transform from 2D to 3D to moving image gives me the motivation to experiment more. First though, I need to create some characters to work with, and use my developing visual language to add a sense of identity to my work.

Illustration Digital Future

There has been a lot of debate in recent years about the future of illustration and its relationship with the ever-growing digital world. It is inevitably becoming a more important tool for design and illustration, and in the world of moving image it is obviously a must!

There are a lot of people around where I’ve heard two types of opinions on this subject. There are the illustrators who have openly embraced the digital world. For them the software has opened up new levels of creativity, more crazy ideas can be realized in the digital world and the software constantly improves their visions. I can understand why they think like this, especially if they took to it straight away. For me though, I was quite scared of using digital means to create pieces. I felt at first that it was kind of cheating, that everything should be done by hand. However, not I’m used to the idea of using certain types of software and hardware I’m eager to experiment with new means.

On the other side of the fence there are what you might call the “traditionalists,” the people who love their hand-made craft so much that they think rather like I used to—that there’s no point in having all digital work! They think that the real craft of illustrating lies in making things yourself, and what about all of those happy mistakes that you get when doing it yourself? Where does all the freedom go? I quite like cutting and sticking sometimes myself, and I still believe that hand-drawn is better, so I also agree with the less extreme of these comments.

But where do I lie in the debate? Well, I’d like to say that I’m in the middle, because I as a practitioner am currently trying to find a good balance between keeping my work looking hand-made yet give it a digital contemporary feel. But I’m not. I think that a s an illustrator or designer my opinion is only half of what matters. I have to listen to the world, and the world is telling me that although there is (and I hope always will be) space for hand-made methods, digital is growing much faster. You should think to use it as merely another tool if you wish, and also digital work is easier to market to the social community now.

As for the Internet: I predict that there will be a lot more demand for work to be going straight online in the future. Newspapers are increasingly becoming more popular online and there is so much more room to play around here. Why have a still picture when we can captivate our audience with a moving picture? Advertisements constantly invade our internet privacy, and there is so much room for displaying work online. The first people who realize these new ways of digitally working will be the pioneers in the next generation.

Traditional illustration isn’t dead. Digital illustration has and never will kill it. It is simply another branch on the old tree of making images!

Thoughtful Presentation

A couple of weeks ago Stuart Price from design company Thoughtful came in to give us a talk, mainly about presenting portfolios, but also advice in general about the transition from student to practitioner. I say he came in, but really their studio is actually based in Stockport College so he only came up to our floor, but he’d prepared an excellent presentation for us, which I’m grateful for because I’ve taken a lot from it already!

The first part of the lecture was really quite bizarre; he had us dancing! Apparently, studies show that fifteen minutes of dance a day helps your thinking, so we did some structured dance to help our convergent thinking and improvised dance to help our divergent thinking!

Then I took in a lot of advice and knowledge, like a sponge. The key points I picked up on were that potential clients/ employers etc like to see a good mix of ideas, personality and execution in portfolios. Somehow I don’t think that it’s a mere coincidence that the three sections we get marked on are creativity, professionalism and technical aspects! It’s also better to be interested than to be interesting, so do your research. Finally, it’s a good idea to learn digital, as this is the way the world is moving.

Common mistakes to look out for when designing portfolios were for spelling, typo’s, too much/ not enough talking in interviews and people who show the work to themselves, not their audience.  

Some other words of advice were based around the interview itself and getting in contact. Stuart told us that persistence is essential, as designers are busy so we’re not always on their minds. In the interview, get an idea of how long it will last so you know how to structure it. Most of all, communicate!

Heinz Salad Cream Collaboration

Recently the third year students have been set competition briefs. We each get to choose one that we feel would be best suited to us, depending on our pathway, visual language and personal interests, from a wide variety of briefs. I've been struggling to settle on one myself, but then a glimmer of hope came in the form of Richard Purbrick, a moving image student from my course.

Richard chose to work on the Heinz Salad Cream brief, which is actually one I was considering doing myself. The idea is that they want ideas for ways to make their salad cream fun again, so make something promotional aimed at the young adult generation.

This is the second time I’ve ended up collaborating with a moving image guru recently, and like with my work with Kirsty, Richard gave me storyboards to work to. The basic idea sounds really good, experimental and fun, and I really cannot wait to see the finished product!

Richard, who is controlling everything that moves, naturally, is filming the advert on blue screen. He has an actor playing out all of the scenes, and then will edit the actor’s movements so that he fits in with our more experimental style. My job is to create all the background pieces for the advert. I showed Richard previous work before we started and he like the style, but wanted a style that looked more like the opening credits of “Juno” so I decided that I would use a thinner pen. I added little gimmicks in the pictures, like salad cream fridge magnets, and kept to a creamy-greeny colour scheme, reminiscent of the salad cream bottles! Also, adding to my developing style, I’ve started to drop in subtle textures to the frames, which I think enhances the look slightly.

Here are some still frames i've created, and you'll see the finished product quite soon!

Advert with Kirsty

Kirsty Newman is on the moving image pathway at Stockport College, and she has asked me if I’d contribute some work to one of her projects. Always excited at the prospect of collaboration, I said I would. So she showed me a part of the project, the one that she wants me to illustrate. The idea is that she is making some adverts for a local radio show while they are off-air over Christmas, so Kirsty will turn the images I will be making into moving images. This was an exciting prospect for me because quite a lot of the time I lean my idea’s in the moving image direction so it would be good for me to see what my illustrations look like on the screen, as it were.

So Kirsty showed me the thirty-second clip that I was going to be illustrating, and then the following week gave me some notes and storyboards of how she wanted to pull this thing off. It was a good job I had the storyboards just then because I’d already started thinking of my own storyboards, but then realized that it wasn’t collaboration in that sense. This made the project feel more like real life in a was like I was working for her, and she kept the pressure on to make sure I was getting my plans and work to her on time!

Audio Clip:

http://.ia700808.us.archive.org/0/items/RobBoughtAPlane/robs_bought_a_plane.mov

Roughs:

I’m really excited to see this when it’s finished, because although I’ve dabbled in stop-motion in the past, I’ve never done any other type of moving image, and this is a really exciting opportunity to see my work in a different media. 

Hopes, Fears and Oppertunities

As I’m coming to the end of the first module in my final year of university, now is as good a time as any to reflect on my past, evaluate my present and look forward to the future. I have learned a lot of lessons in the past few months, and believe I’m growing into myself as an image-maker at a steady rate. However, there is still so much to be explored both in professional and practical terms, and many of these fall into the categories above.

I think that looking at what I’ve already taken from the course so far is a good way to look upon about my hopes, fears and opportunities, as I’m in the middle of a journey. I’m not going to say I’ve found my style yet, but since September I’ve began to develop a stronger visual language. With each project I’m becoming more confident with digital aspects of working, but I still have to find the balance between this and my hands-on approach. My strongest point of the year so far is most probably still the creative side; ideas generating is the part of the process where I’m most excited and motivated.

I have high hopes for the year ahead of me and beyond. People might assume that I’m lazy a lot of the time but I don’t think this is true; I do work quite hard when I get my head down. I’m hoping to show this in the future. This includes me “growing up” and proving to people that I’m not guy that likes to do the bare minimum in order to pass. I want to pass the course with higher than just a 3^rd and come out feeling good about the body of work that I’ve produced.

This leads me to my next point. I am hoping to leave university with a portfolio that I can proudly take around with me. At the moment there are some elements I like but I know things can be improved, so as the weeks go by I’d like to make sure I can be more confident with what I’m showing.

Another hope of mine is to finally nail all of this developing I’ve been doing recently by the end of uni. I understand that as illustrators we are constantly growing and changing according to current trends etc. but if I can move all my work in the same direction, give it all a more distinctive edge to it, this would make me feel like I’ve achieved something by the end of it all. I’d love for people to be able to recognize anything I do as a “Kyle-esque” piece!

Finally, my hope for the coming year ad beyond is that people will enjoy my work, because, after all, it’s as much for them as it is for me. I do like to inject a little wit and humour into my more editorial pieces, as I think that it will help brighten up these dark, media-driven times. I’m hoping that by maybe inventing some crazy world (or rather inviting the real world into the more fun world that only I can see in my head) they can learn about me, have fun, and I can tie all my work up simultaneously!

Moving onto fears now. As much as I like to say that I laugh in the face of danger, I really don’t. I hide from it like a crying baby, and this is something I need to work on. In a way, my fears are pretty much the opposite of my hopes; I’m scared of not achieving them. I worry that my work isn’t good enough constantly, and as I look around my classroom to see all this beautiful work I am always left wondering where I am. This has a significant affect on the work itself, as I then put it off until I feel more confident about my ideas. It’s a hard thing to overcome but I’m beginning to face this fear already and am getting a little help in this department.

I guess there is an underlying fear of (and I bet everyone has this one) what to do after I finish the course? If I have a strong visual language and suddenly no way of putting all that I’ve learned to good use? What if no-one wants to commission me? I’m working part-time at the moment in a bar, and I’m a little worried that I might end up taking this on full time over the summer and then getting stuck there with no way of showing my work to potential clients because I’m too busy or tired. And then I’d have no new work cropping up and my portfolio will become dated. However, this is simple to resolve, it just takes guts to be poor for a while, not knowing if you can afford from one month to the next.

Looking to the future, I’m excited at the idea of all of these opportunities that the college has opened up for me. They’ve opened up the doors to get in contact with a lot of people and companies already in the field, and getting o know them will help my confidence greatly.

I’m also looking forward to having the opportunity to take on my own ideas a lot more in the final major project. Although I’m still unsure of what I want to do there are opportunities to learn so much in the last few months. I lean towards moving image a lot, and think it would be a great thing to learn, especially in this day and age where a lot of things that are designed are now online. The prospect of collaborating more is exciting as well, as I think I work better when bouncing work and ideas off other people. Finally, I’m eventually going to get the opportunity to have a real job in this field and see my work in the real world, and for people to enjoy mu illustration work, and what better reward can there be than that?

Jon Boam

Here is another illustrator that was suggested to me by Lord Whitney and I fully understand why. His work has consisted of murals, comics and crazy characters, which is pretty much all of the stuff I’m thinking about doing!

Jon uses colour really well in his illustrations to tie the pieces together. The idea of limiting yourself to only two or three colours id something I always consider doing but either end up not bothering of mess it up somehow. I think that after Christmas it would be good practice to use this limitation and see how my work can benefit, even if I do get it wrong the first couple of times. Also, this would make my work easier to screen print if the occasion arises!

I’m not sure if it’s intentional but Jon doesn’t seem to draw people too much either, opting for drawing cool funky animals, plants, robots etc. These are the types of things I also like to draw and he puts them together in a great way. It reminds me of what Jo said to me recently, that it was as if I have my own little world in my head wanting to get out but struggle with. This is very true, and I can see from Jon’s work that this is the same kind of world he has, but he has a good time transferring from his head.

It seems to be a style that is becoming more popular, and I feel like I’m beginning to fit into this type of illustration better than all of the others I’ve tried. Using block colour and black lines, creating a great cast, wall art, these are all the things I’m looking in myself for.

Jack Teagle

When Lord Whitney visited a few weeks back they thought that it 

Would be a good idea to point me in the right direction in terms of whose work I should be looking at. They could see that I was a fan of comics so mentioned Jack Teagle to me.

After doing a little research and seeing some of his work I can tell why they suggested I look; he is very good with creating narratives, and obviously also takes his influences from comics. You can see this in his compositions.

I really like the storytelling here, and it is kind of the thing I’m trying to go for in some of my work. Maybe I should make my work more like panels to help me tell a story! I really like that he keeps all of his elements simple as well, as it keeps the composition uncluttered. The bold colours have been thought through, and there is also attention so small details that spice up certain frames.

One thing I am envious of though is that he has a great cast to work with He’s created some awesome characters, for example the simple one-eyed alien in “Dust to Dust.” I’d really like to be able to draw characters in a simpler form, most especially people, as I think far too much about what it should look like in real life and always mess them up. That’s why I avoid drawing humans. I should take note here that I should stop doing this and be more free, experiment more with creating my characters and see where I get. Definitely an illustrator I shall be keeping bookmarked!

Start the Ball Rollin'

Tales of the Unexpected

Here is a series of illustrations I have worked on recently. They are all based on the book “Tales of the Unexpected” by Roald Dahl, which contains a large selection of short stories, all tied together with a hint of mystery. All of the stories in the book were very interesting, but I chose four of my favourites to turn pictorial. As you can see below, the idea of the pieces are simply to illustrate elements of the story in a playful way. They don’t show exact scenes from the stories but include major props.

The way I created the images was by starting off with deciding which elements of the story would work best together, so there were things I ended up having to leave out even though they were important parts of the stories. Then I drew them all separately before scanning them in to be edited and composed.

After playing around with the compositions a little I settled on where I felt it worked; in each piece there isn’t too much going on, but in no area is it boring. Then I coloured them in digitally but I thought it took away a lot of deep mystery to it- it just seemed to look a bit childish so I desaturated the colours and ended up with some very nice tonal ranges.

There are still features I want to play around with on these images. For example, an early idea I had, and one that’s been backed up by everyone that has had an opinion on it, is to add a spot colour to each, just to add a little flavour and bring them together thematically. I’d also like to choose another story from the series and produce a front and back cover to make the series feel whole.