More Glyphage

Another piece of illustrator work traced from a photo from Poole. I quite like this as you can see the perspective of the photo in the way that text gets bigger towards the right.

Layouts

So the next project, number 5, is "promo print" in which we have to create a small book about our work on text and image so far and to say something about us as a designer.
This is a piece of group work looking at layouts where we made a variety of different layouts using coloured paper to represent images and dummy text of different measures.
This is mine. Pretty standard layout.



This is another piece of layout design where we had to use items that we had on us to create a layout.
I found this quite interesting as the different shapes and textures available were different for everyone.

More Things I Like To Read

An Illustrated Life.

I LOVE this book.
It's full of proffessional illustrators and graphics designers personal sketchbook work.

It's great to see that even the professionals draw completely random bollocks sometimes as well.





Outsiders.

Huge mix of artists and Media, really interesting.
Small articles but this is absolutely packed with hundreds of different artists from street art to fine art.








Juxtapoz, art and culture mag.
This is my favourite. I've got a subscription
It's an American magazine featuring loads of different artists with loads of in depth articles and interviews with them.




Lots of pictures of zombies in this one. yay.

Things I Like To Read.

FeFe: Free Entry Free Exit

Pretty decent graphics/illustration situation.
Monthly Book.
Can't really call it reading as it is almost entirely large double spread prints of work, but it's really good to look at all the detail and such.
Has small articles about the artists near the back.





Illustration Mag.
Good old fashioned illustration mixed with a few contemporary artists.
Lots of articles and guides to doing things yourself etc.











VNA: Very Nearly Almost
Street art mag.
Better than things like Graphotism and that due to the fact that it has a much wider range of media and also has a fair few articles rather than just being endless images of standard graffiti.







Territory.

Interesting mix of photography, graphics and illustration.
Some really good in depth articles about the artists they feature.
Well worth a read.

DaDa Poem

The concept of the DaDa Poem is quite simple. Choose a newspaper article, cut it out, cut out all the words and place them into a "hat." Draw 15 words at random, keep them in that order and there you have your poem. It is supposed to say something about you according the DaDaists. Frankly i think it doesn't. So the article i chose was about Mr. Nick Fascist Griffin, leader of the BNP, appearing on question time. I followed the afore mentioned procedure and this is my poem.

Marched

Obnoxious

Exposed

Born

Prevented

Holocaust

Wouldn't

Griffin

Bigot

Said

The

Fears

Nearly

Poured

This of course makes no sense what so ever. The task now was to visually represent it.


Marched - I took the idea of marching as in an invasion, hence Britain is being invaded.

As - I didn't really know where to go with this, kind of been left out.

Obnoxious - Hitler was pretty obnoxious i'd say, also the big mouth is slightly grotesque.

Exposed - Nudity

Born - I'd say that element is pretty well represented here.

Prevented - The colour of the union jack is made up of the word "no" Britain is rejecting the BNP

Holocaust - References to Nazism such as swaztika flag, hitler, german helmet.

Wouldn't - same as prevented really.

Griffin - Nick Griffin, name tattooed across the chest, represting him bring the nazis to britain.

Bigot - Elements of Nazism

Said - Used the said to have a speech bubble containing the rest of the words. Thats definately not cheating...

Overall I am very happy with this piece, I think I managed to stick to the brief, illustrate each word effectively but also to take the idea somewhere quite personal to me which creates a strong emotion when viewed. I also really like the composition of this, the eye is drawn from section to section by the use of colour here and I feel that the small details really make the image give it's message well.

Type and Tape goes 3D

So here is the 3D type as promised.
The idea was to create block type which looked as if the whole pillars were made of it.
I think this worked quite well, particularly where the shading comes in.

Tape and Type

Ok, so tape and type. The challenge was to, in groups, create a typeface using only tape, to come up with an appropriate name, characteristics and such for the type.

My group went with a childish font based around the idea that "my mummy thinks im special".

As it was a childish font we decided to have the characteristics of childish writing, i.e. bad spelling, backward letters, bright colours, non-lining, mix of serif and sans-serif.

Later, after getting too wet we retired to the studio. Me and Chris designed another 3D typeface, the origonal experiments of which i don't have the photos of yet. Here is the second experiment. Each letter is on the same space and is "3D". Essentially the pillar has four sides, each side has the front of a letter on it, this letter then wraps around the other sides as it would if it was a block, overlapping with the others. I think this works quite well as a piece but probably not so well as an actual typeface.

Illustrator Sessions

So here is the result of the first illustrator session.

We learned how to use the shape tools, align tools, colouring palette, and some other simple things.

Pretty straight forward.

The second Illustrator session we were looking at glyphs. We learned how to use the pen tool to draw shapes and curves, change the anchor points, move them about and create images.

We then had to create our own glyph using these techniques. I had to choose busker man of course.
I think this has work extremely well considering it was the first time i've ever used illustrator to actually draw anything. The level of detail I think is just right to remain simple but to show clearly what the image is.

Final Illustration For the Regeneration Of Poole

Original Drawing in Pen. I wanted to portray that the modern building was towering over the little fishing boat and stuff. yeah.

I like the drawing and think that the quality of line used through is very good and the composition of the two elements really gets the message across.

Painted Version. Colour palette chosen to show seaside town but greys on the left to show the dullness of the modern buildings etc.

A definite improvement on the drawing i'd say, the colour really makes the building interesting and the red of the boat stands out massively against all the blue.

Digital Version.

I don't like this piece very much. I think the colour palette has been far too simplified and the boat sinks into the background in blue.

Final Illustration. Mix of the two.

Overall I think that this is the best version, it still maintains the qualities of the painting but brings in sharper lines to the building which i think makes it far more structural. The green of the boat is in better keeping with the colour scheme than the red was but still manages to pop out of the image due to contrast.

The feedback from the first crit was good, however after a tutorial with Sally she suggested that i stick to doing my own style of illustration that i find natural rather than trying to push myself out this way, as it basically doesn't look as good. New illustration on it's way perhaps.

Newspaper Research.

Whoops. Missed one. Another drawing from Poole.

Hot Sausage Co.

Coloured Pencil.

So the Illustration is meant to be designed to accompany a newspaper article so some research was required. I chose the times because although they don't use as many illustrations as some other newspapers they use a lot of different styles in the ones that they put in there. Heres some examples.

I particularly liked this one as it was very satirical and i really liked the quality of the line and colour that was used here.

Woopdeedoo.

So. More Poole Stuff.

So I did a bit of research and that, as needs be.

This is by Mike Renwick. Not really sure i should posting up these images. Might get sued. Oh well.

I just liked the design element of this, i thought the composition was strong and i liked the idea of digital imagery to portray modern buildings. Very strong line and so on.

Another drawing from Poole. Amusement value was the road sign, "Paradise Street," up against this long road of old red brick buildings in a dirty fashion. Lovely. Very different style to Mike Renwick. Loose. Yeah. I think the loose style here is quite interesting as it definitely creates a very child like style and a playful feel to the image, especially with the strong lines and the white of the street sign standing out from the brickwork.

Helen Nehill and Clarion Call.

Pretty Good. I really like the Helen Nehill piece as it is quite similar to my own preferred style. The line work in both i think is very strong and i like the digital colouring on Call's work.

Fredrik Johansson.

Nice Loose Style. Good Colour. Bye.

I decided i wanted to do something quite structural for my final illustration so i went with this. First i looked at this piece here by Brad Blyzwick to steal some ideas of how to do it. Then i drew The Dolphin Shopping Centre.








I decided i wanted to do something quite structural for my final illustration so i went with this. First i looked at this piece here by Brad Blyzwick to steal some ideas of how to do it. Then i drew The Dolphin Shopping Centre.
I like the combination of the strong sharp lines for the building set against the freehand text of the sign behind it, I think the building could be better done as it lacks a certain quality of structure.

Poole. Yeah.

It's so annoying to get the pictures in the right places on this thing. Anyway. Here... Is some drawings that i did in Poole. Or of Poole when i got home anyway. The First one is of Thames Street. I just liked the lamppost to be honest. It had a nice structure. The Quote is from this little round bollard down on the quay. I believe it's about Brownsea Island but i thought it was a nice quote so i added it in. I like quality of tone in this drawing, i think it works really well to give depth to the street and bring in a bit of character.

Number 2. Quay House down on the Quay (suprisingly.) I pretty much did a really dodgy pen sketch of it, it looked alright until i tried to add a load of stuff at the bottom to make it better. Ruined it. Thats why its got this big piece of red paper stuck across half of it. Turned out alright though. I liked how traditional this place still was. Traditional here could also be substituted for the words "tacky" and "touristy" but we'll pass that by. The line I used here i really like, as instead of sketching it in pencil first as is my usual want to do, i just did it in straight lines with a pen which i think has created quite an interesting, slightly childish effect which I think fits with the ideas here well. I think the lettering could have been thought about a little more to make it more effective.

Aha. The Fancy Dress Shop. Plain white shop with this rainbow writing across the front. Stood out loads. Wasn't particularly interesting other than that, which is why the drawing is pretty undetailed. Oh well. Poole High St. Provided some wonderous shops full of weird junk. I just liked the writing on this one.

I think the cross hatching takes the front of the shop out of the focus of the viewer and really brings out the coloured writing and also the blank space that is the door really draws the eye in contrast to the tone of the windows.

Sandwiches etc.? This shop was also plain white, pretty dull shop. I just found it slightly amusing that it had such an unimaginitive name. It sells sandwiches etc. I liked the writing and I also like it here, I think this type is quite effective.

Mortons on Poole High St. was another wonderous shop full of what seemed to be absolute junk. Ranging from the VW van canvases you can see coloured in beautifully in the window here, to some betty boop dolls and some weird ornaments made from twisted metal. Anyway, I thought it was interesting, really like the old people wandering past outside. I think it gives it a sense of place and character. I like the layers of information in  this illustration, with only small amounts in colour, making these bits really stand out, the figures in the foreground leading the eye across the image and the suggestion of detail through the window i think creates a strong image.

And where would I be without Mr. Rockstar. My favourite part of Poole. Ha. I've already explained him so here he is in acrylic and pen and all his glory. This image i particularly like, I think I used line really well here to create some nice outlines which are filled with a good mix of mid-tone and bright colours which really play off of one another to create a bold image.

I Give You Poole.

Semiotics and Illustrator

So, Theory Started. It's all about semiotics. Signs within images and symbols and that kind of thing. We looked at how an origonal painting of a naked courtasan in the "venus" pose symbolises femininity and nature and such, while the pastiche of it picturing a standard prostitute has a very different meaning due to the use of different items and body language that comprised the picture.

There were also some other images, pastiches of the same work which each held different meanings.

Illustrator training has also swung into play. We started pretty simple which was good having never used it before. We made a colour wheel. Learning how use the shape tools, align tools and colour charts and things. It would be on here. But at the moment i can't figure out how to save an illustrator file as a JPG. Good work team.

And on we go. The new Project begins.

So, started back at Uni. Foundation was good last year, summer was good. Now for VisCom. First week we went drawing in Poole. Took some photos. Drew some things. The project is based around the "Regeneration of Poole." This is the first part of "Text And Image." Drawings and other kind of things to follow shortly when i've managed to scan them all in. In the meantime heres a photo of the greatest busker ever.

I can imagine this guy dancing around his bedroom in the YMCA rocking out to Iron Maiden and playing air guitar.