Year 3 - Project 2: The Future Of Illustration - Illustration: The Next Ten years | Twenty Twenty Two

Report for the future of illustration project.

I felt like doing something type based. I kept it really plain and simple. Hopefully in an elegant way.

Front cover. Font is OPS DIN.

Pages 1&2. Outlining the early steps of the project.

It looks a little odd when it's spread out like this on a flat design because you don't get the fold and the two sides sort of merge together. It looks better in the real book. I'll get some photos up.

Pages 3&4 in which we find the script for the voice-over.

Pages 5&6. Outlining the later stages of the project.

Throughout the book I used different point sizes to emphasise some words and different tracking and spacing to make the layout and type seem a little erratic and free-formed in the same way that the illustration was. I think the coloured bars hold it together well.

The back cover is plain so I'm not posting it.

Here instead is the jacket for the booklet.

Awesome Book Covers

I very rarely, if ever, post anything which doesn't have some element of my work in it.

However, whilst looking for some cool book covers for the newest project I found a multitude of blog posts featuring a plethora of average book covers. So I decided to make my own list.

I did not make any of these. I just reposted them.

Professional Project: Front Cover Mock Up

One of the ideas that arose at the last crit was a front cover idea. Basically since I've used so many styles & techniques of illustration in the project, to reflect this in the cover design by illustrating my name using various methods/styles of typography. Sounded good. Here's my letters.

 

Here's the end result that took far too long. This would be printed onto brown paper/card/backing so it wouldn't seem quite as plain as it does here. I think I worked this one out quite well considering types not really my fortay. Got a mix of hand rendered and digital characters, bold and weaker, positive and negative, pencil and pen, simple and ellaborate. I might play around with it a bit more as at the moment the central 'E' is a little bit lost in between all the bolder letters, could sort this out by dropping some of the blacks to greys to give the type as a whole some more mid-tones. I'm also playing around with some photo work which I might substitute in at a later point for one of the letters. But for now, this is what I've got.

Design Gallery and Finishing Touches

So I finally got round to sorting out the design gallery. This presented a few problems in the form of missing loads of formating on pictures and then having to go back and change loads of CMYK to RGB and stuff like that. But I got it done in the end and there it is. I also added a few more photos and illustrations to their appropriate gallerys since I found a couple of extra bits, double checked my code, live viewed everything and as far as I can see it's all ready to go live. So tommorow I will upload. And then we shall see the results.

Back To Weaving The Dreams

So now that 2010 is done and dusted and all of my drawingly requirements are also done for now I had time to get back to what I supposed to be doing with my time: building my website. Filling up my gallerys was priority one. It took a long time to format 100 or so images and make thumbnails of them as well but it got done. It then also took a long time to insert aformentioned imagery into said gallerys in the requisite fashion and a pleasant order. Yes. That's right. Requisite. I chose a dead pigeon to be the fron of my illustration one because I like it. And that is the best reason to do anything and everything.

The next step was to input an animation into my website. Since I've only ever made one animation to date this was exceedingly easy. I simply clicked on a backing box and hit insert - media - swf - browse - file. Then resized it appropriately. At some point I'm sure that I will make some more animations in which case I will be forced to integrate them into a gallery system similar to that of my illustration gallery. But as it stands I have no need of such a system and this will be updated when necessary.

As you can see here, it works.

Then I realised that I hadn't actually put any imagery on my front page yet and It was in essence, a white box with a few bits of text sitting in it. It took me a while to decide what images to use. I didn't want to go for just one image as I think that this would narrow the field down too much and visitors to the site might think this is the only type of work that you do. So I went for a mixture of styles and disciples, focusing on illustration as this is my fortay. So I've got a colour illustration, a bold black and white one, a painted one and a line work one alongside a book cover design and a black and white photograph. I chose to focus the images in on a small detail as the larger images are available for viewing through the galleries. I think this works well as it creates an interesting composition, and a small insight into the variety of work that I produce. I chose to arrange them as below due to the fact that 3 of the images I chose to use were predominately green. So I split them up as much as possible.

Graphic Systems Finalisation

Presentation Board layout for my book covers. Seeing them like this, all together for the first time, makes me like them more as you can clearly see how consistent the system is through, especially with the addition of the spine set to the end of the line. All in all I am thoroughly pleased with the work on this project, and even more pleased that I actually enjoyed working on it. Overall I think that the set works really well as a whole unit, each one is obviously slightly different to the last as they are all hand made but the titles fall in the same place and the layout of the pages underneath are all similar. And the back pages are all pretty much exactly the same, save for a few different nudges in layout, but they all manage to retain individuality through the hand made feel & the colour scheme. The illustration I feel are strong, some more than others, such as the pigs head is perhaps a little weak, but as a set of illustrations I think they work brilliantly to capture the feel of the books & the style of the author and compliment both each other, and the colour scheme really well. I'm also pleased with the calligraphy type. Each one is really individual due to leaks & splatter in different places and the shapes of letters but due to style and positioning they look quite uniform with each other.

Graphic Systems mock ups

Part of the hand in criteria is to produce at least two fully mocked up books complete with your covers. So here they are, shot very professionally...in my kitchen... I went for my two favourite covers of the set, Walk in the woods & Down under.

Backs of both books.

Backs & Spines 

Backs & paper sides. For the paper sides I just used a flat tab that I drew vertical lines down, I think it works pretty well as an illusion.

Front covers

Front & paper sides, illusion in full working mode.

Fronts & spines.

Overall I'm really pleased with how well these have turned out, they look like real book covers & are effective both individually and together which is pretty much what I was aiming for so that's good.

Graphic Systems: Spineset

My spine set, as it would appear if all six books were lined up next to each other. (The yellow book has been edited since the version shown was created and now the black swan is the same as the others) I think this works really well, the colours are good, and I think they work particularly well as each backing colour appears again as the outline around the authors name, except for the white, but thats used in the name anyway. I also like how the titles have worked out, each one individual with its own splatter patterns but set in the same place. This really looks like an actual set which is obviously what it's meant to do so i'm happy with it.

Graphic Systems: Neither her nor there Compeleted

The book cover for the sixth and final book in the series, Neither here nor there. I like the pink on the blue, it's working really well I feel, and overall looking back through the colour schemes of all 6 they fit together well as a series. The smaller illustration here is of a piece of swiss cheese, as mentioned in the book & the main illustration is of a pigs head with an apple in it's mouth, also mentioned in the book. This illustration is a little darker than the others in terms of content but they vary from book to book so I don't think this is too much of a drastic problem. I like the layout on the front a lot, again it is differnet from the others but the themes stay consistent throughout. As a whole series i'm really pleased with the work, the colour schemes, layouts, illustration & type are all working well together as a system.

Graphic Systems: Down under completed

The fifth book cover is complete. This one is for Down under, a book about Australia which is why I've gone with this colour scheme. I have already used yellow, which would of been first choice, so I had to go with this light brown which is as close as I could get and think it works well to reflect the country. It also works well with the green on top and the bright orange really stands out. The small illustration is of a boomarang for obvious reasons. The large illustration is of a Nothomyrmecia Macrops which I find really interesting. It is a species of ant that was thought to have died out 100 million years ago but has been found living in colonies in the Australian outback. It is a species left from when wasps were evolving into ants (which in itself I find fascinating, although the shape of them is a give away if you think about it). On the back cover I've gone with the same kind of format that I used on the first book, with an illustration down one side and then the quotes on the other. In this case I think that this has worked particularly well and has created an effective layout. Overall I'm really pleased with this one, I think that the layout, illustration & colour scheme & I think they are all working really well together to give a representation of Australia and the trip.

Graphic Systems: The lost continent Completed

Continuing my speedy work on this project I give you; The lost continent. Here, obviously, we have again a similar layout to the ones designed previously. Today's illustration is of a portable gas stove (as mentioned in the book), I did a little bit of research into it and this is the sort of style that was around in the time that Bryson is taking about. I like the knobs on it, I think they work really well with the white set against the coloured backing. Continued is the type as well. The additional illustration above the authors name is of a corn cob, a reference to small town America & also mentioned in the opening of the book. The colour scheme is staying basic, one main colour, white, and smaller pieces of additional colour. The box on the back on two of the covers has a black circle around on the inside, the other two don't. This is because two of the covers have a lot more written on the back, I'm going to split it three to three to keep it even. The layout on the fronts also been changed around again but this is acceptable as the system allows the movement as long as it's fairly similar.

Graphic Systems: A walk in the woods Completed

Another book cover busted out in a day, even though I had a crit all day at uni. Speed. It's getting easier now that I've figured out my system for setting up the files & getting things in the right place. I really like the colour scheme on this one, I think the green and the brown are working really well together and the yellow of the bears face really stands out as it's the only other colour. This ones got a leaf as the extra little illustration above 'Bryson' which is obviously derived from 'the woods.' In addition to this I've also added a couple of little twigs onto the back cover box as it was brown which made me think "tree." Overall I think this is another successful cover. It's slightly different to the others; as it had such a vertical illustration I had to move the bear to one side and have the text on the other but I don't think that this has effected the layout negatively at all. It just adds a little more variety to the set. The crit went well today, my designs recieved a good reception and the only problem that came up were the use of the grid to get sections like the 'Black Swan' logo & the barcode in the same place every time. So I edited my grid system and simply dropped the barcode and repeating text at the bottom of the back cover onto the master page. Problems solved.

Graphic Systems: A walk in the woods illustrated

So I'd had a super productive day anyway getting a whole cover done and thought I'd crack on and try and do as much of another one as I could. I read the first chapter and a half and discovered that about 80% of it is about bear attacks. So obviously I chose to illustrate a bear... it turns out I can't draw bears. I spent an hour and a half sketching really awful bear faces and then rubbing them out. So this one took forever to do even though it's so, so simple. But I'm quite pleased with the end result, it's consistent with the others but works on it's own as an illustration as well.

Graphic Systems: Notes from a small island Completed

After faffing around with the style of illustration for so long and taking forever over the first cover it was time to pull my finger out. So I bashed this one out in a little under... lets say 8 hours. A days work (although I won't be stopping yet). I've added in the blurb here, my own abridged version in fact since the one on the back of the book was near enough a full page. I've also got the swan up in there and I even did all the nerdy stuff like making sure the sections of the spine line up with the ones on the other cover. Next!

Graphic Systems: Notes from a small island

Second book cover. Same illustration style as before with the cut out paper. I'm really pleased with how the boxer shorts turned out and I've picked the colour palette to reflect the UK. However after talking to Neil I think I may need to rethink the colours slightly so as to keep it more consistent with the brightness of the first cover. Other than that I think the layouts are working well. Obviously this still needs a couple of pieces adding such as the Black Swan logo, the blurb and the quotes on the back.

I tried making the backing brighter so that it matches the first cover a bit more but I think it just looks a bit washed out and makes the illustrations look a little lost whereas the textured quality of the first one helps to hold it all together so I think I'm going to stick with that one.