'this is summer' entry.

sunshine.eps Download this file

 My entry for 'This is summer' that will be held at 60 million postcards in Bournemouth on the Tuesday, 24 May. 

 The brief is to design a poster with this summer theme to celebrate the season and the start of summer. They ask in the brief to express visually what you think of when you imagine the start of it. So I decided the thing that I love most about summer is the sun! The whole feeling of being warm, bright and freedom. So I tried to incorporate how I felt by producing this ink and watercolour illustration. I firstly drew a cat because I own a cat myself and it very much reminds me of playing in the garden, freedom.  The reason the cat is wearing the bikini represents the little clothes that are worn in the summer due to how hot it can be. The sun beaming down on to the cat supplies you with warm tones and bright colours giving the sense of summer. 

Fruit Face

friut_face.eps Download this file

I like fruit.

 

Strange encounters, Evaluation.

In this extensive project I have researched into peoples minds to find out what they find strange by asking what their strangest experience was. At first I wanted to record people verbally saying their stories, this didn’t prove successful, as the people I asked didn’t what to be recorded. I decided that I would get a more extensive response by using a social networking site so people could write there experience as they pleased.

I collected them all and after shifting through all the stories I found that I wanted to focus on the ones that involved nudity, as I found them the most strange. I found it intriguing to think that everyday people would do such strange acts out in broad daylight. I started to visualise the illustrations I could draw to go with each story, and what media I would prefer to use.

From the start I wanted to do an illustration brief, so I could use my preferred area and at the same time doing something visually experimental by making a book, which I wasn’t that familiar with.

Through out this project I had a problem with how the illustrations should be managed in the space in the book. I wanted the book to have a simple layout; white pages and bold black illustrations, spacing being the key. I had decided on the book name quite early on in the project  ‘ from behind’, this book title collectively describes the gist of the book. I like this title because it signifies the meaning of the people who do these secret naked acts, the use of the word ‘behind’ is more apparent.  The stories that I’ve used are all quite explicit in my drawings I have made sure that I have hidden their modesty by only drawing them from behind or a cropped section of the body.

 

 I’ve researched many artists some of whom have influenced me a great deal but most of them have just given me an idea on how to draw a dark illustrative piece to a narrative context.  My own illustrative style is unique to me, so I didn’t want to change the way I illustrate so much instead I looked at in my research on how other narrative artists used black to convince the reader that image is sinister/dark.  I used black ink on my illustrations of naked figures, I could smudge the black to make shade or drip it to look like liquid which I found very effective.

 

 When it came to the text I just wanted a simple Sans serif font that was easily legible because I wanted it quite small on the page. Negative space in my book is definitely the key. So when I laid out my text I wanted to give a sense of hierarchy and pauses when you read the stories, so after much testing on different types of font, size and layout. I decided to have scattered text, the sentences would break at crucial points in the story making up for pauses and as for the more important words and sentences they would be larger. I devised a scale of three sizes and a scale of three shades of grey that would determine on the intensity of the word/sentence. This gives the reader a higher understanding of how the person witnessing the strange situation felt.

 

 I looked a different ways on how to bind my book, I briefly look into saddle stitch and constantia but those types of binding, in my opinion give the feel of a leaflet and weren’t official enough to be called or recognised as a book. So I decided on having my book perfect bound which I thought was the perfect way to have my book done properly with a cover for the book affect. I chose quite thick paper throughout my book including my front cover, I chose to have 230gsm uncoated White Paper.

 

 Altogether my book was a success, it covers everything I wanted to do and has the reaction I wanted it to have on people when they see it, which is usually disbelief, horror and amusement. The response and a realisation that people have when reading about these strange experiences is the satisfying element of carrying on the feelings towards the experience that the original person had. This book overall is a very strange occurrence which makes you feel uneasy but at the same time can be seen as funny. ‘ From Behind’ is aimed at people with an artistic appreciation, they would see this book as a selection of strange naked recordings but at the same time see it as an art form.

Playing with colour?

  These are some test runs I have done on one illustration for my book to test colour. I have changed certain things like the background colour of the illustration, the actual illustration itself and I have also inverted one to see what's a white illustration would look on a black background.

See the full gallery on Posterous

From this test I found that my favourite was my original idea of having a black ink illustration on a white background. the rest of the tests were a bit too dark and a bit too bright, I felt the need to focus away from the illustration itself and the simplicity I originally wanted for my book layout. The black illustration against a white background works because it without saying shows you the dark and is strange things that people get up to and as individuals in broad daylight, I think these colours represent that very well.

The Final Print.

Those strange Animals!

 These may be disturbing but the idea of the strange stories that I have collected and including animals in the context makes the stories so much stranger.

See the full gallery on Posterous

  I have shown some of the illustrations I have done with the idea that animals are involved. I thought that the connotations of us being human and relating us to animals or acting the way that animals act could be similar. Most of my stories the people act in a primitive manner and resemble things that animals do. These people in the stories and their actions don't take any intellect or what we class as humans proper to do in public.  So I chose to try and depict them as animals for this reason.

Final book design.

From_Behind_book_final.pdf Download this file

This is my final book design, with all the finished illustrations and layouts for my text. I have not included the front cover in this PDF because this is how I'm going to send it off to be printed to my printers at Midas Digital.

 I think that I have  used my chosen area of illustration well throughout my book to illustrate these people's strange naked encounters. From my first initial idea of just recording people's strange encounters I have come on an interesting journey by cutting down on the stories and just focusing on the ones involving nudity. I have only recorded people stories from the people witnessing not the people actually doing the naked act. I wanted to express these peoples stories through my favourite illustration style, but I feel like my illustration style  suits these stories in the way that there are strange and dark, this scatty way of drawing brings the story s to life. 

 The layout of the text has been successful, I wanted the reader to feel like they could sense how the person telling the story felt. by breaking up the format of the sentences and also using colour and size to bring the pauses and accentuates the important words.

 I really like the book title 'from behind', it sums up the whole content of the book. I experimented with different ways of illustrating the stories but not much with the media because I was set on what media are wanted to use from the start which firstly helped me decide that I wanted to do an illustration book in the first place. I experimented with drawing the stories with animals drawing them in a very obscure way because in my credits I was always told that my drawings weren't strange enough. In the end I decided on making my drawings in my style using more ink for the darker strange aspect, I wasn't going to change what I loved and inspired me in the first place, instead just working with it.

Fun and frolics for the elderly.

 Now this is an illustrated random book that has crude but funny illustrations that narrate situations that you wouldn't think old people would still be doing!! most people would find it uncomfortable with the thought of the elderly still doing kinky and risky things at their age. 

 This simply laid out book with black-and-white images in the contents narrates situations that older people could get up to. There are no paragraphs in this book just speech marks that help you read the image. 

See the full gallery on Posterous

 I brought this book because I found it funny, I thought it was a collectable item and I really like the illustrations. I feel all these factors relate to the book that I am doing currently, I see my book as a funny collectable item for people to enjoy. My book will look quite similar to this as it will both be bound in the same way, landscape and has black-and-white images in the content. I have looked to this book as inspiration for mine in the way that it gave me confidence that books like mine could be sold and do exist in the market. 

let's lay this out

See the full gallery on Posterous

This is the designs that I have done recently for my book layout, here I have shown how I want my text to be laid out and what colour scheme I am going for. The illustrations I have shown in this design are not yet finalised as my final ones, they need to be thought over and drawn in my chosen style using ink. As you can see I have made both the introduction title and thank you title in the hand rendered Ink style also seen on the front cover, I have done this because I believe they are important titles and brings continuity to the book. My body typeface is Bell Gothic Std, I have chosen this typeface because it is a legible Sans-serif font that simply can be put into a broken up layout  effectively.  I have chosen to break up the sentences so they read easier. By making the sentences breakup I can single out the more important bits of the sentence by making the word/sentence darker and larger. I have used three shades of grey, the darker the more meaningful that part of the sentence is. I've chosen to do it this way because I feel like it is a more interesting format than looking at block paragraphs, it draws your eyes in and makes you without knowing consider pauses and the importance of vital words in the story. I have chosen to keep the introduction and thank you information to a block format because it is easier to read and doesn't need a broken format because it doesn't have any pauses.

Final cover for 'from behind'

coveerr.pdf Download this file

For this front cover I have kept the style of using black ink. I have hand rendered the title of ' from behind', I have done this because it fits in with all the illustrations in the content of the book. I wanted the cover to be simple, and again not to involve colour so its all about the black ink texture. The front cover as you can see above has just the two words 'from behind', separating the two words is a 'Y' this is a simple way of showing the crease in a person's bum. When you realise the content of the book and the meaning of the book title you realise the connection and simplicity.