OUIL505 Applied Illustration - End of module Evaluation (Written Version)

This module has been lot different from the previous modules we’ve done so far - and I think this has been both a good and a bad thing. The chance to essentially choose what it is we wanted to explore, in a commercial context has been really exciting, and enlightening too - I’ve definitely found out more about my own practice in a professional context than I have in any of the modules we’ve done to date.

A notable change i’ve noticed from this module is that i’ve taken a decided step out of the comfort of relaying myself as a ‘character based illustrator’. My initial intentions for this project were for it to be a character design brief - though as time has evolved its become more and more separated from the industries who typically utilise formal character design, which I think has benefitted me a lot more. 

I’ve begun to explore ways my illustration can be used in other formats - for education, informative purposes - and even using narratives to break down difficult-to-digest concepts, as opposed to restricting it simply to the realms of comics & kids books. I’ve fallen back in love with science, and statistics, and I think the more successful parts of this project have simply being where i’ve been taking information and interpreting it in a visual, easy to understand manner. 

My relationship with sketchbooks has changed a lot - before, I would revel in the immediacy of them, and my final work would never be as good as my development work. However - the introduction of the visual journal has helped me separate visual exploration, and visual development, and this has allowed me to continue my research almost well up to the wick, whilst still allowing me  to plan my time and resources effectively to make the most of developing my work.

My practice in general is now developing a real synergy between development and refinement - and i’ve learned a lot more about how I work, as opposed to stressing out about how different my practice is compared to other people’s. I’ve begun working in a way that still retains my signature tone of voice, whilst still looking clean, refined and professional - something that I used to struggle with balance-wise previously. 

Another significant development is in how i’ve begun to look at how what I do can work outside of a strict illustration discipline. The ‘company’ image i’ve created, Lightbulb, has genuine footing as something that could be actually founded - looking more into the world of workshops and teaching as opposed to just illustration. I’ve previously worried that this wouldn’t make me ‘enough’ of a practitioner - but this module, as well as the others we have done this year have shown that the skills we have can be used in all kinds of ways, and that often it tends to benefit from you not trying to pigeonhole yourself too greatly.

I’ve taken bigger risks this module than I have previously - and recognised where parts of my proposal weren’t going to work as well as intended. Completely changing my proposed final outcome isn’t something i’ve ever done before - but i definitely think that it has benefited me, and the project as a result. It generally feels more like it has come directly from me, as opposed to me trying to squeeze my work into another way of working. 

I didn’t have the time I initially thought I was going to - given the work we had from other modules running simultaneously to it, but I do think that i’ve managed it a lot better - better than any of the previous modules I maybe have this year. Time management and organisation has always been my worst enemy - but by not stubbornly sticking to my original plan, this has allowed me to plan and organise things a lot better, to suit the time scale I actually had to work on. 

Whilst I think if I had my end-proposal at the beginning, my project could have been even better - I don’t think I could have gotten to the point that I have done without that struggle I had at the start. The end result has left me with something that - although could be explored a lot further, is competent, looks refined & professional, and has the potential to work in the real world - which was not only what we were asked to make, but also a huge improvement for me given the place I was in when I first joined the course. I hope to perhaps continue exploring this further down the line as I go into level 6. 

OUIL505 Applied Illustration - Project Report

OUIL505 Applied Illustration SB3 - Final Presentation Boards

OUIL505 Applied Illustration SB2 - Branding for Lightbulb

For the company branding, much as I did in responsive for the WHISTLES Presentation Boards - I wanted to show how the branding could potentially look like without physically making the product. There are a lot of reasons for this - a lot involving time, as at this stage of the project I wouldn't have time to send off for things like custom pencils & notepads, and also because I largely wanted to focus on the actual 'brand' itself as the product i'm producing next to the posters.

Again - feedback for the proposed brand I had was positive. People thought it was consistant, and they felt that the branding i'd created had the right tone for what I was 'pitching'. It was suggested that I make the final Presentation board of the website look more like a 'website', by including things like a URL bar and a cursor, so thats probably an amendment i'll make for the final A2 boards. 

OUIL505 Applied Illustration SB2 - Final Posters

Here's what the final posters look like! I'm really proud of the out come of these, especially after the struggles i've had in the past emulating analogous vibes using digital media! 

I think im starting to hit the right sort of relationship with type now - My hand drawn type is definately improving, and Avenir as a typeface generally suits my work well whilst still keeping it looking professional and refined.

My method of acchieving the texture was to intially create a large digital sheet, which I then used the lasso to cut from. I've used this technique before a lot last year in level 4, but using analogous texture i'd scanned in. The end product of using the digital textures has all the look and feel of the analogue ones, whilst still being clean enough for it not to require hours of clean-up with the stamp tool, which is great!

This is what the textures look like on their own. I don't think theres a great difference between these and the analogue ones, to be fair - If I need another colour, I just change the hue and saturation. I add detail to them using the other textured brushes that I have - which ends up leaving a really authentic looking aesthetic.

In terms of the content, though - people really liked the layout, the way that the pictures worked with the type and they thought that it suited the information being relayed well. A lot of people commented on how slick they thought the posters were - which was LOVELY to hear after a long time missing the mark with the final outcomes of briefs! I personally thing I could have maybe done more with them, as they look a bit too 'basic' - but I think as well the simplicity and the straightforwardness is the best for getting the information across. 

OUIL505 Applied Illustration SB2 - Posters Plans

My plan for the posters, as opposed to the previous proposed designs - is for them to be printed at A3 format, designed to be printed and distributed to be put up in spaces like schools & community centres.


When speaking to Eleanor, we discussed the possibility of doing the posters analogously, and then working on them digitally. I definately want to incorporate more analogous media back into my practice, as I feel my work is becoming increasingly more 'digitised', but I also recognised that given my time scale, this would have been too time-consuming to acchieve the finish that I was wanting - so i've decided im going to try to create some digital textures to use instead.

The last page of the above PDF was an idea I had for a workshop - or a way for people to get involved with plastic recycling by taking a 'plastic pledge'. I experiemented with the idea of if they completed the pledge after say - a month or so? they'd get a badge (kind of like how boy scouts/brownies do) - which could be a cool thing to get people interacting with the campaign, as a lot of people liked it in the crit, but probably something i'll develop at a later date. 

OUIL505 Applied Illustration SB2 - Further Lightbulb Development

Continuing from the inital 'lightbulb' sketches, here I was trying out potential slogans, and seeing how it would work on material like business cards. I liked the sort of sketchy, immediate appearance of the inital drawings, since I think it tells you more about 'ideas' than something too crisp and graphical looking would - I also liked the hand-drawn type (a commonly used thing in my work anyway) for the same reason. So I went to town and tried to come up with as many quick visual takes on the light bulb i'd drawn as I could. 

I didn't want to use an analogously-created logo as a final thing, since the nature of analogue files scanned in aren't really suitable for use in logos. So, after my previous experimentation with textured brushes digitally, I decided to find one in my brush packs that would recreate the same sort of look I'd been getting with the marker pens in my book. This is what I came up with:

I found that when doing it digitally, the black was a little bit /too/ harsh so the darker stroke colour here is now a very dark brown/sepia instead, which I think makes it pop a lot better. 

I was pleased with the outcome of this! Its the first logo i've done in a while that hasn't looked too 'stiff' or too graphic-based, and I think it captures the tone of voice I wanted it to have perfectly. 

OUIL505 Applied Illustration SB2 - Lightbulb development

Now that my plans had changed, I started drafting up ideas for I wanted my fictional 'organisation' to be about. Whilst there is a lot of technical research that has to be done to make things like this feasible - as was shown from our Lifes a Pitch! Brief in our OUIL502 module, for the purpose of this module I wanted to focus more on it as a brand project with the option of exploring it more seriously and professionally further down the line. 

I wanted the organisation/company to be something that runs workshops and creates campaigns - using hands-on activities in conjunction with more 2d design & campaigns to help educate people about topics. For future points in time, im interested in giving it a community focus - particularly helping areas where arts resources are scarce. However, given that the focus of the work I've done this module has been in plastic, the environment and the importance of recycling, I decided that any initial 'campaign' I created under the company name would focus on these topics.

I started playing with different names - stuff like 'arty hands', but given that I wanted it to have a more information-based purpose aside from arty workshops, I thought something like 'Lightbulb' would be more suitable - since it rings up more ideas about linking ideas and thoughts to things.

Here I was playing with initial doodles, as well as generally thinking about a proper brand rationale. I really liked the light bulb motif as a sort of logo, so I decided to take it and develop it further.  

OUIL505 Applied Illustration SB2 - Storyboard Plans & A Change of Plan

Above was an initial 'storyboard' I had planned for my initially proposed animation. I took this to a crit with me to show people the general look and feel I wanted the end thing to have - based off a lot of the infographic and public broadcast videos I'd being looking at. 

Feedback I got back from the crit was good - people liked the bright colours, and felt the tone would suit what I was wanting to do well - it just needed to be extended and finished, as a storyboard would have been something I would have included within the pitch boards if it was to be sent out to a company.

I was pretty set on doing an animation all the way through - though constant stopping and starting to accommodate for other modules meant I hadn't given myself a great deal of time to really sit down and develop it. I was also feeling a little bit lost with my project - seeing everyone else being very certain of what it their practice was shaping up to be, whilst I was still in the process of deciding.

I also was unsure about who the project was really meant to be aimed at. I'd stated in my proposal that I'd wanted it to be aimed at kids, and schools - but then I was wanting to do a bilboard and animation? which made it more applicable to a wider, broader public audience? I knew the work I was doing was meant to be tailored for someone like Friends of the Earth or Greenpeace, but it didn't really feel like a campaign that would come from them - there was too much of my own 'voice' behind it. My research into plastic had gone beyond the scope of just looking at the bits that had ended up in the ocean, and I was sort of feeling like the work I was doing was moving away from what I'd initially proposed.

Through speaking to Eleanor, she agreed that the original direction I'd planned was probably not the best route to choose. Given my quick and immediate method of work, She suggested that instead of trying to tailor the work to an existing organisation, I should try to come up with an organisation of my own - focusing on workshops and education, as i've also being teaching quite a lot alongside the course in the Student Ambassador programme. At this point - the project changed from a simple animation and poster brief to something more along the lines of branding & proposal instead. 

OUIL505 Applied Illustration SB2 - Phthalates

Another Problem with plastics outside of their ocean-polluting qualities, is that a lot of plastics contain a lot of chemicals as a result of their production. Some polymer chains can only be really manipulated using a chemical compound known as Phthalates - which softens plastic enough for it to be malleable, and therefore formable. 

Phthalate use was common through the 80's and right up until the mid-90's - though in recent years it has become more restricted, as evidence has shown that a build up of exposure to phthalates can have a lot of nasty effects - from carcinogenic ones to issues effecting your endocrine system. 

Nearly everyone is exposed to a low level of them through cosmetic goods, though a lot of people are worried that these things could prove to be quite harmful if used over a concentrated period - though evidence of this on a wider scale has yet to be formulated. 

I wanted to tackle the issues surrounding phthalate use using the narrative-based format i'd used for the previous bits of visual journal work i've done. I actually quite like how this turned out - I really like the black/red pen combo. This sort of thing would be nice as a diagram.

OUIL505 Applied Illustration SB2 - The Plastic life

In the same way that I did the earlier text-and-illustration method of displaying information I've researched, I decided to employ the same way of working to investigate more into the process of how plastic is created. The study of plastic is something i've done previously in school (many, many years ago) but I thought it would be interesting to look into it again for the purpose of this brief. 

A lot of the information for the process was found via the PlasticsEurope website, who have a really cool interactive presentation on it that shows each stage of the plastic production process here:

They're a little bit dry and a bit scientific, but I like the idea of something that is interactive - things that people can play with usually stay with them for longer.

OUIL505 Applied Illustration SB2 - Photography Workshop

As part of our module, we got the chance to attend a variety of workshops - this one in particular being a refresher in using the Photography studio. We did a variety of things - we were asked to bring a few objects, and also some of our work in order to have a go photographing it. I brought my sketchbook, and a pop-up whale that I made out of card to try my hand at seeing what it could potentially look like used in stop motion. 

I quite fancied seeing what a set would look like in the photography studio - but I was also aware that it would be something that would be incredibly time consuming, and would also rely on the availability of the resource around a time of the year that would be incredibly sought after anyway - so I doubt it would be practical. Regardless - I thought the ends results were quite nice, and I think i'll choose to photograph more of my work like this as we move into Level 6

OUIL505 Applied Illustration SB2 - Practical Development part 2

Further drawings and sketches - using different media. I wanted to see how I could show things as a diagram without the use of words.

OUIL505 Applied Illustration SB2 - The Plastic Age: An I-D Documentory

i-D, a slightly more artier imprint of the magazine organisation VICE - created this  documentary/advertisement called 'The Plastic Age' - which highlights a lot of the problems with plastic that i've been investigating with my research.

I think this documentary needs to be taken with a pinch of salt; as I said, i'm rather skeptical of its true intentions given that it's being used to market a line of Pharrell Williams-endorsed G-Star RAW clothes (though it IS creating using a recycled plastic polymer thread known as 'bionic wool') 

However - theres a lot of really interesting and quite shocking statistics, particularly about plastic in relation to the levels of plankton in the sea (which is rapidly being replaced by the plastic now) and also about the nature of where the plastic ends up - on shores millions and millions of miles away from its origins. Its especially an issue in countries like Hawaii, who are stuck slap in the middle of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (a massive floating patch of plastic that is corralled together by oceans currents) - where hundreds of tonnes of plastic is being dumped on their shores every day. 

The information from this will be useful in furthering my research. 

OUIL505 Applied Illustration SB2 - Ideas development & Initial posters

Knowing I was wanting to create both an animation and also a couple of posters (the kind that could potentially be used in Adshels or on Bilboards) - I started to draft some initial ideas for them. 

I actually really liked the outcome of these initial poster concepts - and people in my crit group did too. They liked the copy, and the colours too.  It was suggested that more could be done with the poster on the right to make the yellow appear more like plastic, which would improve the overall quality of the poster.

My aim was to then tweak these further down the line - maybe work on some more ideas in this visual style. The bold colours and simple shapes are really working for me though. 

OUIL505 SB2 Applied Illustration - Practical development Part 1

Above is further practical work I did - exploring textures digitally and analogously. I was doing a lot of reading about Tuna, and also sharks - who act as what is known as an 'Apex' predator. 

Apex Predators are particularly important in ecosystems, as they keep the population of different species in balance. Once these Apex predators are removed, it can have devastating effects on the way the rest of the food chain exists, which can lead to further extinctions and mass habitat damage too. This is known as something called the 'Trophic Cascade'

I chose to illustrate my research into this, and the effects plastic and overfishing is having on Apex Predators like sharks and tuna here:

I quite like this method of illustrating bodies of text, and I think something like this would be worth exploring further down the line.

OUIL505 SB1 Applied Illustration - Market & Campaign Research

Friends of the Earth - 'The Bee Cause'

I've identified Friends of the Earth as a potential 'client' for this project previously - but I really like their 'Bee Cause' campaign; designed as a webpage (and also a downloadable App!) - showing people all of the Bee Homes and Bee Savers (Active Beehives/sanctuaries & Donators) across the UK. They also give you the opportunity to recieve a 'Bee Saver' kit if you give them a donation, filled with loads of resources designed to help you set up Bee-Friendly environments at home. 

Care To Click - Infographic Campaign

This animated infographic was created by a guy called Brandon Wall, who does a lot of really neat stop motion and 2d animated advertisements and videos. I really like the aesthetic of them - but they're also really great for displaying information in a really simple manner, which would also suit the tone of voice i'm looking at for displaying the information in my own project.

Suffolk Waste Partnership - 'Plastics Know Your Place'

  

Done in the style of a 1950's telemarketing advertisement - this campaign is especially relevant to what i'm looking at, because its all specifically about plastic!! Its a really great way to show people exactly what to DO with their plastics, and how to recycle them - because its often quite difficult to tell what you can and can't recycle when it comes to plastic. The humour used in it makes the video approachable for people of all ages, which is great for a campaign done on the scale this one is.

Recycle Now UK - Animated infographics

Recycle Now is a national campaign - that informs people about the process of recycling and how they can recycle their own waste. The visuals on this are even simpler than the ones used in Brandon Wall's animated campaign videos, which would make them suitable for something I'd make on my own. 

The videos are friendly, they have really cheery music in the background and the language and the aesthetic of it means you could show this to someone in a primary school whilst also being suitable to be able to show to older generations. (they're also great points of research for finding out more about plastic and recycling!)

Östergötland County Council Sweden for 'Waste To Energy EU' -  'Don't Waste Your Waste'

A campaign to help raise awareness about the amount of waste created by Europe, and to educate people how the waste they do produce can be recycled and reused again. The Concept, script, design and art direction was created by Dedicate, the final animation by Jonas Porsgaard of SAPP (sapp.se). Again, much like the Recycle UK campaign, the style of the video is friendly and approachable, and designed to appeal to a wide range of people. 

Large-running audiences are usually considered to be bad ideas, but considering these videos are designed to be used for en-masse communication, work created for public broadcasts like this need to appeal to as many people as possible - something I need to consider for my own work. 

OUIL505 SB1 Applied Illustration - Project Proposal & Initial ideas.

[Proposal & Proposal Worksheets]

Here's the final draft of my proposal, as well as the next parts of my visual journal exploring a few bits about the ecology of fish and plastic in the ocean.

The plan is to create this to work as some form of campaign - similar to the ones you would expect to find from any animal conservation or environmental charity - notable ones being people like Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and people like WWF as well. I think out of all of these, Friends of the Earth would be the most suited to what i'm planning - not only do they have seperate, indepenantly branded campaigns, Naomi Klein did a lot of work with them through the launch of her book "This Changes Everything", which deals with a lot of the issues i'm looking at too.

My plan is to create two posters - one suitable to use as an adshel poster, usually found next to bus stops (and also near bins!), and one suitable to use as a Bilboard poster. I also plan to create a 30 second - 1 minute long animation that can be uploaded to Youtube, and shared and distributed via social media sites. It could also be used as an advertisement used before Youtube Videos, and also on TV - much like these two campaign videos below:

Dumb Ways To Die for Metro Trains Melbourne.

FINconceivable Teaser from Lily Williams on Vimeo.

Finconceivable by Lily Williams - Full version here

OUIL505 Applied Illustration SB1 - Initial Visual Journal Research/Project proposal

My initial idea and plans for this module were intially very very different. After starting off my research looking into character and narrative, I was heavy set in doing a module that revolved around character development - I wanted to do storyboards! Character sheets! I wanted to write a comic that had a merchandise line that I could then put on Kickstarter and make a real thing! Then I had a tutorial with fred, who pointed out that my idea didn't really meet the module requirements all that much and decided to re-write my proposal to meet something that was a bit more module-focused, and wasn't more than I could feasibly chew.

I knew I liked to draw things that often explained theories or subjects to people, and I've always been a fan of things like the Observer Book of birds, and so such educational tools - and decided to turn my focus less on Character & Narrative, and more onto illustration applied to Information & Education instead.

I originally had a plan to create a book, designed to inform people about the ecological role of spiders, and their importance - in spite of people's adverse attitudes towards them. I thought this would have been a cool idea, but I figured since spiders didn't necessarily require saving, since a lot (not all) of their species aren't particularly endangered in any way - there might be more pressing environmental issues that I could raise awareness about, which would be a more suitable application.

I have quite a vested interest in environmental conservation outside of uni, especially after the research I did into Naomi Klein on the last 504 module. Something i've had quite a lot of interest in recently is the alarming amount of plastic pollution that is currently not only circulating on land - but in the sea too. 

In recent times, a boy named Boyat Slat gained visability over his plan to clean the sea of plastic using an "ocean cleanup array"  - despite numerous scientists and environmentalists pointing out that due to the scale of the problem, no amount of 'cleanup' would be able to clean the existing pollution, which is causing really big problems for the habitats of fish, and also plastic in the food chain eaten by said fish. I thought this is something that has a lot of teeth to it - and would be a good basis on what to form a project on. 

OUIL505 Applied Illustration - Study Task 1 - Practitioner's research

Zac Gorman

Zac Gorman predominantly works as a comic artist - however as well as self-publishing his own comic-books, he also works commercially as a storyboarder for Frederator (the same people who make most of the Cartoons for Cartoon Network, including Adventure Time) and does a lot of commercial character design for show pitches and much more.

I think his practice aligns with mine well as his work has a similar sort of naive charm about it whilst managing to stay professional and refined at the same time - something i'm trying to hit a balance with in my own work. His area of commercial practice is also somewhere i'm interested in expanding my practice into, which I'm hoping I might be able to develop skills for over the course of this module

Marc Boutavant

Marc Boutavant is a french illustrator who is most well known for his series 'Mouk' - which has now been turned into an animated series, a series of toys, stickers, a website, books and lots more.

I think his characters are really cute and I really like how full of life they are (as someone who also predominantly draws cute cartoon animals - Mouk is very much 'the dream') - but I think what makes Marc Boutavant stand out above other similar practitioners is the sheer amount of practical uses he has for all his work - you could put his work on curtains, wallpaper, toys, posters, t-shirts - it all works really nicely and is a good example of character design used in a commercial manner.

I also really like the whole 'big world' aspect of his practice, and I want to look at developing fictional geography within this module as well

Joey Ellis

Joey Ellis was an illustrator I discovered through his work on Facebook (He created some of their 'stickers' packs) - Again, I was really impressed with the breadth in which he uses his work. He's worked as an art director for a video game, comic book writer, graphic designer and much, much more.

One really key thing about his work is it's almost entirely created in vectors - which is really good from a professional standpoint, as it means his work is easily useable over various formats - its probably something worth keeping in mind for the future.

Genevieve Tsai

Genevieve Tsai is a character designer, animator and art developer - predominantly for games. She's worked for large games studios - notably Valve for their Dota 2 MMORPG and work on the Sly Cooper sequel "Sly Cooper: Thieves in time" - doing a lot of the character design work as well as a lot of visual assets in-game. She's also done animation work for google, creating their google doodle.

Her work is very similar to mine both in tone of voice and energy and her line of work is somewhere I'm interested in journeying into. Whilst a comic book isn't really visual development in this area, I'm hoping that the design work for the comic will help in developing a deeper understanding of character

Domareen Fox