Lecture No.9? Production

From novice to expert, I really did have a bone to pick with this principle, because it basically asks us to rate our selves in an industry where there are many different types of opinions, styles, lifestyle, basically everyone in the creative design should be are going to be different.

I also think if were were to rate our selves, there are way too many levels here on this chart, five different levels of competence in my opinion is way to much. I think there should be one where skills are still developing and another for when skills are developed. Though I do not wish to, I must now rate myself for the sake of this principle. I shall rate myself as *drum roll* 'Competent'.

The experts, for this principle I am to choose my favourite 'expert' which I find a little hard to do but if I was forced it would be an artist named 'Ashley Wood'. Why? Simple, he developed his own personal style that stands out to me, and he uses that style to create works of art that really interest me as a creative.

I must admit my own personal work doesn't even come close to anything like this because I work with computers and I use a completely different style which is on the opposite side of the spectrum. It doesn't stop me from enjoying and listing him as one of my favourite artists. Through out my time studying I have looked at many different designers/artists and yes some inspire's me and some well stayed as interesting. I also have to say that I get inspired not just by people who are in the industry but those that are still studying.

Ashley Wood definitely takes the number one spot for amazing line work and interesting brush strokes.

Lecture No.7 Development of creative thought and structure in illustration and graphic art

Developing Ideational Fluency, is the first principle I shall looking at. I find that its best to first start with words other than imagery it marks out the beginning stages of any design choice. What format it will be done in, presentation, target audience. So I do usually start my thinking process with a simple brain storm, as seen above I was looking at what advertising had in store, to see exactly how many choices and to also see the different media involved with advertisement. Once my brainstorm is complete its obvious that there are lots of different choices to make, should I make an animation? Moving image? Posters? and so on. Also things to look out for in general as in the demographic. With this information at hand I usually move onto thumbnail sketches.

Thumbnails should be nothing more than very rough sketches, It should not be a point where time would be wasted, if there is a tight deadline then you're going to need to get out as many rough thumbnails as you possibly can, so you can start choosing which ones will move forward into developing stage.

Managing a creative environment, believe it or not the image above is my workplace, I have no desk no chair. For some reason I have never complained to be honest. I am more a digital man myself so when I must do some drawings I do just draw where ever I can find a place. To me I don't think having a super well organised work place is absolutely needed to create perfect works of art. Familiarity is the most important and well if its comfortable or not. Some say a work place it self can inspire creative ideas, I do agree with this, most times I find myself looking around my room to find a shape of an object that I can draw from, or just some general shapes that get formed by items piled on top of each other, in my case wiring! Lots of it, it just adds sometimes the paths the wires move in, the entanglement of the wires...oh the mess! I am a messy person, but surprisingly I like working with clean pieces of art.

Lecture No.6 Production and Outcomes

Interpretation shall be the first principle I shall be looking at, the subject shall be Little Red Riding Hood. Which has become a well known classic childrens story book about a girl on her way to visit her sick grandmother in the woods. While a wolf is in pursuit, and manages to eat the grandmother and dress up as her too to fool the little girl that the wolf is the grandmother.

The above illustration was done by Walter Crane an English illustrator born in Liverpool.

He was a part of the Arts and Crafts Movement where he created many different types of painting, tiles and childrens story books. He was also fascinated by a group of painter and poets called Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Then there's the more modern use of a fairy tale classic, Fashion-Photography. This was done by Model Natalia Vodianova and Photographers Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott. Nothing wrong with using something that is widely known to promote clothing, especially when it's done properly. The colours and lighting are superb and really does give the photos a very Fairytale feel about them.

My next Principle will be about Delivery, there are many ways to get work out into the world, through billboards, signs, stickers, leaflets, magzines and on and on. It really comes down to what you are trying to accomplish. The above isn't exactly an original illustration, it's Michelangelo's 'creation of Adam' but it's been delivered in such a way that it makes it brilliant and successful. It's an Advertisement for a Surgical Doctor, where the hand of god reaches out for the lift button so that when people reach for the button they are reaching out to god, its a very clever delivery I must say.

Lecture No.5 Development of Ideas and structure in moving image.

So my first key principle I'm going to be looking at is the first; Identifying 3 act structure in a recent film. Thus I will be looking at a recent film that I've watched and very much enjoyed.

I think this film does have an interesting 3 act structure to it and I think it's what made the movie interesting to me also the humour to it.

Act 1: So the film starts with the introduction of two characters that get sent to earth. One was destined to be a super hero and one a super villain, the intro shows the characters as babies and progresses from there. The Villain (Megamind) doesn't start off being a bad guy but instead tries to be a good guy but always ends up having a nack of getting into trouble. Tho the super hero (Metro man) is always the show off and the perfect boy. As they grow up they find them selves being each others rivals, where Megamind will always kidnap a female reporter called Roxanne

to get Metro Mans attention. Megaminds recent plan ends up entrapping Metro Man and using the power of the sun to kill him.

Act 2: With Metro man gone, Megamind takes over the city and starts creating a mess of things.

He also finds out that with out Metro Man around to stop him things aren't the same, Megamind slowly starts getting depressed and mopes over the loss of his rival. Until he is forced to interact with Roxanne while being in disguise. Megamind starts developing feeling for the reporter while also balancing his idea to create a new super hero who he can fight with. He accidently gives super powers to the wrong person who ends up not being very good at being a super hero, Megamind then has to train him to become a better super hero. Megamind also get exposed to Roxanne who gets upset with Megamind and walks out on him.

Act 3: The new super hero begins to start going bad and starts stealing stuff and doing what he wants, and doesn't really want to stop Megamind. This angers Megamind and tells the new super hero (Tighten) that he and Roxanne kissed. Tighten get angry and attempts to kill Megamind instead of putting him into jail. Tighten then takes control of the city and kidnaps Roxanne forcing Megamind to take the hero's seat and rescue the girl and save the city from Tighten.

Thus the film ends with Megamind becoming the cities new hero.

My second principle is looking at character development. He is from one of my all time favourite Japanese animations 'Death Note'. His name is 'Yagami Light', who starts off as a normal school boy who excels at all his studies, but his fed up with all the crime in the world and wishes that he can change it. He stumbles onto a note book that fell from the Demon Realm, the note book being the Death Note, where whoevers name is written in the book they will die. So Light begins to ''purge'' the world of evil from the confines of his bedroom. Slowly he atracts the attention of a myterious detective named 'L'. Where the game of cat and mouse insumes.

I like Light as a character because he is so well refined, he can put on all sorts of acts and pull off all sorts of lies, its the overall progression of this character I love so much, from being a school boy to becoming part of a police force that is infact in pursuit of himself. I also like the downward spiral he takes after long use of power he becomes cocky and arrogant which leads him to his own demise.

Lecture No.4 Reflective Visual Journal

The Reflective Visual Journal or RVJ for short, is going to be the most important part of the course, it will act as a HUB for my initial ideas, developing the ideas, analysing and criticizing my own work to develop it further. Since it's not digital, most of the input is going to be done by hand, meaning sketching up ideas, using different materials and processes and writing. Not to say you can't stick different media into the RVJ, photographs can be used as a source of inspiration or combined with traditional drawing. It's important to try and record our thought process clearly, so other people other than the one who is presenting the RVJ can understand, usually not everything in our heads will instantly communicate with others, so that's why it's important to lay things out not neatly but some what with style or sense.

I also learnt that while writing up ideas with words it's also a good idea to draw images at the same to get take the images from our mind in put them down on paper, doesn't have to be artistic can be as simplistic as you want, for then when it comes time to use the sketch or doodle you will have something to devel

op and to have a thinking process on how using that particular sketch will fit into an overall design.

The example above shows the person drawing the first thing that flows into their head while drawing up a map, and it made things easier to visualize the general area, though there is one thing missing, annotation but I think the person was more focused on using images more then words. Very simple and could be developed into something more with the miniature images he has drawn up, it also shows how the person see's things, from Road Signs to Logos, Graphical indeed.

Lecture No.3 Idea, Theory and Principles

The layout of the text is very important you may have the opportunity to place text anywhere you wish but while in doing so there are multiple obstructions that can get in the way of your text being legible are not. General Layout, having using paragraphs and not just full lines of words where the eyes become tired or the text doesn't flow as easily.

Colour is one, for example: having a yellow coloured font over a white background. The text almost blends in with the background and makes the text illegible, so the colour of the font and the colour of the area where the font will be placed is very important.

Font size is also important to keep in mind, more of an obvious note, if the font is too small then it becomes illegible, too big and it could potentially ruin the design. It does come down to what you are designing and what tone of voice your trying to emit. There are certain font size regulations to follow in some areas of the design industry,

examples: Newspapers, magazines.

Typeface can also effect legibility, there are many different types of typefaces out there and some are god awful, as designers we need to know when using a sans serif and a serif typeface would be a wise choice.

Type over images, having type overlapping images is not a wise choice, especially if the colour of the image itself is that of similar colour to that of the type that is over lapping it, they blend into each other and rendering them both useless.

Above is an example of how text could become hard toread if the layout of the words are not thought of properly.

I also learnt that within almost every design there should be a tone of voice, could either be the text or images or general colours of the design.

Text can easily express a tone of voice, trying to get a loud message across one would go about using Bold Capitals to express shouting, all typefaces have their own tone of voice and as designers we can manipulate the text to express a tone of voice. Colours can express tone of voice, example: sky blue has a very calm and soothing look and pink though not as feminine as it used to be still sends out a feminine feel and would be used for the boxes of girls dolls.

Imagery will always have different tones of voices, doesn't only come down to what the image is, it can also be how the image was portrayed, black and white for a more serious artistic look or at a awkward angle to express panic there are multiple of ways to express a tone of voice using imagery.

Above is a simple example of tone of voice in type.

Lecture No.2 Research Language

. Research, When I first started being creative I had almost no direction it's most like the same for everyone, some people are born with talent and some of us need to study up. Talented or not research is extremely important and I realise this clearly, once I started looking up different artists paths began opening up, the techniques the colours the forms, all boosted me into being inspired to go and try these different techniques. I understand there are two different forms of research one is Primary research where we need to go out in the world and have some initiative to look for our own form of research, simply reading a paragraph of text could easily inspire people to be creative, and to create illustrations based off of text and keep it's message is a complete success. The second form of research is Secondary research, where less initiative is needed especially now with the internet it's easy to search up on many different artists it's convenient and it could still inspire work but with less originality. For us to be visual communicators it's important to try and take something small and meaningless and change it into a piece of art/design with meaning.

Above is a scan in of some Primary research.

. Target audience, to have a piece of design is one thing but having it communicate a message is another. So as visual communicators it's very important to always be thinking about the target audience even if it's just a small minority of people with certain tastes it's important to know about the culture, who these people are and what do they do. We can't just take guesses we need to study up, we might not care for the life style but as visual communicators we need to capture their attention and have them understand that we understand who they are, so they can take the message seriously. Knowing the audience can change the design of any idea from colours to style of lines, it can go on.

Above is a flyer which was made for a rock concert, keeping things simple, with just a shot of a clothing with skulls and adding colours that make it seem as though the person as at the rock concert.