Production & Outcomes

What are the platforms that Illustrations use to affect the communication?


Here are some examples of the work of Jared Nickerson (J3 Concepts).

The way that J3 Concepts has crossed a variety of platforms is really cleaver and suits his style, which often consists of repeating patterns. There are a lot of different ways that he has put his work out there aimed at young trendy geeky gadget loving skateboarding design conscious persons.

There seems to be a glimpse at an undercurrent of a hint towards a cool retro subculture in a lot of j3’s work. Taking subtle yet iconic images and jumbling them up in to a pastiche of subdued and at the same time vibrantly colourful art works.

The use of retro cool items in his work will draw the attention of niche consumers to his collection of work and the fact that it is digital art means that its relatively simple to recreate the art work on to any format or platform. The message that he is selling to the viewer is to buy in to the unique blend of stylised iconography to enhance your life style. If you like his style then some of the cool stylish uniqueness will reflect upon you.

What is the importance of understanding ones own design process?

When producing artwork it is important to follow a design process to create a interesting and intelligent solution that fits the brief.  

My process starts with trying be be aware of what is going on in the design world, what is trendy and now, and having the ability to draw influences from my environment and collect visual information which I can then use.  

It is important to start by understanding the brief and the clients objectives in order that the end product is appropriate .  Once I am clear with the brief I then do research and come up with some initial ideas, which once discussed can be developed.  I consider my target audience, my intended message, imagery and choice of media.  I have learnt to find a natural stopping point so I don't carry on researching and developing ideas for ever.   

This is an example of my work explaining the process I followed:

The brief; re-brand this logo for thisisgreenliverpool.com

There was no other information given so the first thing that was done was to speak to the client and bounce some ideas off their team. I then received an email with some images that they found interesting and thought that I might be able to work from. I also did my own research split in to two categories, firstly working from the images that they sent and then working from my own ideas. 

I also made sketches and mind mapped ideas with the intention of emailing them to the client to make sure that we were on the same wavelength. After getting some positive feed back and agreeing on the direction they wanted to follow I then moved onto some mock-ups to get ideas for colour and fonts. 

I sent the client a number of different designs and colour mock-ups and made adjustments to there specifications. The finished image was agreed upon and the design was sent to the client in their chosen file type.

By communicating with the client and critically appraising my own ideas and listening to their feedback I was able to create a logo that the client was pleased with.

Identify a three-act structure in a recent film and Character design

I’m a Cyborg but that’s Ok.

Act1

There’s a girl and she works in a factory making radios or something, all appears very normal. It becomes evident that she is suffering from a delusional fantasy in which she is a cyborg (a robot that looks like a human). This delusion nearly kills her when she plugs herself into the mains power in an attempt to recharge her batteries. She then gets sent to a mental health hospital because she’s the only one who thinks she’s a cyborg and is unable to convince any one else. 

Act2

In the mental hospital she refuses to eat food and tries to gain sustenance from AA batteries by holding them in between her fingers and also licking them, nice. She continues to refuses to eat and thus become more and more dilapidated. She then meets this bloke in the mental hospital. They become friends and he likes her so tries to help her by pretending to invent a device that converts food into stuff cyborg’s can live off. So she starts eating food again and starts to recover.

She also has a fantasy/hallucination where she starts shooting and killing the doctors with heavy-duty firepower coming from her fingertips, cool. 

Act 3

The girl is still delusional and has a dream where she discovers that she is really a bomb and to fulfil her goal she needs to be struck by lighting and blow up. The bloke pretends to help her because he fancies her but intends to save her from herself by sabotaging her attempts to be struck by lighting. Her plan is to go to the top of a hill in the middle of a storm and basically get struck by lightning. Anyway her plan fails with some help from the bloke and they fall in love and live happily ever after.

Character design

Ash Williams from Evil Dead 2

What does the character look like? 

Ash Williams, our protagonist, has the look of a crazed demon killing, chainsaw wielding average Joe. His clothing is torn and blood soaked, his face is cut and twisted with fear and determination. He has one hand missing (because he had to cut it off) and he has to protect a woman from a demon.

What does the character do?

Through out the film Ash mainly has to fight for his life, using only a shotgun and a chainsaw he faces demons and the like in a battle for his soul. The ensuing battle can only be won by reciting from the pages of the Necronomicon (book of the dead) that Ash has to find.

How does the character relate to the other characters and to events in the story?

Ash is an unlikely hero and is forced in to some difficult situations as the events of the story play out. He has to decapitate his girlfriend after she killed and subsequently possessed by a demon. He also get possessed by a demon and cuts his own hand off and beats up on the other characters in the film.

 Reference

www.coffeecoffeeandmorecoffee.com/archives/2008/01/im_a_cyborg_but.html

http://www.randomwire.com/im-a-cyborg-but-thats-ok

www.itembang.blogspot.com/2009/03/im-cyborg-but-thats-ok.html

www.snowbloodapple.com/imacyborg.htm

www.moviescreenshots.blogspot.com/2010/11/im-cyborg-but-thats-ok-2006.html

http://shanmugamlakshmanan.blogspot.com/2009/12/lord-of-lines.html

Drawing and utilise your creative brain

These images are from the sketchbook of James Jean. They represent good examples of the principals: Drawing and Utilising your creative brain.

The intention of the images above is to help to develop and document ideas, to be a resource for future reference so the things that catch the eye in that moment can become inspiration for things that haven’t necessarily been thought of yet. Also to enhance and maintain the skill of being able to draw, if one doesn’t draw for a while it can take time to regain the ability.

The images are very effective as a resource and also show a really high level of skill and a good ability to observe and depict the subject.

It’s hard to define the audience for a sketchbook because its not the finished article. That leads to the thinking that the primary audience would be the creator of the sketchbook, the point of the sketchbook being to formulate and develop future ideas.

Also the fact that the sketchbooks are included on James Jean’s website show that there is a wider audience who appreciate and value the sketchbooks as separate works of art, but also intrinsically vital to the whole.

The signs in the images are references to the cultural context that the artist is viewing. Things such as airports, film sets, car badges, baseball cards and the people all suggest travelling and a collection of thing from popular American culture. The footnotes under the images on his website indicate where some of the sketches were drawn.

Sketchbooks are often quite personal and could be considered to be a messages or visual notes to the creator of the sketchbook, the context of the sketches depict images of every day life draw overlapping each other using pencil and ink to create strong lines and intense detailing.

This is a quote from illustrator Tin Salamunic.

“I never fully believed in such things as talent. Many see it as some sort of ‘gift‘, or special natural ability to do things without much effort. But many are not aware of the history of hard work most artists carry behind their art. Creativity and great conceptual thinking are not the result of having talent. They are the result of all the artist’s studies and pieces of their visual library in their head forming new images and ideas.

People are always searching for the best way to develop their own personal style or voice in art. The best way to do this is to constantly record images in your sketchbook, draw everything in front of you, keep a visual diary. Draw so much it becomes intuitive, natural, like your handwriting.”

References 

www.lostateminor.com/2009/07/22/the-habit-of-drawing-often/#more-21728

http://jamesjean.com/