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During my crit meeting with my lecturers and classmates I had written some notes on the feedback I had collected on my project proposals so that I may develop them further. I only showed them my two main APPs as I am more confident in my dissertation and feel that I could go for option C (the 7000 word dissertation and 2 APPs).
One of my lecturers produced a list to ensure that I have hit all of the points in creating a strong project proposal, so I’m going to “answer” some of these points here and use them to identify the objectives of my projects.
APP 1
For my first APP – which will be the illustration competition – will be aimed at the general public to portray the vibrant city of London. I shall be doing my poster design at A3 to submit as a university project, but the submission for the Serco Prize competition would be at one of the sizes they prefer. I can illustrate multiple stories within but would have to be colourful and eye-catching to the general public.
When I first got into illustration I had done some research into the key aspects of an illustrator, and one of them was personal style. Every illustrator has their own signature style, and throughout my years of being interested in art I have noticed that I concentrate mostly on biro and different line techniques that I then combine with watercolour. I’m hoping to develop this technique further by carrying out more experimentation so that I could get a firm hold on it, as it were.
I realised that my previous production schedule was flawed because it involved me handling all three projects (my 2 APPs and my dissertation) at once, so here I have designed three separate schedules so that I wouldn’t stress as much.
As the project involves creating a poster, the only costs I would have to worry about will be the printing of it as well as gathering materials. Luckily I have all the digital softwares that I might dabble with and recently. I have also recently obtained a Wacom Inkling that I’m bursting to try out!
Other people that would be involved in this project as well as those actually viewing it would be the hosts: Association of Illustrators and Serco. I am hoping to include elements of both parties (such as the London Underground or Red Bus) to represent the competition itself.
The Learning Outcomes, as I have said in a previous post, are quite broad which makes it all the more harder to be able to cover them. I have analysed each one
here.
I haven’t heard of ‘professional practice’ before doing this project, but now I understand is that these APPs are projects to show how you are becoming a professional illustrator/designer/photographer as well as our knowledge on the subject. With this in mind I’m going to explore more into biro and watercolour (as mentioned above) as well as books on illustration to read up on how illustrators got to where they are now.
I’m also going to delve deeper into semiotics as each illustration – although accompanied with text – will be portraying a story, and I need to get the right ‘signs’ across. This could be included in my research on the fundamentals of illustration and I’ll be looking to see if there are any step-by-step processes of other illustrators.
At the end of each section of research I’ll be writing an analysis, which I’ve already started doing by writing conclusions at the end of each blog post. I’ll be constantly flicking back through my research, brief and mood boards to stay on the right track and it’ll perhaps show me new things to explore. The blog posts I’ve written so far are a bit vague and I need to write them in a more professional manner and look at reliable sources, not just Behance.net.
I fear that I have been dawdling for too long on my design brief, as my dissertation keeps distracting me. However writing this post and looking at my notes has made it a lot clearer to me on how to write a successful proposal.
APP 2
My client for this second project will be a tea company – possibly Twinings – so that I could create something to promote their company as well as being ‘motivational’ for stressful students like myself. I have noticed that more and more people tend to include drinking tea every time they take a break from doing lots of work, and that it relaxes them. This idea is strengthened by the presence of tea and cafes in the university.
I haven’t yet explored extensively into my second project although I have at least decided on my client and my target audience. It was a lot harder to figure out what to do with this project as it’s my own creation and I had to make sure that it links my interests and my pathway specialism (illustration), although I worry slightly of my lack of experience in hand lettering. To overcome this, I’ll do extensive research on it and practice at least a little bit every day so that I could get the hang of it.
This is my updated version of my production schedule for this project:
I have seen some motivational quotes being hand lettered on posters, and so by creating it for a coffee mug I hope to make a fresh statement. I’ll probably come up with my own quote but in the meantime I’ll research into famous quotes.
As it’s going to be printed on a travel mug I must take printing costs into consideration, as it’ll be quite difficult to find a suitable company that would be able to print my design onto one. There is an option for me to print it onto a sticker sheet but then I would have to purchase this and take it to a printing company. Hopefully printing companies might be able to provide such sticker sheets!
Other costs that I would need to think about are those that cover the calligraphic materials I’ll be using for the hand lettering.
My target audience will be students, so throughout my project I could gather some feedback from my classmates – who are also interested in typography – because at the end of the day this product will be for them. I would thus need to please both them and the company that I’ll be ‘working’ for.
My pathway specialism is illustration, and with this project I hope to strengthen my illustrative techniques as well as combining it with typography, as I’m not too sure that I would want to work solely with illustration in future. Books such as ‘Hand Job’ will be really useful because they show examples of this integration of type and illustration.
I am going to handle this project – in terms of research and analysis – the same as my other APP, although in this case I’ll be looking at the work of professional typographers and those that are in that industry.
Overall Conclusion:
The crit helped me realise the importance of creating a client or target market as it stops you from straying too far off the project guidelines. It also makes my project brief a lot more realistic because I have someone that I need to impress with my product and it’s not vague like “I’m going to create a poster for someone who likes posters.”
I have also noticed that I’m not very experienced in hand lettering so my main focus on that project was to understand the basics of typography and to practice endlessly so that I could take it to a more professional status. If I am unable to do hand lettering then I’ll find ways to incorporate typography and illustration as my project brief doesn’t specifically say that I have to do the type by hand.
