Offlife #11 Narrative

Over the past few days I've been working on a narrative for Offlife Magazine. It is a relatively open brief, but must consist of a narrative from 1-4 pages. It can be about absolutely anything, which was what initially appealed to me. I developed a short tale about a girl jumping on a ledge into a lake to find complete silence. It was conceived as a piece that would rely on imagery more than text.

After sketching and inking my four page narrative I scanned the work in a coloured it digitally; I also tried including texture, playing with levels drastically and removing colour altogether. Ultimately I chose to stick with just the colour as this worked the best in my opinion. I also chose to remove the second page of the story as I felt it slowed the flow down and was easily the weakest of the four pages. It was also important to remember that just because I could use four pages didn't mean I had to.

Printed Pictures: Kristyna Baczynski

When I think about ordered illustration I think about Kristyna Baczinski's work. She has an extraordinary ability to create fantastic illustrations using straight lines. This possible comes from her background as a graphic designer.

I'm quite aware of my own abilities at this point and know I could never produce such lifework freehand, so I'm going to use Adobe Illustrator to help me illustrate a more ordered world.

Propercorn: Presentation Board Peer Review 1

Today we reviewed each others presentation boards. I was quite taken aback by how varied the boards were, with some being outstanding and others being... not so. I felt that my boards floated somewhere in the middle. I believe that I showed good research, and initial ideas within my boards, but my work needs to be developed further before the boards can be effective. I was also told that I need to narrow my focus of work. I'm trying to design a whole campaign when all I really need to do is redesign the packaging of Propercorn and consider the PoS side of things rather than invest too much time in them as I had suggested within the boards.



Delving deeper into the boards themselves I noticed during my presentation that there were certain issues concerning the layout and more importantly text; specifically - spelling mistakes, odd placing and varying font sizes. This is something to make note of in the future; I think that I should perhaps write out the text in a word processing document before transferring to Photoshop to prevent issues such as spelling and grammar mistakes from occurring.

Moving Pictures: Rough Animation

Here is a rough of the animation I have produced so far. There are many elements I haven't included yet, but the purpose of the piece was to gain a better understanding of the time frame within the advertisement.



I think perhaps the shot of the brick wall should linger more as I plan to have several impoverished characters there and I want allow the audience time to focus on them. The time allowed there will be supplemented from the amount of time Huxley's image is on screen as I feel this is somewhat longer than necessary.

Printed Pictures: Screen Print Investigation

In my attempt to create a screen print that takes advantage of colour I have produced this. I began by looking back at my SB1: Visual Journal work where I used collage of urban areas to an effective degree. Using textures that I have created using Quink and graphite, I worked in Photoshop to produce these positives.

Using these positives I headed to the screen print workshop where I spent time learning how to print effectively and experimented with different coloured paper stock.


As you can see my first attempt is quite offset compared to a later print where my skill had improved somewhat. The black and yellow paper stock also produced interesting outcomes in that the colours seem to suggest a different time of day. This may prove useful going forward.

My biggest complaint with the pieces is that they look so untidy. When I think about Brave New World, I think about how ordered and controlled that world is. I need to find a way for this to be represented within my work.

Printed Pictures: Ben Newman

I saw Ben Newman's screen print for NoBrow's Autumn/Winter 2014 book recently. I'm impressed with this print as he has only used two colours, yet manages to make effective use of them thus creating the illusion of more being used. Its inspired me to spend a day in Screen Print to investigate how I can produce a more effective image.

I realise that the Man in Suit piece that I made is definitely inadequate when it comes to colour overlay so I definitely need to produce something else to highlight this technique.

Illustration 1: Module Evaluation - Thus Far...

1. What skills have I developed through this brief thus far?

I have learnt the basics in Dragon Frame and After Effects to the point where I feel okay with my knowledge; however, due to my lack of work with Moving Pictures at this point I can’t state that I am fully confident with either.

2.  What approaches to methods of image making have you developed and how have they informed your development process?

Collage has played a large role in my Visual Journal, despite this, and my planning to bring this across to Printed/Moving pictures, this has yet to happen, thus hindered the quality/connectivity of my work. I need to revise this.

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

My experimentation/investigation of media early on was particularly strong and although it has waned somewhat it continues to be an effective factor of my work thus far. This experimentation needs to inform my final pieces more though, as has been stated in my peer review, there appears to be a gap between my sketchbook work and my prints.

 Collage continues to be a strong of visual apsect as stated above. I need to refer back to this to push my work forward.

4.  What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?

The past few weeks have been tough due to personal issues, which has been reflected in the quality of my work and attitude towards the module. As I am learning to deal with these issues I must remind myself not to let them interfere with my practice.

I need to stop dwelling on my work. If an image doesn’t work, move on. Every piece of work that I make doesn’t have to be universally revered. I’m still early into my career and can’t expect myself to be producing truly amazing work at this point.

5. Identify 5 things that you will do differently from this point and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

-       - I need to bring collage back into my work, this has continually been noted as a strong area of my work thus far and will help improve the quality of it.

-       - I need to bring more research into my work, I still have plenty of time to research things to help me round off this module and help me produce a better quality of work.

-       - I can’t let my personal issues interfere with my work. Everyone has problems and I need to get on with it. I can’t let my work be victim to external issues.

-       - I need to stop dwelling on my work. I need to stop being afraid of doing work just in case it looks wrong. If something doesn’t look right try to identify what is wrong with it and move on.

-       - I need to understand my limitations. I have an grand idea of what I want my work to look like, but I feel I’m setting the bar too high and overstretching myself rather than focusing on making higher quality work.

Printed Pictures: Soma Narrative Prints

My first attempt at screen printing the Soma concertina failed miserably. There are several reasons for this:

- I don't feel I made the most of the screen printing process. I haven't experimented with mixing the colours up enough in the positives.

- I didn't give much thought to the actual process of printing. I hadn't thought about the actual size of my print/screen which can be evidenced by the failure in printing well.

- Finally, my lack experience with the process. I need to work more with the screen printing process and develop my skills in this area, I could make fantastic positive work, but if I don't know how to print properly then the visual outcome will suffer for it.

To solve these problems I'm going to make another set of positives that will take advantage of the screen printing process. This in turn will allow me to experiment more and learn more about the process.

Moving Pictures: Animation Roll

After playing around in my sketchbook using stock images from the internet, I went about making a mock back ground image (or Animation Roll as I'll be calling it) using collage. After this I produced a digital version as seen below.

I plan on using After Effects to drag the image up, creating an effect similar to The Simpsons clip I have referenced. Once the image reaches the bottom the screen will turn to black and Huxley's face will appear with the title of the sting. I plan for the visual quality of the image to be smooth early on and gradually deteriorate as the animation gets lower.

Printed Pictures: Man in Suit

Here is the process I went through to create the Man is Suit imagery that'll stand opposite my Mind work. I've incorporated elements from Cornella, Cohen and Muradov to create a narrative displaying the effects of Soma.

Printed Pictures: Drew Millward Lecture

The illustrator Drew Millward gave a lecture today and discussed his history of what is largely screen printed poster design. It was good to have him come in at a time when I am quite unsure about my skill of screen printing. He told us that screen printing can be an arduous process but the key is to just keep going with it. It seems like an easy thing to do but can take years to become good at. 

This has given me a renewed hope in screen printing and I feel ready to go down to print (which I have been putting off) and actually get some work produced!

Propercorn: Research and Initial Ideas

Recently I've set about researching the Propercorn brand to get a greater understanding of what to produce for this brief, to do this I used the excellent image collection site Pintrest.

Follow Tommy 'Zoom''s board Propercorn on Pinterest.

I noticed several things during this investigation:
Colour is a big thing with Propercorn.
Most images were interestingly thought out, or set in a professional workspace.
There is feeling of isolation that accompanies these Propercorn images.

The last aspect felt very important to me. If the brand wants to expand itself, it'll need to suggest there is a more social aspect to eating Propercorn. My initial concept designs played around with different ideas such as reworking the ingredients ideology on the bags that currently exists. But after taking into account what I had discovered from my research, I decided to push forward with the idea of  socialisation as the point of focus in my designs. I mocked up a design and applied it to the different coloured bags to get an idea of the effect. My final designs will ultimately have a different image on each flavour.

Printed Pictures: Simple Features

Having created my 'Mind' pieces of work, I feel that perhaps I need a counterbalance to these, to create a stronger narrative within my zine/concertina. So I've decided that each opposite page will contain a separate narrative of a man ingestive the relaxant drug 'Soma'.

I've been struggling with the aesthetic quality of this imagery, however. Part of me wants to conform to a rough detailed form similar to what I have produced thus far, yet I feel that a simplified style would suit this piece more.

So I decided to take a step back and look at what some might deem "basic illustrative styles" from Ella Cohen and Joan Cornella.








Both artists show great strength in making imagery with reserved line work. This is something I hope to bring into my work to help me close out the designs for this piece.

Printed Pictures: Mind

Continuing my quest to make intangible illustration I began to think about how the mind could be visualised during stressful moments. I initially thought of how Valerie Pirson portrayed the mind in her Pistache animation as seen here. I wanted to create something similar to this so set about illustrating a brain with intangible bursts that would hopefully convey stress.

More needs to be done to the image but I finally feel that I've found an intangible motif that I want to progress further with. Also, when animated in a .gif sequence the separate images look pretty neat.

I feel that perhaps having just a mind doesn't create enough of a narrative and am toying with the idea of having a separate sequence of images on the opposing pages to help resolve this issue.

Printed Pictures: Attempting the Intangible

I feel that I am close to making a breakthrough as I try to make my work more intangible and less rigid. I just need to keep steering my work away from what I feel to be 'safe'.

I began by using Quink, a tool I've only briefly used before. Along side that I also used a dip pen, a tool I've never used before. Although the results below aren't as abstract as I intended (and are bordering more on Steadman than Gormley), I'm happy that I've finally begun to pull away from my comfort zone. Quink creates some beautiful textures that when flicked with a brush pen can help visually reflect the shattering effect of long term drug exposure.

Printed Pictures: Anthony Gormley Ink Drawings

To give myself a better idea of how to convey intangibility I've been looking at Anthony Gormley's ink drawings. His work can seem quite surreal but for the theme of drug use I feel it could work quite well. How can I incorporate this into my own work?



I'm feeling quite stressed out at the moment, I feel that perhaps three outcomes is overstretching myself. I believe I've made an error by attempting three when I should instead be focusing my energy on creating one high quality piece of work.

Printed Pictures: Progress Surgery

Today I had a progress surgery where I discussed some of the personal issues that are affecting my work, and also problems that I am encountering with the current module. We spoke about the main themes that I'm tackling and how best to resolve them.

One possibility is that I'm thinking too literally about my work and perhaps could consider the intangible more. By creating work that allows the audience to think about it and piece it together themselves isn't a bad thing. The audience don't always need to be spoon fed.

However planning on doing something and actually doing it are two separate things. I planned on generating a few intangible ideas but found myself again relying on obvious imagery to visually feed the audience as seen below with my drugs and copulation themes:





I need to be more relaxed and less uptight in my process. I can always come back to a more, less say, rigid process later, but for now I want to work more freely.

Propercorn: Proposal

Problems I aim to resolve are:
Expand the brand's audience
Create a campaign involving redesigned packaging and PoS items
Invoke a sense of social acceptance through the brand

In order to solve these problems I will:
Create a new Propercorn bag for their popcorn
Create a new packaging design for their boxes
Create an array of PoS designs

I will be aiming to communicate:
That the social acceptance comes with eating Propercorn
That Propercorn is the perfect snack for the professional on the go
That Propercorn is modern, cutting edge food brand

My audience will be:
Students
Young professionals
Young parents (below 35)

Printed Pictures: Character Design Development

Moving on from the character designs I made recently, I've developed a female character further, playing around with the texture using halftone and varying colours within Photoshop.

I've done this for two reasons; firstly, I wanted to incorporate halftone into my work following on from seeing Roman's work. Secondly, I wanted to get an idea of how my screen prints will look. Now this could be seen as a bit forward thinking thinking considering that I haven't much solid developmental work yet, but with the end result being Screen Printing, it's important I keep this in mind and try to understand any potential issues or limitations that might arise beforehand.

Printed Pictures: Theme Development

I have decided on three themes that I plan to focus on; Copulation, Drugs and Society. Specifically I've concentrated on the themes of copulation and drugs today.

For the theme of copulation I began by designing several characters. My idea was for the pages to show each character singularly before embracing (which would then lead to coitus). I found I had to work a bit more on the male character's design before I was happy with it.

After this I explored ways of presenting Soma (a relaxant drug within the book), firstly by drawing out small scamp like ideas. I felt this wasn't very economical with my time, Adam later agreed with this belief and pointed out that I could have made this in Photoshop in much less time. These ideas were then developed into a larger scale before being experimented with digitally.

I need to produce ideas at a quicker rate and spend more time developing them in the short amount of time that I have.

Moving Pictures: Stock Images for Animation

Here is a selection of stock images I found on the internet I plan to use these to make my animation, however I may change some dependant on issues such as size and spacing etc.

Hopefully these images, when brought together, will help convey the inequality within places such as Hollywood that Huxley was aware of.

Moving Pictures: The Simpsons

With my 48-60 frame piece complete and my understanding of processes growing, I've began to give more thought to my final animation. 

I plan for my advertisement to run similar to this scene from the popular television series 'The Simpsons', however it will be of a more serious nature than this example. I like the idea of one continuous shot moving down from the heights of Hollywood to the slums below, thus highlighting the inequality prevalent at the time (and still is). If I make one huge collage image in Photoshop rather than Dragon Frame and use After Effects to move it, this will be both time efficient and effective.

Moving Picture: Ford Car (After Effects)

Hazaah! After getting rather fed up with After Effects, I solved the problem file transfer when I remembered some notes I'd made in the After Effects workshop.

I immediately began by playing around by adding a background. I noticed that the aged effect brought about by the cheap paper had been retained! This made me happy.



I then realised I needed to shorten the length of the footage as the video continues despite nothing happening.



After this I felt like I was getting the hang of After Effects again so returned to Photoshop to make some alterations to the background. I added a sepia tone to further enforce the aged appearance.



I felt that maybe having the transparent outline alone wasn't right so added shading via a fresh layer that would move in conjunction to the outlines. However, this looked terrible and remembering what Fred said in my tutorial decided that the transparent outline wasn't such a bad thing. It made the piece seem more intangible. So the shading was removed.

Printed Pictures: Silk Screen Prints

I've been looking at screen prints recently to get a better idea of what can be achieved with this process. I'm excited to get on and print something, however I'm quite aware my skills in screen printing are going to be a broad step back from the images seen below. It's interesting to see the wide range of outcomes concerning screen printing and I feel quite lost in what I'm seeing. I have no strong ideas of where I want to go with my work at the moment which is worrisome. I need to spend some time thinking about my themes.

Printed Pictures: Roman Muradov

I saw this piece by Roman Muradov today. I thought it was an interesting use of halftone which may come in useful when it comes to my screen printing. Specifically I like how he has included halftone over coloured washes as it adds aesthetic quality similar to screen printing. This technique is something worth exploring as I develop my work for this brief.

Printed Pictures: Poster Research

Keeping in mind that my idea for SB2 Moving Pictures is to create an animation with an air of classical film to it, my natural response it to create a concertina book with a similar tone. To do this I have looked at posters and pamphlets from the same time frame for ideas.

Whilst these posters have given me some ideas, I'm not sure yet what to take forward from these pieces.

Printed Pictures: Concertina

After giving it some thought I've decided to produced four concertina books (consisting of four pages with an additional front and back) rather than one larger concertina. This will allow me to focus on a specific theme within each book rather than losing focus by havin them all together.

Moving Pictures: Ford Car

Yesterday after my tutorial I took a step back and thought about what I want to produce, how I can make it happen and what I will need to do in order to complete this brief. 

Firstly I felt like I needed some inspiration, and found it from the animated television series 'The Legend of Korra'. Each episode begins with a 'previously' segment which is animated to create the allusion of 1940's film footage. I like this effect and would like to incorporate it into my work.

After this I decided to make a 48-60 frame animation focusing on one of the early Ford cars:

I'm having trouble transferring these frames from Photoshop to After Effects. I need to discuss this issue with Eleanor or Mike soon as it is holding my work progress up.

Another point to make - I purposefully used cheap rough paper so the quality looks rough and somewhat similar to old film footage. I'm hoping this will transfer well when I introduce a background to the footage at some point.

Progress Tutorial: Illustration 1

During my first tutorial for OUIL504 I came to the realisation that I need to be more concise with my blogging of this module. I'm not hitting upon the points that I should be.

Concerning Studio Brief 2:
I should look back at the work I have produced so far with Studio Brief 1 as inspiration. My collage work there is possibly my strongest. How can I bring that forward into this brief? Furthermore, how can I convey the themes of technology, industrialisation and capitalism both tangibly and intangibly to an effect that works well?

Concerning Studio Brief 3:
Again I need to look back at Studio Brief 1 for inspiration. My screen prints don't have to be just drawn imagery. I need to start laying down definite proposal ideas to push my work forward. For example: I've decided to produce a concertina, but is this going to be a concertina of mixed themes or will there be a concertina for each?

Thought Bubble: My Failed Youth Zine

Here is the zine I made for Thought Bubble Festival in a few weeks. I'm happy that I completed my first zine, but I have to say - it looks and feels rushed. Perhaps this is something I can come back to in the future...

Thought Bubble: Power Rangers Digital Prints

With several designs ready for print the final thing to consider before doing so was to decide which stock they should be printed on. Initially I tried the quality and cheap paper from the draws in the Studio which yielded some surprising results. The quality paper shockingly failed to print well and came out somewhat offset whilst the cheap paper actually worked better albeit somewhat desaturated. I then used stock brought from the library and gloss stock from digital print to judge the difference between the two.

Quality Stock

 

 Library Stock

Gloss Stock

Ultimately I felt that the gloss stock looked the best whilst cheap paper added a old and worn aesthetic quality to the prints but the library stock looked the best for the cost of production.

The cheap paper cost 25p to produce, the library stock 55p and the gloss 75p. If I am to consider cost of production vs. quality the library stock would probably win out. It is not the most expensive yet is of a more than acceptable quality.

Responsive: Understanding the Brief

To give us a better understanding of a brief we delved into the wording and reasoning of our respective briefs. We were tasked with identifying multiple characteristics of our products to help give us direction and a foundation to work from.

What are the 5 most important words in the brief?
Properly
Snack
Delicious
Vibrant
Tasty

What are the 5 most important considerations?
Faithful to the brand
Packaging
20-35
Places and spaces
Build awareness

5 related products
Crisps
Other popcorn brands
Chocolate
Fizzy Drinks
Nachos

5 related places
Office
Home
Cinema
Public Transport
Shops

After this we gave our briefs to someone else to breakdown (in my case Sophie Wright). it was interesting to see how differently she saw the brief. With this understanding its easy to understand how wide a range of responses the people at Propercorn will receive. Here are her responses:

What are the 5 most important words in the brief?
Fresh
Health conscious
Dynamic
Urban
Passionate

What are the 5 most important considerations?
Refer to Instagram
Faithful to the brand
Build awareness of the brand
Appeal to core customer
Emphasis on the "Done Properly" mantra

5 related products
Food & snacks
Health conscious products
Independent food
Fast food
Cafe snacks

5 related places
Cafes
Supermarkets
Cinemas
Offices
Premium food shops

Some of what Sophie took away sounded very interesting to me and I hope I can take some of her viewpoint forward as well as my own to create a well rounded response to this brief.

Printed Pictures: Proposal

Having spent some time creating screen prints for Thought Bubble I feel that I want to continue learning this process to better my understanding. Taking this into consideration, during today's session I made a proposal for printed pictures:

I intend to produce a series of concertina books or zines focusing on the main themes of Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’. I plan for these pages to be used as different cover designs for the book, but hopefully they could form a loose narrative when collected together.

The content will focus on the main themes from within the book (eg: drug use, capitalism, human conditioning or urbanisation). The purpose of these books/zines will be to help create a sense of the themes from within the book whilst avoiding what has been done before.

My audiences will be; literature/Huxley enthusiasts, fans of hand made items (screen printing, book making), and fans of illustration.

Moving Pictures: Proposal

In this session I created my proposed outcome for this brief:

I intend to produce a 30-60 second clip that visually displays the life and works of Aldous Huxley the author I began researching in my Summer Brief, focusing on his time spent in Hollywood, USA. However this will be a short advertisement for a documentary on his life as a whole.

The content will focus on three main themes, those being: the capitalism/rise of industry Huxley witnessed, his work relevant to the context of the moving picture, and finally his discomfort with the surroundings he lived in.

I will be aiming to communicate what his life was like within a short time frame, what perhaps inspired him to write books such as Brave New World, and finally his concern for the world from which he wrote his essays upon.

The audiences I plan to aimed this advertisement towards are; people that enjoy documentaries, fans of reading but more specifically those who enjoy Huxley’s work.

Responsive: Propercorn Brief Breakdown

I have settled on applying my skills to the Propercorn brief from YCN. The reason for this being that apart from my love of popcorn the brief is quite inviting. Firstly, it appeals to people around my age, which is good as this should help me connect with the audience on a maturity level. The company itself appears to be quite fun and I think much enjoyment will be possible whilst designing a new campaign for them. Finally the brief itself is quite open which will allow me to think a bit differently in my concept work and development of ideas.

What is the brief problem?
How can they creatively bring to life the ethos of ‘done properly’ to the customer?

What is being asked to be done about the problem?
They want to engage with their customers (and new customers) more. They want to be the talk of the town with ‘opinion formers’ and the ‘culturally savvy’.

What is the brief trying to achieve?
They want to challenge the status quo. They want to seem hip and edgy with these young people who love popcorn.

What is the message?
Their popcorn is hip and trendy. It can be eaten as a snack. If you’re a busy, healthy, culturally savvy person - this snack is for you!

Who are the audience?
Opinion formers, young professionals, 20-35y/o’s. Time poor, urban health conscious, culturally savvy and appreciate the arts. Naturally appeals to women but isn’t driven by it.

How will the message be delivered?
The brief is quite open and they encourage different presentation methods such as an illustrated animation, extended narrative of pack design or by revolutionising corner shops.

Who will benefit?
The company. Young people who don’t want to feel guilty for eating popcorn. Snackers. People with busy lives. Health conscious people. Women.

Can you foresee any problems?
Although the brief is quite open, which is a good thing, the lack of restrictions could be problematic. Where do I go with it? Should I attempt to drastically change what has been before? 

Thought Bubble: Power Rangers Screen Print

Today I had my re-induction into screen printing. I was going to work on my Printed Pictures brief for OUIL 504 but due to my own failure to manage my workload correctly in that area I didn't have a suitable piece ready. However I had been working on a Green Power Ranger piece in my spare time last week for Thought Bubble 2014 so decided to use that.

Initially the screen printing went well in terms of set up, exposure and paint colour, then I came to do the second screen colour and realised that I hadn't placed markers on my colour layers. This resulted in me having to guess slightly where certain layers would land. Still, of the 10 screens produced, one came out well. This is something I need to be aware of in the future.

Using the screen that worked I edited it on Photoshop to have a worn effect similar to what memorabilia from the 90's would presumably look like today. This is quite in keeping with the spirit of 'collective culture' often seen at such conventions so I am quite pleased with the outcome. I plan to mass print these digitally for the Thought Bubble event.

Moving Pictures: Initial Concept

Here is an abandoned frame for my initial 48-60 frame animation. I have decided not to go further with this as it is too literal. The problem I face is that the themes of consumerism and manufacture are too obvious, I need to step back and consider making these themes a bit more intangible, perhaps.

After Effects Workshop: Introduction

Having been ill again last week I missed the introduction session of After Effects. Needless to say I was a bit overwhelmed today, I didn't have much of an understanding of the software despite watching some tutorials at home. However, I feel I more than made up for my absence and consider myself to be caught up in most of the After Effects topics discussed thus far. These include; opening a new composition, importing images, rotating objects, adding motion and saving all my work into a single folder.

I found myself enjoying After Effects a lot by the end of session and left having created this wondrous visual of a fat man falling out of a blimp:

In the evening at home I watched a youtube clip about how to render the clip and export it correctly. I chose to export it as JPEG files from which I made a .gif.