Offlife #11: Final Outcome and Entry

Today I submitted my entry for Offline #11. I've put it off for sometime as, honestly, this is the first nation wide competition I've entered and was a little nervous. However I decided to stop being today and entered what I'd made. I honestly don't expect to win a place in Offlife #11 judging by the quality of what has come before, but this is the first Responsive piece that I've thoroughly enjoyed making from start to finish.

OUIL504: Self Evaluation

Throughout this brief I have learnt many things, most notably the basics in both Dragon Frame and Adobe After effects. Both of which have been played with to the point where I feel quite confident in my abilities to run them properly. I personally feel there is much more time to be spent with After Effects to grasp its full potential. Moving past the digital aspect, I feel that I have also learnt, or rather developed, much further my understanding of screen printing. I was initially hesitant to go back to to this process, and I feel this hampered me later on when several issues arose with my screens (as mentioned in Printed Pictures: Screen Issues). However I feel my outcome for Printed Pictures is much stronger than that of Visual Narrative (OUIL405) from last year where I created a concertina/zine of a similar fashion. I believe that with the addition of screen printing, my work has progressed to a more professional level aesthetically. I look forward to further developing my skills with screen printing.

Concerning my attitude towards screen printing, and my work ethic in general, I need to be more assertive. There were many points throughout this module where I found myself coasting because I felt as though I didn’t have a specific thing to aim for, or I couldn’t settle on an idea. I wasted so much of the early OUIL504 module wondering what to do that I didn’t actually do anything. It was only when I forced myself to sit down and play around that ideas finally started to develop.

I found this to be most prominent during the early stages of the Visual Journal and Printed Pictures briefs. I found that collage, a process of illustration that I first began to develop last year in Visual Language (OUIL404), really was a great source of fun and inspiration for me. It was my ability to look back and take stock of how effective my collage work was that really pushed my Moving Pictures Brief forward. Although I didn’t produce much hand made collage work for the brief I did create a digital collage of images directly inspired by my Visual Journal work. 

Concerning my final outcome for the Moving Picture brief, there are several things I would change if I were to do it again. Most importantly, I would have a look at the pacing of the piece, which I feel is somewhat off, it could do with being tighter near the end and the title portion feels rather segregated from the rest of the animation.

The final outcome for my Printed Pictures Brief I have contradictory feelings for. Whilst the piece works as an ordered piece, designed in Adobe Illustrator. It is this same order that leaves me feeling cold when I look at it. The print doesn’t feel like there is any heart to it and I am finding myself more impressed with my previous screen prints seen here: (Printed Pictures: Screen Print Investigation). I feel that the disorder, whilst not representing Huxley’s ordered dystopia so much, visually looks like a more engaging piece of illustration.

Going forward I feel that I definitely want to bring more collage process into my work. This continues to be a strong area for me and I feel that with a bit more time, I could be onto something very effective. In the future I also need to bring more visual research into my work. I feel that, although there is research of different practitioners throughout my work, it is mostly within Printed Pictures. This benefited my work greatly and helped inspire me during some difficult spells of that brief. I feel that my animation could have been improved upon greatly with the inclusion of more research within the brief. I need to make sure I am researching as effectively throughout to help inform my practise as a whole. Finally, and I feel that this is most important - I need to begin to understand my own limitations. What I picture in my head is always going to be different to what I actually produce. If I set my standards too high then I’ll end up being disheartened with my work no matter how well it turns out.

Project Proposals Studio Brief 2 and 3

BA (Hons) Illustration - Level 05

OUIL504 Illustration 1: Process & Production

STUDIO BRIEF 3 PROJECT PROPOSAL: Printed Pictures

I intend to produce …… 1-3 Zines that highlight Huxley’s visions of the future. These will be concertina style zines that consist of 6 pages each. The first and last pages will also act and the front and back covers respectively.

The content will focus on (identify 3 specific themes, texts or concepts)

1. Urbanisation 2. Copulation 3. Drugs

I will be aiming to communicate (identify 3 specific messages, ideas, moods etc.) 1. State control 2. Capitalism 3. An ordered way of life

To an audience of ….. (name 3 characteristics) 1. Fans of Huxley’s works 2. Book readers 3. Creatives (specifically fans of screen printing).

BA (Hons) Illustration - Level 05

OUIL504 Illustration 1: Process & Production

STUDIO BRIEF 2 PROJECT PROPOSAL: Moving Pictures

I intend to produce …… A 30-40 second animation that will show Hollywood in all its glory before showing the down trodden impoverished people that also lived at that time. It will act as a trailer for a documentary program about the life of Aldous Huxley and the time he spent in Hollywood.

The content will focus on (identify 3 specific themes, texts or concepts)

1. Inequality 2. Old fashioned movie footage 3. Urbanisation

I will be aiming to communicate (identify 3 specific messages, ideas, moods etc.) 1. That there is and still is great inequality within the world. 2. Everywhere has a less desirable side. 3. An old fashioned tone, like you’re stepping back in time.

To an audience of ….. (name 3 characteristics) 1. Fans of documentaries. 2. Fans of Aldous Huxley 3. Old movie footage fans.

Printed Pictures: Final Outcome

Here is the final outcome for my Printed Pictures Brief:

Moving Pictures: Final Outcome

Here is the final outcome for my Moving Pictures Brief:

A Visual Journal: Selected Extracts

Here are some Visual Journal pieces that I feel helped me fully realise my Moving/Printed Picture briefs.

Printed Pictures: London - After Ford Prints

Today I finished my prints and turned them into concertina zines. Looking at them I can appreciate the work that went into them, however - from an outside point of view I feel that the illustrations appear somewhat cold. This perhaps works well in the context of Huxley's Brave New World, but the uninformed onlooker most likely wouldn't understand this.





To combat the cold design I also made prints on different coloured paper stock, the most effective being a mango colour that evoked warmth. However after showing several of my peers, the white was deemed the preferable of the two stock choices. The white stock is also of a higher GSM so will hold up better in the long term, I realised this when I came to fold the pages and it gave great resistance.

I feel that my screen printing ability has greatly improved over the course of this module and am looking forward to continue working with this process in the future.

Printed Pictures: Revised Screens

With the issues involving my positives now resolved I went to prepare my screens this morning, however I was not prepared for what I found - one of my screens had been ruined in the drying cabinet. This was presumably done by someone putting an excess amount of emulsion on there screen and placing it above mine in the cabinet.

This set me back some time as I had to prepare a new screen, eventually I was ready to print. I managed to get the first two colours of my prints done before the end of the day and was quite happy with the outcomes thus far. I discovered that certain colours worked really well with the coloured stock I had chosen whilst others didn't.

On Monday I will print my final layers.

Propercorn: Presentation Board Peer Review 2

Today we reviewed each others presentation boards which displayed the work that people will be submitting to YCN. I felt this was a chance to improve on the poorly laid out presentation boards that I had created previously. My work received generally positive feedback but my main area of concern is spelling and grammar - it was pointed out there were several mistakes within the text. This is something I must be aware of when it comes to submitting as this will definitely hinder my chances of winning. Despite copying the text from a word processing document, somehow errors still occurred, I believe that getting someone to proofread my text beforehand will be integral.

Additionally there are a few things that I could add to make my boards more visually pleasing. I could add the brand logo to each page, conceive a more presentable way of displaying the Propercorn posters I've created and finally add small notes to important objects such as the mock up bus stop poster etc. These are all things that will help my work look more presentable and ultimately, more professional.



Concerning my work, I personally don't feel it has changed much since that last peer review, however I noticed that this appeared to be the case with most other people's work within the session. This is possibly due to how busy we've been with our other modules. I need to pull my socks up and get my work ready for the submission deadline. Finally, Kane suggested that whilst my work is funny and works, perhaps I shouldn't uses collage as a process and instead illustrate the stock images I've used on the bags with a pen and pencil etc.

Printed Pictures: Screen Issues

Today I exposed my screens. However, I encountered a huge issue - the line work on my screens was too small. The reason for this was because I chose to downsize my positives to A3 size to economise my screen use. This glaring error has set me back greatly.

To resolve this issue quickly I decided to remake my positives by selecting six parts of my previous design, making them lone images that loosely interconnect. These images if cut apart could also act as postcards or as framed singular illustrations.

Moving Pictures: Huxley's Hollywood Sound

With sound now added to my animation I feel it is now as complete as it can be considering the time I have remaining. I felt that the issue of the music being too upbeat wasn't too much of an problem once I had merged it with the animation as it created a contradiction of sorts to an effective degree.



Initial responses have been positive, however one person has described it as "less like a advertisement, more like a tv show opening". I'm not sure how to respond to the criticism at this point in time.

Moving Pictures: Music

I came across this music today whilst searching for 1930's music which I feel would work perfectly with my animation. However I feel that the upbeat music might not sit well with lower portion of my animation that should have a somewhat darker tone as it enters the impoverished section of the narrative. This is something I'll have to review whilst adding the music.

Moving Pictures: 356 Day Animation

I saw this today. It's an animation in which one second was drawn every day over the course of a year. I don't think stylistically this piece is very relevant to my plans but the use of sounds within the animation is inspiring and has given me something to think about.



Overall - a very interesting piece of work.

Moving Pictures: Initial Development

Using the same process I began with my rough animation I further developed my animation. I chose to desaturate the animation as it panned downwards in an attempt to give it a old fashioned movie feel. However I felt this wasn't enough so using self made textures I created a transparent gif image that would act as a grainy substance which appears when the screen turns grey.

The animation still has a lot of work to be done on it however, such as making the aspects of inequality more obvious. To do this I found stock images of impoverished 1930's people to stand at the base of the scrolling animation. Hopefully between the sprawling skyscrapers and the poor people this will create the sense of inequality apparent.




I feel that at this point the main issue remaining with my animation is the lack of sound. This is something I'm going to have to research further.

Printed Pictures: London - After Ford

Using Adobe Illustrator I have created an interpretation of Huxley's London, the year 2540 or A.F 632.

With order now existing within the line work I felt I was able to make the detail more experimental. Using digital collage I added self made textures to all of the buildings, some being manipulated further with halftones. Finally I introduced a stronger halftone element to the clouds and factory smoke reminiscent of Muradov's work. I just need to separate the layers to produce positives for screen printing.