Applied Illustration: Presentation Boards

With the peer review happening today, I've created these boards to offer a bit of information on my work and what I have produced thus far with my renewed idea. I've tried to make them to be both professional and easy to engage with.

My work was received positively with the only note being that I need to work on my zine and produce a wider range of products to distribute.

Applied Illustration: Revised Posters

Having given some thought to my project yesterday, I today further developed my work. I decided that should the Scarlett Letter be an ITV venture rather than an American movie, it would appeal to the British middle age audience (mostly woman), however could also be shown on American Television networks also. With ITV helming it, it would probably star english actors, so my earlier posters are now void. To amend this I have selected english actors and plan to make posters for each of them.

The films now star:
Michelle Dockery as Hester Prynne
David Tennant as Reverend Dimmesdale
Phillip Glennister as Roger Chillingsworth

Once I created a character poster for Dockery as Hester I then made a mock up to envision how it would as a 'one sheet character poster' should the movie be released in cinemas also. However I ended up settling on a darker shade of red. This didn't connect visually as much with my earlier poster work so I altered the colour tone of it to be more in keeping. Some of my peers informed me afterwards that I should possible have stuck with the light pink poster design and it looked more inviting.

Applied Illustration: Scarlett Letter Conclusion Poster

Having been quite busy lately with other modules I feel as though Applied Illustration has been pushed to the wayside somewhat. I've tried to amend that here.

I spent today thinking about this module and after giving some thought I've set out a few ideas for my project. I'm going to produce a tie in zine that plays around the final chapter of The Scarlett Letter book. This final chapter in turn is currently being adapted into a two part television movie by ITV. Rumour has it that a cinema chain is interested in showing these two parts also as it is expected to be a hit. I have been approached to make sure news of the showings spreads and therefore must create a range of work to  help promote the movies. The reasoning for this is that they want to push forward the appeal to cinema goers over the age of 25 (as suggested by this article).

With this in mind I spent today creating a series of posters and items that can be used to promote the movies, specifically the second, concluding part. There is a bus shelter poster, a front cover design for Radio Times, a billboard poster and a mug. I basically made one image and manipulated it to create a range of products that can be used in different areas showing an economic, yet effect use of my time to create a range of products for distribution.

Propercorn/Yorkshire Tea Submissions

And with that, my work has been submitted!

Thankfully I began trying to upload my work quite early in the evening so I had time to resolve any issues that arose. The one problem that did present itself was that my email receipt of submission wasn't coming through. This took several attempts before they did. I can only presume this is down to the fact that it was the final day before the submission deadline, thus there was a high number of entries causing delays.

Either way, both my YCN projects are both thankfully completed.

Propercorn/Yorkshire Tea Final Peer Review

Today is deadline day and I feel that we came quite prepared. We initially presented our Studio Brief 2 work (in our case, Yorkshire Tea) and was surprised by how well people reacted to it. They really liked the idea of the Whippet Mascot and the boards we said to be informative and to the point (however some spelling mistakes were AGAIN noticed!). I'm glad we stuck with the Whippet Mascot and I personally don't see it as something that could offend someone.



After the main session, I presented my finalised Propercorn boards to some of my peers. They responded very well to it indeed with several saying that the 'celebrity' angle was a very smart way of boosting the brand. I'm very happy with the final outcome for this, despite it initially starting out as a joke!


Now to submit my work.

Applied Illustration: Posters

Having read the book and (unfortunately) watched the film of the Scarlett Letter I began to think about who I'd cast in a new adaption of the book.

I chose:
Emma Stone as Hester Prynne
Paul Dano as Reverend Dimmesdale
Christoph Waltz as Roger Chillingsworth

To accompany a film adaption I've designed several character posters with the idea of possibly screen printing them. These posters would serve as a way of advertising the film in cinemas, in bus shelters and on the internet. This images were traced and altered using photoshop, a technique I've given some thought to since the Matt Taylor Big Headz. I also imported some new brushes to play with whilst creating the imagery and coloured using the spot channel method learnt in the recent Digital Print Workshop. I'm quite happy with the outcome and look forward to using it more.

Yorkshire Tea: Final Packaging Designs

Today we finalised our packaging for the Yorkshire Tea brief. I asked Hollie to make sure her side of the work was ready for today so that I have ample time to create the boards in preparation of the final peer review on Thursday (aka deadline day).


I also redesigned to logo to incorporate the Whippet Mascot that Hollie had created for the brand. Overall, I'm quite happy with our outcome, however I am concerned that the lack of product information on the reverse of the box may be an issue. We'll find out on Thursday I suppose. Finally I used the work that we had developed by transplanting them onto mugs (an object synonymous with tea drinking). This was done to suggest a wider range that could be manufactured with the new designs with the intention that these limited edition mugs could be won by way of competition etc.

Applied Illustration: The Scarlett Letter (1995)

Following on from my tutorial last week, to help formulate ideas I today I watched The Scarlett Letter (1995), starring Demi Moore and Gary Oldman, and well, it was a complete bastardisation of the book.

It begins much earlier than the book and deals more on the romantic relation of the characters of Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale. Their relationship in the book is withheld from the reader for a great time to emphasis Hester's strength of character in not revealing his identity. The film undercuts drastically by showing their romance blossom. Furthermore, the films ends rather differently than the book with Hester, Dimmesdale and their daughter riding off into the sunset so to speak. This in effect completely changes the final chapter of the book where Hester, years after the death of Dimmesdale and her own atonement, begins years later to wear the Scarlett Letter again, not seeing it as a punishment, but rather an acknowledgement of her character.

I'm going to pretend I didn't watch the film.

Responsive: Idea Breakthrough

Last night whilst watching the hit comedy series Community on Netflix UK I drew one of the characters called Magnitude whose catchphrase is Pop! Pop! I chuckled at the thought of him being a celebrity endorsement for Propercorn "Putting the Pop! In Propercorn!" However, as the night went on I actually thought about this being a viable option. The star Luke Youngblood is also known for his character in Harry Potter so would appeal as a celebrity icon to those 'in the know'. He wouldn't be as expensive to use as say an A list celebrity either.

So I spent today creating box packaging, posters, and surrounding environments for the work to appear in. I've used a style that I've become quite fond of since the Matt Taylor Big Headz interview. The process is basically digital tracing, but with the ability to colour the image digitally immediately afterwards.


I'm very happy with the work I have produced thus far, and am amused that it span out of a silly idea into one that could be very plausible and effective for the Propercorn brand.

Propercorn: Boxes

So, last week I noticed on Propercorn's Instagram feed that they have redesigned their Propercorn bag designs which is somewhat of an issue as my work thus far consisted largely of a redesign of their bags. Admittedly I don't have much work in that regard at the moment, but it is still frustrating to see Propercorn change their branding in the middle of a competition, which seems poorly thought out and  somewhat disrespectful to those that have been working on the brief. Regardless, I spent today redesigning the boxing for these new bags.





I'll be honest I'm not really feeling the work I've produced thus far and feel like producing something completely silly in response to their last minute branding change. However I know this would be incredibly unprofessional.

Applied Illustration: Tutorial

After my tutorial, I've come to realise that perhaps what I'm aiming to do, whilst exciting, was perhaps a bit misguided for the purpose of this module. Whilst I intended to create my own zine with characters of my own creation etc I failed to consider the module as a whole. I need to think of my work for this as more than just a zine. How can I carry it further? I must consider the product, the range and the distribution.

With this in mind I've decided to leave behind my initial plans and instead create a narrative zine around the concluding chapter of The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It's a relatively short and easy chapter that I feel shouldn't be too difficult to create, this will allow me time to think more about range and distribution also.

The Scarlett Letter with it's theme of empowered women was one of the inspirations for my work thus far, so it seems fitting to come back to it.

Yorkshire Tea: Packaging Research and Designs

With the deadline fast approaching both Hollie and I spent the morning discussing where had both gotten to with our respective work since the peer review, which is to say - not very. With other modules taking up our time we are both aware that unfortunately Responsive had been put on the back burner somewhat. That changes here. We set out a plan of action for the next few weeks that would allow us to finalise the development of our collaborative piece, whilst allowing us to get our other respective YCN brief ready for the deadline too.

We have two Thursdays that can be devoted entirely to Responsive, but we're also going to use our time on Wednesdays and weekend also. However we also have a relatively free day today too, so we spent it on our Yorkshire Tea work.

I began by furthering my research into the Yorkshire Tea boxes. 

Follow Tommy 'Zoom''s board Yorkshire Tea on Pinterest.

After this I sketched out some mock up designs for a 'taster' tea box that will eventually display our new design and mascot. I didn't want something overly complicated as that isn't what the brand is about, instead I kept it simple, which I feel would sit better with their pre-existing audience.

Visual Journal: Chainmail for the Modern Age

Today I thought about chainmail and clothing. I'm most likely going to place my characters within a medieval setting so chain mail will most likely play a visual role, however I've never drawn it before. I used the character of Eowyn from Lord of the Rings as a reference point.

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

After I'd got a feel for the aesthetic of chain mail I decided that I wanted it to look more modern than that seen in Lord of the Rings so spent some time developing the coverings etc. This has now left me in a bit of a puzzling situation, do I want my story to take place in a medieval sort of setting or a contemporary one? Could both work?