Applied Illustration: Project Report

Here is my project report for OUIL505:

Applied Illustration: Studio Brief 2 - Final Outcomes

Here are the final outcomes for studio brief 2:

Applied Illustration: Printing Session 2

Today I finally got my work printed off. Finally.

I spent a good few hours in the print room today (luckily I dealt with James this time). He is much more efficient, although he did mishear me a few times (see A2 Matte leaflet and 150gsm glossy bookmarks for examples). Regardless - I now have all of my studio brief 2 work ready for hand in on Thursday.

On a side note, after much deliberation and recommendation from my peer review, I decided to print my pink Scarlett Letter Poster as the final version for hand in.

I feel that my forward planning in securing an additional print slot several months back really paid off. I had no idea it would play such an important role in this module, but I am glad it was there. Going into Level 6 I'm going to make several bookings around the deadline dates so I am prepared for such emergencies as encountered within this brief.

Applied Illustration: Leaflet Completion

My leaflet is finally completed! Designed as a prologue to the Scarlett Letter (both book and TV Event) in a way to whet the visual appetites for the viewer. I am quite pleased with the outcome. However I decided to go back to the pink Scarlett Letter imagery as this looks more visually interesting than the oil coloured one I made. The downside to this is that the colouring between the front imagery and the narrative inside is somewhat at odds. Given more time I would have liked to have recoloured the front to match the quality inside.

Applied Illustration: Printing Session 1

Due to my detour into acrylic paints etc, I unfortunately didn't have much work to print today (specifically my leaflet). I put this down to poor time management - I should have realised I didn't have time for such experimentation as a late stage of my project. On the flip side of this, I wouldn't have found the Kyle T. Baker brushes that I have quickly taken into my illustrative heart.

Concerning the prints I did have -
My bookmarks were sized incorrectly due to my own idiocy preventing me to print them today. I will have to rectify these at some point. In the future I will have to double check all of my document sizes to prevent this issue from happening.

My A1 poster printed very well. I settled on printing my redesigned cinema one sheet as feedback suggested this was the better of the two. I personally felt that the older one would actually look better printed at such a size.

Finally I attempted to print my stickers and well, it didn't happen - sort of. The new digital print guy is a bit of a tool in my opinion. When I booked the print slot James informed me that whoever was on at the time would be able to walk me through the technical side of sticker printing so I could prepare them myself in the future (in turn making the process much easier for the staff). However, when it came to making them, the chap seemed annoyed that I asked to make stickers and instead of walking me through it, grumbled (obscenities) to himself and quickly prepped them. I still have no idea how to do this process. Hilariously they, after printing, failed to cut so he informed me I would have to wait roughly two hours to get them done as he had a back log of other print bookings. I am more than annoyed and have decided to instead cut the stickers myself. I don't look forward to using digital print again next week.

Applied Illustration: Scarlett Letter Refinement

This morning I printed off my digitally drawn pages in cyan with the intention of drawing over the work to give it a hand made feel. This process resulted in great looking line work that feels like it was hand crafted rather than the cold digital line work of before. These images were then scanned in and the cyan removed. Following this I felt a bit lost, I had no idea how to colour my work with a tool that would be quick to use and give an aesthetically appropriate quality. I spoke to Joe S. and he recommended I download a digital brush pack from Kyle T. Wester. This brush pack has a variety of paint like brushes including acrylic and oils. I intended to use the acrylic brushes but found that one of the oil brushes worked so much better! So I decided to use these regardless as it added the aesthetic quality I was looking for.

Using these brushes I also coloured in an additional Scarlett Letter One Sheet. It is common for films and events to have a range of posters before their release so I have acknowledged that here. Additionally, I have made a small range of items that could use this design.

Applied Illustration: Artist Research

In response to yesterday's tutorial I began searching for illustrators who use acrylic paint before research specifically the artists that I chose to research yesterday. I found that while some of their work was used quite realistically there were those that used their skills for a somewhat abstract illustrative aesthetic. I don't feel that this is the way to go with my work despite the inspiration I found from looking at these artists.


Follow Tommy 'Zoom''s board Marianna Sztyma on Pinterest.

Follow Tommy 'Zoom''s board Hope Gangloff on Pinterest.

Follow Tommy 'Zoom''s board Laura Carlin on Pinterest.

Follow Tommy 'Zoom''s board Coles Phillips on Pinterest.

Follow Tommy 'Zoom''s board Penelope Dullughan on Pinterest.

Applied Illustration: Tutorial

I had another tutorial today with Eleanor which I found very usefully as I've felt somewhat cold towards my work since jumping back onto it post Responsive and CoP hand in; needing a bit of guidance.

We came to the conclusion that I have the 'Applied' aspect of this module fully realised but I'm lacking in the 'Illustration' side of things. I told her that I've been working digitally a lot lately as I find I can sit at a computer to work longer than I can sit in front of a sheet of paper with a pencil. She recommended that I sit down and have a play with acrylic paints as this would add to an aesthetic that would compliment the timeframe of my work. This would also help what I have produced earlier in Studio Brief 1 tie into what I am doing in Studio Brief 2. At this point in time I feel that there is a disconnect between the two so appreciate that they need to inform each other more.

After the tutorial I went to the library to find contemporary artists that use acrylic paint to work with and withdrew several books.

Before Tuesday I will have experimented and played with acrylics to the point where I have something useful to develop further.

Applied Illustration: Sticker Stock

With the intention of printing stickers alongside the rest of my work on the 6th of May I thought it best to visit James in Digital Print to make sure he'd have stock for such a task. James said that whoever is working Wednesday will run me through the process of preparing stickers in Illustrator, a simple process if you know how. Unfortunately he told me that he has been out of the paper sticker stock for some time now and all of his suppliers are out too. However he does have a fair amount of acetate like sticker stock.

I remember Adam had used this previously for his Thought Bubble stickers and was pleased with the result. Now, for distribution, I would have them printed on paper stock, but for the purpose of this module I suppose I'll have to settle for the acetate stock.

Here is an example of Adam's acetate stickers:

Applied Illustration: Character Study

Today I've been drawing images of Anne Hathaway and Mia Wasikawa's interpretation of Jane Eyre set roughly in the same time frame as The Scarlett Letter. This will help my understanding of what the characters within my leaflet will look like. I've decided that due to time constraints 8 pages is a bit ambitious so instead of creating a small zine for the event, I will instead create a leaflet that will be given away at the release of the film/tv event instead. It will follow two women as they head to release of Hester Pryne from prison (where the tale begins). I felt that this would work as it would whet the viewers appetite before the film - they would already have an interest when the film begins.

This leaflet will have four narrative pages within, and have the necessary logos etc on the exterior. I imagine a good size will be around A5 with glossy Digigreen stock that weighs 150gsm per sheet.

I also set about drawing some environments using digital tracing. These environments look somewhat static, ordered and straight. I'll have to find a way to resolve this issue.

Here is my process from today:

Applied Illustration: 'A' Stickers

In regards to product and range I've already established that I have these aspects pretty much covered now. However I couldn't help but think of the poor people that go to the cinema to watch The Scarlett Letter and don't receive a free gift. So I've decided to produce stickers with the letter 'A' on them also.  They will be purchased from Camaloon, a personalising sticker service. 74mm stickers seems like a reasonable size and if I order over 10,000 I get a 79% discount - this means that each of the 82 Cineworld branches would receive over 100 stickers for customers. These would be handed out with tickets once the t-shirts have all been given away. The cost for these stickers is £779.83 after VAT, there is currently no shipping cost given.

I went about designing the stickers and decided that to make the 'A' stand out on whatever colour clothing the customer is wearing the background needed to be white.

Applied Illustration: Peer Review

Today I had another peer review. It went rather well and I received some positive feedback. In the way of range and distribution I pretty much have sorted by the sounds of it. The only really negative point that I received was that there was still a lack of work for the zine aspect. The zine is the main draw of my project in my opinion and its a shame that I haven't had chance to work on it yet.

Applied Illustration: 'A' T-shirt

Today I spoke to Adam and we discussed how we'd faired over the easter period with our workloads. We'd both agreed that due to our CoP and Responsive modules being in soon, we hadn't had much time to concentrate on Applied Illustration, unfortunately.

Anyway, I informed Adam of my idea to create the cut out letter 'A' for customers visiting Cineworld and he suggested that it could be much simpler to produce t-shirts for customers. I agree, this was a good idea, however the costing of producing so many shirts would be high, so I would limit the free shirts to the first 20 or so customers. This shirts could be brought on mass from Jones T-shirts, a U.S. company. With 5, small, 10 medium, and 5 large shirts the cost would come to $35.80 with $10.95 delivery charge. That is $46.75 in total. With 82 Cineworld cinemas within the UK that would come to $3833.50.

I set about designing the shirt. Initially I placed the associated company logos at the bottom with the Scarlett Letter title below the 'A' but felt that this didn't work well, so moved the title lower, to just above the logos. This felt much more aesthetically pleasing.

Applied Illustration: 'A' Cutout

With other modules taking up much of my time I've had little change to work on OUIL505 for a while now unfortunately. So, today I designed a cut out of the Scarlett Letter 'A' with the intention that this could be handed out to customers at Cineworld when they buy a ticket to the Scarlett Letter. They will then be able to pin the letter to their chests mimicking Hester Pryne.

The piece is relatively simple in design as I can't imagine Hester wearing an ultra elaborate, and nice to look at, marking of her sin. So why would the customers have that either?

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.

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.

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.

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.