Visual Skills: Judge a Book by it's Cover

                 

• The book I will be designing a cover for is "Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder" by Lawrence Weschler.
• I chose the book specifically as I really like the title and the potential it provides from a creative point of view.
• I personally find the original cover to be rather dull and a product of its time.

• I approached this brief by using 3 methods of ideas generation; a mind map, a list of things to consider when developing my roughs and bullet points of interesting words and phrases from the blurb and the photographs within the text.

• Elements to consider include: composition and framing, line quality, colour palette,
themes communicated, simplicity, shape, working with type and process.

Pinterest Board:

• I created a Pinterest board to provide me with some quick inspiration while discovering my own

methods of communicating visually the themes of my book.

• Immediately, I noticed a trend of recent books encapsulating themes of antiquity, nostalgia, early-mid 20th century design,
simplicity, vintage-ness, a reworking of classic book covers from the past.

Folio Society:

• These are some of my favourite covers when visiting the Folio Society website.

• What works about them? The use of a limited colour palette (usually 3 colours) and the cleverness of using negative space and simple shapes to communicate characters and themes within the book.

• Having no text on the cover works really nicely too, attracting focus to just the illustrations and imagery alone. I cannot apply

this to my own work, however, as the brief calls for the title and author to be part of the cover design.

Initial Sketches:

• I took some of the imagery from the book and iterated illustrative ideas in various different ways.

• From previous briefs, I have found that constantly remaking pictures allows for deeper investigation 

and approaches to better understand the subject matter.

• What next? Now that I have a slew of simplistic motifs, in both positive and negative form, I can begin to create some

thumbnails to consider composition and lettering in my book cover.

Visual Skills: Editorial Outcomes

Square: "The albatross hangs heavy around out necks with a weight that defies calculation"

Portrait: "Albatross corpses rot away to reveal the plastic rubbish they have consumed"

Landscape: "Are we to use our gift of life to snuff out other life forms?"

Peer Feedback:

• Textures!!! Colours are so calm and soothing - work really well to draw me in.

• Really nice how much you managed to get our of two colours!

• Use of glowing light sources draws the eye to the ideas being communicated whilst simultaneously
differentiating the foreground and background.

• Love how the use of colour draws you into the piece, line quality is really varied and cool!

• That use of colour and shape - wonderfully unique, completely fluent lines.

• Utterly AMAZING use of colour and texture! Blown away by the quality of this work. It's so, so beautiful!

• The candle snuffing out the light of the world! Such a clever and visually interesting idea

• Amazing compositions!

• I love the use of colour as it shows light and shadow really well.

Peer Critique:

• Maybe you could refine them a little more / focus on where the light source is coming from?

• I think maybe mono printing or screen printing would have worked really well with these images.

• Maybe try a less digital process? More manual and minimalist perhaps. Simple is good!

• Could make images more simplistic and then use mark making to add points of detail.

Reflection & Evaluation:

• I am really proud of how my editorial pieces turned out. The colour palette I chose in the end works effectively

to provide light sources and focal points and give the work equal temperatures.

• The use of digital media allowed me to complete these pieces on time and work much more successfully;

in contrast to the analogue process of my typology poster.

• Having read my peer feedback, I agree that these images could have worked just as well as screen prints
and the amount of detail could have been reduced by one or two layers.

• These were my creative choices, however, and I did decide to include patterns and textures after
comparing and contrasting more simpler images side-by-side.

• I would like to look into the possibly of screen printing or using paper cut for the final brief in this module.

Visual Skills: Editorial Development

• I was exhaustive with iteration; reworking ideas and ways of using the brush and ink.

• Try different perspectives of the albatross on the person?

• These are techniques I have taken from my visual language sessions, feeding them into my

visual skills work and improving my image-making.

• I really like the texture of the brush that comes through, when working quickly, 

and could scan these images into Photoshop to use in my final editorial pieces. Light box?

• Possible time constraints with this approach? I could instead install brushes that create the same effect.

Graphic Style:

• How do I want to translate my sketches to the screen? In a sketchy marker style or a soft, dry brush effect?

• After consideration, I don't think either of these work very well and will stick with a thicker, harder brush

to convey the silhouettes of these hard, plastic objects.

Composition Ideas:

•  I experimented around with various possibilities with how my illustrations could be presented,
ensuring I maximised the amount space for such a small canvas.

• I wanted to create a sense of continuity within my images so that they all coherently work together.
• How much detail do I want to include in my pieces? The very simplified colours are not attention-grabbing enough against the light blue background (left) whereas the gradient around the perimeter draws in the eye and the shading of the albatross gives it more weight.
• The orange back light on the objects gives them inclusivity into the illustration rather than just floating objects. The swishes on the albatross indicate that there is something inside them that shouldn't be (the plastic objects surrounding the silhouette).

Brushes:

• I purchased the Gouache and Watercolour brush sets from Kyle Brush to add interesting line quality and an authenticity to the digital illustrations, rather than them being perfectly drawn and rendered on the computer.

• These enabled me to add visual interest, textural and painterly qualities to my editorials.

Colours:

• I played around with various colour palettes to ensure I was working a suitable one to communicate the article and its' contents.
• I originally began working with red and blue but found them too dark and boring.
• I changed to a dark blue and mossy green to communicate concepts of the Earth but found these too muddy. I wasn't happy with the strength of the tones against the brightness of the white characters (using copy as my third colour).
• Muted blue and orange shades worked much more harmoniously as variations of primary colours.

Artist Research:

•  Kelsey Heinrichs works a lot in editorial illustration, creating pieces for Wired Magazine, GQ, The Wall Street Journal and The National Post. He has a more digital approach to his process, which aesthetically is often technical and structured. He mixes a limited palette with sharp, thin outlines and visual language - such as cross hatching, lines and marks - with subtle shading. His compositions are strong, incorporating tiny details of shapes and objects.

• Jun Cen's portfolio is comprised almost entirely of editorial illustration. His work is a lot more organic, borderless giving a softer tone of voice, textural and patterned with a sense of motion / vibration. I hope to be able to incorporate these enticing elements into my own work. His illustrations have been featured in Nautilus Magazine, The New York Times, Spectrum News, The Boston Globe, Vogue and ELLE Men China.

• Sam Chivers encapsulates elements of both Jun Cen and Kelsey Heinrichs, successfully blending mark-making with the mechanical, the organic with the technical and digital with a sense of being hand-made at the same time. Chivers' editorial work has been featured in The Guardian, GQ, Adobe, Playstation, Washington Post, Wired Magazine and New Republic.

• All 3 of these illustrators have their own style, approach and tone of voice and each is successful in the themes and concepts they are communicating - using shape, form, composition and colour to portray characters, environments and architecture. I will be using these illustrators as my main point of reference when creating my developmental and final editorial outcomes.

Visual Skills: Editorial Roughs

 Reflections: 

• I used Copic Markers in various neutral grey shades to establish tonal value and how I want to interplay light and dark in my final pieces. However, I don't think I will be using the markers in my final pieces as I want to include more texture for visual interest.

• Creating these bigger roughs from my smaller initial sketches was really beneficial as I could easily

tap into what would work and what wouldn't.

• For example, the second idea for the landscape orientation is far too cluttered and wouldn't work too well with the

composition constraints and a limited colour palette.

• The landscape editorial will be much longer and thinner so I need to be mindful of that when translating the image digitally.

Final Concepts:

• Square: Albatross hanging around the neck

• Portrait: Albatross surrounded by plastic waste pollution

• Landscape: Snuffing out the Earth

Improvements:

• Work on stylising the symbols surrounding the albatross. Use brushes to create line quality.

• Improve the albatross hanging around the neck to portray more weight and struggle on the human figure.

• Improve the candle of the Earth to better represent the object I want it to be - dripping wax perhaps?

Visual Language: Line Quality

Tina Berning

I find this illustration really interesting in the way that the whole figure isn't shown. It is so simplified and confident in its line quality that the viewer can and will fill in the blanks. The slight variation in texture towards the right-hand side of the skirt alludes to a casting of light, giving tonal value. This image is loose and therefore full of character, personality, charm and the hand of the maker.

---

Ping Zhu

The speediness of the line quality really shows here in terms of where the ink shows through and where it doesn't. This quickness in Ping Zhu's sweeping motions has created an atmosphere of blustering wind, an injection of heat or coldness, emotion and motion. There is a definite different between the outline of the characters and their guitars as opposed to the hair and outfits which provides variation and separation of elements in a successful way. Again, this is full of personality - not drawing accurately and having a quirky slant to the images.

---

Seven Primary Functions of Line

• To convey its own intrinsic beauty

• To divide or limit an area or space

• To delineate a thought or symbol

• To define form by edge or contour

• To catch and direct the eye over a given course

• To produce a grey or tonal gradation

• To create design or arrangement

"Creative art begins with creative line.Creative line can only be the line as you see it and prefer to draw it. Projecting literal contours and artificial means can only result in stifling your most valuable asset - individuality. Draw from copy as you would from life. Have always the courage to draw it yourself."

Andrew Loomis (1947)

• Drawing as you see it

• Line, in its purest form, is drawing

• Learn how to draw through doing

• It is impossible to reach people how to draw. There is no standard for good drawing.

• Good drawing can be defined by the unique craft of its maker, the context it exists within and how it communicates a message.

• Skill in any craftwork can be improved

• What makes a line interesting? How do we make it?

• Let your drawings evolve and mutate

---

• Today's session allowed me to have a lot of freedom, outside my sketchbook, which I took advantage of. I enjoyed feeling like I could draw any way I wanted with any tool. I drew with my dominant hand, with my left hand and even with my mouth! Bonkers!

• As a mature student who has been drawing since they could hold a pencil, it was beneficial to approach basic shapes and lines with varying movements, feelings, emotions, thoughts and consideration - approaching the task with different systems in place than those I normally use.

---

30 Drawings Task

• I enjoyed the session so much, that I completed my 30 line drawings that same evening!
• I approached my motif with an open-mind in terms of representing different aspects of the horse - from the general shape to the movement to just the floral decorations.
• I wanted to experiment with different shapes and forms, different movements and different qualities to really have fun with the thick, textured brush I enjoyed using in the session.
• My ink brush pen, which is drying out slightly, has allowed me to employ what I enjoy about Ping Zhu's illustrations above and be really playful and approach image-making in a way I would never have even considered previously. There is so much expression, a sense of melodic motion, sweeping gestures and majesty and grace!
• This has been such a transformative moment for me! Viva ink brush pen!