Tuesday, 21 February 2017

Visual Communication: Studio Brief 2 - Initial Task 1

Anna Kövecses


Anna is one of my favourite vector illustrators as I love the simplicity of the work she makes. Her colour palettes use muted backgrounds matched against brighter, more saturated values evoking a feeling of nostalgia and harking back to children's picture books from the 60's, '70s and '80s - which used expanses of flashy colour against muted creams and greys with a musty book smell to match! She uses very rotund shapes with very little use of angles, and no stroke outlines, to give a friendly approach and tone of voice with effortless simplicity of reduced forms.

Susie Hammer


Susie Hammer is very playful with her shapes and proportions, and the way she arranges the shapes gives a quirky disjointedness and altogether imperfectness that works in such a naive and charming way. I love her use of colour and pattern to add a sense of fun and sillyness to her characters. Her colour palettes tend to be quite pastel-based with a mid-saturation level; not too garish but not too watery at the same time. The unconventional proportions and forms placed at odd angles provide a quirky aesthetic - and again, this illustrator uses very rounded vectors with no strokes to give an appealing and softer approach.

Stay Home Club
https://stayhomeclub.com


I discovered the Stay Home Club through the briefing presentation and really liked how the same idea of representing something on a small scale, with minimal imagery, has been implemented onto another object and form. These patches, from the online store, were my particular favourites in how one symbolic image has been used in each - using a large amount of the sticker to be as legible as possible - to communicate the intention and idea. I like the placement of the text dancing around the inside of the circular frame and feel it gives a neat, consistent look between each of the patches. Quite a number of colours have been used within these though, and I do believe that they could benefit from having one or two taken out and reducing those forms even more.

Brownies / Scouts Badges


When this brief was being introduced, I immediately thought of scouts badges and how they are quite pictorial and representational of the task that had to be done in order to achieve the badge. After some researching, I really like these designs and how they use shape and colour - already in a vector-esque format. The borders are a nice touch too and not something I was initially considering, but it rounds the frame nicely and adds a pop of colour and interest.

Gemma Correll


One of my favourite illustrators, Gemma Correll, is extremely successful at the moment and has created a series of patches to run alongside her wide range of applied illustrations. I'm particularly fond of her patches and how she uses very limited colour - usually 3 plus white grounding - to her advantage. She is known for her simple, whimsical illustrations and using red, black and white is her trademark. Simplification truly is amplification here! I especially love the borders and how she has used those to house the text; short, snappy phrases that makes us laugh. I want to be able to emulate such simple and effortless designs, grab attention to the text with having a colourful border and hopefully connect with an audience through understanding and respect.

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