Studio Brief 1: Idea Pictures

 

Overall, I'm really pleased with the outcomes for this project. From my initial thumbnails, I realised in the feedback session that the chess based idea was the most effective and interesting in communicating the book Animal Farm. The square chess board illustration was the original idea, and then the other two were developed afterwards. 

In my opinion, the portrait and square illustrations are the most striking of the illustrations, I don't think the landscape illustration is as effective.

I chose to use lino print as the medium for this brief because it's not something I had previously explored but I've always had an interest in it. I think its appropriate for the aesthetic I was going for as well. However, it is slightly frustrating that the next part of the project is all print based, so I could've spent more time exploring this idea during that part and done a different idea for this brief.

We had to use two colours, so I decided to make the pigs head a motif through the three illustrations and make it pink. The original prints are just back and white lino prints, and then I scanned them in and added the pink by cutting out some pink tissue paper and photoshopping it in. I really like combining media within my illustrations and I think it worked quite well for this.

Although I am pleased with the outcome of this project, I wish I had fully considered the sizes of this illustrations before I made them. The square illustration is my favourite and I cut it out of a large piece of lino, but when I actually printed it out to the size the illustration had to be, it was really small and I think it is a more effective illustration when viewed at a larger scale. Because of this, I think I might make it into a screenprint at some point.

I tried to create a sense of narrative throughout these three illustrations. The first illustration is the landscape one, and this was supposed to represent the battle between the farmer and the animals at the beginning of the book.

The second illustration is the square one, and this was to represent the emerging inequality between the pigs and the other animals on the farm.

The third is the portrait illustration which I wanted to represent Napoleons eventual rule over Animal Farm.

Study Task 3: Illustrators who use Print Processes

Kevin Bergquist:

• illustrations are scanned in and distorted, then screenprinted
• no information on whether he sells his work or not

Sophy Hollington:

• the examples I have chosen are both lino prints and I think the use of these for comics is quite unusual but really effective
• most of her work is editorial illustrations commissioned by newspapers and magazines

Nathaniel Russell:

• woodcut prints
• commissioned work for events

Study Task 2: Editorial Illustrators

Michael Haddad:

• Quite straight forward, simple compositions often using blocky shapes 
• colour scheme is all similar, uses relatively muted colours 
• Lots of use of visual metaphors within editorial illustrations

Kelsey Wrotten:

• illustrations are super colourful and vibrant to attract attention and convey mood 
• all illustrations include characters, perhaps to make them easier to identify with?
• she uses coloured pencils mainly and this gives all her work a really nice textured feel to it, even when its viewed online

About The Author: 25 Pieces of Information

All this information is already in my sketchbook but I thought it would make sense to put it on here as well.

5 Quotes:

• Four legs good, two legs bad!
• Seven Commandments:
1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend
3. No animal shall wear clothes
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed
5. No animal shall drink alcohol
6. No animal shall kill another animal
7. All animals are equal

5 Motifs:

5 Characters:

• Mr Jones - farmer
• Napoleon - pig
• Snowball - pig
• Boxer - horse
• Moses - raven

5 Locations:

• farmhouse
• harness room - headquarters for pigs
• shed for incubators - snowballs study
• windmill

5 Pieces of Information About the Author:

Study Task 1: About the Author Zine

Animal Farm is the only full book of Orwell's I have read, so I decided to use my zine to explain the context and meaning behind it.

Since we only had a few days to produce a 12 page zine, I spent one day planning out the zine and the different pages with all the information I wanted to include, and then I spent the next day in college producing the zine. 

In order to try and speed up the process, I decided to use the photocopier and found imagery for the majority of the zine. I'm relatively pleased with the result, although a lot of the feedback I received was that I included too much text and explanation. 

 

A lot of the zines that I like have a very low-fi quality to them which I tried to replicate within my zine, and I think I achieved this because this was also in the feedback I received.