Study Task 1: Brief Selection - YCN, "Thirsty Planet"

What problem(s) are identified by the brief? 
Thirsty planet recently underwent a re-branding, in response to extensive consumer research showing that they did not have a strong tone of voice. 

What is the brief asking you to do about it/them?
The brief is asking for a campaign that raises awareness of the newly branded Thirsty planet. 

What is the brief trying to achieve?
Thirsty planet would like to more effectively communicate their achievements, and give ethical water consumers a clear and easy reason to choose them over their competition. They would also like the campaign to create increased interaction between their consumers and the brand, turning the website into a 'social hub', as well as encourage loyalty. 

Who will benefit?

• Thirsty planet
• YOU will be hydrated and feel happy DOING GOOD
• 'Pump aid' charity
• efficient and low profile 
• working in both Zimbabwe and Malawi to tackle unsafe water. 
• The people helped through 'Pump aid', effecting:
• health, community, crops, children and their schooling

What is the message?
"The power of positive drinking", is their strap line - the idea is to make healthy hydration whilst doing good 'cool'. They want the campaign to be fun, witty and interactive, as well as promote loyalty amongst their consumers. Another important message, which sets them apart from their competitors is that 'every bottle means a guaranteed donation to charity', which is not always a given. 

What is the audience?
They are aiming towards a young audience, especially looking to students, between the ages of 18-24. This is because they believe that this demographic has an opportunity to have a real voice and make a significant impact. 

How will the message be delivered?
Within the brief they made the suggestion of using either print, infographics or video. Considering their target audience using social media, as well as promotion surrounding universities e.g. fresher fairs, student union shops, is probably most appropriate. 

Can you foresee any problems in responding to the brief?
The new branding is not completely launched as of yet - the new brand guidelines available from 01/11 and new website/social channels from 31/01. Products carrying the new packaging will also not be available until February 2017. Not having this information from the very beginning and until very late within this module could be a hinderance in responding to the brief. 
Also in consideration of using typography and creating infographics or a video, I may need to collaborate with another student as I do not think my skills in these areas would be sufficient. 

Study task 1: Brief selection - YCN, "Quorn"

What problem(s) are identified by the brief? 
We as a planet are not living sustainably, using 50% more resources than we can support yearly. The population is rising, and with this comes an increase demand for meat production, leading to the use of more resources we do not have. No one is looking to change or solve this problem. 

What is the brief asking you to do about it/them?
As a solution to this problem, create a campaign encouraging people to participate in 'World Meat Free day'. 

What is the brief trying to achieve?
By making people make this small change to their diet for a day, they hope to spark a long-term behavioural change in people's consumer habits. Quorn, through this, would also like to promote their brand by showing people how easy and delicious their products are as a meat alternative. They'd also like people to be encouraged to visit their website and become engaged with the brand. 

Who will benefit?

• Quorn 
• Environment/Planet
• Future generations
• Animals 
• You - health benefits. 

What is the message?
They would like the message to be emotive, easy to understand and provide a positive solution. The key message is that making this small change to your behaviour for just one day is healthy for the planet and for your body. Quorn would also like to be offered as a positive solution to this problem of sustainability, being an easy and delicious meat alternative. 

What is the audience?
The audience is international, as well as people of all genders and ages. It is therefore worth considering how you can you make your communication cross-linguistic. 

How will the message be delivered?
The brief offered the two ideas of using an animation on social media or posters in supermarkets. It is worth remembering that living in a digital age, there is often only a 3 second window in which you can capture someone's attention. Personally if I was to progress with this brief, I had the idea of using snapchat as a way to promote the event of 'world meat free day' - creating snapchat filters, and having a 'story' on the day which people can film their own stories and post on, as well as potentially gifs and posters in the lead up. Also it is worth considering celebrity endorsement - as they have had Mo farrah beforehand. 

Can you foresee any problems in responding to the brief?
In this brief it seems so open to interpretation in terms of what you can deliver - I am unsure as to what is possible? What is the budget? 
As always there seems the possibility/need for collaboration as I do not possess sufficient skills in either animation or typography. 

Printed pictures : monoprint workshop

I found the mono-print workshop really useful today, but the group I was in was incredibly busy. I think this was because of the Louise Lockhart big heads at 4pm, meaning everyone came to this earlier group. Looking at the timetable on estudio, I think I may try and do some mono-printing on either wednesday after the lecture, thursday morning or potentially tomorrow after my lino workshop. Thursday morning seems more likely, as it looks less busy. 

IDEAS FROM WORKSHOP:

• Monotype: the monotype demonstration turned out much better than how I've seen this process work before. I think this could work really well with some of my line drawings. 
• Another interesting idea I have never seen before was using objects like ear buds, cut pieces of board, toothpicks or a clean rag to draw lines, shapes or textures onto the board. I think this could work really well to both create textures to then cut up for collage pieces and in combination with some stencil mono-printing - putting the stencil over the top of the area to isolate the texture/drawing. 

Software workshop 4

HOW TO MAKE AND PRINT A BOOKLET ON INDESIGN : key points

• Work in multiples of 4, to create pages
• Open indesign, file - new - document
• Tick facing pages : this means that the pages that are supposed to be next each other are...
• Tick 'preview' box while your setting up to see what your doing. 
• Bleed - full bleed images. This adds 3mm, so if your doing an A5 booklet you need a A4 page size, if your doing A4 an A3 page size. 
• To put in images, create boxes. You can drag the same box throughout, by selecting it and then holding down alt key, and then dragging it. 
• To put in image, select book and then hold down cmd + d. This will bring up a file selection window. 
• Press box called 'fit content to frame' to resize an image into selected frame. 
• When printing, after doing whole setup use 'preview' to have a final look. 

Printed Pictures: group tutorial

FEEDBACK

• Have a look at John Powell Jones, and Le Gun.
• Like how the thumbnails express this feeling of 'otherworldliness' 
• Really nice drawing style emerging, and like the simplicity/boldness of shapes
• Try also experimenting with creating some images similar to editorial - photographs and images incorporated into work. 
• Liked the idea of using a mix of mono-print and screen-printing to create work. 
• The pencil in the later thumbnails is too obvious, think of another way of representing this? 
• DIVE STRAIGHT IN! and start making. Experiment through process. 

THOUGHTS

• Coming into this tutorial I felt I needed to do more research and produce maybe some more thumbnails before launching into print-making. 
• Now, however, I feel that starting to use the print workshop and making my thumbnails into prints could be a good idea. We are running out of time so quickly already and it would be nice to give myself opportunity to experiment before finalising my outcomes. 
• If I run out of ideas or don't like the work I create I can always resolve back to the drawing board of research and drawing..!
• So moving forward this week I am going to start making some stencils and images for the mono-print and lino-print workshops next week so I have as much to test and experiment with as possible :)

Printed Pictures: Thumbnails

So far in my thumbnails I have focused on my two first themes that I stated in my project proposal: 

• surrealism, imagination expressed through motifs/characters/themes from Murakami's novels.
• the structure and discipline of Murakami's daily life 

I have found creating these thumbnails a more useful and fulfilling exercise than during the editorial brief. I think this is because there are less constraints within the brief in terms of audience, which has given me a greater reign in terms of how I approach and respond to Murakami's work. Something that has also helped me is finding a way of creating these thumbnails that works better for me, which consists of drawing out certain components first and then using the thumbnails as a way to figure out composition. 

I like the thumbnails I have produced so far, however I feel I may be needing to do more research and drawing in order to fully grasp the concepts I would like to express - especially concerning the third theme of my project proposal. However, visually I do think that they are heading in the right direction, and will especially effective in either mono-print or lino - as they consist of quite big bold shapes. 

Study task 1: Brief selection

To what extent will the briefs will allow you to meet your criteria for success within the module?

• In order to solve the problems of the brief appropriately I will have to carry out research, and then use this to generate ideas/concepts for my images. 
• As I lack skills in certain areas that may be necessary to complete the considered briefs, this provides the need and opportunity for collaboration in some cases. 

To what extent will the briefs benefit you with regards to the value of entering competition briefs?

• The work will be judged and viewed by important/influential members of the creative industries.
• It creates the potential for networking, and therefore useful contacts. 
• Its an opportunity to experience what it is like to tackle and produce work for industry standard briefs - which also provides great work for a future portfolio. 
• There is the potential to win great prizes, and the possibility of a famous brand using your work.

Can you identify any technical or skills challenges that may need addressing?

• Time-management, all the briefs have deadlines to be met - I will need to structure my time, especially in consideration of all the work I have for other modules. 
• Skills that I do not necessarily use in my college work may be needed for the competition briefs e.g. typography, animation, contextualisation of my work. 

Printed Pictures: initial ideas

IDEAS FOR PRINTING:

• collaging printed textures on photoshop, and then digital printing
• printing onto collaged paper/ collaged textures, shapes
• mono-printing - bold shapes, working with the unpredictability of the result, making through process - using 2 colour inks and letting them mix together organically. 
• mono-printing bold shapes, and then screen printing fine line/ continuous line/ textured gouache line drawings over the top. 
• mono-printing using natural materials, man-made textures or objects - pebbles, plants, textured paper. 
• screen printing collages - halftone printing photograph collages with hand-drawn textures ect. 
• Digital blobby drawings to get bold shapes - and then screen-printing them - do this over drawings, found photographs ect. 

examples I found on pinterest printing with natural materials:

Tutorial

• Need to catch up on COP work and blogging. 
• Keep going with thumbnails - do whatever works best for you. Drawing out components first and then using thumbnails to work out composition. 
• In terms of the final prints, the best format would be to keep to A4 size paper in either portrait or landscape format - not square (not mandatory though, just an opinion). 
• Responsive blogging goes on studio practice blog - need to make labels. 
• In terms of blogging, like to see little bits of reflection ie. mindmaps, lists scanned out of sketchbooks - not so structured all the time - work, crit, work crit ect...

Software workshop 3 : Halftoning collages

Something I really wanted to find out from these workshops was how to screen-print black and white photographs with drawn elements, since I often work in collage using both of these elements together. So...this how you do it: 

• Open collage in photoshop and divide elements into 2 layers according to colour. 
• Copy and paste black layer (one with photos on it) into a new photoshop document. 
• Convert this document into 'grayscale' mode - this will merge the black layer and background into one. 
• Then (as before) go onto 'Channels' and add 'new spot channels'. Copy and paste 2nd colour components from collage document, into the spot channel layer. 
• In order to get the best effect you should 'fill' the 2nd colour components with black before copying and pasting them in - that way you can adjust the tone as you please in the new document. 
• Another way to do is not to copy and paste the 2nd colour components in, but simply draw them as you would when creating a usual half-tone image. 
• Then (as before), 'place' this document in illustrator and use the printing process spoke about in the second software workshop. 

Printed Pictures: Artist research

Daniel J Fletcher

Daniel J Fletcher's work I think compromises of a lot of components that I enjoy focusing upon within my own practice - such as working with shape, the simplistic and abstract quality of his images, as well as the careful consideration of composition. In term of his process, I would say that he most likely draws the images digitally. Although, since he set up Yucca Press in Peckam - an independent risograph printing and publishing press - this most likely also plays an important role in his production process. I would like to experiment with producing similar shape based imagery within the printed pictures brief, but perhaps using a process that produces more textural interest such as mono or lino printing. 

Ping Zhu

Below is a screenprint Ping Zhu produced for the past ECLAF festival. The most interesting thing about this print is how Zhu has taken full advantage of screenprinting as a process - overlapping her two print colours to create great visual interest, as well as achieve a real sense of movement flowing throughout the image. I think this is a really appropriate example to look at within the context of this brief as it demonstrates how you can use two colours, as well as a combination of line and shape based imagery to create something that looks really pleasing. Another aspect to consider is her use of complimentary colours, both really vibrant - especially when placed next to each other - but when mixed together or overlapped produce a more neutral colour balancing out the image. 

David Lemm

I really like the process' and concepts David Lemm uses to create his work - drawing information from scientific diagramming and often gaining inspiration on the site of his subject. Expressing these concepts in an illustrative way produces this really interesting aesthetic - focusing on structure and composition, combined with beautiful formed shapes and texture to create visual interest. Although Murakami's work/life does not relate that much to science - Lemm's work is still also thinking about our relation to our surroundings and how we make sense of the world around us. I think applying this thinking to my work in relation to Murakami could produce a compelling visual aesthetic and concept. 

Competition briefs of interest...

http://secret-7.com/

• designing a vinyl cover, interpreting 7 tracks by 7 selected musicians
• 700 will be selected and sold for £50 a piece
• no information yet for next coming brief

http://www.ycn.org/

• to be released Monday 24th October 

http://batsford.com/the-batsford-prize/

• Produce work based on theme of 'interpreting nature' - focusing on nature and our relationship to it, submitted as 5 digital images. 
• £500 cash prize for winner in each category, £500 prize from Cass art for overall winner
• Winners and runners up of each category will receive £50 worth of Batsford books, and winners £500 worth of books for their colleges. 
• Last day for entries 4th April 2017

http://www.loopdeloop.org/

• Submit a looping animation based on a specified theme. 
• Top 100 animations are compiled and screened to a live audience at Loop - Melbourne, Australia - and at other venues in Australia and throughout the world. 
• Current theme: Breakfast, submission date: 27th November (within your timezone)

http://dontpaniconline.com/design/

• Run monthly competitions for designers, illustrators and photographers. 
• No current live briefs (yet). 

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.uk/about-us/design-award/

• Submissions accepted between Wed 18th January and Tues 7th March
• Submitted as a high resolution pdf, 300dpi, cmyk
• Design a book cover for one of the three briefs based on the following books - Fiction: 'To kill a Mocking bird' by Harper Lee, 'In Cold blood' Truman Capote or 'The secret diary of Adrian Mole 133/4 by Sue Townsend. 
• 1st Prize: A paid work placement for four weeks at the penguin random house design studios + £1,000 cash prize
• 2nd: £500 cash prize
• 3rd: £250 cash prize

http://www.dandad.org/en/d-ad-new-blood-awards/

• Fight for Fur : create a content campaign for Respect for Animals that will change the minds of people wearing or buying real fur. 

Project Proposal: Production & Presentation of my printed pictures

I think I have provided quite a wide range of concepts, moods and potential aesthetics I could develop for this brief - divided up into 3 main points relating to Murakami. I like starting off a brief with this open approach in terms of the initial development of my work, however I think I may explore these 3 points within thumbnails but eventually narrow down to one for my final prints so they may work as a set or sequence as the brief requires.  

Software workshop 2

• To visualise and create tonal colour for screenprint: make sure image is in 'grayscale' mode, then use 'Channels' - 'new spot channels', choose a colour at 100% solidity. 
• Paint on colour, changing the tone - black, grey, white - above in colour selection, will change the tonal value of the colour. 
• To make your work into a positive save as a psd. and place into illustrator. Go 'windows' -- 'Seperations preview', turn layers on and off to see what it will look like. 
• Then go 'File print', select 'output' and get rid of Cmyk. 
• You can now set the frequency to determine how big or small (subtle or obvious) your half tone will be: 60lpi producing a really fine one (highest you can go), and 15lpi a really obvious large dot (lowest you can go). 
• You can use photoshop to preview this by copying and pasting the grayscale halftone in channels into a new document. Then go 'mode' -- 'bitmap', the first menu put in '1200 pixels' and then 'halftone screen', the second menu will allow you to change the frequency as you would in illustrator. Once you have figured out what you want, use this frequency when printing out in illustrator to produce the same effect. 

Software workshop 1

• Simulating how two colours in screenprint could look using photoshop. 
• Create another layer and paint in the second colour, then using 'multiply' you can see how the two colours would work together when overlapped. 

• To change the first colour of your drawing use 'hue and saturation' and then 'colorise'. 

• I experimented with adding texture to certain areas by selecting them, then using 'filter' -- 'filter gallery' - texture needs to be quite obvious though to work when printed. 

• In order to get rid of overlap of colour, select one colour layer using 'magic wand' and then switch to the second colour layer - then use 'edit' -- 'cut'.

Studio Breif 2 : Printed pictures

Produce a set or sequence of 5 prints:

• using 2 colours (black is considered a colour) plus stock
• Sizing - min : A4, max: A3

OR 

A book or zine:

• 5 double page spreads, plus cover - 16 pages total
• two colour (with black considered a colour) plus stock
• Sizing: min: A5, max: A4 (landscape or portrait)

things to consider: line, shape, texture, layer, mood, tone of voice, contrast, scale, overlap, perspective, composition, high-key colour, low-key colour. 

Idea Pictures : Final megacrit

CRIT FEEDBACK

• "really lovely use of texture. love how you've combined graphic shapes with textured drawings & characters, v intriguing/eye-catching."
• "the composition is spot on! really tells a story"
• "feels more personal than zine, mix of collage and hand-drawn elements is cool, sense of authorship."
• "straight forward, it's murakami's work" 

It was really good to see, according to the crit feedback that I had achieved what I set out to with these images - they told a story about Murakami and his work, were recognisable as images related to him as an author, and a greater sense of authorship/personality to my work through hand-drawn textures and characters. Personally I feel like my work is heading in an exciting direction, but I still feel like Im chasing this never ending aesthetic of how I want my work to look, getting closer and closer to it each time but never completely there :((. 

Idea Pictures: Final Images

WHAT I LIKE:

• I like how I managed to combine my love for graphic, simple collage with textured hand-drawn patterns and characters - I think this does give a greater sense of personality and authorship to my work. Also I think the photographs and hand-drawn elements produce a really interesting hand-made/digital contrast. 
• How the images are all so different, but because of the common use of media and aesthetic across all three, I feel they do work as a set. 
• The composition of each image - in the square and the portrait I like how I used grey tone paper, contrasting with a white background to focus the composition, I think this is an interesting use of space and format (show's you don't need to fill the image). 

WHAT I DON'T LIKE:

• Landscape - I am happy with this outcome to a certain extent, and it is definitely the format and concept I struggled with most so it is far better than the first attempt. However I feel it seems pretty off in some way - maybe photographs are wrong? and I could have redone the face? On the other hand I do think it communicates the concept effectively. 
• The contrast between the blue digital aspects of the portrait and landscape images, with the hand-drawn elements I think at times looks too stark. Maybe it is the wrong colour blue, or the wrong colour entirely, or I should have added texture to these elements somehow?

Author research : "What I talk about when I talk about running"

"Being active every day makes it easier to hear that inner voice"

"That was the age when began my life as a runner, and it was my belated, but real, starting point as a novelist"

"As I run I tell myself to think of a river. And clouds. But essentially I'm not thinking of a thing. All I do is keep on running in my own cozy, homemade void, my own nostalgic silence"

"In this sense, writing novels and running full marathons are very much alike. Basically a writer has a quiet, inner motivation, and doesn't seek validation in the outwardly visible"



I think out of the books I have read by Murakami this has been one of the most valuable in helping me understand him as a writer. It provides a very intimate look into his inner most thoughts and feelings in relation to running and writing. I find his relationship between these two key aspects of his life very interesting, as well as his emphasis on a structured and healthy lifestyle mostly lived in self-made isolation.

Idea Pictures : Peer tutorial and feedback

• TEXT - in the peer tutorial they preferred the hand-drawn text, but both tutors said that it was inappropriate to have text in editorial. This obviously makes perfect sense - because the text will be alongside the image anyhow. I guess I got confused because we not working off a specific article but research/texts we have selected ourselves. 
• They all preferred the hand-drawn and painted textures as apposed to the when I made them digitally, and I must say I agree. Again this is all about the hand-made giving more charm and personality to my work - without it the collages can look stale. 
• After this crit I think I need to reconsider format and play around with the composition of my images - as well as create my hand-drawn elements on a bigger scale to retain the sense of texture and looseness to my painting. 
• Ben suggested to create everything and then scan in it to play with it on photoshop - I think this will work really well and help me experiment. 

Talking to Ben I realised that I need to reflect more consciously on how I form the composition of my images - what makes a good composition? Instead of just doing it from feeling and then leaving it there - although this does give an element of spontaneity. Do it and then reflect!

Idea Pictures : Digital experiments

I don't often venture into composing images wholly through digital processes - but I had some time one afternoon so I thought I'd have a play. I must say their ok, it was interesting to have a go, but to me they lack a sense of crafting or care. They're very stale, and after the conversation of gouache/hand-drawn elements in my collage adding more sense of the handmade, personal, charm ect. I think having this aspect to my work has become even more pertinent for me. 

On the other hand, I have found an advantage to creating my images digitally - which is that it allows me to play around a lot with layout and composition. Personally I prefer the composition and use of format in these images to my handmade ones - something worth  considering. 

Idea Pictures: Development of final images

After the megacrit and the great debate of gouache or collage. I have worked on a couple images trying to combine the two - some of them working, and others not so much. In some I really like the combination of photograph, painted characters and simple gouache textured patterns - for example the kettle image. I also really like what I've started to do compositionally - highlighting/ breaking down the format of the image through negative white space with plain grey tone cut paper - I this uses the format of the images in a really interesting way. 

In terms of concept I've identified 4 key ideas that have grown/developed out of my thumbnails - a maze of murakami's imagination, his relationship with running and healthy lifestyle, his mixed influence of America and Japan (east and west), and his passions/obsessions presented through the metaphor of a 'big kettle'. I think the images contain symbols that effectively communicate these concepts, but need refining in terms of process, composition and format to make them complete. 

Idea pictures: Collage or Gouache?

After producing the thumbnails, I wanted to move away from simply drawing in pencil and pen. I see the value of making these initial sketches, but to be honest I not very good at it - so in this second stage I've started to experiment a little with media and Ive actually found this very beneficial in progressing my images. It seems as I work that I started to create two different aesthetics - collage is something I am reasonably comfortable with, but I also really like the textural quality of gouache and would like to progress with this further. 

So in the crit. I posed the question - collage or gouache?

COLLAGE

• "I really like the collaged images - they are clean and crisp! Also are something a bit different - good to see!"
• "Love the collages! They look great! Maybe combine this with some of your more simplistic shape based works."
• Personally I like the more compositional aspect of the collages - I enjoy the process of arranging individual aspects of an image on the page. I like producing work that's more simple, abstract and symbolic - which so far has been successful as an aesthetic and not taken away from the communication of my concepts. 

GOUACHE 

• "I think the gouache has a more personal feel to it", "I really like your naive and simple painting style! It's so easy to read and very charming", "definitely prefer how playful and textured the gouache ones are!"
• "I like the first two images best, but you should lose the writing and let the images speak for themselves"
• "Maybe combine both and paint snatches of gouache to collage together?"
• I was quite shocked as to how the reaction was so overwhelmingly leaning towards the gouache images - as this was not my personal preference. But I can understand people's point of view - a sense of the handmade images does add a little more personality and charm to an image. 

MOVING FORWARD

• I mean really its been in front of me the whole time - combine the two, collage + gouache! 
• Do collage with gouache textures, and painted characters/figures. Therefore I have images that are both playful, charming and with the personal feel of the handmade, but retain my love for focus on composition, layout and simplicity.  

Idea Pictures : Group tutorial feedback

• going in the right direction. 
• Ben seemed to like my abstract thumbnails - maybe I should progress these as well as the more figurative? 
• One of the countries showing contrast of Murakami's influences - oriental and west - japan and america, could be better in landscape format? 
• like the maze idea

I find this tutorial reassuring and inspiring, but not useful in helping me select ideas... Chris' work on Murakami definitely caught my eye - I think something he's done which I should try myself is really focused on particular themes and tried to communicate them through simple visual metaphors. e.g. he looked a lot at how Murakami enjoys isolation, and his images of him running really do evoke this sense of being alone. 

In terms of which ideas I'm going to progress into more resolved sketches I think Im going to look at the maze idea, the country/island image, explore more images about his relationship with running and maybe expand more on my abstract/compositional images. I think I need to play around more with format, and perhaps media? - since I do collage sketching can only take me so far...

Idea Pictures : editorial thumbnails

Before making any thumbnails I tried to brainstorm all the key ideas I could use to create images, and most importantly visual metaphors. In terms of Murakami's work I think the main thing I wanted to put across was this idea of his books being full of riddles, as well as the back and forth between reality and his surreal imagination. In terms of Murakami's as a person I wanted to express his passion for running, and the relationship between this and his writing.  

Sébastien Thibault

Sébastian Thibault also caught my eye during the presentation. Similarly to Aleksandra Niepsuj, his images combine two elements of the conversation together, creating a perfectly communicated visual metaphor. Although, I would argue that I find his work, not to demean Niepsuj's, even more dynamic in its simplicity. I think this lays in his ability to manipulate common place symbols into something more exciting and inventive, without his images appearing cliché or overdone. 

Unlike Aleksandra Niepsuj, however, aesthetically I find Sébastian Thibault's work pleasing but not overwhelmingly exciting or interesting. Its certainly not a style or medium I would strive to emulate and recreate myself, but again I would not be unhappy if my work looked like this either. I think for me it just lacks character and personal flair. 

Aleksandra Niepsuj : editorial illustration

When mentioned during our briefing Aleksandra Niepsuj's work really caught my eye. I think that her simple combination of two elements of the content at hand make for very communicative but simple visual metaphors. The quirky and playful nature of her work also makes the content of her work exciting and interesting to look at, whilst also easy to read and understand. 

"How smart are animals?". Illustration for Maleman magazine. 

There was no mention of her image-making process on her website, but from looking at her work I could gather that she probably uses both digital and handmade textures, and that her collages are most likely assembled on screen whilst also adding some other digitally drawn elements. I think this use of texture is again really effective as it elevates the visual interest of her images, but does not distract from the direct message of the content. 

"Paying off". Illustration for the NYC exhibition on the subject of debt. 

Idea Pictures : visual metaphor workshop

"A way to talk about one thing while describing something else" Jane Hirshfield

"We formulate new ideas by analogy, working from what we know toward what we don't know..." Malcolm Gladwell

I found the tasks we were given in this workshop, useful but difficult. With visual metaphors I often struggle to find them and then once I think I have one, Im not too sure as to whether I've got the idea of what a visual metaphor is exactly right. I think I understand what the premise of a metaphor is, but can't quite seem to wrap my head around how to effectively apply this in my image-making process. But the thing is, I think when you get it right, really right, its fantastically clever and simple - so grasping this method of thinking and image-making is definitely something I'd like to do and develop.