Submission to YCN, Dogs Trust

I think I struggled with the commercial nature of this brief. I was very conscious that the finishing result had to appeal to a wide-audience and have a clear communicative message, as well as a concept that suited the tone of Dog's Trust. Within this I found it hard to build a concept I was personally excited about and found myself changing my practice to suit the brief, rather than the other way around. 

I think this is often the struggle of doing competitions briefs. In many ways the benefit of doing them is to gain recognition or the winning prize so you have to create the work with an audience and the client in mind. It can sometimes be hard to find a balance between shaping your practice to meet the competitions needs, and still making work that suits you and excites you creatively. 

In a positive sense, however, by making these illustrations I have found a new method of making images that suits my practice and gives myself a quicker turn-around - which would help within a commercial context as a freelance illustrator. This includes making a cut-paper base, with just white card, scanning this in and then photoshopping mono-print textures on top - meaning I do not have to make new ones every time to cut up. In this brief I also enjoyed drawing again - especially for the mono-type dogs - and think I would like to incorporate this more into my practice. 

Overall I am happy with the final outcome. I like the limited colour palette and the 3-D cut paper effect, resulting from the use of my new process. However, I am unhappy with the unimaginative concept of just dog's existing within different 'forever homes' in a surrealistic way - for me it lacks originality or depth of thought.