Evaluation...

I have taken these photographs of my final poster (I retook with some better lighting so I am much happier with these photographs than I was of my earlier shots). Overall I am really happy with what I have managed to produce- I love the colours which have translated pretty accurately to print and I am glad to see that the details are still visible. The style is something that I really engaged with throughout the project, I was inspired by the children's Charlie and Lola books and I think that this is clarified through the use of digital mixed media elements (patterns and textures in combination with my own hand-drawn artwork) which has really integrated a textural quality to my finished piece. I have a put a lot of effort into the design and am over the moon with my final outcome, I think that it is visually appealing and tells its story in a way that is very personal to me. I wanted it to be fun, quirky and engaging and I feel like I have conveyed this well. This is also in accordance to the Wetransfer brief that required a more personal response.

Although I initially set my target audience as young designers (which I established through my journey and message - the idea that young people have this elusive future in front of them with an end goal but the focus should actually revolve around the journey that we take to get there). I have definitely ended up making it more of a personal one for me (which is fine because the Wetransfer brief doesn't require an audience) which has allowed me to think creatively out of the box. Having said this I am still confident that my message would resonate because I think I have generated a response that is visually interesting and intriguing with a nice clear message. I also feel like it would perhaps resonate with a wider audience than I initially set myself because its a very simple message that can certainly be applied to all.

I have really stretched myself illustration wise- telling a story was a lot more complicated than I thought it would be I had to draw out various positions and facial expressions which required a lot of patience. Thanks to my digital medium I was thankfully able to easily repeat limbs but I tended to redraw out my face because it looked more natural rather than using an element that I had previously created. I tried to keep my design relatively simple but it has definitely grown as a story/journey which was actually lovely because it illustrates my point perfectly. I am glad that I chose to limit it to two characters (myself and the bird) just because I was able to do more with those characters and focus on making the journey bright, vibrant and grounded within my own little mixed media world.

I was worried about my digital version but after much deliberation I have managed to use a piece of my printed version that I felt best translated into a digital aspect. I was influenced by Wetransfer's make your own desktop wallpaper tester so I generated a digital version of my message (which sums up my whole concept) that worked well as its own element but also had strong ties to my journey. 

I managed my time relatively well - it took a lot of planning and drawing in order for me to clarify my idea but once I realised that the print piece was going to be key and translated my ideas that were going to be for an animation into the print medium it became very easy and fun to produce. I ended up with a weeks breathing room which allowed me time to make final corrections and print. 

In summation I am very proud of what I have produced and would consider creating more designs that are story based simply because I have loved being able to draw all of my elements and piece them together. Its been nice following a particular drawing arc all the through (instead of then having to animate or translate into another medium). I am still very much enamoured by stop motions and animation but generating this print story has allowed me to really experiment with my chosen style which I think has helped me grow as an illustrator.

Print

Digital Piece

Planning... Time Managment

I realised that I haven't posted the plan in order to ensure good time management so I have listed it below:

Start of the Project- 11th November 2014

Research into briefs
Decision into which brief
Wetransfer research
D&AD research: Including past award winners professional and student
D&AD judges advice
Further Wetransfer Research
Wetransfer advertisements and wallpapers
Ideas
Target Audience
Theoretical Research
Style Inspiration
Concept Refinement
Animation Research (since at the time this was my chosen avenue)
Further Design inspiration - Puppet style
Stop Motions - visual style inspiration and motion inspiration
Mood Board
Sketches
Exploring Ideas
Visual sketch concepts
Visual digital sketch concepts
Visual scenery

Planning Deadline - 15th January 2015- I mostly tried to get my research out of the way by the time it came to my planning deadline but it was literally the day after that I decided to have a concept rethink. I was at this time  I had chosen a design style which was easily transferable to my new chosen idea and had drawn out myself and the bird the two elements that I knew would feature.Ultimately I just felt that I could produce a stronger print piece than I could digital because my drawings were very layered and detailed pieces - not something that is very easy to translate to motion. With this in mind my research continued for a week after this deadline - along with a continuation of my illustration.

Concept rethink
Additional Inspiration and Theoretical analysis
Comic strip design inspiration

END OF RESEARCH

My own design- start

My storyline

Page layouts- this was vital in order for me to understand what else I would need to draw - since I already had my two characters drawn I needed to know what other poses and positions I would need to consider along with background scenery.

Wallpaper Collection - Asset gathering

Additional and relevant theoretical links that I noticed as I continued to make my design

Wetransfer additional back-up theoretical links

My individual supporting elements

The bird- drawings and poses

Page one - digital design so far...

Page two - digital design so far..

Page three- digital design so far..

Overarching colour scheme conveyed through the skies that I have drawn out...

My character- and all its poses.
Type Choices and my message

One last theoretical link - due to the nature of my dissertation I kept finding that links kept appearing and it made sense to blog about them.

Crit- 11th February 2015
Crit Feedback
Crit changes
Page 4 design
All together

Getting it printed

 Deadline- 26th February 2015

4 additional jpegs to support my design...

One aspect of the Wetransfer brief was to include four additional jpegs as supporting material to show idea research and development. Here are the 4 that I think best convey my development from start to finish:

Research Mood Board:

 Sketches:

 Digital Sketches:

 Printed Poster Photographs:

Wallpaper Tester Continued...

I tested out my digital piece on the Wetransfer website but I also opted to test out how my other pages would look - I knew that bits would be covered over by their design but I thought it would be interesting to see.

I love how vibrant the colours look - although I would obviously have to reposition so the whole design was visible I think it looks visually vibrant and fun. I am very very happy with it.

http://www.wetransfer.info/backgroundtester-v2/

The Digital Submission Piece...

I was initially going to create some small stings - but it was raised in the crit that these wouldn't have much purpose to them so instead after a quick discussion with some of my peers I decided that I would turn one of my scenes into a almost desktop wallpaper - something that Wetransfer could use on their actual website (which is where they place their advertisements). I opted to use my last scene because it really clarifies my stories point which I think is key to the brief. They actually have a background tester below which I have used to see how it would look.

Original:

Background Tester:

I think my background looks really cool - and I am really happy with it - I added some more starts from the original and made some small tweaks in order to size and position properly but I think it works well as an extension of my comic.

Getting it printed...

I ended it getting it printed at Richochet Signs (in part because my stepdad works there) but also because they have a very good printer which is capable of printing on pretty much any medium albeit vinyl, plastic or paper. They can also incidentally print their own wallpaper so they can actually engrave and patterns. In the end I opted for a thicker matt textural paper that would really highlight the vibrancy of the colours in my piece.

 It should be noted that I didn't have very good lighting when I took the photograph so the colours are actually far lighter than they appear below- in fact it is incredibly similar to my on screen version which of course is ideal. I plan on taking a new photograph when the lighting is better. 

All Together

I very carefully resized my images and placed them onto an A1 sized poster (in Photoshop) I drew out each page in A1 because at the beginning I wasn't sure what was going to be better and felt that to be on the safe side bigger would be better.I am really happy with them - I did briefly consider having the strip read downwards but after asking the opinions of some peers I decided against doing it this way because people read from left to right naturally. From a practical perspective it did mean that the two vibrant orange pages were diagonally opposite one another which generated a nice sense of symmetry to the design. I made sure that everything was slightly off edge wise so that it was a lot softer and less contained which I have also tried to mirror in the general layout (the diagonally align but as a whole unit the central cross is slightly off which again helps my design to break the formulaic layout).

To consider: I need to consider where to get it printed and what paper I get it printed on so it matches what I have designed on screen.

Page 4...

This is what I produced for page 4, the last page of my little journey - its my favourite page by far- I love the violet colour scheme which really offsets the pink cape (very glad I decided to stick with the pink since it glows without being white). I integrated some swirled elements to break up the strict box formula that dictates this page- but I think that in order to keep it simple and to succinctly finish the story limiting it to 3 main scenes was the best way to finish off especially considering I wanted my message and final scene to take up at least half the page. Im hoping that its clear that the thought has faded from my mind like it is no longer important - I was a little worried that this wouldn't be clear but i'm also hoping that my little message will clarify this.

 

Crit Feeback...

This is what I presented at crit I only managed to create three pages in time for crit (but I am confident to that I will be able to finish in time) I personally am very happy with what I have so far and I received entirely positive feedback at crit. They didn't really have a lot of changes or anything else to add for me. Jake took my feedback which I shall list below and try to explain.

I asked if words were needed to clarify the story- the general response was that as long as I have my end message which will be something along the lines of it doesn't matter who i'll be it's how i'll get there (although the wording needs work) then other words aren't needed.

How and what I get it printed as- was another concern raised- It was generally agreed that I could combine by pages into a 4 page a3 size book (which to me doesn't feel like it's enough to be a book) or I could place the 4 pages onto one big A1 poster- something I prefer since I think it will look better when you can see the destination and the message which is after all the main point.

IN REGARDS TO THE DIGITAL AND THE PRINT VERSIONS:
This was an issue for me because I got so very into my print piece originally I was intending to generate small motion stings - but Sue actually pointed out that I could submit a digital version as a still jpeg. So my print piece is going to be my A1 poster with all my pages on and my digital piece is probably going to be a landscape still of my final scene (with my message- as a jpeg).

So essentially using still images that I already have - because I have put a lot of work and time into them it seems pointless not to fully show them off and to have to waste time making a digital version that wouldn't be a cohesive element to my print piece.

Theoretical Analysis Continued...Again..

The way in which I have gone about creating the comic has really challenged my patience. Although I could have and have kind of used elements and repeated them thanks to the digital medium that I have used - more often that not I have opted instead to redraw out new character expressions, new positions, and new variations of the same thing because I found that repeating them just wasn't as effective as redrawing them. Since my design is all about communication my concept I found that Stefan Sagmeister (2014) raised some interesting points that I think apply to my design and how I have gone out creating my design.

"Underlying everything we do is that we want to talk to humans, while being human. Everybody hates talking to a machine when they call a company; they want to find their way to an actual human. I'm absolutely not anti-digital, and our work wouldn't be possible without it being touched by a digital process at some stage. But that still allows for the fact that it's clear it was created by people with love and affection behind it. Hopefully".

This design has really required me to put myself into it, so I am very hopeful that I have included enough of me if you will to allow it to resonate with its audience- an audience that I have previously established as being young graphic designers like myself.

 Sagmeister, Stefan. 'Stefan Sagmeister On Humility, Happiness And Handmade | Graphic Design | Creative Bloq'. Creativebloq.com. N.p., 2014. Web. 20 Feb. 2015
Source: http://www.creativebloq.com/computer-arts/stefan-sagmeister-humility-happiness-and-handmade-51411833 

The Many Faces of Me...

I have gathered all of the versions of me that I have drawn and used so far and placed them below mostly to display the varying range of expressions and positions that I have had to redraw and create for the various scenes.

These four poses used the same base for each - I made the facial expression adjustments by generating different features and positions and placing them on different layers- I redrew most of the new features (excluding the nose) so the expressions would appear to be genuine. I also made sure that my eyebrows were on their own layers so I could easily adjust them since they are very important features in conveying emotion.

All of the drawings featured below were illustrations that have been entirely redrawn - because they wouldn't have worked had i reused the same face and features.

This was a whole new drawing- I redrew everything in this scene, hair, face and features because it was an entirely different angle to my last and if it the expression was to look real it needed to be positioned properly.

Colour Scheme.. The skies

I didn't really stick to a specific colour scheme because I was creating illustration not branding or something that would require me to stick to a set amount of tones. Most of the shades and hues used were decided by their visual aesthetics within a page and how they could be blended together. I started by using light blues (something that I noticed was a key element throughout Wetransfers branding and chosen wallpapers) but this quickly progressed to warmer tones. Because I wanted to end with a shot of me on the moon I knew that the sky would have to be dark and that a gradual progression of tone would be needed to get to this point.

My main skies which form my background and base colours can be seen below:

I am really happy with how all my colours work as a cohesive unit - I think I've managed to blend them well in order to reach my end colour scheme. I managed to include the lighter blues that I originally began with to form the water so it all worked stylistically.

Page 3...

I am really glad I planned out my page layout because it made drawing all the elements in this page much easier. I had great fun drawing myself swimming - out of all of the many poses that I have drawn myself in this was my favourite. I just had a lot of fun drawing out the puffy cheeks and flicky hair. I opted to divide the top into three overlapping segments in order to create the impression of fast movement. It also meant that there wouldn't need to be boring repeats of the various elements, that they could all be combined into one long strip at the top of the page in order to best convey the motion. The waves for instance worked well as overlapping elements as did the boat and its hook. I opted to create the splash using the white background rather than a solid paper element because I had a lot of patterns within the waves and I didn't want it to get lost. I also nixed the fish idea simply because there is a lot going on and although drawing fish is one of my favourite animals to draw I felt like my whole story revolves around me and a mischievous bird and adding in any additional animal characters felt like a detraction from that.

In order for my background to fade into the correct purple shade I needed to begin adding in some pinker tones which I could then blend into light purples, dark violets and then eventually darker royal blues- a perfect hue for the nights sky and the end of my strip. I made the sail a very light pink so I was worried about it blending in too much but I didn't want to use white because I use white as almost negative space throughout many of my pages to add smaller detailed elements. Grey seemed too dark and yellow too sunny - I needed something warm that would contrast against the darker sky and pink fitted the bill and my overall colour scheme- so I was willing o sacrifice the one scene where it would blend into the sky in light of all the others where it would be very clear.

So Far... Page 2

This is what I have created for page two so far- it's not as crowded or as intricate as my first page (but that is simply because I had a lot of freer less boxy and restricted elements that didn't require the same level of intricacy to make them more interesting). Again I have added swirls in order to keep a common shape link running throughout the comic but this time I have tried to incorporate some more photographic/patterned elements- I particularly like my splash droplets which I have drawn onto using a chalk styled brush in Photoshop (it became one of my favourites and I ended up using a smaller version to draw attention to my surprise in the second scene) I also added in some various movement lines to really clarify the motion of my various characters and elements. I ended up having to go back into Illustrator to redraw myself in the required positions something I did as I went along since I found it better to create a whole page as one rather than drawing all the elements before placing them onto a page. Doing it using the draw for the page method (and complete that same page) meant that I had a good idea as to how various elements could be reused throughout. I ended up redrawing my face and the various expressions pretty much constantly but I only had to alter my body parts to make them fits since they worked as interchangeable elements.

The soft speckled background was drawn using a sponge brush in photoshop - I needed something to offset the patterned swirls and I knew that using another paper would dominate the frame too much. Since I wanted to slowly darken my journey to show that time is passing I opted to carefully blend my own - but I instead generated a careful curve in order to get away from formulaic and confining boxes. Using a white brush I was also able to roughen up my square frames which I think makes it fit together better and is something I will have to go back and include on my first page.

So Far... Page 1

Following my layout plan I have created this as my first page. I am really happy with all my elements- I kept the thought as a free form element which then overlapped into the various scenes. All of my illustrations excluding the backgrounds got drop shadows added to raise them up and create an almost cut out collage effect. I also opted to use a blue tissue background which I then erased and painted over to generate some intricate swirls to fill the space. Stylistically swirls were a recurring theme (mostly because it adds a bit of quirkiness but also because I think its a nice soft shape that contrasts against blocks of colour and works well to offset my illustration style). Using a common shape in this way also meant that I could include this in my other pages which would ensure the overall continuity.  Adding in my overlapping elements (the thought, the bulb, the balloons and the clouds) also helped me to break away from the rigid boxes and meant from a practical perspective that elements didn't have to be repeated they could simply move within the various scenes. I was very much inspired by Emily Carroll's work in this regard because the structure to her digital comics was very fluid and unrestricted.

I am very happy with how the 'real world' photographic patterns and textures work with my heavily hand-drawn vector based graphics which are very reminiscent of the Charlie and Lola cartoon (one of my other inspirations). I also feel like utilising this mixed media method also shows Wetransfer and D&AD that I have explored my mediums which is something highlighted within my chosen brief.

The Bird

I drew out my bird in a variety of positions, eyes close, eyes open, from above eyes open and eyes closed. Made sure that I put all my various elements on separate layers so they could easily be moved into various positions which is dependent on my various scenes. In this instance I only needed two main positions from the side and from above (the wings I moved into their respective positions) and the eyes I simply added in using illustrator. The colours used in my bird were dictated by my various scenes, in theory the vibrant oranges would stand out against my blue backgrounds, I included a green feather to provide contrast and help to separate the two wings from one another.

 I ended up making a scatter brush to generate the different feathers (I drew it first using a pencil brush to further emphasise its hand-drawn nature and origins) and carefully positioned them on its body to generate detail. Altering the various opacities of my brushes helped to create a layered sense of shade.

Individual Extra Elements...

I decided to come up with some of my individual elements first I made this lightbulb out of the yellow crumpled paper (using the lasso tool) which I then drew over with a marker pen style brush in photoshop.

 The houses below probably took the longest to create, I put them together out of various yellow wallpapers and then created the roofs out of the textural grey paper which I cut out by using the lasso tool. I added drop shadows and altered the tones by altering the hue and saturation in order to create different coloured layers.

 The waves were carefully cut out and smoothened using the eraser, once again tones were altered via the curves, levels and hues settings.

 I drew out the window using illustrator and placed a wallpaper onto the purple area in order to integrate my own handmade elements with physical paper elements.

 I also created another style window to place into my houses to provide some variation.

 Here is my thought cloud- (something the bird will steal) the type on this one is a hand-drawn one that is clear enough to be seen at a variety of sizes, in a variety of positions.

 Swirls are a very common pattern throughout my illustration style which is why they feature within the balloons which I think makes them more visually interesting.