Sunday 23 January 2011

Puffin Book covers.


4 completely different penguin/puffin book covers. Each different in style, colour and technique, but i like each one seperatly. They all have a unique-ness about them which I love. Beautifully designed characters and fun compositions which make them stand out in interesting ways.

James and the Giant Peach, other book covers.


I started researching some James and the Giant Peach book covers, done by a range of different illustrators/designers. The one on the left, I find it very interesting, quite graphicy. I love the straight edged typography and imagery, sharp corners and block shapes, works very well and its an interesting way of working. The peach its self if perfectly round and brightly coloured which is what your eyes tend to go for first. I also like the dull colouring through out the image, as it makes the peach stand out even more. Works really well together.
The one on the right has an interesting use of textures and colours, capturing the adventure of the story.

This one is quite interesting due to the simple shapes and block colours, works really well. I like that the designers has only picked out a few characters and used them seperatly, interesting compositions and use of colour palet.

In this image I like the use of colour and line drawing, rough yet smart lines to create interesting shapes and elements. Simple, hand typography works very well and stands out.

I like this composition due to the angle and different view. Most book covers i've seen had the seaguls carrying the peach, this uses that same idea but has shown it from the veiw of a seagul which i think is very interesting.
Again, simple lines, shapes and block colour. Patternd/swirly background is quite interesting, possibly stitched which is another interesting approach to working.
QUENTIN BLAKE.

After looking at different covers for this story done my Quentin Blake, these 3 were my faviourite ones. The one on the right I mostly like due to the typography used, as it is different from the others, quite striking and unusual.
The one on the left, I liked this one as the main character is a big element of the whole image, shows the story is about him, And the middle one, I like as you can see all the characters and they are all centered within the image which works really well.

Dan Judge





I've only recently discoverd Dan Judge, I love his use of prints and textures, using simple shapes and bold colours. A great combination to work with, fun and bold with a great use of white space. Lovely illustrations. I like this technique of working, I myself have been playing around with textures and It is going pretty well and I am enjoying it very much and Dan Judge has inspired me to play around with textures and printing some more.
I also like how simple some of his shapes are, very straight and curved with no rushed or messy-ness. His compositions are interesting too, he seems to place things around the center of the piece, I guess to capture attention easier.
His choice of colours are also good, he seems to use a bold colour and then a less bold colour, apart from the pink one (2nd one down), this one really strikes out and captre attention as he has used two really bold and bright colours, usually I would think hose colours don't look right together, but I feel Judge has pulled it off really well.

Nate Williams

Beautiful Illustrations. Great use of colours, love the use of black lines and shapes. Great textures and prints, simple shapes and unique, unusual yet interesting chatacters and fun compositions.

Thursday 13 January 2011

Dominic Wilcox

Two way toothpaste: So couples don't argue about which end to squeeze from.
Pre-Handshake Handshake: So you don't actually have to touch hands.

Body Shaped Matress: What's the point in the rest of the matress?

Cheshire Cat

One of my favourite characters. Love the design in both the disney cartoon and Tim Burton film. Amazing character design and great colours.

Dialogue Ignites Change

Conflicts/ Resolution:

For this project we had to identify a conflict between people and develop ideas for a means to make it easier, more spontaneous, fluent, constructive and/or productive in order to create possibilities for agreement.
We had to go out and talk to members of the public about our conflicts and ideas and find out what others thought about it, this would be our primary research. We could also look on forums on the interent and in books to see if anyone else mentions the same conflict, this would be our secondary research.
For the few weeks we have for this project we will be attending group sessions to talk about our ideas and develop them and at the end we will have to present our conflict and our ideas to resolve it, in a 6 minute presentation.

To start I had many ideas for this project, but they all wern't actually conflicts, they were irrations/things that annoy me, this is were I got confused after seeing a speaker that came in named Dominic Wilcox. But after talking to tutors I got an idea of what was going on.
I decided that my conflict would be about Graffiti. How people do not want it sprayed up their walls/fences etc, and all over thier public areas. But other people want/like to express themselves, with having a sense of rebelliousness and power.
I went out and spoke to alot of people around my area/community and most people said it made them feel unsafe and they also said it was unsightly and un-inviting and they wanted something done about it as they were fed up of seeing abusive and racist words everywhere.
I also spoke to a couple of kids who liked graffiting, and they said it made them feel rebellious and they could express themselves how ever they wanted.

After this I did some research on the city council and what they do to prevent graffiting (which wasn't alot apart from they would remove graffiti from council property, but you may have to pay for it, which isn't fair to people of the public).

I also did some research on graffiti itsself, and found out there are many types of graffiti, such as: Tagging, Satanic/Hate, General and Gang.

So my idea to try and resolve this problem, was to turn a disubed building into a Graffiti Talent center, where:
Staff set competetions.
Artists can trade echniques and learn new skills, such as Photographing their work in interesting ways.
Graffiti white walls, and when these are full they would have to white wash their work, hopefully this would teach disapline and teach them to take responsibilty for their work and learn more skills instead of randomly tagging peoples walls.
Also it would hopefully show them that there is no point in tagging buildings/houses, etc, as their work would just get washed away and they should be taking more pride in their work.

This would also be a place where people from the public can come in and get involved.

I then thought about how I could possibly get the graffiti artists involved, and I thought about getting musicians involved, performances of some kind, competitions and prizes, and to get some of the work to be photographed and hung in public places, such as libraries, community centers, town halls, etc. This would hopefully give people some pride and show that they helped make their communities better places.

I then had to think about the rebellious ones, and how I would get them involved, because I doubt they would 'want' to join in. So I set some basic rules, So basically, If you get caught graffiting you would be sent to the center. If parents and schools feel their children/students are mischievious they would be sent to the cetner as an after school programme, this will hopefully teach them some respect and responsibility. And if they work hard it could be something they could put on their CV's and college applications.

Hopefully this will help stop the amount of graffiting that goes on in communities and help them become nice and welcoming to other people. And if this is successful, new projects will be introduced and hopefully the graffiti artists will want to get involved again.

Wednesday 12 January 2011

Sholto Walker

I came across Sholto Walker on illustration web.com and I really enjoy looking at his characters, they are beautifully done and well created and they all have a sense of personality. I also like the small but effective amounts of details used in the facial expressions, hair ect. My favourites are deffinatly the cat characters, different personalities come across in each one, cute faces, very simple yet detailed. Great illustrator. Lovely!