Tuesday, 25 May 2010

Digital Illustration Projects, Fall 2009

One of my favourite classes I've taken thus far has to be the Digital Illustration class offered at WCSU. Taught by Vicki Vebell during the fall semesters, this class can be taken in place of regular, analogue illustration. Since I am concentrating on Graphic Design, my advisor and I felt that this class was more appropriate for what I'd be doing in the future. Vicki was truly a pleasure to work with and motivates her students to stretch their work into areas previously unknown to them. As of writing, she is currently trying to expand this programme into a two-parter, with Digital Illustration II to continue on the principles taught in the first part.

Throughout the class, three projects were assigned, all with varied themes. The first was an illustration to coincide with an article about water conservation. The article explained that the world's most abundant natural resource is used to make many consumer items. The surprise came when a table was displayed showing exactly how much water was used to make something so simple. For example, eight gallons of water are needed to produce just one apple. For this project, I've hand-drawn and scanned in a cartoon version of myself, eating an apple, while my stomach inflates after consuming all the water needed to make that apple. My character is set in what looks like an outdoor grocery store, with a giant food tree sprouting from the chequered floor.
The second project consisted of making a poster displaying the "Best of Connecticut." Mainly a photo collage of various places in the state I've photographed throughout the years, this project stretched the normality of a regular photo collage a bit using various filters and modes. Set driving down I-84 and entering the state in Danbury, one can see the classic New England landscape of Madison Beach to the top left and lower right corners, the quaint restaurants of Bethel on the top right, as well as the industrial feel of the factories of Shelton to the left and the outside of historic White Hall on the back of the lorry.

The third and final project consisted of designing an album cover for our favourite music artist. Set to the dimensions of a 5"x5" compact disc cover, I've designed a cover for a fictional Duran Duran Greatest Hits album, showcasing their hits of the original line-up from 1980-85. Suggesting to look like a page of a fan's scrap-book, this cover makes use of photographs of the band, shown to look like they were taken on a Polaroid 600 camera. The photographs are left floating however, as the shadows are the only indication that a Polaroid picture is there. 35mm negatives flow downward to suggest more pictures taken whilst at a concert perhaps. Various lyrics from songs are hand written in lip-stick, crayon, oil pastel and Sharpie marker and lie on top of and behind the photographs.


Sunday, 23 May 2010

Sunderland Book Jacket


So these last few weeks have been quite busy for me, and realising that I haven't updated this page in almost a month, I thought it was about time to get back on routine . . . until I leave for Norway this upcoming Bank Holiday weekend that is. Anyway, I figured I'd showcase a piece I've worked on for my Graphic Communications class here in Sunderland. The objective of the project was to create a book jacket which portrayed the city of Sunderland through my eyes, using only photographs of typography displayed throughout the city. Speaking of typography, this project was to be mostly typography based, but without the use of vectored typography available on the computer.

After collecting photographs throughout the city and talking with my tutor Keith Nevens (who really knows his stuff and is fantastic to work with by the way), he asked me if I liked living here. Truthfully, I do, and I don't think Sunderland's as bad as everyone makes it out to be. This negative image has come from all the visitors who hail from the surrounding cities, especially the Giordies from Newcastle who also don't like Sunderland due to the intense football rivalry. Keith suggested that it would be a greater challenge to go against my positive view of the city and create a negative piece however, and I agreed.

The photographs used in this project do not reflect on the way I think of the city of Sunderland, but I felt they were appropriate for the project.