Graduation projects

For this module I completed three self set projects
1) Illustrating Little Red Riding Hood.
2) Creating greeting cards for alternate occasions.
3) Creating a new book cover for 'James and the Giant Peach' by Roald Dahl and a set of postcards illustrating the story.

All final outcomes can be seen on my website : http://www.andreamagson.co.uk/

Snippets of the projects:     

1)

2)

3)

Competitive Design - Self promotional book

An Adventure into an Opposite World
Written and illustrated by Andrea Magson



 
 

Photos of my self promotional book.  This project was self directed the concept was ours to choose and some themes were given to start people off.  The idea of opposites came to me when thinking about good/bad, lost/found etc. firstly i thought about good and bad in stories specifically fairy tales and the characters, however it lead onto a more playful concept.  One being merging opposite animals together.

I chose animals that wouldn't usually be put together and created this small, 'explorers' book out of those i had illustrated. 

one week entrepreneur

This was a chance to utilise our specialist abilities, to think of a design opportunity and create 10 things, sell 9 and keep 1 for the studio. I decided to create christmas cards since the season is near and people will and are buying christmas greeting cards.  I decided to take the way i was working in grad 1 further by bending rules and using the same working method.

sold 9 at £1.50 = £13.50

spent £5

£8.50 profit

Grad 1 - Little Red Riding Hood

copyright Andrea Magson

Wedding Cards

Self Directed has allowed me to come up with my own brief and focus on skills i want to improve and use. I like to create single illustrations and thought about context of posters, single illustrations, and cards. In deciding on a brief i wanted to take greeting card illustration further, i thought of the wedding or male cards for a theme as there were not many at my workplace of Clinton Cards. This was then narrowed down to be the theme of wedding as there can be more concept ideas.


I wanted to experiment with photography as i enjoyed the skills workshop last year and decided to buy a camera recently. I was asked by a friend to photograph a wedding on the 5th of April and thought it would be good experience and relate to the project. I took many photos but personally like those that capture the truly happy moments in the day as this is what weddings are about. I then began to paint in acrylics from these images to get back into painting and experiment.

I began to think of concepts that could be used for the wedding cards and came up with animals that mate for life. I thought of this concept as it can be used for weddings and civil partnerships as these animals will be a symbol of love and are not obviously a man and a woman. Knowing that there are not many civil partnership cards in shops as there are online, my theme needed to be definite.
I decided on the overall wedding theme but to provide 3 concepts in the 3 final card designs:
1) to show swans - animals that mate for life
2) to show love and togetherness - what marriage is all about, through symbols of love eg. hearts.
3) to show general wedding elements not relating specifically to man and a woman eg. confetti. All these can show a general wedding card one suitable for civil partnerships also.

I like the way in which i work with the acrylics layering, and mixing on the material. I've tried to relate all 3 card designs to one another through the method of working, the illustrations all include water and there is the concept of journey running through them, as marriage is a journey in life.

The End of the Line

This work is from the module Professional Practice with the brief set around the issue of overfishing and the book The End of the Line. For the illustration specialism students, we have to create 3 illustrations for the book cover along with hand drawn type for the title, author, and publishers logo.


So far I am enjoying this brief, I like the restriction that we are only allowed to use inks and 2 colours black and one of choice. Ive read half the book and watched the film to get a grasp on the subject. Ive so far developed my work from 'pretty' images to a more rough textured method of working which i really like, but the type will also have to match the method.


I've developed a concept of 'clock fish' as the fish are against time ultimately. I decided to loose the net idea and focus on this concept along with my rough tectural technique. My final design shows this along with the fish in a kind of production line, basically showing the system.

Stepping into Illustration

Quick drawing:

Reportage Drawing:

'The Dog Exercising Machine'