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'

Photography

This was also a new skill to me and i really enjoyed practising it using; depth of field, shutter speeds and framing.  I am actually looking into taking it up for a hobby.
The brief was based around Time magazine and four titles.  We then had to choose a title, think of a concept for the title and take a photograph of it with no photo manipulation.

The final image was my final cover design as i thought this was the strongest photograph, also it has a clear, simple message of what will spring bring? In the What's Next? title.  However i think that although the image is very clear maybe using one of the key points we learnt such as depth of field in the final cover would've been more effective.

I also think the type choice is ok for the title, not yet there but improving.

FINAL magazine cover:

Vinyl

Vinyl was a new skill to me, i had never tried it before and i quite enjoyed it.  Having Kid Acne there to help and teach was also very helpful.
We had to create a repetitive pattern based on obsession, so something i liked was flowers and these are repetitive in their own way naturally.

I do like the final outcome, however there are points i could have considered more, such as layering the vinyl which in turn produces different shades of colour.

Enjoyed the challenge of the actual process of applying the vinyl to the acrylic, making sure it was applied smoothly.

FINAL vinyl:

Observation and Communication

Obs and Comms was my favourite module last year, as I love to draw but it also taught me so much.  I had never done life drawing before so that was a great opportunity and I really learnt a lot about drawing from the sessions, all of them including mark making.
The module consisted of creating a poster of a piece of Sheffield architecture using drawing and hand made type.

I admit the type part of the module was not my strongest point, although looking back now I could've done a lot better with creating the type; I was more interested in drawing the building.  I did like my end poster but the type on it brought it down.

FINAL poster design:

Type. Image. Format

This module was sectioned into two parts; Buy Nothing Day poster and the Book project.

I quite enjoyed creating new typefaces from existing ones and exploring layout although i didn't carry it through well in my final outcomes.  I also really enjoyed making the book but I didn't do a good job in making it look very professional.  Looking back at this module it was probably one of my worst, but did learn about screen-printing :)

Buy Nothing Day- In my end poster i only like the shape created by the text and the created typeface.  It looks plain and has too much text on.

Book - Looking back now it was all about type and layout whereas I guess focussed more on the imagery, which shows I’m more interested in the illustration part of book design.

Revive

Revive is the name of my inspirational party I had to create.  It encourages women to exercise and feel alive and happy, reviving themselves.

I had photographs took of myself running just up and down the road at night.  The effect that the camera gave I really liked.  The shutter speed must have been open for a while capturing the running movement with light.

I then painted on big photocopies of these photographs then scanning them into Photoshop, adjusting the contrast and making it look more effective and eye-catching.

I feel the images are quite strong however not knowing much about type let me down in this project.

Revive Motion

This was for my final project at art foundation; I decided to carry on from my inspirational party; creating Revive Motion; a group of people interested in dance and come together to create dance routines. I thought of this as it still fits in with revive as in you're exercising but branches off into something that I particularly love.

I worked in the same way as the revive project on this one and called upon my dancing friend once again for photographs. I then decided to experiment a bit more in this project taking away unnecessary detail and creating a movement, which I used for my logo.

Again I feel the images are strong but the type choice is not.