Exe 5.5: Packaging

Brief: Produce a series of illustrations for packaging to be used for a new range of organic biscuits for children. There are three varieties in the range Raisin, Choc Chip and Ginger biscuits. 
The client specifically wants three illustrations featuring extinct animals interacting in some fun way with a biscuit to be used on the boxes. The drawings should be in full colour, and the client would like the colours to reflect the ‘flavour’ of the biscuit.

Go to the shops and research the market. How will you stand out amongst the others? 

I started by looking at packaging for children’s sweets and biscuits in my local supermarket as well as in the ‘organic’ shop. From looking at the packaging that is currently produced, most of it seems to be aimed at the child rather then their parents so I decided to follow suit. Many also had a cut out/see though area where one could see the food inside ie: sweets or biscuits and I think this is effective therefore hoped to also do this.

 

Regarding the drawings themselves, I did far less research/preparatory drawings then usual…and less then I should have perhaps but of course looked up what dinosaurs looked like. I started with Tyrannosaurus and then basically looked for a dinosaur beginning with 'd' and then one beginning with 'f':

Tyrannosaurus

Diplodocus

Fukuisaurus

I basically just launched in...mmmmmmm.......This wasn’t intentional by any means, but basically I decided to do a preparatory drawing of a tyrannosaurus using sharpie marker pens and basically quite liked the image and felt it suited the brief especially in the felt tips because of the vibrant colours and the flat colour. So I decided to use the image and play around with ideas for making a final image from it. I then worked out two other characters in the same style. 

 

First/final image of Tyrannosaurus

I did pencil preparations for the other 2 dinosaurs( ie: raisin and choc-chip) so they looked stylistically similar to the tyrannosaurus image.

What it did mean was that I stopped there at my 1^st drawing. Of course I had every intention to return and try at least one other version but time took over and well, I ran out of it! So I stuck with the felt tip dinos.

I did research the Diplodocus and the Fukuisaurus a little more. The choice of these two dinosaurs was largely down to an alphabet search of dinosaurs so that I could use alliteration in the heading of the biscuits. And therefore diplodocus delight emerged and Fukuisaurus feast emerged.

Final Diplodocus

final Fukuisaurus

The idea for all images is that the gap between the leaves is cut out and covered with clear celophane so that the actual biscuits can show through the gap.

I did a basic (half) box template just to demonstrate how the image could be translated into a 3d object that a box is. I chose an irregular size for a box so that these dino biscuits would stand out. I should have gone the whole toot and done complete box template as I would include some kind of design aspect on the back of the box as well.

How well did it go?

I think the Tyrannosaurus and Diplodocus work the better out of the three images. I also did a bit of ‘market research’ with my work colleagues who have children and they commented that although they liked all three dinosaurs, the Fukuisaurus was far too close to sounding like a swear word which they confirmed kids would be the 1^st to pick up on! How did I miss this?!? Needless to say I think they are right and supermarkets would most likely agree so I will probably have to redo choc chip anyway and change his name completely.

I found myself trying to consider what we have learnt up until now in terms of cropping the images and distorting them as well which I think adds humour to the characters.

I also enjoyed just launching in with the felt-tips and using this ‘prep’ drawing as the final image. This was a tricky decision because I have a tendency to overwork characters so this was quite refreshing. Using the felt tips as a medium was also enjoyable although their ink doesn’t always last as long as I hoped. I can see why a number of illustrators/graphic novelists use them for their final images.

Exe 5.3: Travel Guides

Brief: For this brief we were asked to produce three illustrations for a series of books jackets, at the size of an existing travel guide, for the locations Istanbul, Helsinki and Milan.

Overall I found this exercise a little bit of a roller coaster. I was very excited at the start but as I started to overthink I became a bit overwhelmed. 
I started off by looking at general travel guides and was amazed at how most travel guides used photographs for their book jackets, some of which were lovely and for me others were dull.  

There was minority that were a little more quirky and interesting and these were generally illustrated! 

I started by downloading a chapter of the lonely planet travel guide for each city and looking at images online. For Istanbul I was able to look at old photographs from when I was there 3 years ago.
Helsinki: 

Istanbul:

Next I did a mood board for each city: (unfortunately I will have to add the mood boards for Helsinki and Istanbul later as I forgot to photograph them and they are currently with my tutor!)  

My main issue was trying to find a common thread for all three cities in order to ensure they fitted in a series. I also struggled with Milan particularly because, from an outsider’s perspective I always see Milan as a place people live rather then visit or if they do they go there to shop! Needless to say I had to do a lot of reading to change my perspective! I decided that the common link between the cities was the keen sense of design even though this design came in very different forms. As such I played around with doing a cut-out cover and then planned to do a painted or printed cover as well. Alas, again my plans proved too ambitious for the time I had and therefore was only able to produce the cut-out versions.

 

                           

 

All three book covers.

Exe 5.2: Editorial Illustration

Brief: After researching images in various newspaper articles, were were asked to create an image for articles on one of the following subjects: 

-How green is your food?                             -Finding your family history 
-The best restaurant in town.                        -The object of my desire 
-Loves me, loves me not                               -An interview with Melvin Bragg 
-Throwing your money away                        -Paris, still the best place on earth 

I decided to do an image for 'An interview with Melvin Bragg". 

I started by looking up interview articles online as well as images of Melvin Bragg. I decided on an article with the headline: Melvin Bragg, the nation's schoolmaster" which was an article from the Guardian online written in 2014 and the image I chose to start with was from another interview:

 

After reading the article I highlighted the points that stood out to me within the article and those were:
a.) His idea that self-improvement, education! education! education! and art and culture...are key to a happy and fulfilled life.
b.) He has is an accomplished author having written a number of novels as well as more then a dozen non-fiction books.
c.) He has been heavily, and continues to be very involved in the BBC. 
d.) He is very involved in politics especially as an ambassador for art and culture.

I started by doing a pencil drawing of the magazine/internet picture. In my mind I had hoped to try and create one pencil/mixed media version and then a second relief print but due to time constraints had to stick to the pencil/mixed media version.

Ahhhh mouth is NOT right!

  

1st experiment with collaging magazine textures for jacket.

Final Image 

I think the image works although I am not sure if the pencil disappears a little bit too much with the yellow background.

Unfortunately I struggled intently with adding the text to the image but will continue to try to do this to finalise the image.

Exe 5.1: Your own work

Brief: For this Exercise we were asked to review all the work we've produced thus far and choose one image to create a product/artefact using this image.

This exercise filled me with excitement because it prompted me to think about the work I have produced beyond simply using it as course work.

On reflection I would however have liked to have spent more time researching different suppliers and looking a little further into the images I have produced in order to create a bit of a gallery of images to choose from.

This aside, I decided quite promptly on using the collage dog that I created for exe in section 4 i.e.: image distortion. I was deciding between using the black and white version of the coloured collage.

 

As I live in Kemp Town in Brighton which is FULLL of wonderful dogs of all shapes, sizes and styles, I decided to make the product specific to Kemp Town.  

I had HUGE ideas of creating little espresso cups with the image all around it ....or an apron...or cushion cover...or a wallet....OR....ahhhhhh price! I quickly realised that price definitely puts limitations on what could be produced! Also because I only wanted a one or a few items the price was generally higher and the cost of postage definitely surprised me especially when most of the websites seemed to actually be produced in the USA. What I also found was that producing 3-D objects like cups/mugs meant that on the cheaper/more available websites, the image looked a little like it had been stuck on like a home-made photo-mug and finally some companies/websites are much easier to use then others which certainly influenced what I could actually produce. 

In the end I opted for creating coasters as they were 2 dimensional and within my budget. I looked at a few suppliers and opted for the company photo box in the end and decided on using the collage dog in the end. 

Chosen one for coaster

 I made up the term Kemptonian...which I hope that people would understand! I then trialled backgrounds turquoise and a lavender-grey and finally decided on the lavender-grey.

Next step was deciding on a product…that was very much linked to the price I was willing to spend. Again unfortunately I also didn’t want to order too many of my chosen product at this stage because I wanted to see if it would work 1^st therefore had to go with companies that charge more per unit but you can buy less and therefore spend less to start off with. 

Using these companies was a challenge at times because their systems aren’t really designed to work with images outside of photographs and therefor this limited what could be done when using pixelmator files to include text as well. Zazzle.co.uk was the easiest to use and I was happiest with the product but you only find out when you are ‘checking out’ that they are simply a co.uk name based in the USA so suddenly there’s a hefty postage charge and a 2 week wait.  

I decided to make a coaster because it was still 2d and reasonably priced. Amazon looks the cheapest on paper but only deals with photographs so needless to say I reached a compromise with Photobox.  

Photobox: £14.99 for 4

Café press: £8 for each coaster + £8 postage

Zazzle.co.uk: All items posted from the USA. £8.75/coaster Plus £15 for postage!

Amazon: £2.95/coaster but only able to use photographs not JPEG. 

I looked at Society 6 as they are geared to artists work but I am not a member so that proved difficult and they are also based in the USA. 

Final Coasters

The product is quite fun but of course there are limitations for example, the same image would be printed on each of the 4 coasters. I was quite happy with the quality of the printing and the product itself but think if this was a product to be sold you it would look better with one or more other characters.  From an image perspective I think perhaps a small shadow or horizon line to stop the dog from looking like he is floating. Also having spoken to a friend of mine she preferred the text on the turquoise version and the fact that the dog-character was standing on the word as the font appeared more genteel and she felt the character was like a little gentleman-dog, but agreed with the lavender background. I think she might be on to something....

On the whole I found this a very interesting exercise! Firstly it made me realise that I can and actually should start thinking about considering taking some images to the next level and as I build up a portfolio, thanks to this course, I have some work to fall back on or some ideas to fall back on. Also it pressed home how important researching suppliers is and of course if I was looking to sell I would need to ensure that not only did I cover my costs but that I made a prophet and there’s only so much one is prepared to pay for items like coasters etc. Needless to say this was a great 1^st introduction and quite exciting to see my image on a little coaster even if it wasn’t 100% right.