DD2000 - Design Practice: Christopher Jarvis

Last week I visited a small exhibition in the south of England, in a smaller town in Kent.  Based in the historic town of Rochester, the Francis Iles Galleries sells and exhibits famous paintings from many artists; when I visited, the exhibition on show was by a painter called Christopher Jarvis, a local artist whose paintings are somewhat famous in the south east.

Jarvis is primarily a watercolour and oil painter;  I found his paintings to be particularly striking many of them being marvellous landscapes; the Gallery owner explained that Jarvis had moved to a house that overlooked the river medway and this had obviously had a distinct impact on his art – landscapes filled with country scenes and trees quickly changing to waterfronts and detailed oil painted ships reflecting his new home at the historic docks. His landscapes are incredibly detailed, and his ability to draw water is astounding; it looks realistic with the separation of light and distorted reflections, a technique that I admire and would love to learn.

his other greatest passion is also reflected in his art; being a former drummer himself, Jarvis shows a particular flair in his portrayal of music and instruments in his art. His Oil paintings of musicians are seemingly alive on the canvas, with broad strokes and streaky backgrounds that bring the subject of the piece into sharp contrast. The paintings have some genuine life to them, with his paintings of famous musicians looking as if they were made mid concert; my favourite piece of his appears within this category, an amazing oil painting of Jimi Hendrix mid solo – the painting is amazing, with the lifelike expression on the subjects face and attention to detail in his clothing and hair contrasting with the simplistic background that gives the illusion of stage lighting; it is easy to see the artist put a lot of work into this painting, as is the case for each of his exhibited pieces. Out of the exhibitions I have recently visited, I can easily say this has been my favourite as of yet.

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DD2000 - Design Practice: Roger Ballen

A few days ago I went to the Manchester Art Gallery to see the exhibition Shadowland: Photographs by Roger Ballen 1983-2011. The gallery consisted of some of Ballen’s most famous pieces, ranging from his earlier pieces in the 1980’s and covering almost three decades of his work. I was initially unfamiliar with Ballen’s work, but instantly recognised one piece in particular, his iconic ‘Twins’ photograph.


 Indeed, all of the work presented in the exhibition were photographs and were quite difficult to wrap the mind around due to the context of some of them.

All of the photographs are in black and white and have a gritty appearance; the subjects of the photo are striking, and hard to comprehend – they range from simpler objects presented in a unique photographic perspective that appears in all of Ballen’s work that culminates in an abstract image of actual objects, while some photo’s are somewhat grotesque and akin to caricatures. Even though the art itself was not particularly appealing to me, it is clear that Ballen has raw passion for his subject matter. It was explained in the exhibition that Ballen had spent a major part of his life in Johannesburg in South Africa, and many of the pieces on the walls were merely photographs he had taken; the photo’s themselves are hard to distinguish from paintings, as Ballen’s concepts of spacing and interactions between the subjects often result in an alien composition that seems impossible to have been caught on camera, instead seemingly stemming from an artistic imagination; this may indeed have been Ballen’s intention when he took the photographs, giving them their unique feel -  yet to me, seems almost disturbing, perhaps mirroring the large difference in cultures.

I found the exhibition very insightful, however the images themselves were not to my liking and I found them quite disturbing and difficult to look at.
 

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DD2000 - Design Product: Children's Books

I have chosen to review four children’s book illustrators as I have had to illustrate and design several  books of my own and think that by comparing a few may help me understand more what values they share and differences in designs. I also think that it will help me understand different styles and help me to work on my own. I went to the book shop Waterstone’s to look at different books as I thought they would have contemporary illustrators as well as well known and older illustrators too. Four books that I found interesting were; Sarah Warburton’s ‘Grub’s pups’, Layn Marlow’s ‘How many sleeps?’, Russell Ayto’s ‘The cow that laid an egg’ and Lydia Monks’ ‘What the ladybird heard’. All of these four books have some similar and some different qualities whether it’s the same technique, material, style or colours.

The first book I looked at was ‘What the ladybird heard’ as I had looked at this book in a previous project. The characterisation of the animals is quite simple, yet the use of collage brings depth and texture to the images which make them more appealing and interesting to look at. The images and layout aren’t the same on each page, some are double page spreads of parts of the farm with all the characters while others have the characters dotted in small sections on the page in their own space, which I think makes the book more interesting to look at. The colours used are bright and cheerful which attract the eye and different materials used include wallpaper, paint, photo and many others. She uses textures and patterns a lot in her work and I think it works well for the target audience as it make the images more appealing without getting in the way of the illustration itself. A similar book to this is Russel Ayto’s ‘The cow that laid an egg’ as he also uses texture in his work as well as flat colour. The characterisation is quite plain and made using simple isometric shapes and even though I don’t personally like this style work for my own I think it works well for the context and audience of the book. Having the cow stand on two legs gives it more personality and human characteristics where as Lydia’s characters still remains with all their animalistic qualities yet still look cute and friendly.  The materials that Ayto seems to use are inks, paints, papers and some digital sections.

The next book I looked at was Sarah Warbuton’s ‘Grub’s pups’. I loved the drawings in this book as they were still cartoony like the others yet the images seems to have more shape than Ayto’s and Monks’ and the images had slightly more tone to them as well. The texture of the illustrations is softer and looks like they were coloured using water colour. The back grounds of the book are plain and simple using block colour, where as Ayto and Monks both have full scenery backgrounds in their books. I love the style of the illustrations, I like that they have some tone in them and that the characters have a visible shadow. I also like how the characters have a black outline; this is something I tend to do with my own work as it makes the separation between the character and the background more visible. However, Lydia Monk doesn’t put an outline around her characters and this creates a softer look about them and creates a subtle appearance which is quite peaceful as there are now hard lines around her characters. Ayto on the other hand uses a bold black line to outline his characters which make them seem cartoonier and a bit harsh because the line is quite bold.

The final book I looked at was Layn Marlow’s ‘How many sleeps?’ which I really like because it is less cartoonish than the others and looks less childish. The illustrations still have a black outline around them but it is quite fine and works well with the image as you can see it but it doesn’t affect the appearance of the drawing unlike the lines in Ayto’s book as I find them too thick and garish. The colours used are quite subtle, not as bright as the ones used in all the other books. The materials used look like it was water colour or pencil as it’s subtle and quite calming. The layout of the book is similar to Sarah Warburton’s as there is a plain background with the colour image placed in a different area or way on each page where the images can interact when they need to.

All four illustrators use a relatively cartoonish style as it is not a realistic representation; however out of all of them I would say that Layn Marlow’s is the closest to it. My favourite out of them all has to be Layn Marlow’s ‘How many sleeps?’ as I love the layout of the book, the illustrations, colour and materials – overall I love everything about the book. My least favourite has to be Russell Ayto’s ‘The cow that laid an egg’ because I don’t particularly like how simple the characters are or the harsh black lines around them as it looks slightly messy. However I think they both work really well for the context of the story and would appeal to the target audience of differing age groups. Even though Layn’s book is my favourite I think it would hold the child’s attention for the least amount of time out of all the books because it’s not as cartoony or as bright and eye catching as all of the others. I think that Lydia Monks’ and Russell Ayto’s books would be the most appealing to younger children, followed by Sarah Warbutons’ and finally Layn Marlows’ book I think would appeal to slightly older children more in terms of illustrations as younger children would get bored of them quicker.

Each illustrator has successfully created endearing characters that children would fall in love with and they all work well with the context of their stories even though they have different mark making techniques or characterisation and colour. Both Lydia Monks and Russell Ayto use collage in their work while Sarah Warburton and Layn Marlow use watercolour in theirs. All of the illustrations have a cartoonish style, just of varying degrees. Each book would fascinate and charm a child audience and I have enjoyed looking and analysing the illustrations. Since looking through the different styles and layouts of the books, it has helped me to understand children book illustrating a bit more and has given me some tips and ideas for consideration for the future if I choose to pursue a project to do with children’s book illustration.

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DD2000 - Design Discourse: Chip Kidd - Designing books is no laughing matter. OK, it is.

The second talk I am going to review is by Chip Kidd, and can be found at http://www.ted.com/talks/chip_kidd_designing_books_is_no_laughing_matter_ok_it_is.html

I chose this talk because I have had to design or make a few books now for different projects and thought it would be interesting to listen to.

Chip Kidd has an extremely unusual appearance as he walks out onto the stage and has funny mannerisms that makes the audience laugh, which I think is to relate to the title of the discussion and to show it is not a stern discussion. After a jokey introduction he starts off by saying he got into designing books by accident and that originally he wanted to be a graphic designer but only ever was offered the job as assistant to the art director at the book publishers Alfred A. Knopf.

He went on to talk about his experiences and lessons learnt at the company, he said that you either show words or you show pictures, you do not show both because that is treating your audience like a moron. Then he said he was able to use this theory on the first two books he helped publish, one was in a conversational style so the cover required words and the second was a biography so it required just an image for the front cover.

In addition he designed the iconic book cover for Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton which was then used as the logo for all Jurassic Park products and franchise. He also designed the book cover of David Sedaris’ Naked which has a sleeve with underpants on it, which slide off to reveal an X-ray of a pelvis, which I think is funny and a clever twist on a book cover and sleeve.  

I found Chip Kidd’s talk extremely funny and intriguing as it showed different ways of designing book covers, which I have had to do myself and have found it quite challenging in the past, yet this talk has given me new ideas for future techniques of illustration and design.

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DD2000 - Design Discourse: Lucy McRae - How can technology transform the human body?

The first talk I am going to review is by Lucy McRae and can be found at http://www.ted.com/talks/lucy_mcrae_how_can_technology_transform_the_human_body.html

Even though it is a short presentation compared to some of the others available on the site, I found it very interesting and thought provoking. Lucy started the talk by explaining that she once worked at Phillips electronics in the far future design research lab looking at how technology can transform the human body and skin. She looked at electronic tattoos which are altered by touch, which I found extremely fascinating.

Next Lucy went on to explain after collaborating with a friend she started becoming obsessed with the idea of ‘maybe technologies’ where a switch or an idea wasn’t switched on or off which could take on the form of a gas or liquid, merging this idea with the human body. She experimented with blurring the perimeter of the body so that you couldn’t tell where the skin ended and the near environment began. In particular she was enamoured with the concept of merging biology with technology. She started looking at ideas of replicating how our veins and tendons link together and representing that using tubes on the outside of the body and also the idea reprogramming our own body odour, biologically enhancing it to help us communicate with others or attract partners. She raised the concept of whether this would make us act more primitive, like animals? She created a consumable perfume which you swallow and it releases a scent when sweat. This instigates a new method of how perfume can be consumed and used. The human body in this case would be the atomiser instead of the spritz bottle perfumes are provided in at the moment.

She is insistent that she has many ideas for the future yet her next project is unknown and that there are no boundaries, which I think is an enlightening way to view creativity of every kind. I found this talk extremely interesting and inspiring.

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DD2000 - Design Practice: Fig Taylor's Talk

We had the renowned Fig Taylor come in to talk to us a few weeks ago to discuss portfolios and the creative industry as she works for the AOI (Association of Illustrators) and is extremely knowledge on the subject. She began by explaining that clients in the UK and Europe are spoilt for choice; there are more illustrators than there are jobs allowing them to ‘pick and choose’ whereas in places like Australia the opposite is true. Another point she raised was that as an illustrator you should have a strong recognisable style.

Next Fig went onto talk about portfolios and what should and shouldn’t be included in our own as she looks through them professionally. She explained that its preferable for new illustrators to meet clients face to face get to know them and what they are looking for. In portfolios we should have our work ordered with the best work at the front, all work must be neatly presented and well organised with some sort of order or categories. She told us that you generally have about ten minutes to show and sell your work to the client, so to limit the amount of work in our portfolio and that whatever we have in it, it will be assumed we can and want to draw; conversely anything that’s not shown they will assume we can’t or don’t want to draw. We also need to only present work that we can quickly and easily reproduce; anything that took considerable time to create wouldn’t be practical for clients or deadlines. We were also told that the ideal size for portfolios is A3 or A4 as there usually isn’t a lot of room to present, and that the work has to be mounted but does not have to be black or white so long as the colour chosen accentuates the work.

Digital portfolios should have the same amount of care and organisation spent on the as printed portfolios and the same layout; also taking equipment such as laptop, charger, dongle and USB’s  was encouraged– not to assume that the client will provide them. Fig also told us to research the area that we want to work in and to contact lesser known magazines to understand what styles they generally commission.

I found Fig Taylor’s talk incredibly helpful and insightful, It helped me to understand more about what clients will be looking for and how to layout my portfolio as well as what to include.

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DD2000 - Design Practice: Ben Tallon's Talk

Reviewing the talk given to us by skilled illustrator Ben Tallon, who is a previous graduate from our course, helped me to understand more about the creative industry and to calm my fears about my own work and current situation as a student illustrator. I found it incredibly helpful and perceptive, he discussed many points and areas about getting into the industry, his own personal experience and advice on what might help us start out.

One of the most useful points he made was that you don’t have to find your style before graduating and explained that his iconic style didn’t emerge until years after graduation, which was one of my biggest issues as I haven’t discovered my own style yet. He advised looking at illustrator’s work we admired and to take inspiration from them but not copy them, saying there was a big difference between copying something which isn’t your work and using aspects from it to enhance and build on your own style.

One of the most important points Ben Tallon made was that the best thing you can do is go meet clients in person as they can get to know you and you can pitch to them, although you will tend to have as little as 30 seconds to catch their interest as many are extremely busy. He entertained us about this point in particular describing his own experience where he invited himself to a client’s house for dinner. You also have to continuously work on new material and keep clients updated with what your new work looks like and what you are capable of. He stated that you need to keep putting yourself out there to attract attention, ask around magazines, newspapers and other media types and to not take silence as a no, just that the person may be too busy to have seen your letter or email straight away.

I found Ben’s talk extremely inspiring and enlightening. It put my mind at ease knowing I don’t have to have a distinct style just yet and helped me to understand the industry better, which I am extremely grateful for.

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Okay, so I now have a blog, not quite sure how all of it works so finding out as I go along =] This will be interesting...