PRIMARY IMAGES

These are the primary images (pictures I took myself) that I will be working from. I will use them experiments such as illustrations, paper cuts and collages.

I asked the subjects to look forlorn and troubled- something was bothering them.

Close-ups of subject. A good sign of  human emotions is through the eyes, so I thought that a close-up of this area would be a good idea to study from.

Another close up of the eyes.

Another subject deep in thought.

ELABORATE PAPER CUTTING MOODBOARD

ONE: Elaborate paper cutting by Han Jing TWO: Papercut with a message THREE: Very elaborate floral paper cut FOUR: Mythical paper cut  FIVE: A crest like paper cut  SIX: A paper cutting of a peacock SEVEN:A paper cut by Raymond Tuomey EIGHT: Chinese paper cut NINE: A simple paper cut by Hans Christian Andersen TEN: Flowers and vase pair cut ELEVEN: Paper cut message by Rob Ryan TWELVE:  Julene Harrison message paper cut THIRTEEN: Hino Aoyama meticulous paper cut

PROJECT BRIEF

This is my brief for this personal project. This outlines what I am creating, the theme behind my outcome and who the client is. As mentioned before, there has to be a link between this project and the CD project, and this is mentioned in the middle grey box. Also some artists that I will be looking at for inspiration, including Lizzie Mary Cullen, Julene Harrison and Leandro Senna.

MOODBOARD OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ONE: Black and white hand lettering TWO: Patterned illustration THREE: A piece by artists Anton Abo and Ooli Mos FOUR:  Fine liner 'Crazy world we live in' FIVE: A hand drawn portrait used with fine liners, markers and brushes SIX: Lyrics from fine liner  SEVEN: EIGHT:  Hand drawing of a high heel shoe NINE: Super detailed illustration TEN: Song lyrics by fine liner ELEVEN: Fine liner lyrics TWELVE: Fine liner lyrics THIRTEEN: FOURTEEN: Fineliner drawing of a kaleidoscope

This is my mood board of illustrations, particularly fine liner drawings. These were from different sources, including Leandro Senna and Ugo Guttoni. When making this mood board, I made sure to only include black and white drawings.

LIZZIE MARY CULLEN

Image from the Lizzie Mary Cullen website

This is 'Trafalgar Square' illustrated by British artist Lizzie Mary Cullen. It is one of mary drawings of the 'London Psychogeographies' series most likely created for exhibition purposes. Cullen, who was born in Scotland has done award-winning illustrations for clients such as the Independent newspaper, BBC and MTV. This, along with other drawings of the series is a depiction of a famous attraction spots in London, this one being of the world famous Trafalgar Square. The reason for analysing this piece is because it will inspire my outcomes of a series of posters, some of which will be illustrated in this style.

According to her official website, Cullen expresses London as "an expressive urban maze whose sensuous, dark and mythical history is echoed throughout the city" and may have been the main source of inspiration for this series.The purpose for creating these psychogeographies was to "combine reality with my (her) own interpretations of space", which explains why the buildings and the surroundings are the way that they are- disproportionate and not quite up to scale. From this, the possible theme may be that of London, or a psychedelic London, as it bears some resemblance to psychedelic hallucinations. She has used a range of repetitve textures throughout the piece to convey some sense of realism, as seen with the road and the pavement.  When using radiographers and fine liners and Unicorn hide paper, she may have achieved this using short and long marks with these, as well as using long and wavy lines for the sky, and a few hints of cross-hatching, which is obviously her style. Had she not used well-known building such as the neon signs of Sanyo, TDK and Fosters, or even provided the title, the illustration would have been difficult for the audience to identify.

When I first saw the illustration, I found it hard to identify the city until I saw the title. When I saw it, I tried to look for buildings that are found in Trafalgar Square and then it made much more sense.

As previously stated, I would like to use her style in some of my philosophical posters for my personal project. She uses repetitive patterns frequently in her work, which I want to use as this technique links back to the CD project, where I used repetitive patterns for the surface designs. In a way, there is some resemblance with Billie Jean's illustrations which are also monochromatic, and have some sense of realism in them but she don't use any repetitive patterns and her illustrations don't quite fill up the page like Cullen's. But in general, I do hold her work in high regard, because of the effort that she puts in each of them.

JULENE HARRISON

Julene Harrison is a British artist who specialises in paper cutting and illustration. According to her official website, Harrison was originally a textile designer and had decided to do paper cutting only a few years ago. This is an example of her paper cutting work called 'The Best Thing in Life Aren't Things' and was made in 2011 for private commission purposes. It was most likely made for a private client, hence the text at the very bottom of the piece 'Emma & Ian Forever Together'. I have chosen to analyse this piece because it is a style that I would like to imitate for my series of posters for my personal project.

Her background in textiles has certainly been a major influence in her paper cutting art, as she may have worked with patterned textiles which inspired her, and continues to incorporate these designs in her current work. As you can see, she has used a white ground, which may have been a strong card for the sturdiness, which is good for laying it against a dark background, like she has done. For the cutting itself, she has used a cutting knife to achieve those precise cutouts and lines. If she had used scissors, the design would not have been as convincing and engaging. The long and continuous lines may have been a result of making a long cut out of the paper, without lifting the knife off of the page, whilst other lines, such as the sun rays at the top, or the bridge on the right hand side look like dynamic and quick cuts. It's also important to create bridges between the paper so as not to ruin the effect, and Harrison has clearly used bridges to connect the design to the surrounding border. The scale of the piece is unknown but it would be safe to assume that is is A4 size (297x210mm), as this is the conventional size for paper cut pieces. In addition, cutting with a larger size paper would be time consuming, and probably wouldn't contribute to the quality of the design. Around the text, there are images of various objects including an old Volkswagen car, a convertible, a tent and the UK flag. These objects may be personal for the clients, aspects of that are important to their identity.

When I first saw the piece, I was amazed at the precision of her cuttings, and how they resemble real objects really well. She just makes it look very easy. I thought that the border is a nice touch as it ties the whole design together.As I stated before, I want to copy this style and technique for a poster with loneliness as the theme for my personal project. When I make it, I wanted to use the same sinuous lines and precise cuts that she uses, as well as the uppercase bold typeface that she places in the centre. However, when I come to produce it I may or may not have the text in the centre.

MINDMAP OF INSPIRATIONS

This is my mind map of ideas for this new Personal project. Some of these ideas include making a poster of quotes of influential musicians, or a t-shirt with direct and honest messages. At this point, I don't know exactly which idea I will take forward, but for now I have come up with a few, so I can pick the one I want to work with at a later stage.

MOODBOARD

One: A paper weave with painted strips Two: A multi-coloured paper weave Three: Another paper weave with fabric strips Four: Multi-coloured weave Five: A Julene Harrison paper cut piece 'A Californian Honeymoon'. Six:Papercut by Julene Harrison 'The Mostly true story of Jack

Seven: A star book of Frieda Kahlo  Eight: A Chinese paper cut by Han Jing Nine: A circle flip book Ten: A single layer star book Eleven: A squash book of memories  Twelve: An alphabetic concertina. 

INITIAL IDEAS

These are my initial ideas for the new personal project.

NEW PROJECT

From now on, I will posting blog post on the new project, the PERSONAL PROJECT. So keep a look out! 

This project will have some sort of link to the CD project, whether it be through techniques used, the subject matter etc.

Hopefully it will be a good one!

MY FINAL PACKAGING

These are my final CD packages! The top image is the package where the Cd ROM will be, and the image below is for the inlay containing the lyrics to the song.

It has not been plain sailing, but I got there in the end. 

The inlay package open containing inlay

CD packaging with CD ROM inside. There's also the QR code on the bottom of the CD, which I posted earlier.

Because I finished early, I managed to complete an extension task- creating a t-shirt design. I used one of my earlier artwork developments, and via heat transfer, managed to put the design on to the top.

Back of top- The Will Smith logo.

FINAL EVALUATION

For this project, I had to create a CD packaging, surface designs and a logo for an existing artist and song. To come up with some ideas, I created a mind map of my favourite songs and artists. I finally chose to go with 'Summertime' by Will Smith because it had a summer theme to it, but at the time, my decision wasn't definite.
Next, was the creative process, which involved various experiments of techniques that are commonly used on CD covers, including screen printing, stencil work, typography posters, vector images, which were created either by hand, Illustrator or Photoshop. Later on, I used other techniques which were mostly created by hand, like drawing the artist and taking photos of objects that were mentioned in the lyrics, sketching these objects.
After this, I was finally sure that I was going to go along with 'Summertime', so I began to create various logos that I could use throughout the project. I used many mediums, such as pastels, charcoal, Indian ink and paint even on Photoshop. I finally chose to work with this logo, because the letters were of different sizes, and this was typical of at the time the record was made. The colours were bold and this goes well with the summer theme. Next, on to the packaging. I began creating a moodboard, of surface designs, other existing packages, the lyrics and my final logo to be included on the packaging. This lead to experiments of potential packaging using different materials, including recycled packaging, fabric, magazine pages, envelopes etc. This lead to bookbinding experiments, for the little booklet that is usually included inside of a CD package, so I tried out stapling and sewing, and then onto the surface artwork, which was mostly techniques used in Photoshop, including the grunge texture, the personal wallpaper and the seamless repeating pattern. From this point on, the focus of the project was to narrow it down to doing experiments relevant to my own individual project. This would later help me in my own self driven experiments- experiments which I thought are relevant to my chosen song such as my bold repeated patterns created on COLOURLovers.com, vector images created from my own photographs etc. On to the packaging, I started to create some protoypes which could potentially be used in my final outcome, and I eventually chose the 'Wowspiral' originally created by the company 'Wewow'. I thought this packaging was clever and economical, especially as only one piece of card was needed, and the circular clasp made when closed looked quite nice. And my final surface design for the CD package was a combination of  vector images of Will Smith, a pair of sunglasses and a pair of Converse trainers as aspects mentioned in the lyrics, and the use of the typographic defined brush, all created in Photoshop. But, I came to realise that I had to create another surface design to go on the inside of the packaging, so I created on using the same program, but instead i used the Gradient tool, using bold colours such as green, yellow and orange, as well as the tracklisting. If I had used the same design for the exterior, then the customer would be too overwhelmed with the design. Next, I would need to create the same packaging for the inlay, which I decided was going to be lyrics for the song, that the customer could sing along to. So, I created an exterior and interior surface design using the repeated patterns from COLOURLovers.com, and the Gradient tool from Photoshop. My main influence for this was from Gillian Blease's repeated pattern, which had the bold and vibrant colours, as well as geometric patterns that would have been popular during the 90s. I thought it would've been a good idea to have two different surface patterns for the two packages so that anyone could tell the difference.
Overall, I thought that the project was success, because I knew exactly what I was doing and how I was going to assemble the whole package. When I tried assembling the Wowspiral for the first time, it didn't come together the way that I wanted it to, but after practising it for a while, it managed to assemble it successfully, especially with the circular clasp. However, as with anything, there are some things I could have added to make it better. One of them being that I could have a different colour on the CD package exterior instead of using black. Also, the circular clasp on the CD package didn't work out as well as I had wanted it to, the inlay package turned out to be a bit better.
I found the project generally pleasant. I quite like packaging so it was fairly easy to come up with ideas and create. The project did show me some new techniques, especially when it came to surface artwork designs, one of them being the opportunity to make your own patterns at COLOURLovers.com, the grunge texture experiment, and the vector images experiments. As I mentioned before, I like creating packaging, so I wouldn't mind doing a similar project again for the next PERSONAL PROJECT.