Responsive - Module Presentation boards

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY

LUMINARI TECHNOLOGIES

TEAM IMMORTALS OCR

ON PAPER

LIVELYHOOD

SECRET 7"

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Collaborative D&AD brief: 

SHUTTERSTOCK

Responsive Collab - MegaCrit

With the collaborative brief all handed in, it was only the 503 megacrit that remained, but coming out of it i'm feeling a bit underwhelmed & I'm not sure if i've achieved that much from it all? 

I'd had a look at the past winners of the D&Ad awards & I'm pretty sure we don't have much of a chance of taking home 'a pencil' this year. Maybe I'm setting my standards too high, or expecting too much from myself, but i realise looking at our our entry, that it just isn't professional-looking enough to contend (again,based on the quality of past years winners). Not to say I'm dissatisfied with the amount of work the group all put into it, but with us all having different working styles, levels of skill and competence on various software, it was always going to be hard to be able to create something that matched up to the grander visions i had in my mind. That's partly why i've stated the intent to go back and make an extended, polished up 'deluxe' version of the 'Overcoming the monster' story the way i had pictured it, just so see how it would look and if i actually could mange to do it all within 5 years?!

JICT presentation boards for the Shutterstock brief, produced by Tilly & Chay.

But back to the Megacrit, it was a good chance to see what everyone else had come with on their chosen briefs- also to see their individual brief efforts. Looking around, everyone had noticeably upped their game in the presentation department since the last megacrit, with people using headers, and logos and thinking about the general layout of their boards a lot more.I'd like to think my presentation design approach might have rubbed off on some my peers?! Also, that made me feel like i needed to improve the look of mine, as i hadn't altered them since the first time we displayed our boards,but looking at them, apart from varying some the descriptive blurb i'm to sure they need altering? They're pretty clean and uncomplicated - all they need to be. Will need to go back and resize the blurb type and logos for the A2 digital board versions however. 

It also feels like i should have done more briefs, and I'm not sure if I've really produced a sufficient amount of work across the whole module. There's still time before the final submission so i think i'll get involved in a couple more small-ish design briefs before deadline day.

Responsive Collab - Wrap & Submit

As far as the 'practical' side of the project was concerned, it was all wrapped up. While i was making the last few alterations with the final audio versions, Tilly & Chay were pulling all the development work and animation stills together to create our Collaborative presentation boards for the Mega-crit on Thursday, as well as making the 30 sec process video that was also required with our submissions. 

I wasn't available for much of the hand-in day, as i was attending a meeting about a Public Art Project - so i'd made sure i'd completed everything i'd needed to, without leaving the group in the lurch. I saw them briefly during the day and they reported that happily everything had gone through without a hitch, and that is was all DONE. Big relief,great work by all!

For Mega-crit presentation purposes only, i put all 3 animations together in one long sequence with some brief titles to go with it -  even knocked up a super-quick,mock JICT production company logo for ourselves to go on the showreel & presentation boards, for that extra touch of professionalism. Plus, it gave me a chance to practice a bit more with animating icons in After Effects. As simple as it was, the logo basically represents the 3 illustrators, who were mostly drawing in boxes on paper,(the squares are paper or boxes) with our animator, also working inside a frame, but adding movement to it - hence the curved edges. A load of guff right, but like i said, it was a 5 min job, and a bit of fun!

JICT final animation showreel.

I feel the collaborative project ,as a whole, has gone pretty smoothly and to my mind without any real hiccups. I've been fortunate enough to have landed myself with a good team, who were easy to get hold of, made themselves available for group meetings, and knew how to put in a shift, even if  the brief or production process wasn't everyone's cup of tea. The project turned out to be largely digitally based - wether it was colouring in photoshop, drawing in illustrator or animating in after effects, so i can understand if it was a bit out of peoples comfort zone, or field of interest. As far as generating ideas, being in a group set-up was hugely beneficial, with the possibility to bounce them off of each other, and develop them into something i probably wouldn't have come up with whilst working individually. I'm not sure I've learn that much from the whole process i wouldn't say, without wanting to sound too negative. If i'd had group full of scum bags who weren't pulling their weight,then i might've picked up a few lessons in patience and diplomacy.Skills-wise, i was able to brush up on the initial After Effects skills i'd learnt during OUIL504, but as the clips we were animating were so short, it was hard to really explore much new ground. Storyboarding is one thing that i could say has been improved upon, having not done a whole lot of it in the past. It's useful in getting down exactly what you plan do do on screen before you actually start making your artwork on screen - and also good for explaining to other group members what you're trying to achieve. 

Responsive Collab - Tweaks & Finishing straight

Into the last few days before submission and things are still on course to be all done & dusted in good time without a mega last minute panic. So far.

Animation on the final story is all but completed, ready for the addition of sound fx and then that's that. There have been a few revisions that have happened with this one. After Joe sent over the footage for me to add audio to i felt there were parts that could be altered a little in order to make it a bit more interesting to watch. He'd done a great job making the baker boy walk, but the trouble was you could hardly see him as he was way in the distance - which gave the surroundings a good sense of scale in some scenes, but felt it was a bit repetitive to have it look the same in all the walking scenes, and when i mentioned it he felt the same, which has been the case on the majority of the project - a welcome situation ,both having the same sort of creative visions. 

Draft version of 'Rags to Riches'

Draft footage still.

So i proposed a change to the composition in a couple of scenes - instead of the baker just walking in the distance, he would also walk past close-up. Also added some colour with the trees and autumn leaves blowing around him as he trudges along the street. This way you can also see Tilly's characters expression.

Proposed revision

Revised proposed revision

Joe hit me back with the modified version and it looks spot on, the leaves blowing past are a great touch swell. Not only that, but he'd changed the opening scene so he was walking across screen IN THE RAIN! it was crazy when he showed me, looked so convincing - he assured me it was a relatively simple procedure, but really effective non-the-less. It goes to show that working with others is handy for triggering off new ideas. From the empty looking scene we had to begin with, to now having trees, wind, leaves, new perspectives and now RAIN! 

Rain footage. (can't really see it too well in a freeze frame)

Initial bakery drawing i was given to colour.

Final bakery interior -  'rustic' rendering

ABOVE:Refined, re-sized baker character ready for animating.

The baker character from Tilly's initial design had a bit of a make-over aswell. I was handed him to colour in, as it was currently a simple black & white outline made with shapes in A.I (pictured on the left hand side). Although the foundations for him were fine i just felt with some line weight variation and some refining of his body parts it would make it look less W.I.P. Plus Tilly had already mentioned she wasn't getting on with Illustrator and so seemed ok with some modification. But as i said, i didn't really change the appearance of her design, just enhanced it. Even the simple changing of the stroke lines from black to grey helped. For the 'reaching out' version of the character, there wasn't an initial design made for him, but the beauty of illustrator is that you can shuffle shapes around so quickly, alter them and boom-bam you've got the same character doing a whole new stance. Other little touches like adding rubber gloves,aprons, and a variation in facial expressions, also the addition of subtle textures later on all helped to bring it together.As with  my drawings i separated his limbs to make them move independently from his body if required. So again,with another set of eyes and hands on the project it can help elevate what we're doing a more professional level.God that sounded so corporate.

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OTHER EXTRAS

Alterations made to the menu scene.

I modified the menu so i could moved it up & down.

'Chubbs' now peers out from behind the menu and smiles.

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'Wall of famers'

'Wall of Famers' added to the first shot of the diner interior. 

'Wall of Fame' entrants added to the photo frames in the final scene.

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Texture & lighting added to this scene, just to give the backdrop a 

bit of 'drama' & make it not so flat.

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Respoonsive Collab - Continued...

With my part in the Asian story done for now, i switched to the final part - set in a French Bakery, or Le Bakery if you're from France.

Same process as with the other archetypes, all starting with the two scenes i'd been give to complete.In one of my given scenes i'd been given the tricky task of depicting the coming & going of all fours seasons inside a 2.5 second time frame! The other was an image involving the bakery in which our aspiring French master baker character would work in. 

Development work

Now drawing cityscapes is not something i do a lot of, or enjoy as i just end up getting carried away with lots of accurate detail and being hung up on correct perspective - not this time. I'd been reigning in the amount of polished detail i'd putting into my drawings for this project, in a effort to make it fit in with the style of the rest of the group - well a bit more than usual anyway. Again, i referred back the old, old cartoons i used to watch growing up, Looney Tunes and Disney films etc - and i remember how they'd often have a main focus of a shot (a house or building) that would be quite detailed, then the background environment it was in always tended to be just basic blocks and squares and simple lines to give the impression of lots of other buildings. It certainly saved me a fair bit of time, as well as fitting in with general aesthetic the other existing artwork we already had.

Bakery/City scene layers.

As there wouldn't be a character involved in this scene, i had to think of a way to make it more interesting to watch, rather than just a still of the bakery. I picked a few bits to make animate-able  and added some smoke and a sun to join the party also. The addition of a black mask layer came late on, to give the impression of an early morning start for our little baker boy. 

The additional sounds came pretty naturally, and didn't take too much searching for. Tested my after effects skills a bit further by making the smoke from the chimney move in a more natural manner, using the liquify tool in A.e. Fiddly at first, but like anything in the Adobe Creative Suite, you do it enough times and make enough mistakes then eventually you get the hang of it. It works on the same principals as when you use in within Photoshop, so i had a fair idea of how it all worked. I'm pretty happy with the results, but god help me if i'd had to do it for longer than 2 seconds!

Tree seasons. Treesons.

With the trees/season scene, i'd managed to come up with a way of  displaying the change in all the seasons, albeit a bit hurriedly - but this could also be seen as time flying by. Although i knew full well that whatever amount of work i put into this scene,it would only be viewed for 2/3 secs-  yet i still felt the need to go to anally retentive levels of detail, considering these details would most probably go unnoticed by anyone, except me. These added extras included the city backdrop ( which Joe had drawn in fine liner previously) to have a different shade of colour depending on what season it was, and the soil squares turning from dark brown in the autumn ( because it would've been raining lots) to light brown in the summer ( where the sun had dried out the earth) I even made tree shadows appear as the summer brings the sunshine, again, another detail that I've no fear will go unnoticed. But you probably would notice these things if they weren't there. I'm all about the subtle. 

Responsive Collab - More of the same

With all 3 archetype stories now on the go, it was getting a bit confusing keeping track of who had done what, who needed to do what, what needed to be done and who needed to do it. Our Facebook page feed has been getting some serious action! But the good thing with our team members is that we've always been contactable and responsive to messages - no-one has gone a.w.o.l at any point, leaving a load of work to be left undone. Everyone's been available for meetings when we've need to get to gather to assess the state of play, which has been a positive thing, and has made getting on with the project that much smoother. From what i've been told no everyone in the class has been so fortunate. 

But onward. 

Various drafts of the American diner sorry had been send back and forth between myself and Joe, for approval and additional tweaks. The animation side of it was now complete, so i could sit down and a have a trawl Youtube for some suitable accompanying sound fx and add them to the animation. Some of them took a fair bit of searching for the 'right' sound - it's surprising just how many smack and whack sounds there are out there! We had discussed some concerns about the whole copyright infringement 'thing' in relation to the sounds we'd found and used, and had a read through this article about 'Fair Use'. Scanning through it we determined that as we're not using any entire songs and certainly not using the songs for longer than 20 seconds, that we probably fall into the Fair Use camp.If this was going out to a global audience i would be more worried, but as it stands - no one apart from us, our tutors and the judges are ever going to see this, and YouTube probably have bigger fish to fry, you'd hope. 

Overcoming the Monster (without audio)

Once i'd found (and converted to mp3) enough sounds to fill each scene, some of them needed chopping up in WavePad (audio editing software) but some were short enough to be able to be dropped into After Effects and tinkered with in there. I played around with varying volume levels, so it want just the same level all the way through - for instance the diner exterior and kitchen scenes i made the audio dip down to give the impression that the music was coming from a different room. Little details like that. Overlaying similar sounds to beef them up a bit. I took a lot of inspiration from ridiculous, over-the-top cartoons like Ren & Stimpy, The Tick & Spongebob when it came to loud noises and dramatic music. Even the close ups of faces that i had drawn for it were a nod to those programmes i'd watched in my younger days. Adding audio to it makes so much difference - bringing it all together and making it feel like more of a finished product.The difference in our drawing styles didn't seem be appearing too much of a chaotic mishmash neither! 

Overcoming the Monster (with audio)

Looking back at it there are a few bits that could do with editing/adding to - the pictures inside the frames on the diner wall for one, but these are pretty straight forward little details that shouldn't be too much of a pain to sort out.

Responsive Collab - Draw/Colour/Animate/Repeat

The first of the three animations was coming together, and we started making the handrawn elements for the other two. The general production process we'd adapted was now the following;

• Delegation of 2/3 story scenes to each team member.

• Hand drawn characters & backgrounds drawn then scanned in a sent to the Facebook group. Myself or Joe would then render them in Photoshop and make various parts 'animatable' (limbs, surrounding objects).

• Joe, and on occasions myself, would animate the scenes using After Effects.

• Joe would bring all the finished, animated artwork together as one continuos story. He'd send it back to me where i apply the sound effects and music and any other little tweaks or additions to the animation. 

• Once i'd run it past the rest of the group, it would be be finalised and exported as a Quicktime file. Then on to the next one.


This system seemed to be an effective one, as each one of us has different levels of skill and software knowledge, so it made sense to give the relative tasks to the team members with the relevant know-how.With the deadline relatively near it wouldn't have been productive to give the photoshop/illustrator rendering to someone who wasn't comfortable using photoshop/illustrator.Same goes with the animation side of things.

My own personal process in the making of the selected scenes for the Asian-themed story are shown below.

Generally it goes; 
CHOOSE SCENES> 
MAKE SKETCHES> REFINE SKETCHES>
MAKE FINAL LINE WORK VERSIONS> 
SCAN> COLOUR> SEPARATE INDIVIDUAL ELEMENTS> 
ANIMATE IN AFTER EFFECTS > 
SOURCE SOUND FX > EDIT & APPLY SOUND FX> 
SEND TO JOE.

Wok scene.Photoshop layers ready for animation in After Effects.

Banquet layers - most of which may ultimately not be required to move,

but i like to provide the option.(yes,even the chillies on the rice!)

To lighten the animation work load at Joe's end i animate my own scenes where possible before sending it to him. With each scene we were making only being about 2 secs long, it only had to be basic,quick animations and that's something i had enough After Effects experience to be able to handle. I wasn't making Akira or anything! It was also a good refresher course for me in A.E.(finished wok scene below)

Responsive Collab - Creating the drawings ready for animating

Having decided on the contents of each frame of each of the 3 animations in the previous meeting, we had gone away and each drawn 2/3 frames of the American Diner-set story, about Overcoming the Monster. Doing it this way means that all 4 of our different drawing styles can be brought together, rather than designating a whole animation to each of the three animators.That is, apart from any individual character design -as you need to them to look the same from scene to scene, so whoever designs the characters draws them for every part of the animation that they feature in.So in short, i designed the chubby diner guy, so ill do all the drawings of him, doing his 'thing'. I'm not exactly sure how well the variations in style will all come together, or if it'l work as a cohesive spectacle, but thats part of the fun of trying it out. I say fun, i mean challenge. 

Finished scene, ready for Joe to weave his magic.The picture frames have been 

left blank for people's drawings of the 'Wall of Famers' to be added inside them.

Did a quick timeline animation in Photoshop just to see how the legs would look waggling. I've mentioned it in the past in various blog posts, but this is very much inspired by my nostalgic love for the 'point-&-click' PC adventure games of th early 90's.(Sam&Max, Day of the Tentacle)

To give Joe as much flexibility and opportunity to make things move about independently of each other, once scanned into photoshop, i separated anything that i thought may need to move,wiggle or float into their own layers (eye lids, mouths,limbs), then added colour to it all. Far more time consuming than simply scanning and colouring in your hand drawn artwork, but if the end results can be improved by doing it then I'm all for it. Must keep in mind that each scene is only going to be seen for 2 seconds so shouldn't be so pedantic - but then i also tell myself "look at the 1940's Disney animator guys" they didn't have that attitude, needs to look good no matter how briefly you actually see your handywork!

Initial rendered drawing

Same drawing but  with the addition of moveable facial features

Further development character drawings and finals below

After making that super-quick 'waggly legs' animation i really wanted to do more, i've even thought that once this is all done with i'd like to go back and draw the whole animation myself, as a longer version -well, longer than 20 seconds anyway, if only to give my After Effects skills a brush-up.

Responsive Collab - P.O.A & Storyboarding

Time is going past at an alarming rate, as we all concurred in todays group meeting - in which we sat down and thrashed out a definitive plan of action for each of us to go away and work on over the development week. We'd come back next week to see where we stand, hopefully a bit clearer than we are at the moment! With all the other deadlines, and incoming work, progress on this project hasn't been able to really get going  - also due to the fact we had to wait around for responses to the kiddy questionnaires, that have also been a bit slow to hear back about. So much so that we've had to abandon that idea, even though we did receive some good material. It'd be a shame not to use it, so i'm looking into some other way to put drawings over the children's question answers in the future or as part of a personal project in order to keep my newly found After Effects knowledge fresh in my mind.



Based on the alternative approaches Joe & myself came up with in our 2 man meeting last week, involving the food cultures from various countries, we (the illustrators) designated ourselves a country each and jotted down a rough narrative for each one so we had a starting point for our storyboards. 




















As we wanted to draw big, colourful, interesting looking food we chose some of the countries that are well known for their culinary delights, and familiar with the majority of people. We then linked those countries to the 3 story archetypes we'd chosen;

QUEST - China,food markets - Chay

Rags to Riches - Paris, bakery - Tilly

Overcoming the Monster - America, diners - Ian

For preparation of my own storybaord about American diner food, i scribbled down the characters,themes and objects i would be trying to include. We'd decide on the initial narrative for 'overcoming the monster' which was basically the 'monster' being a mammoth plate of food, served in a traditional U.S diner where food challenges are common place.i just had create some imagery to fit inside 20seconds of animation time that will tell the story of this battle.

I'm really not a fan of sequential drawings and anything that involves me having to drawing the same character over and over  (I'm also not very good at it), and that kind of shows from my storyboards, as the main character looks different exert time you see him, so ill need to refine that - but i got the jist of my ideas whittled down into 9 frames. 

I sent it off to the group FB page so Joe could see what he might be dealing with, and wether i'd set my sights a bit high. With only just over 3 weeks left til submission i don't want to leave myself ,and more importantly, joe an sun surmountable amount of work to do in such a small amount of time. On a positive note, Joe also sent over his storyboard ideas for all 3 nations, and some of our story frames looked almost identical, which was a good sign that we're both on the same page!

Joe's storyboards for the 3 archetypes 

France

U.S.A

China

Reposonsive - Collab : Task approach re-think

With not much more response on the children's questionnaire avenue, we needed to come up with an alternative approach to how we were going to solve this brief. Only two of us could make the meeting so myself & Joe sat down and knocked up a big ol' mind map to see if we couldn't spark something off & pass the new info onto the other team members when they were back in Leeds.

We'd already settled on the 3 story archetypes for our animations, we just need to come up with some scenarios to set them in. The mind maps show our rough thinking process that lead us to our new direction. Which was to be based around the food culture in 3 different areas of the globe.

Even at this early stage i can envisage some interesting outcomes, & i'm quite up for bring some colourful to life. I just wonder how well our three different styles of illustration will fit together - it's all part of the team challenge! 

Responsive Collab - Questionnaires & responses

After Joe had fired over some initial starting-point questions to ask anyone we knew with friends with young children, i added some more general questions to them, that if we got some good replies could be edited to fit around the 3 archetype storylines we'd chosen.

I typed up all the equations and a brief explanation of what the project was about and what we were trying to achieve and send out the feelers on Facebook. As I'm in that age bracket where most people have had a couple of kids by now, i figured i'd be more likely to get a few replies. I had to wait a while for anyone to hit me back with some audio feedback, but i received some nuggets of gold...

    >>>>>> audio replies<<<<<<

Listening back to some of the answers i'd been send really made me laugh, and they instantly had me conjuring up images in my head of possible scenarios.i sent over the audio files to the group to see what they thought and if they thought we had anything we could run with. Everyone was loving them and seems like we might have a something to base our ideas around. Tilly also had gotten biome recordings back from a couple of nippers she knows too, which were also very entertaining and usable! But i think we'd need a few more replies to be able to commit to pursuing this angle, and at the moment my connections have been all "yeah sure thing i can help out" but when i send over the brief with what we need things go a bit quiet - but i understand, they're busy parents and undoubtedly have more important things to do.

We would also have to figure out a way of converting the thoughts and voices of the children into a 20 second story that related to the brief we'd been given.

'Pitcha- Pitcha' & Twilight Collab group session

I'd sorted out my promo slides for the 'Pitcha-Pitcha', find yourselves a graphic designer/ animator to work with session. I think they sum my work quite well and what I'm in to visually,   I'm pretty easy about about who i work with, and about which briefs to choose from, but i am quite keen to hook up with an animation student as it's something I've been looking to get into a bit more since making my animated sting.

I'd say the Shutterstock brief would be my preference as it gives us the option to make animations with someone, and its pretty damn open - but saying that,i'd take any of the others i'd shortlisted. I'd made notes of the animators that caught my eye during the slide presentation aswell.

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The evening meet-up to find my collaborating team was successful and originally had a team of eight for the Shutterstock brief, 6 of us being illustrators though - so we took it upon our selves to split in into a smaller group. I found the animator i was after (Joe) plus Tilly & Chay, who are also illustrators but we each have a very different approach and look to our work which will be good to try and combine. We set up a FB group to stay in contact with each other organised a group meeting to have a proper read over of the brief and get some initial ideas together. 

Study Task 1 - Brief selection

 • Competition Briefs  for consideration/selection •

Penguin Design Award 2016 

( 3 covers = main task /1 cover = small task)

 WHAT DO THEY WANT? 

Book cover and spine illustration/s (plus copy) for 

Adult fiction, Adult non-fiction and Children's book titles.

 WHEN DO THEY WANT IT? 

March 9th 2016


ENTRY FEE/ PRIZES

 £FREE 
WINNER = £1,000 + 1 month paid work placement.
RUNNER UP = £500
3RD PLACE = 250


 WHAT DO I NEED TO ACHIEVE? 

 - imaginative concept and original interpretation
 - competent execution

-  strong use of typography 
-  appeal to a contemporary readership
-  show a good understanding of the marketplace
- have a point of difference from the many other book covers it is competing against
- be able to sit on the shelves of a supermarket as easily as it sits on those of more traditional bookshops


 WHO IS THE AUDIENCE HE

Adults.Children. Fictitious Adults. Fictitious Children. Bookstore and library goers.
The majority of the world.

POTENTIAL PROBLEMS

- coming up with an original interpretation of the brief and something different to whats already been done on the past.

- Not being a book reading fan, i'd have to read some of the material to get a feel of the subject matter.I also would have to research into the market place

- If want to make this a 'main' responsive brief then i would have to create a cover for all of the titles. I'm only really interested in producing work for 'A Clockwork Orange' in the Adult Fiction category. 

- Having been set an author -based task already as part of our degree, (and not really enjoying it) i might just want to avoid the whole world of books for a bit?!




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Illustration Friday (small briefs)

 WHAT DO THEY WANT? 

A weekly (every Friday) submission relating to a given theme. The theme changes every week and you submit your drawings, painting, collage etc etc and it gets posted up on their website along with lots of other artists (i use the term very loosely) efforts within the same subject matter.

 WHEN DO THEY WANT IT? 

Every Friday.


ENTRY FEE/ PRIZES

 £FREE / NONE (unless you count getting your work featured as a prize)


 WHAT DO I NEED TO ACHIEVE? 

 A piece/s of artwork in relation to the given subject of that particular week, with absolutely no quality control, by the looks of it.

 WHO IS THE AUDIENCE HE

Anyone and everyone who comes into contact with the Illustration Friday site or social media platforms.

POTENTIAL PROBLEMSHE

- With no real outcomes for your finished work, other than the fact that your work might get browsed upon by 'x' amount of people, theres not a whole lot of incentive to spend any time or effort into making anything of any quality.

- Quite a short turnaround for someone who finds it hard to make decisions about what he wants to create. But would be a good exercise in getting over this problem and becoming a bit more prolific with my output.


- A lot of the work submitted  on there looks very amateurish  Without sounding like a massive snob, i'd have to ask myself if i would want my work to share the same webspace as these hobbyist peasants?(i jest, but not about the amateurishness)

'hobbyist peasant' work from I.F

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Chicago Latino Film Festival 2016 (small)

 WHAT DO THEY WANT? 

A poster design for the 32nd Chicago Latino Film festival. 

 WHEN DO THEY WANT IT? 

January 6th, 2016.


ENTRY FEE/ PRIZES

 £FREE/ $1,000


 WHAT DO I NEED TO ACHIEVE? 

 - An entry that will be evaluated based on appeal, content and marketability
- A design that must be easily translated to a variety of mediums

 WHO IS THE AUDIENCE 

The selected poster becomes the face of the Festival, as it will be on the cover of half-a-million newsprint programs, invitations, program books, electronic ads, t-shirts, festival trailer and more.

POTENTIAL PROBLEMS

- Looking at some of the past winners, the level of craft doesn't appear to be that high. This could mean that not many people are submitting and that might make it easier to win?!Or that the judges are having a laugh.

- They're asking for submissions to be at 150dpi, which, if they're planning to use it for posters, programs t-shirts and other publications (which they are) isn't going to make it the best quality printing resolution.(i.e.: my final imagery could look like crap on the final product)

That aside, this brief sounds pretty open, and would give me a chance to really get stuck into illustrating something in the way i wanted to - as long i keep some sort of connection to film or chicago or latino culture.It would also be good to get involved in a project that would be seen in whole 'nother continent.



























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Secret 7 (1 cover = small. All 7 covers= main)

WHAT DO THEY WANT?  W
H
7" vinyl sleeve artwork for selected tracks from 7 of the best-known musicians around.They then press each one 100 times to 7” vinyl and invite creatives from around the world to interpret the tracks in their own style for every 7”. 700 sleeves are exhibited and then sold for £50 apiece. "You don't know who created the sleeve, or even which song it's for, until you have parted with your cash - the secret lies within."

 WHEN DO THEY WANT IT? 

Details still to be released (deadline usually around March)


ENTRY FEE/ PRIZES

 £FREE / Work gets exhibited and seen by looooads of people.

 WHAT DO I NEED TO ACHIEVE? 

 My interpretation of a song (s) chosen by the organisers and put on to 7" record sleeve 
format.

 WHO IS THE AUDIENCE 

Anyone and everyone who visits the exhibition, or website or who purchases one of the limited press vinyls.

POTENTIAL PROBLEMS

- Having come across this event last (too late to produce anything to submit) it did seem to be  favouring the 'famous' practitioners and plugging their work a lot. This made me think that potentially only recognised artists work would be considered.

- was also curious about the level of quality, or how conceptual the work would need to be to make the final 700 sleeves. Looking at the gallery from last year its a real mixed bunch with some of the concepts not being massively obvious. So i don't know what the judging criteria would consist of, hopefully not "have i heard of him?No.Get rid of it"


As i mentioned, this is a brief/event that i was made aware of by Matt (Hodson) last year. I actually started knocking something up for it, but it was pretty late in the day and i was worried that the the execution would have to be 100% flawless to compete. Along with uni deadlines i ran of time to submit a final design but told myself that id definitely have something to give them next year. It would also be something id like to travel down to see, even if i didn't make the cut. (ok, probably not if i didn't make the cut) Would gave to decide wether to focus on one sleeve design or make it a main project by doing all 7 songs.

THOMAS HEDGER- Let Forever Be - Chemcial Brothers

LUIS PINTO - Dead flowers - Rolling stones

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House of Illustration book illustration (main)

W A R  H O R S E

WHAT DO THEY WANT? 

- Three illustrations, each of a different scene from the book
-  Illustrations must be portrait not landscape
- Entrant to also design the binding


 WHEN DO THEY WANT IT? 

January 18th 2016


ENTRY FEE/ PRIZES

 £25 / a highly sought-after commission, worth £5,000, to complete a total of nine illustrations and a binding design for the book.
5 RUNNERS UP = £500

 


WHAT DO I NEED TO ACHIEVE? 

3 full-page illustrations, either in colour or black and white, each one for a different scene you select. Include some suggested spine type, considering how it will work with your design and ensuring that you have left adequate space for the logo.

 WHO IS THE AUDIENCE HE

Book readers, book buyers. Anyone looking for a new edition of War Horse.

POTENTIAL PROBLEMSHE

- Reading the book in its entirety before March 9th. (which would still give me no time to make an actual work) As i am a terrible reader!  Audiobook would be the likely alternative.

- Keeping it fairly simple, design and colour wise, as the books are usually bound onto cloth making a block printing effect stand out.

I'm leaning towards this brief at the moment, even if i do have to pay to enter - as it would give a reason to read another book, and also i find i can get rolling quicker with projects that allow me to re-intepret existing texts.
Dealing with the type placement is also something i would enjoy tackling.

A&AD: Shutterstock New Blood Brief (main)