Adidas - Womens mural brief (final proposal)

I  resisted pulling an all nighter and submitting at the crack of dawn, A: because on my little macbook screen i just knew there'd be some glaring errors on that my weary peepers had missed and that would haunt me to my death, and B: for once i didn't actually need to! So i was able to wake up, reasonably fresh - get the design up on an iMac screen and make, sort out any glitches ( which there were, phew) and then still have over 5 and a half hours left to submit...was a weird feeling. It's the earliest i've ever submitted anything. What a breakthrough!

>>>>ISSU DOC<<<<

Me being me, had made a few colour variants, including one on a black back ground, as i couldn't decide which looked better, plus maybe fits in with the black and aesthetic that the Brick Lane studio has. I also had a chance to browse through some of the other 500+ submissions - which did fill me with a bit more confidence as a large majority of them are shocking - i mean, actually hard to believe how shocking - and thats not just coming from a artistically minded person. 

But there are a hand full on there that i feel have maybe answered the brief a bit better than me, in regards to the simple colour scheme and straight forward hand-drawn imagery, and i'm not so sure i'm going to make the top 5 now. I'm worried the Adidas Brick Lane big wigs will favour the more 'trendier', doodle-style of design. 

Either way, i'm fairly pleased with my efforts - but wished i'd seen the call-out a bit earlier to give myself a nit more time on developing the look of the characters - maybe approached it a bit less straight-laced, and more fun way. 

As long as the winners are worthy, i can't argue (i can).

Fingers crossed for the March 6 judgement day though...

Adidas - Womens mural brief (final stages)

I'd reached the point where i could either settle for using the final pencil drawings apart of my submission - which were more than suitable, and had bit of texture to them - OR in and make clean solid vectors out of them. I still had a healthy enough amount of time to get this all done by ( turns out PST is 8 hours behind us, so i'd gain a whole load of time that i hadn't bargained on. Which is always nice!

As much as i wanted to get this done, submitting scanned in pencil drawings just feels alien to me, and in my head it seemed still very W.I.P - so it was to the vector stage, for everything!

As i'd considerably stripped down the amount of detail on the women and animals featured in the image, the amount of time needed to colour them all in would be minimal - block colours in the large part. Also rendering in Illustrator meant that i could quickly and effectively produce the 'glitchy' looking black and white plumage of the falcon, and some of the finer details on the adidas shoes and sports wear, plus i've given them all their own subtle 3-stripe branding.

Sketch-to-Vector process below 

(as making ISSU spreads is becoming a real chore and its saves further waffle!)

With the elements all vectorised this allowed me to play about the sizes without fear of losing any image quality. I was also able to make them interact with the cracked back ground via layer masks. The composition was more or less there - each woman is also placed next yo her corresponding speedy wild animal.

I was always intending to have some colour fills or patterns happening in there, to break up the white a bit so with the extra time i'd gained with the U.S time difference i played around with some simple broken-chain vector shapes - these will be used to symbolise women breaking free from any mental or physical chains/shackles that may beholding them and trying prevent them achieving her goals!

Adidas - Womens Mural Brief (development)

As I've decided on the animals i want to feature i just need to bring them together with the women athlete figures in way that isn't massively cramped or over colourful. I had considered just having a single animal with a single woman figure - but that left a lot of unwanted empty space. 

Mock up using developed sketches

B&W compositional mock-ups using the final, refined pencil drawings.

As with the sketches of the women, the animal imagery is looking like it'll be pretty closely referenced. The pressure of producing something for a big client is starting to affect my design decision making, and i'm floundering. I'm also a bit worried about making something that is too experimental - so instead playing it a bit safe, but trying to push wow factor up a notch, even if the concept isn't mega deep?! 


I've even gone to the trouble of making sure the women i draw will be wearing sports gear based on the current Adidas Performance range. The devil is in the detail, plus i'm getting a bit ahead of myself, considering i haven't even settled on the layout yet!

I've added a simple 'crack' effect to break up the white background, and to create the illusion of a world/person record being broken. Will try out filling a number of the sections with a colour or pattern.

I think this is as busy as i'm going to be allowed to get away with. I still want there to be some breathing space around the image elements,as well as some slight overlapping so it doesn't look like 6 separate images on one picture. Also i intend to have the characters entering/exiting the canvas rather than trying to squeeze them so they all fit in. This will hopefully give the impression of them travelling though the 'frame'.

Initial colour experiments

Adidas - Womens Mural Brief (development)

Although i'm not panicing too much about the amount of time left to get this done, i probably should be as i'm not coming up with much that's really visually clicking so far. Having said that, i'm confident in my ability get  something done in time - i have the skills to do whatever it takes to get it done, stay up working on it for as long as it takes to get it done, and to a level that i'm happy with, and that the Adidas bigwigs would consider a professional submission. Missing the deadline is not something that has ever crossed my mind or something that i'd allow to happen.Naive?! 

However the problem so far is that; i wish i could draw the accurate depictions of human females without the constant need to search endlessly for online images that match what i have in my head (Them life drawing evening classes would've been a big help right now). Part of me is saying' just sod the physics and draw weird quirky women' - but the sensible side of me is thinking; 'it's for a women's fitness centre - are they really wanting pictures of weird blobby people with out of proportion bodies plastered up on the walls..?' 

initial sketches 

At the moment i'm working with concept speed and power; in sport and in nature, and striving to be faster and stronger. Animals are the ultimate athletes, (apart from sloths and slugs and well, loads of others) But as far as being double quick, theres a list of 20 or so critters that i'm looking to incorporate into the image. Aswell as it fitting in with the back and white studio decor that's mentioned in the brief -it'd also be an excuse to draw a peregrine falcon, the fastest animal on the face of God's green earth, busting out +200mph during its dives! 

PEREGRINE FALCON

capable of reaching speeds of up to 200 mph while at a dive

CHEETAH

can reach speeds of up to 61 miles per hour

THOMSON'S GAZELLE

capable of running at around 50 miles per hour

Strong, empowered sports women should be aligned with strong, solid imagery/linework/shapes/colours. So maybe i should just go with my gut and stop concentrating on trying to be quirky or what's been done before by others.

I am IanF. I am a strong independent, empowered young woman, man, illustrator!

Adidas - Womens Mural Brief (development)

Before i get started with any sketching i had thorough comb through the Pinterest mood board that Talenthouse had linked us to in the brief. Although i wanted to retain a tone that was in keeping with what sort of work i want to produce, i'm also aware that i might have to make it a bit more less cartoony and bit more, 'corporate' looking - for want of a better word. With a big company like Adidas being connected to the project (or any company brief for that matter) i tend to lose any looseness i might have within a design and tighten things right up. 

The target crowd is 18-35 is so still young, but i just fell if i made anything too cartoony it wouldn't get taken seriously. Also minimal might be the way to go. It states that The adidas Women's Studio has a distinct black and white colour palette, (colours are allowed though) so maybe pushing that angle should be considered. But then again, if thats what they posted  then i fully expect a flood of black and white, geometric shape driven designs to appear on the submissions page. So not only do i need to consider tone bit also somehow try and come up with something diferent to what everyone else has proposed

Above: some examples from the Adidas mood board that  really caught my eye 

in terms of varying style and composition.

ADIDAS MOODBOARD

Although women in various sporty action poses will be present in the majority of the submissions i fully expect, it's also going to be pretty damn hard create a design for a woman's sporting project without it. This is where my weaknesses as an illustrator show - my concept design drawing skills. Or at least the ability to draw human figures in specific poses without having to trawl google for reference images. But i heard Mr Bingo once say that what he does the same (makes photoshop collages of people in poses he wants them in) as he isn't good at that sort of thing, and he seems to be doing alright!? I just don't want to end up drawing something that been referenced so closely that it wouldn't even feel like my own work.

As far as bringing empowerment into the proceedings, and it not simply being a picture of some ladies jogging, with the adidas logo on there somewhere - i was struggling to find a meeting point so far. Women doing boxing or weightlifting is NOT the answer!

Adidas - Womens Mural Brief...

Ever since the summer, when we were asked to create a selection of briefs for ourselves in preparation for the Extended Module i'd had been trying to create some sort of project involving Adidas Originals, possibly with the 'oogah' mask designs I'd been doing around that time. It hadn't really come together as a workable concept and i'd shelved the idea -  but I'm now super hyped to see that Talenthouse.com have posted up a mural design brief for Adidas. It isn't for the 'Originals' range but for the Adidas Performance line, which is directed at actual sports and fitness 'performance' as opposed the streetwear fashion aspect of the Originals.

Either way, i'm still absolutely going to do this - even though i'd hadn't seen the advert until fairly late in the day, i have 5 days (have to get my Pacific Standard Times worked out) to chop something more than decent out - which, if i can get a concept/composition nailed early doors, should be within my power. But when it comes to doing projects that i'm really want to succeed in i tend to cave to the pressure of producing an absolutely flawless piece of work, and the self-doubt and hesitation creep in.

But i don't have time for any of that this time. Straight off the back of my 2nd mural design success with We are Boutique (and previously PlusNet, which inexplicably never actually happened) this is the one i'd really want to win. The fact that i don't actually have to physically paint this one if its chosen is a relief - and means i can go a bit more to town with the visuals. 

The brief is pretty open, with only a few stipulaitons, i just have to find a way of capturing the empowerment of women through visually connecting SPORT and CREATIVITY.

Although im fully aware that i've yet to sketch up ANYTHING for the CMV 'out of order' exhibition, with the deadline for designs being the 24th Feb - i knew adding another brief amongst all the others that ive planned to do would put the pressure on me as far a time management goes. However, this is a no- to- miss opportunity, doing something that ivd already had some sucess at and i would like to do more in the future, and it would ruin me if i didnt get something submitted for this, so i'll make the time to fit it all in!