RESPONSIVE - OUIL503 Summative Evaluation

This module has involved a number of different methods that i have developed upon; Working as part of a team, responding to specific/unspecific briefs, working on multiple briefs simultaneously and time management of those particular briefs.

Having a client brief with specific guidelines to stick to is fairly familiar territory for me to be in, so i already had a fair bit of past experience in dissecting briefs and working out what the client is looking asking  for. The design challenges (from d&ad & ycn) were a fair bit more in depth than i'm used to though and these were a good learning experience - making sure i thoroughly read all the small print and lists of deliverables.

Working with a group of other practitioners from other fields is a new experience for me, collaborating full-stop isn't something I've had the chance to do up until now. I'm not too sure i'll be rushing to do it again in a hurry whilst at uni, certainly not in a group with 2 other illustrators, but as far as working together with an animator goes it was an interesting experience. Having more than one brain on the job in hand let to the development of more ideas than i could've come up with if i was working on my own. There was also a certain amount of animation knowledge i was able to pick up from him as well. Obviously if i hadn't of been as fortunate with my selected team members then my evaluation of it may have been lot different. As well as having the collaborative brief to work on, there was the matter taking on the individual briefs. I found i wasn't great at splitting my time equally between both individual & group work, and the rest of my other module work, and left myself a bit short on time when it came to submitting work. Not to say i missed any deadlines, rather that the final results may not have been all i'd hoped they'd be, due to having to rush towards the end. Also, seeing that the deadline is a month or so away, there was tendency to think i had way more time than i had, so on that front i could've designated my time more evenly and more immediately.

If I'm honest with myself, I've not made this module the most exciting or have taken many opportunities to excite myself with the images i have been making (viewers of my work for this module may disagree?). Of course that factor is ultimately down to me and the choices of briefs i decided to take on. Not a whole lot of the work i produced involved much of an analogue element, apart from the initial rough sketches or storyboarding - beyond that it was all digital rendering or vector work based on the original hand-drawn concepts. However,If i'm bored with website icon design then i shouldn't really take on a web icon design commission,duuh. But at the same time, you have to pay the bills, and i was paid for a number of these projects. On the whole, it was back into the reliable,unimaginative, 'get-it-done' mode as usual for me. I probably need to accept that I'm not one of these great, 'hands-on', messy, mark-making, analogue craftsman and i should just focus on my strengths - which appear to lie within the digital, on-screen realms.That said, the collaborative animation task did suit my way of working and given further opportunities i would like to improve on my animation skills in the future.


I've tried a number of different creative mediums, and made the most of the uni facilities as much as possible. Wether it be animation, screen print, illustration or digital design,I hope i wouldn't be accused of just sticking to what i know too much. I'm still all about about learning as many varied creative processes as i can, even if the results aren't always to my satisfaction. Quality of the finished, submitted work however has remained at a high standard for individual projects - with the collaborative project there's only so much input i can have without getting to the point where I'm taking over, and becoming a 'quality-control freak'. Admittedly the quality of the group brief work was lower than i would've liked - but you have to take into consideration that everyone has different ways of working, and varying levels of experience with different mediums, it's not always possible to produce work that to the levels that i'd expect to achieve. Not wanting to 'take over' within a group dynamic is something you can either see as a being a good, considerate team member characteristic  or as someone who isn't driven enough ,or willing to break some balls to get results.That's all very well, but I'm firmly in the 'treat people nice, to retain a pleasant working environment' camp. Massive fence-sitter. The general presentation of final submission/presentation boards etc is always very important to me aswell and the introduction of ISSU presentation boards has made this process, albeit rather repetitive, a lot more effective.

As far as future development goes, i think my decision making in regards to brief choices and the way i want to execute them still needs a hell of a lot of work. By the time I've made a decision on which tasks i want to take on, the decision on how to execute it has usually already been made for me,by father time-  and i have to do it in the least time consuming method. Also, in hindsight i wish i hadn't  bothered with such an open brief as Secret 7, and instead attempted one of the YCN projects. Being open i thought it would give me a chance to experiment with different mediums in order to help develop my own specific 'voice' but instead it left me with too many options to think about , that i couldn't get down on paper and i automatically went back into my digital comfort zone. Also i've become very disillusioned and frustrated with the  'call for artists'  type events. I'd much rather of tacked a 'real' brief that would've been judged by industry experts and not by a bunch of exhibition organisers who make a decision on your work based purely if that individual likes it or not - rather than on concept, craftsmanship or execution. Looking through the YCN 2015/16 Annual at all the past design work has really driven me to want to feature in a future edition of it - I know I have the technical ability, I just need to get some decent ideas to build it on.

I will also look to manage my time more evenly in the future - even if it's on module work that i really don't want to do. I need to get going sooner also, as I'm finding i didn't really get much momentum on some of these projects until i could see the deadline looming overhead. Not that i produce better work under pressure, i don't think i do, far from it - it's just that it doesn't seem real until i can sense the very real possibility of missing a deadline. 

As much as i want make myself as versatile as possible for future employers and commissions, i seriously feel I may be thinking too hard to be proficient in too many fields, and I'm beating myself up when i can't achieve the desired results i'd set out to make. This again may go back to me needing to focus on what I'm already good at rather than trying to master new techniques. I need to find this mythical, 'ideal production process' - that is both time effective and that produces results that i can i look back on with satisfaction. Nothing I've produced in this whole module really falls into that category.

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 - Project Report

Responsive - LIVELYHOOD club night promo

I received an email from a club promoter (10/3/16) asking me to design a poster & accompanying social media promo imagery for his May Bank holiday event called LivelyHood @ Neighbourhood,Brighton. Although i've got lots of work piling up, still to finish, i felt i needed to add a bit more work to my individual responsive submission.Plus it was a pretty straight forward, open brief, plus i'd be getting paid - so i squeezed it in amongst the other deadlines just  to keep me on my toes.

BELOW: Selection of design variations sent off to the client for approval.

• LivelyHood Project report •

In short, this was a nice, short & sweet project to take on. It gave me a chance to try out some more minimal shape work, which I'm pretty happy about the final results, and is (dare i say it) a process that i'd like to incorporate more in my every-day practice. Obviously it might not be suitable for all design briefs, but it's certainly a 'style' that i'd like to hone and apply to future projects. 

Instagram promo square

I posted up square crops of some of the designs to see what my millions AND millions of followers thought and if they got a good reaction - and they do seemed to have to got some love, which has led me to looking into making a series of small prints, possibly square, or 8x10,as square fares might be a pain for people to get hold of. I even entertained the idea of attempting a screen print version - but let's not get too excited shall we. Summer is coming up (supposedly) and making some artwork to celebrate it seems only the right thing to do - you never know, i might even sell some this time!? I can easily see some people wanting something like these hanging up in their homes, bringing in the holiday, pool vibes?! Then again, i thought at least one person on the planet would appreciate having a smashed turkey & Field Marshall Haig firing lasers out of his eyes hanging up on their wall. 

Responsive - ONPAPER CONTEST

With the mountain of uni work I've still yet to tackle, i attempted to add another new brief to the selection of individual briefs that i'd already completed, and this one involved having to jump back into the unforgiving jaws of the screen print studio, as it was/is a competition involving only hand-printed artwork.

Now, bearing in mind my not altogether successful history in making high-standard screen prints this seemed a tad ambitious,but i felt i hadn't really produced much work for the individual side of this module and should do more,  i also saw it as a chance to get back on the horse, and make something. i also genuinely felt i could pull off something decent to submit. As there was no set theme, i had a look back at some of the past work i'd produced up to this point, that i'd done nothing with, and was just in one of my old sketchbooks waiting for rejuvenating.There's plenty of stuff i'd made with the intention of taking to print, analogue or digital, but never got around to it, but i came across a number of tribal mask designs i did as part of my visual language module. 

Original Sketch

Illustrator version w/textures
and gradients

They were made in illustrator, so needed simplifying and a certain amount of re-working in order to make them screen print ready, but though they'd be perfect for attempting a 3- colour print with, on a black or dark stock. Again, something i'd never done before, probably not the best idea to it try out for a competition, but i've been keen to try out more colours for a while and this design seemed pretty straight forward, so why not!?

Once i'd made them as stripped down as i thought it warranted (i still wanted it to be a bit challenging and not look to simple), i played around a few colour variants, based on my research into the Pantone spring colour trends. I was trying to make a more subtle colour scheme as opposed to the quite loud & contrasty palettes i usually use in my work. Wanting to avoid including any thick black outlines or having to use black paint, i placed the mask onto dark background colours to get a feel of how it would look printed onto a coloured stock. Another challenge in itself as, putting too much medium into your paint will result in wishy washy, 'see-through' layers, but putting too much in will result in the paint drying out on my screen. Usually this would've been risky enough for me to either just stick to what i know(ish) and print it onto white stock, or just to give it a miss altogether.

ABOVE: Oogah 'Frozen Peach' variants. BELOW: Oogah 'Ketchup & Mustard' version. Although i really liked the brightness of the red & yellow, i considered what the audience may be more likely to go for and opted to go with the 'softer' palette.

Once onto the studio phase, the story has a familiar & equally frustrating plot, which I'm bored with having to write about, and I'm sure whoever's reading this is bored of having to read on & on about it! (refer back to any of my previous screen print outings for details) So i'll leave it at that.

IN SUMMARY

• Main flaw, and ultimately the factor that has ballsed up my day of work up, and submission - i over compensated for just how much the paint medium would reduce the opacity of the paint once printed onto black paper, and didn't put enough in, resulting in the 2nd layer of colour (limpet shell) drying onto my screen soon after my first pull. The addition of water spray helped somewhat, but the pulls were inconsistent, blotchy and unsatisfactory.This was after the white layer, which i had initial fears over, came out reasonably well. Final layer of peach colour was an absolute zinger, but the damage was done by then.

• Having to mix a colour from scratch means its hard to gauge just how much paint you've used in ratio to medium, as you're only adding little bits at a time to get a close colour match.Another steep learning curve, but I don't seem to be learning.

• Although i'd included trapping, i could've done with more as it was hard to register perfectly, and the paint as drying as i was taking too long to line up the paper with the kodatrace.

• Matching the colours ones id made onscreen one success form the day - once printed they came out pretty much exactly how id wanted. Ive no ideas how i'd be able to re-create them, another annoying aspect of screen printing some may say 'unique' thing. its not, its annoying. I'll never be able to get that shade of peach again!

• Didn't really want to make a3 prints of this design, as i think it would've been suited to an A4 or similar size - but didn't really have the time to knock up something totally new for this competition.

 At the end of the day, I'm not sure i even created any prints that i'd be at all happy about submitting, or even selling, once again. However, after sleeping on it and having a look at the dried prints tomorrow i'll make a final decision. Looking at the OnPaper website and the sort of submissions they had last year, i can see that the art of thing I've been making isn't something their judges would really consider, either in style or level of craft. Examples I've seen involve a lot of technical print production knowhow that i have no clue of. This is something i probably should've checked out before starting this whole process - but i guess on the positive side it's got me making things with my hands, and making (all the) mistakes again, away from the safety of the computer - but maybe i need to face up to the fact that I'm a  digital designer. It's what I'm good at. I should concentrate being that rather than trying to make my work 'desirable' by screen printing it (badly) by hand. 

Aghh. It could've /should've been so much better, but i'll resist all urges to go back into the studio and have a last ditch go at it again. I've got more pressing matters at large - but will return for more of these i think, as i say, on a smaller scale i think would work. Add it to the long list of creative things I've got planned but will never find time to see out!

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** UPDATE **

After picking up the dried prints this morning, it's a resounding NO to be being able to summit any of these prints. Sections of them are ok, great in fact, super clean & opaque - but they've all got massive blemishes/errors on them that have rendered them unusable, and that's not just me being over critical of my work. I wouldn't be comfortable letting any one see these, so it looks like the guillotine for the lot of them, unless i somehow manage to make some sort of mash-up piece using the good parts from a few different prints.But that's not going to happen. It was a simple enough design to execute, and it needed to be done well, but it really hasn't been, and i don't want to waste any more time or money ( on submission fee) on entering such an amateurish looking entry. 

Looking at the pile of mangled prints i can see that I've over considered the colour overlaying aspect of this piece and tried to be too clever with the trapping. In fact if i hadn't used as much trapping,and just printed the colour layers directly over the top of each other the colours would have been more vibrant- as opposed to printing directly onto the black stock, which causes the saturation of the pigment to lowered, as you can see on the pic below.

Close up example of misjudgment of 'trapping' between the layers.

These are more lessons i can take from this latest disappointment and convert into a positive and come back wiser next time (you'd hope), which weirdly, I'm still eager to do as soon as possible. I don't like going to bed with the feeling of defeat ,although i know i can't return to the challenge just yet as I've got so much else on my plate. 

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** FURTHER UPDATE**

Despite what i said 24 hours ago, i had a change of heart - (not in regards the prints i'd done, they're no use to anyone, can't deny that.) but i after having a clear out of my uni plan chest in the studio, it occurred to me that i had a pile of old prints that are just sitting there, (because theres not enough 'up to standard' ones to sell) -  but  a few of them i'm actually satisfied enough with the final results to show the general public, in particular the original a3 version of my Murakami 'Whisky Business' print. It would need a bit of trimming around the edges ( to make it 30x40) if it made it to the the final group of considered prints for the exhibition, but I'm determined to get some love for this bloody design if it kills me. It's way better the 30x30 digital version that i'd wish i'd never made, plus it's pretty much the best attempt at screen printing I've done to date, so figured it could be worth a shot. The entrants all get featured on the website for, so a bit of promotion (at least) will be the reward.

Print submission

Fingers crossed that i don't have to add this the 'red cross' list with along with Secret 7" & co..!

Responsive: TEAM IMMORTALS OCR - logo & apparel design

 

I was approached by OCR (Obstacle Course Running) team 'Immortals' initially way back at the beginning of September, about the design of a new logo for their teams apparel & promotional material. It was clear from the start that they were after something heavily inspired by the film 300, and the Immortal characters mask in-particular.Splattered, bloody type treatment was also requested. So it was definitely an homage to the film, but the challenge was to try & not make it look too much like a lame rip-off.

I found myself working somewhat backwards with this brief. I hadn't done any substantial vector work for a long while so i went a bit mad with it , going headlong into lots of detail, knowing full well that it wasn't going to be practical to use as a logo, but then gradually stripping back the layers of detail until it resembled a more 'logo' looking design that i knew would be effective, wether large-scale or at letterhead size, on any platform.

Immortals presentation boards

I felt i was probably a bit generous with the amount of drafts and mocks i provided, but that's always been my usp, or flaw, which ever way you slice it. If I'm giving clients a headache from having to decide between a few designs they really like and can't make a decision on, then I'm happy, as was the case here after i'd send my first lot of logo drafts; 

"Ian you legend!! they are all epic! how the hell I'm gonna choose is a mystery!!.Lloyd Peacock, Immortals OCR CEO. 

As with a lot of projects i've worked on, i got the feeling that the final product the client would end up making wouldn't really match up to the proposed design mock-ups that i'd produced. For one, when they indicated that the print for the t-shirt could be placed anywhere, and at any size i immediately raised my eyebrow as i know that doing full print t-shirt designs, especially on sleeves and shoulders is tricky and expensive in just one colour, let alone the two colour designs i'd provided. They'd had a bit of a grumble about my quote (which they didn't request until i'd submitted the designs) which tells me that they might not have much of a budget at the moment, especially as i ended up charging far, far less than i should have for the amount of work i churned out. But for projects like this its not about the money for me, to a point. If my work is getting printed onto something, getting worn by and seen by plenty of people then that's usually a swinging factor even before a fee has been agreed on.You never know, they might've got some sponsorship money from somewhere? 

It was a bit of slow burner and designs weren't actually finalised until December. Despite a couple of requests for photos of the printed product out in the real-world I've yet to see if it exists in any form. I can only hope that it's proudly adoring that bunch of obstacle course climbing lunatics at various Warrior Run events around the country…

Responsive - LUMINARI web icon designs

I was approached by Luminari Technologies to produce a set of award icons for their forthcoming digital audio marketplace, Luminari.io

Existing example of award badges on the mock-up site.

Page space where the intended icons will live.

They had a pretty solid idea of what they were after, so the brief was already pretty focused - they just needed me to take the ideas they had in their minds and make them into on-screen visuals.

Included in the brief was a description of what some of the award badges were to depict :

Pro Store Seller - (This means they are big daddies basically and it's what all the other cats aspire to so needs to look buff. Could be a held up fist like the Gonzo fist albeit without 2 thumbs)

Peoples Champion - (Means you have a very high customer rating. Perhaps a group of figures cheering?)

Level 1 Warrior - (Will denote what level the account has achieved. Imagine it like on the old drum and bass arena forum where you had a different level depending on how many posts you had made. not sure what to suggest image wise for these)

Level 2 Hero -

Level 3 Renegade -

Level 4 Gangster - 

Subscribe & Buy button design also required.

Luminari Presentation boards

Even though this project wasn't massively creative, or illustrative, it get me into the practice of producing lots of roughs before attempting any final artwork. In the not-so distant past, as they're quite simple looking icons, i would've gone straight into Illustrator and made them from scratch in there - but i found making lots of scamps beforehand actually saved me time. I was able to refine the icon character shapes over & over on paper, using 20 second sketches - then i could see which ones were working or not. Doing it this way meant that when i came to scanning them in and making vectors out of them, there was minimal tinkering and re-tinkering with them in Illustrator, which is usually where most of my time is drained away. 

It went smoothly from start to finish, and not a whole lot of revisions were needed. Even though i finished this brief way back in December, the site has only just recently launched -but to my disappointment they seemed to have had a rethink on the design of the site, and omitted all icons or graphics that were originally proposed. It's all just text and tables now, very minimal and streamlined. The icons would look look a bit 'cartooony' and out of place if they were to be used with the current layout admittedly, but they all got the green light at the time. Always annoying when the work you produce doesn't actually end up getting used for what you were expecting - but hell,i got paid, i didn't lose too much sleep or energy whilst doing it, we move on.

Screenshot of 'streamlined' site.Yawwn.

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.