Evaluation and Reflective Practise

Outcome
All in all i am satisfied with the solution i produced, the ideas were interesting to work with the execution  was mostly fluid. I think i chose the correct topic out of the topics i shortlisted as i felt i was constantly interested in the subject matter. The final illustrations i feel are effective at fulfilling the brief however i do not feel they are my strongest illustrations ever, this was no doubt due to me leaving it really late to develop my initial ideas. The spread i think works well at doing what it was meant to do, i.e. showcasing the illustrations, it is understated yet attractive. The choice of typeface reflects the simplicity i wanted to achieve as Helvetica has very few flourished, it exists to be read clearly. I think i made the right choice too in using the italic variant as i do believe it makes it easier to read and distracts less from the illustrations.

Design process
Throughout the design process i feel that i have neglected to spend enough time exploring my subject matter. Although i looked into various illustrators and various other contextually related content such as Le Munch and Heath Robinson, i do believe i might of been able to glean further inspirations from sources further a field had i given myself time to look. In this instant i believe i was lucky in finding the inspiration i did, both with peers and tutors to help direct that inspiration. Specifically talking about things such as the Renault car advert which spurred a rush of ideas and concepts that, had i not had found the advert, simply wouldn't of come into being.

I think i took a good approach to initial ideas however, before becoming distracted with other things i think i produced some good quality and highly usable primary sketches. Furthermore i think some of the few pieces of extended research i took upon myself were both useful and resourceful. Specifically the visit to the illustration cupboard and the Royal academy to study some illustrators work.

Things i would change retrospectively
First and formost i would dedicate more time to research including digging into the research to uncover deeper inspiration. Secondly i would leave more time to further develop some ideas and do some idea testing, with the nature of illustration being time consuming its imperative that more time is dedicated. Thirdly i would of liked to produce a few more illustrations. I decided against it this time around as i wanted to focus on my two favorites to ensure that they had the attention needed to be fleshed out into fully fledged concepts. Lastly i would of liked to do a bit more hands on research such as carrying out my panned to trip to the old Tunbridge Wells railway to take some hands on sketches and also going to Biggin hill airfield as i considered early on to study some fuselages.

Overall i think this has been a successful project, but one that with a few long term changes could of been better.

Finals

The spread

I have decided to structure the double page spread as if it were a accompanying leaflet for an exhibition explaining the illustration pieces. I wanted the design to be simple and understated, so as to emphasize the colour in the images as was done by Le Munch. Although the illustrative styles ended up being fairly different i think i could still make some interesting comparisons.

Setting the type


 i wanted to set the type as to not distract from the illustration but to provide an explanation for it, it therefore needed to be understated. I immediately decided that i would use an italic typeface, as regular and bold variants i found to be too drawing to the eye. Below i have used Minion Pro however the sans serif did nothing for the clean look i was going for.

I experimented with a few typefaces i knew to work well with body copy, namely Futura, Helvetica and Lucida Grand

Futura felt too tightly compact and created too much type colour, making the page look too dark

  Lucida Grande was a good option because it sat well and read easily however i found in the desired point size (13) i couldnt get the text to sit right in my columns

I settled on italic Helvetica it was easy to the eye and easy to set for me. Furthermore its bold counterpart worked well for the headers.

Moving on to the headers i played around with there placement until i was content.

I settled with the main title as shown above, sitting above the image on the left hand side of the spread meant for an immediate introduction to the article.

Image setting

The first thing i wrestled with was whether to include the annotated illustrations, to further adhere to Le Munch' style but also distract from the images, or to use the plain illustrations instead. You can see both variations above as i played with the headings. In the end i decided to use the plain coloured images which i felt best showed off the illustrations and kept the focus on them.

I also had problems deciding on the image placement of the toaster on the right hand page. 

The two main positions i played with were text above (Above) and text below (Below)

I went with having the text below as i felt the page being more evenly distributed with the image on the left hand page being so large that it took up the bottom of the page as well as the top. With the right hand page having more space to breath the spread as a whole i feel works better

Final illustration developments

The first thing i wanted to try before officially declaring the illustration ready for the spread was to make sure i had displayed each respective illustration in its best light. Firstly i tested some live trace options on the toaster drawing, an option i had yet to consider for the second illustration. Most of the live trace options removed the colour, which shows that doing it the opposite way around the second time may not of been the best option. The tools that did work were:

                              Simple Trace

The image became crisp and somewhat stylized, i felt that although it looked okay, it wasn't quite the way i had in mind to be presented.

Technical Drawing

Using the 'technical drawing' option entirely washed out the image by reducing the black drastically.

Inked Drawing

the last option i tried took dark greys for black as you can see above, the rest of the image only appeared slightly darker so not enough benefit to warrant the change.

Next, something i had considered earlier on in the process returned to me as a possibility. The way in which Blueprints are covered in scrawl and notations and captions and directions added to their overall design. Le Munch' sketches were often adorned with scrawl and mess and i think it difinately added to the effect and the charm of the particular piece. I decided to test whether adding such detailing to both my illustrations could improve them, i thought about adding: measurements, instructions, component names, explanations, equations.

Completing the Toaster

I gave my toaster drawing a quick colouring on photoshop, finding that a slightly rugged edge from the pencil lines i had made actually helped in moving the illustration towards my intended style. I used less colour that in the kettle illustration, but enough so that the two do not look out of place next to each other, i think respectively they both work well with the colours i have chosen

I once again tried adding grain to the image, but the less intense illustration i felt did not benefit from it

The second illustration

The second household object that i decided to focus on was the toaster, i actually found its design process a lot easier than the kettle, perhaps because the way i proposed its function was more similar to the 'simple' over the top style of Wallace and Gromit instead of a literal working engine as i had constructed for the kettle.

Using this kind of contraption allowed me to logically construct a seemingly working system without too many complexities.

admittedly it is decidedly simpler than the mechanisms within the kettle however i think this works to its merit as it is arguably a simpler device.

Completing the kettle

To make certain changes and allow me to create the neatest final illustration, i used tracing paper to go over my drawing and finalise everything. I scanned it in and coloured it in photoshop.

starting with this:

I separated the white from the drawing using the magic wand and created a layer with my line art and the white background with the colour layer in the middle.

Using a combination of the eraser and painbrush tool, i cleaned up the image and added colour to the drawing. I tired to make the colours of the engine bolder than the less important colours of the normal kettle.

So although a lot of the engine inside the kettle is grey i've used deeper tones to that of the main kettle shell. Similarly the exhausts and the fans have their respective colours which bring the out of the drawing. Keeping the colours relatively minimal allows to better focus on colour for the main double page spread.

I further experimented with the colour choices by testing see whether adding greyscale and grain helped to bring my illustration closer to its inspiration (le munch)

i thought this perhaps might be a better way to go especially for when i encorporate the illustration into a double page spread in the style of Le Munch, aka using bold block colour and minimalistic colour in the actual illustration.