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.

Developing ideas on screen.

Once i started actually thinking through composition for the illustration as a whole i managed to come up with a logical solution to the problem i had earlier, though it took a good few attempts to get it right.

When i thought it through i realised i had been discounting that the kettle would still need to boil water. This was a major turning point in my composition experiments, i instead moved all the components down to the bottom of the kettle and kept the top clear. One issue i found, once i was happy with the layout, was that because the various drawings combined all look very different side by side, i would have to unify them all in some way. Therefore the next step would be to redraw the entire thing with the composition above intact, and also any changes to the design made.

Changes: 

1. add space for boiling water
2. remove certain imperfections
3. decide whether to shade everything or shade nothing to keep light consistencies.

Experimentation with Livetrace

I have used Livetrace on Illustrator prior to this project, however i wasnt sure if it would be an appropriate option for working with this drawing, this being because my main influence (le munch) used mostly scribbly looking drawings, and live trace tended to produce either too washed or too crisp a line. I therefore did a few tests using the different live trace settings in order to evaluate whether i could use it in conjunction with my drawings. The main reason for using Livetrace in the first place, was as a viable method of quickly cleaning up and professionalising an illustrated piece, which as it is eventually to form part of a magazine spread, is a neccesity.

Live trace allows objects to be rendered specifically depending on their purpose, with options such as comic art and technical drawings which, being polar opposites, need different kinds of digital attention to be most effective.

Developing the ideas on paper

I ran into some trouble whilst trying to finalise my concept sketch. I chose the kettle as my object of focus, as i thought its use was simple enough that i would be able to complicate its process enough. However i had trouble establishing a realistic component structure for the centre of the kettle, as although i had drawn quite a few components, i still couldn't put together a somewhat logical machine. Although it is not the biggest of deals i wanted the finished kettle to at least be logical for its new complicated process. To get around this i drew some more components to help fill in the gaps in the drawing, and from here on it was mostly trial and error, whilst i tried to accomplish a design that fitted my vision.

I used various image references when sketching, i tried to choose engine components that would immediately fit.

Heath Robinson

After a meeting with one of my tutors i was directed towards an inventor by the name of Heath Robinson, his eccentric ideas and crazy inventions meant he was widely accepted as being mad. It so happens that his style of inventing, aided in the development of my illustrations.

His general concept for inventions appear to promote laziness and ease of living, however the thing i find most interesting is the round-about way in which the inventions go about achieving the task they were invented to perform. Although strictly speaking my kettle for example will still be for boiling water, it has been downgraded to run using a combustion engine rather than electricity which is evidently far more efficient in almost every way.

I can across a few other good sources of inspiration through my development process, namely the machine in "the breakfast machine" which is simply brilliant. This inspired to expand my idea to instead address, much like Robinson, making like easier. I decided however to not pursue this ideas as part of my main project as time would not permit me to deviate this late on in the process.

Renault's New Electric Car Advertising Campaign

I realised where alot of the inpiration for this idea came from, i stumbled across this advert on youtube and its perfectly demonstates the base idea behind my illustration came from. Basically the advert consists of people going about their daily lives, using normal appliances that we have come to expect in modern day households. However, all of these appliances are run by fuel from a small engine or a large engine depending on the appliance. Tasteful modification have been made to the appliances to show this, for example extra exhausts, visible cam belts and cable start up motors.

shavers
hairdryers
card readers
vending machines
electric whisks

these are the items used in the video.

The advert i feel is very effective at putting the point that electric cars are as viable as any other electric appliance. specifically it allowed me to take some hints as to presentation and composition for my own ideas, despite the fact that the appliances i have picked were not in the video. 

Research Evaluation

Through my research i have been able to gather idea on topic, composition and style, all of the elements i need to compose to achieve the result i am after.

When deciding upon a topic i wanted to work with something challenging and interesting, the sheer complexity of an actual engine is what first drew me to focus on that particular topic. Although it is unlikely that i will be able to replicate such complexity in my designs whilst still communicating well.

The style influence i felt was most useful was the discovery of the sketchy grain of Le Munch, the bold colouring with minimalist composition strikes me as unique and attractive. Though his topics of focus were far more technical drawing based i think i can employ some similar styles in my illustration and double page spread, specifically the colour blocks and grey scale.

For composition i found that looking at cutaways of cars, weapons and other complex objects i was able to grasp the basics of engine layout, enough to create a feasible illustration. Furthermore the discovery of the Renault Electric Car advert was one of my most useful finds as it grasped in clear terms and effective presentation, my exact idea, though the end justifications will be entirely different, the basic purpose is roughly the same.

Choosing and Drawing an idea

At this point in the illustration process i evaluated how much time i had left against how much that still needed to be done, including the actual presentation of the finished product. Whereas originally i would of liked to have included 4-5 illustrations, that time consuming nature of my subject meant that i decided to reduce that number to 2 or 3 ideas only, embedded within a spread and perhaps a poster.

At this point i also decided which household appliances i most wanted to focus on, i decided it was best to decide based on the simplicity of the appliances purpose. Therefore i chose the kettle, the toaster and the toilet. This decision came about because each object serves on a single purpose whereas the smartphone or the cooker could serve several and would therefore over complicate the actual process of illustrating several designs.

I used a variety of graded pencils in the developed drawings and took multiple photocopies in order to experiment with component compostion

Le Munch

In a brainstorming session i was aided in the discovery of the work of Le Munch, specifically his work with engineering drawing type illustrations. The images below luckily very specifically display what i hope to achieve with my illustrations. The use of minimal but block colour i think works very well in emphasising the rough sketches.

Furthermore i like the way that Le Munch has including his scrawls along the sides of the images, this allows the work to feel rugged and natural, its rough presentation adds a charm to the composition.

Note the sparse use of colour and the strong black of the lines, i think if i was to illustrate like this, as well as incorporating some of the imperfections evident in these sketches such as rough lines and scrawls across the page. Not only would this make for an interesting illustration, i think that this kind of style would lend itself well to a double page spread.

Experimentation

Layering my illustration i feel is going to allow me to create a level of detail without having distracting intricacies. To layer my image i need to have my components seperate from my desired object illustration.

I took components that through my research, i felt would most easily fit with an engine transformation. Here, the objects are quite generic to allow them to be used within any product, however more specific pieces of illustration my be required once i decide upon the product to create.

as a rough mock up i produced this (below) i say "rough" because i basically through the components into the design. Retrospectively at this point i had not yet entirely decided that i wanted to focus on the kettle idea.

New subject!

In a session of sketching i decided upon a combination of two of my previous topics
namely making the inanimate animate and engine art. I found i was somewhat limited by each of these topics in both my imagination, scope and time constraints so i decided to experiment with some idea using both topics.

figure 1

figure 2

figure 3

In figure 1 the household product i have drawn are: a smartphone, a toaster, a kettle and a cooker. Out of them all i think that my favourite is the kettle as i find the concept of something incredibly mechanical happening in a device as simple as a kettle ammusing. Such a conept works with the toaster too however i think the design of kettles, especially contemporary ones are more suited to my interests.

In figure 2 i have drawn a henry hoover, an iron and a toilet. The henry hoover i felt was easiest to "customize" with engine parts, perhaps due to its size and complexity compared to the iron and the toilet. i immediately had some idea of what i could add to make it a combustion machine.

Figure 3 contains the sketches of a printer a computer and a microwave. The printer is my favoured design as i think its interesting to consider what happens within a printer as its almost always concealed by its casing.