Final ITAP - Image & Text

The way a photograph and illustration is portrayed can depend on its context and could affect its attended meaning. Text in particular can be a way of interacting and make that piece of art by giving the audience something to think about. When a piece of art has a text meaning I like to first look at it and not even focus on the writing, so that then when I read the text I could either be pleasantly surprised or completely incorrect with what I interpreted. When I researched around for events and galleries that were currently on in Birmingham, there was an exhibition on at the IKON gallery featuring Nedko Solakov.

Unfortunately I never got to go as I missed the bit of research that informed me it was over November 13th! However I searched around for his work and wish I went now, his pieces are so simple and comical! For example this image (below) is two small silhouette figures and the caption reads “Death is following a man. He knows about her but keeps walking (not running).  Without the text the image does not make sense, his artwork is appealing because of its comic value of text against the simplicity of silhouettes.

Here is another one I also liked.

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"A Giant beast is doing his best to horrify a sleeping man. The man is confirmed that is having again a nightmare, that the beast is in his head.. The beast gets really pissed."

The Design Workflow

Here is my design work flow chart taken from my RVJ, to show a small part of the process/journey through my magazine project.

A Brief History of Production

The production of graphic material, inventions and techniques start many thousands of years ago, I researched into a few historic graphic production and will include a short brief on my findings. Starting with the first ever solid book to be printed in Europe which was the Bible by Johannes Gutenburg in 1445 – it was made to a beautiful quality and extremely advantaged for that time, being produced on the printing press. Being as beautiful as the pages were they came with a price, literally, depending on how much the buyer was willing to pay depended on the decoration and detail they got, some of the books were never completed to their full potential.

Even the use of drop capitals to begin each paragraph has been used, and the use of the grid system, dividing the paragraphs for an easier read. This book is a strong advanced early stage from the 1450’s, of how the graphics of this page are still in practice in graphic theories and techniques that are still around and used today.

Overview: Principles of Production for Visual Communicators

A Brief History of Production  *

Essential Milestones

The Design Workflow *

From Novice to Expert

The Experts

Ideas & Structure: The Character's Design

An important part of any film is the choices of character, the design of them and what role they play. Dividing the ideas and research them you can categorize into 4 aspects of that character. Whether it is the protagonist, who is the main character and we go through the movie with their experiences. Typically the protagonist is the ‘good guy’ but doesn’t necessarily always be ‘good’ or the antagonist – the cause to all the conflict. You then look at dialogue of the character, their speech, how they talk, and choice of vocabulary to determine what type of person they are and lastly not to be too stereotypical, nobody wants to see the typical simple character with no originality.  

We can then look at appearance, choice of clothing – matches personality? Action, what does the character actually do and how? Interaction, is the character relatable are they similar to any other characters – is there a connection?

Ideas & Structure: Three Act Structure

The 7^th ITAP lecture was focused on the Ideas and Structure in moving image, and discussed the ‘three act structure’ where at the beginning of the movie the plot is ‘established’, the audience gets familiarised with characters, location, relationships, the next part is the most important as there will be a change in the main character’s life, there is the ‘crisis’ which disrupts the balance we had before. The rest of the film will be the development and adaption of the characters to ‘resolving’ the crisis. Bringing the whole film together at the end with the right balance restored. An example of a film that follows a three act structure is “Taken”.

At the beginning we are established with a perfect family balance, Bryan is a retired agent who has a 17 year old daughter Kim, who lives with her mother and stepfather. Kim manages to convince Bryan to allow her to travel to Paris with her friend.

Until the crisis begins when they share a taxi with a stranger, who finds out where they are staying and that their alone, resulting in them being kidnapped by an Albanian human trafficking gang. Kim manages to hide under the bed to phone her dad but doesn’t give enough information before she is taken. He has 96 hours to find her before she is gone for good.

The crisis is resolved when Bryan pieces the clues together and races over to France to save her, brutally killing anyone who stands in his way. He has all the skills necessary and rescue’s her safely, bringing her back to her home.

Overview: Principles of Ideas and Structure

5 principles for the development of ideas and structure in moving image.

Story development: Three act Structure

Story development: The Hero's Journey

Pre-Production: Character design

Visual development: Visualising Information

Future Film: Digital storytelling

Production & Outcomes: Interpretation & Testing

Due to illness I missed this lecture so hopefully caught up and had an understanding of what the powerpoint slide show was about!

I first looked at interpretation as all artists’ work will reflect on the particular era they were/are in, this can be known as the ‘zeitgeist’ of their time. This will be relevant to the time and environment and has been particularly expressed through art, literature and religion. Art will never get old because as time goes on there will always be different interpretations of an art piece and with slight alterations or added text could completely change the meaning of the piece. Artwork from long ago can influence other artwork and also be re-worked in a different time to have a completely different interpretation to its audience.  

Being a creative practitioner you need to be able to represent yourself and test your work out, letting it be accessible for others to see and judge. Keeping up a continuous effort to maintain some form of online progress of your work and being flexible about getting your work shown around as much as possible, whether it’s the internet, blogging, photo pages, galleries, social forums etc. and through doing this it can help you gain the feedback and reaction you need to further your potential and develop your work for the better.
 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73456863@N06/?saved=1

Overview: Principles in Production & Outcomes

Interpretation – Illustrators/Creatives select and use a ‘zeitgeist’ to interpret the message. Time and place has a great effect on their production

Delivery - By choosing from a myriad of platforms Illustrators/Creatives select an appropriate format

Medium – Illustrators/Creatives utilise both client based, commercially driven projects together with self-initiated and collaborative work

Testing – Illustrators/Creatives disseminate their work through published work, galleries, websites & blogs, creative & social forums

Methodology - A thorough and versatile design process enables an Illustrator to work independently and professionally

Visual Communicating: Legibility & Tone of Voice

Visually communicating something to an audience in an effective way all depends on a few key factors. You may have outstanding imagery but how will it be used and is it easy for the audience to understand and interpret? Is the message clear from your choice of images?

As our project was designing a magazine, this lecture was of particular use as I was able to learn and concentrate my research on the legibility of the design, considering the layout and style for that audience, making sure there is a clear typeface and aligned text correctly. This is a key point when designing your articles, are your paragraphing well thought out? Is the title clear and stands out but doesn’t over power the page? Need to take into account the text size, the alignments and the structure of the image to text ratio on the page. Does the content represent the images and vice versa?

What about colour? Colour is a big deal, as certain colours really do not work on a white background and you want to make it look more visually appealing but being careful to not make a mistake with the colour. Some colours could be misleading when it’s matched with an image, images tell a story and the colour of a text caption could spoil the audiences initial thought of the imagery.

It is important to think about where the magazine will be shown, a standard type size of 12 is acceptable for a magazine/essay piece but being shown on a large screen won’t be readable.

Here is an ad campaign for the NHS for stop smoking, this is a simple and effective advertisement. The style is a cloud of smoke coming from the cigarette with the text fitting inside of it and even the font is designed as a smoke effect. The legibility of the graphics, typeface and layout works well for this poster.

What is also essential to visual communicating a written piece is ‘tone of voice’; this can be represented through choice of font ‘LOUD - quiet ’, style of typography, size and colour (for example when filling out forms different sections are highlighted – informative, helpful etc. giving you guidance through just changing the colours)

I looked at another NHS campaign poster but this one has a clearer tone of voice on it. The text is written in a child like hand written font, giving the audience recognition that it is a younger person’s quote and a shocking statement from a child. Giving this stop smoking advertisement the shock factor as its personal elements comes through with composition and typography choices. The small basic font at the bottom of the page shows authority and informative speech. It clearly shows that tone of voice and the legibility choices you make are important on delivering the correct message to the audience.

Overview: Principles for Visual Communicators

Five ideas and principles that is relevant to your subject area

Legibility

Researching the content

Researching the practice

Tone of voice

Visual hierarchy

Creative Process: The Audience

An important part of researching is your target audience, as you want to have a clear understanding of what you’re targeting to enhance how you communicate to them and how to specifically attract them towards reading your magazine and control what they are getting from it.

When researching, it’s better to not just typically go for ‘age, gender etc.’ but for lifestyle, common interests or a social grade they fall under. Looking at the NRS readership for magazines I was able to pick up magazines from the shelfs and see their typical formats and then compare with the proven data of age and social class to see how certain styles attracted a certain type of group.

Our magazine is a combination of photography and illustration to text, which documents our interests of Birmingham. Taking influences from fashion and art with articles that have been written from personal experiences. Referencing the Jewellery Quarter, Lost in Lace exhibition and the Custard Factory! We decided our target audience was better suited to females, aged 17-25, and students/working class with an interest in art, museums and fashion history.

Here are some pages of my audience research taken from my RVJ of current magazines on the market that target similar audiences of females, 17-25 with fashion interests. Showing my understanding of layout, colour styles, fonts and what articles demand more attention for the audience. I researched into the style of font and how the titles and articles were written.

Creative Process: Research

Research is such a broad and key element done by more or less everyone in any line of work, but being visual communicators we have to put into practice the use of visual research by drawing and surrounding ourselves in inspirational art and always taking notes and collecting images from any type of medium. 
 

There are two basic overview factors to research, narrowing down to ‘primary and secondary research’. Primary research is beginning from scratch; there is no data or information around for the researcher to use, and therefore will have to be original. The advantages for this would be that you know where the sourced information is from; it will be first person and original. For my article I decided to do a piece on the jewellery quarter and although there are basic facts on the internet I wanted to go first hand to the museum and take notes of my experience, talked to the staff and had a tour around the museum to collect my own research and photos.

Secondary research provides all the necessary information that you want, from books, magazines, videos and other media. The majority of my research has been secondary as I wanted to really get to know magazine layouts, styles and fonts. Looking at how they work, and adapting different styles of them, why it may or may not work.

I have scanned in a double page spread of front cover research from my RVJ of 'Stylist magazine' that I thought may help towards my magazine.

Overview: Principles of Research & Inspiration

Key principles for the lecture 'Research & Inspiration:

Through the ‘visual practice’ of observation, collecting, studying and exploring a subject, topic or theme, this will contribute to a deeper understanding of the subject (Research)

By understanding the various ‘practices & processes’ of illustrators, designers, photographers one is able to progress and advance one’s own practice

The notion of ‘inspiration’ derives from constant inquiry, based on research, observation, recording and experimentation

The application and evaluation of drawing and media experimentation is key to the development of a ‘personal’ Visual Vocabulary

An understanding and knowledge of ‘an audience’ should enhance and focus the communication

Connectivity - Cultural Context

Cultural context within your chosen medium is a crucial aspect to consider in artwork. Culture is in all characteristics of life around us, ideas, meanings, values and beliefs all shared by individuals. You need to think about this when it comes to art, think where the artwork is going to be placed, is it a different country - there will be a difference in cultural background, how could go around that and will it still change the views on the image. It could cause offence to some people and as time moves on what might have been acceptable in the 1950’s will not be now and vice versa, so age will need to come into consideration too.  


The context of any art can change its message and the way the audience will perceive it, by getting away from the original context as the culture surrounding change.

Connectivity - Notions of Originality

Looking at any art work and seeing through it to any original influences it may have had, is something I would rack my brain about but never could pin point exactly its originality just that I knew I’d seen it before, I could pin point a few recognizable gestures that would relate to an older piece of art but I find myself usually being the one that says ‘oh yeah’ after the answer is revealed, much to my amusement of this ITAP lecture where we compared different art work/advertisements that used iconic art as influences to other pieces.

Many advertisements use this technique because it is recognizable to the public and can symbolize a trigger in your brain to encourage you to remember the advert, and may result in you buying into the product. For example this E.T poster has a recreational influence from Michael Angelo’s The Creation of Adam painting on the Sistine chapel ceiling, by just the image of two fingers touching which has been imitated and parodied throughout the  years.

Now it’s hard to see what is original, you could argue that everything in this day and age has some kind of influence to it. With the technology and numerous types of media surrounding us, it could prove to make things slightly more difficult to do something 100% completely original because subconsciously your brain will be taking in everything visual around you, so the next time you sketch your thoughts kicked in with your memory will create something, you may have already seen.

Overview: Principles of Connectivity

Five principles of the connectivity around art, illustration and photography.

Notions of Originality

Cultural Context within your chosen medium

Relationships developed from existing forms of historical culture

Bricolage and it's use in contemporary culture

Pastiche, Synchronicity or Conceptual appropriation

Creative Thought - Managing a Creative Environment

Being a creative person can reflect through many different aspects, whether it’s through a choice of appearance, i.e. the clothes you wear, or showing through your work, and more importantly the environment you live, study or work in. Creativity is not just internal but will radiate externally, it can influence your work by the environment, culture and personal interests you surround yourself in. It can even help assist in the production and stimulate your thinking processes, and aid toward broadening your mind. So I find myself always collecting anything in whatever form that may have an influence on my work, I try to show my interests as a creative practitioner.



I researched around for different work spaces to give an example and found a picture of Johnny Ryan’s inside studio, as I read his blogging type website sometimes anyways was good to actually see one of his work spaces. Being a cartoonist it looks surrounded in colour and has a whole shelf of figurine characters and a well lit slanted desk!

Here is a photo of my own small room in halls. Decorated fairly simple as there were rules of ‘no blue tac wall stains’... ‘no holes in walls’ and my desk is packed in. However I like my room and it has the perfect balance of my photography pieces/some of my favourite Illustrators (Sophie Griotto, Christina Drejenstam and Rob Bryan) I’ve also got a row of some of my perfume adverts I  always collect!  Of course I’ve got my ‘Discover our fragile Earth’ calendar which has gorgeous wildlife photography pieces from all around the world. I am also fortunate to have quite a large desk!

The wall does go more round to the right showing more work but I already didnt do a good job of stitching the first two photos, so gave up on the third.

Creative Thought - Developing Ideational Fluency

Ideational fluency is defined as ideas that are made through different techniques such as mind mapping. Where you develop ideas into great detail and cover all different factors that make up just your one idea.  Having a clear mind-map to work from can boost your creativity and can be an effective way to see the connections as you travel through ideas and see how your thoughts work when your jotting stuff down. It can also help towards remembering information as your able to space your writing out and draw useful images to relate the pieces together.

Being creative and spontaneous in how you think when generating your ideas will help towards your development and fluency of the designs, especially if you have ideas that you need to present and demonstrate to someone else. Having a clear understanding of how you note and develop your ideas can make you more confident in achieving your finished project.

Here are some examples of mind mapping and drawing visual ideas for a storyboard taken from my RVJ. I have began drawing out mind-maps in my RVJ as I found I could generate my ideas more efficient and it also can demonstrate how we worked through different ideas for the 10 second animation. We were then able to pin point an idea and draw it onto a storyboard to show our final idea come to life.

Overview: Principles of Development of Creative Thought

Basic overview of five principles on the development of Creative Thought and Structure in Illustration and Graphic Art. I will be looking at two of the principles in detail:

Overcoming Mindsets

Getting Rid of Assumptions

Restating Problems

Developing Ideational Fluency

Managing a Creative Environment