Adele Pierce
OUIl505 Applied Illustration
End of module Evaluation
I started off looking into character and narrative as my
field; but this progressed across into product and packaging due to my drive to
want to produce finished final outcomes, which I have not previously explored
in other modules. I wanted to get my head around creating products ready to sell,
as this is something I wish to carry on after university. I decided to home in
on the card industry after speaking about how easy it is to make money off of
greetings cards in PPP. Cards are such a great avenue to explore because you
can take one design and put it across multiple formats or events; or take one
occasion and explore it with multiple designs, in multiple sizes. I chose
greetings cards because usually they are rather mundane and stereotypical and I
wanted to turn this on its head; create a range of cards that you would not
expect to buy.
I began my contextual research by looking online at cards
that could not be sold in store because they are too offensive or explicit.
This really influenced me to start thinking outside of the box in terms of my
concept. I came across some great companies such as Brainbox Candy and Jolly
Awesome that feature their cards on distribution sites such as Paperchase and
Scribbler as well as selling in stores such as Urban Outfitters. This was the
avenue I wanted to go down. I looked into distribution and costs and thought
about perhaps giving my designs to an online distributor that would print the
cards for me and ship them to save me doing it myself. They give you a base
price to which you add your profit on top of. However, I felt I was not ready
to submit any designs at this stage and perhaps this will be something I will
explore next year when I feel more confident in my drawing skills.
I decided to propose myself as an online business, a website
that sold the greetings cards amongst other products. My initial ideas were
quite offensive, I got too carried away with the notion of cards that you would
not expect and cards that you would not sell with influence from Mr. Bingo and
Chris Simpson’s Artist. However, there is a fine line between being funny and
being offensive and I had to figure out how I could draw funny. How I could
make my characters and the line work speak for itself rather than adding text
and putting across the wrong message. I looked at illustrators such as Paul
Davis that influenced me to be more sensitive with my approach. I decided to
re-evaluate my audience and to focus on the elderly. I watched programmes such
as ‘Off their rockers’ and YouTube clips of older generation acting youthful to
inspire me. I came up with the concept of a card range that would be sold to
youngsters to give to the elderly as a confidence boost to assure them they
were still young.
In order to design my characters for this I looked at
extreme sports and situations that youngsters are in; but replaced their bodies
with that of the elderly. This deemed pretty frustrating at times when it was
hard to imagine the older person in a certain pose. I got to grips with how
their skin might fold, sag, or wrinkle but sometimes had a mental block of
their proportions. To overcome this I would take my drawing with a light box
and re draw it until it was correct. Some designs did not work, the facial
expressions were not right they did not seem like they were having fun but
rather grimacing. Eventually I had ten designs which I took to a group crit.
The group told me to narrow it down to six, as that is usually the standard for
greetings cards. This worked well for me because there were certain designs
still that were not summing up my concept well enough. I had also experimented
with colour previously, which the group felt was too dark and needed to be more
vibrant. I then took my designs and re worked them until they were correct,
deleting the backgrounds to just have one stand alone image. I coloured them
with a pastel colour palette to give it more of a fun aesthetic.
Once mocked up and printed for the final crit I had further
feedback to change the format to square in order for the cards to work better
as a set. I was also told to expand my range with wrapping paper and gift tags.
I had previously explored products such as iPhone cases and t-shirts but the
gift ideas seemed more relevant to the cards so I was pleased with this advice.
I mocked up wrapping paper, which if I had more time I would
have printed properly and priced appropriately. I printed gift tags on a glossy
card stock with string and priced. I created a website mock up of where my
products would be sold alongside an expansion on the concept. I decided to take
my idea further by adding two more concepts to the ‘You’ve still got it’ range.
My company was to be called Bow Down which would sell this card range amongst
others, and products to support them. I got quite passionate about this because
this is something that I would like to achieve when I leave university. I
mocked the idea up on Photoshop but if I had more time I would create the
website for real. Next year I am hoping to achieve this; I hope by the time I
leave University that I fully understand printing my illustrations onto
products ready to sell. I would like to further explore marketing my products
on websites and social media.
Overall, I am pleased with this module because I finally
have created finished products that could possibly sell and this is something I
am proud of. I have moved away from being offensive, and used my character, line
work and choice of colour to portray humour rather than word. I initially had
text on my images which I later discovered was unnecessary and I should let the
images speak for themselves. In terms of time management, I feel that I have
used every day wisely with this module and I don’t feel that there are any
areas I have missed a great deal out of, I feel that my whole process has been
consistent throughout. Unlike other modules, sometimes my work is too research
heavy and the final outcomes are left until last minute. I feel the difference
here is that I knew from the onset I wanted to create greetings cards and they
were to be the final outcome, so everything leading up to that was a process
thoroughly explored. I wanted to become an expert at greetings cards, and I
must say I feel I am now and understand the industry pretty well. It has
influenced me to consider speaking to these companies and perhaps look at an
internship in the summer. I feel like my digital skills have come a long way in
this module, which has been commented on in peer feedback sessions. I do feel
that in terms of experimentation I have perhaps been limited with my play and
could have explored texture and collage further within the clothing of the
characters and patterns. However, I spent too much time drawing and re-drawing
that in the end I got fixated on colour palettes rather than texture.
The cards push the boundaries in comparison to the
stereotypical occasion cards; they are left blank to be open for any occasion.
They are sensitive enough for the elderly to receive them, but funny enough to
be sold to a younger audience too, which I feel quite proud of achieving as a
balance. I was constantly aware of creating cards that could also be sold in
store as they are not too explicit or offensive; often having to change my
designs to suit this. An example of this was an elderly lady doing the splits
with saggy breasts, I had to reign that in by covering up her cleavage as this
could be seen as offensive. Finally, I feel my final products are well presented and
executed, but I perhaps could have photographed them more professionally for my
blog and featured those photographs on a mock up of the website if I had more
time. I have really enjoyed the module and stayed interested in it and I feel
this is due to using a humorous concept that has allowed me to be playful with
my character designs.
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