Summative Statement

I feel that throughout my time on the course I have really battled with processes; resulting in me defining my strengths in digital image making. This year has allowed for me to capitalise on product design. During PPP I realised that I wanted to take product design further after university by setting up my own online business. Extended Practice, therefore, gave me the scope to create the work. I touched on this in my Statement of Intent where I explained how I wanted to create work to a more finished and professional standard - the work has to be ready to be seen on site.
Self-directed study has been both good and bad, sometimes if I am left to my own devices I leave things until last minute and that is where time management comes into play. I definitely need to brush up on this when it comes to leaving university. I realised I work better to a tight deadline rather than being given the space of a few months to complete a deadline. This is where I noticed I don't enjoy competition briefs, and would rather create my own.
The start of the module was a little confusing I was still battling with what briefs to take on, some had to be abandoned as they did not represent my practice and were not suitable for my portfolio. Others expanded and ran across into one another creating a bigger more substantial brief. For example the leonardo dicaprio brief started off as a zine, card designs, threadless designs until I realised I could merge these into one big brief - which became my Big Kahuna. It is interesting looking back at my Statement of Intent in October as to how confused I was considering briefs such as Warhorse and penguin book awards as these are briefs I would never usually be interested in.
In this module I also came to the realisation that my work is fast paced and has a quick turn around. It is more concept driven rather than having strong visual quality - which I had to capitalise on through the products I chose. For example, zines are a great way of enhancing throwaway humour, as they themselves are throwaway products. 

Some of the briefs are ongoing such as the Big Kahuna, Topical Illustrations and Threadless, as these are all briefs I would be happy to feature on the site and so want to brush up on them to do so. Mocking them up alongside each other on the site they all work cohesively which is what I aimed to do this module. Overall the module has been really challenging, I think I took on too many briefs and I feel that they are not consistent, I should have made 5 really focused briefs instead of 8 or 9 inconsistent ones; but it has been a learning curve. Despite adhering to learning outcomes, my main priority was to do work I was happy doing and proud of at the end of it. I feel I am now at a place where I know exactly what my practice is; which is something I have not felt before. I would be pleased to put this work in my portfolio, which also differs from the start of the year. 

Part 4 : Project Report

Project Report

Statement of Intent Updated

Revisited S.O.I:

Final Resolutions

Final Resolution boards

Quick summary of each brief

• SB1 - Ohh Deer

Ohh Deer was a great way for me to see my work start to exist on product. This was the starting point of the module where I began to get excited about where my work could exist other than on 2D prints. my original ideas were cliche, I was looking at seasonal trends of autumn and what may sell as homeware rather than staying true to my practise. The final image I am happy with is when I began to think outside of the box and look at something a little more quirky with lightbulbs, and stepping away from realism. I experimented with composition with this and vibrant colours. I think it adds to the fun factor and is still quite commercial. 

• SB2 Talenthouse

These were more attempts that show my battles. Starting with the Borns visual artwork brief I was stepping outside of my comfort zone. I thought this brief would show my versatility as an illustrator and something a little different for my portfolio. I was taking more of a graphic approach creating album artwork. Listening to videos, playing with compositions, focusing on the concept I created an album cover. It wasn't until I took it to a peer review and received feedback that I realised this brief was not for me. Despite completing it, it did not reflect my passion, my interests, my practise. This was the turning point where I started to review the choices I had made in my statement of intent and the briefs I was considering; such as Secret 7.

I don't wish to create album covers in the future, so why would I want it in my portfolio? I had to go back over and chose briefs that represented me better.

• SB3 Thoughtbubble

Amongst the madness of balancing other briefs we had the opportunity of creating a zine for Thoughtbubble festival. This was great because it allowed me to explore zine making which I had never done before. My work is quite throw-away, it's fast paced, the visual quality is not excellent as it is concept driven. Zines are a great way of capitalising on this. I really enjoyed this brief. I couldn't think of an idea at first and it wasn't until I read back over some poetry I had made in my phone after visiting Dismaland. Feeling inspired I started making work that was pretty random, and one piece in particular was about boys fancying Carol Vorderman. It featured the Countdown board with swear words on. I wrote a poem based on this and it went from there. I think the zine is a success despite not looking like Carol Vorderman in most of the designs as it was pretty rushed, I think this adds to the humour of it.

• SB4 Topical Illustrations

Topical Illustrations came around when Spice UK radio station asked me if I'd like to feature as a blogger on their website. I asked myself, what can I blog about? What can I illustrate? 

I decided to create a brief based on making illustrations that could possibly feature on the website to support their articles. To do this, I had to look at what is occurring in the news, socially, what are people talking about on social media? Turns out it's a lot harder than I thought! I struggle to illustrate things I read about. I would not be very good at editorial illustration!

• SB5 Threadless

Threadless is a good platform for me to showcase my designs but I struggle with copyright issues with them usually. The challenge for me was creating a design that was commercial but that they would accept. 

They offer good templates for my work to be placed on such as cards, t-shirts and iPhone cases. This is where I started to consider what can be sold on my website. I designed t-shirts and cards for Threadless but as an expansion of this the most successfully designed products will be sold on my website. 

• SB6  Doodle for Google

This brief started off as my Big Kahuna. I got the opportunity to send Google my portfolio. Within this I would feature a design of my own illustrated Google homepage. I decided to expand on this and make it in to a brief. I set out to create 10 designs, which was then narrowed down to 5 and due to poor time management I only managed 4. I think it has a lot to do with staying motivated with the brief too; I got bored of it easily. Finding subjects that would interest me was a struggle. Nothing was humorous, and I couldn't make it too crude or my idea of funny because that would not suit Google's aesthetic. Again I think this is one of those briefs that is not for me. It made me reconsider my dream career as a Doodle Googler! 

• SB7 Big Kahuna - Dicaprimerch

This became my Big Kahuna when I noticed some of my smaller briefs could be made into one big one. I was looking at t-shirt designs and cards, then decided to expand it into a range of merchandise. To give the work some context, it will be sold on my website, so it's an ongoing project. I chose this brief to get my head around products and what I can print on. What I can create myself and what I need to submit to other sites to print. 

It has been an eye opener for me in terms of how much things cost, what I can make a profit off, what I need to buy in bulk, which websites are best, and what my audience would buy into mostly.

I've tried to take one idea and stretch it as much as possible. 

I think if I organised my time better (and had more money to spend on the project) I would have much more testers of products to ensure the visual quality was perfect for hand in. 

• SB8 Attempted : YCN

This stems back from the original S.O.I where I chose briefs that did not suit me. I thought this brief was perfect for me because they were looking for a design I had already created. However, adapting that design to their aesthetic was quite hard. The idea was there, but I did not want to change my design in any way to fit the brand. I also became bored of battling with this style of product design (drinks bottles). What I have learnt is that if I don't think the brief is something I will do in the future or sell on my website, I struggle to stay interested in battling with it. I would prefer to battle with a practise that I can perfect, not become a beginner of. I would like to keep my original Piggy Smalls design and put it on my own products rather than giving over the rights to a competition that I am not getting paid for. 

Part 1 : Revisited SOI

February Project Proposal

Original October S.O.I

Updated February S.O.I

Leeds College of Art BA (Hons) ILLUSTRATION	Level	06
OUIL603 Extended Practice	Credits	60
STUDIO PRACTICE Statement of Intent

Name	Adele Pierce	Blog Address
Date
Rationale
I would like to produce work that is more professionally finished and can be included within my portfolio or on my website. I feel I have not produced work that respresents me as often yet; but rather produced work to finish briefs to a deadline. I would like to produce more commercial work and work that can be translated across products. It will be interesting to see how my drawing style can translate across a variety of briefs from book covers to cushions to show how flexible I can be as an illustrator but still maintain my style. To stay true to my passion I will use humour as much as possible.
Themes / Subjects
Product and packaging – cushions, tshirts, cards, album covers Web layout – google designs
Products / Methods of Distribution
An album cover representing a brand A cushion design A tshirt/clothing design Commercial character design A 16 page zine shown at a comic festival Online (google template)
Practical Skills / Media / Formats
Technical drawing skills Digital drawing and painting Character design Composition within an image Working to a deadline Developing concepts Working to a variety of formats

Brief 1: Ohh deer cushion design	Deadline	6th November 2015
Rationale: Completely open brief, designs to fit in with the brand aesthetic and be added to online shop. It leaves me open to experimentation and perhaps work with pattern, expanding on last year. This is the type of work I see myself getting more involved in in the future, design on product.
Brief 2: Talenthouse – Borns visual artwork	Deadline	17th November 2015
Rationale: Create visual artwork for the band. I want to explore album covers more because I would like to experiment more with how to interpret sound into image and this would show more versatility within my work.
Brief 3: YCN – Orchard Pig	Deadline	24th March 2016
Rationale: The challenge is to tell, inspire and engage consumers into the brand and what it stands for -  bold, mischievous, inclusive and rooted in Summerset. Interested to see how the ‘Pig Idea’ comes to life. I chose this because I can do this over a range of outcomes whether it be through packaging, animation, a poster, a leaflet, an online image, a facebook page… you can let consumers know more about the brand on a variety of outcomes. As much as I would like to explore product design, reading the do’s and don’ts I think the brand are happy with their product and how it looks and I feel its more about advertising. I am interested in delving my teeth into advertising more so it would be good to use Orchard Pig as the groundwork of which to go off.
Brief 4: Secret 7	Deadline	2nd March 2016
Rationale: Design visual artwork for an album cover out of the 6 given songs. Must not include the artists name or song title, an interpretation through illustration. I chose this because I want to explore album artwork further and I felt I did not do this successfully in the Talenthouse brief, so this is a chance for me to put my own stamp on a song and push myself further.
Brief 5: Doodle for Google – the big kahuna!	Deadline	19th May 2016
Rationale: This is the big Kahuna because it will run right up until submission, I am giving myself the time to really delve into it. The brief is to design 10 possible outcomes of the Google homepage; each of which will mark a special occasion or anniversary coming up in 2016. This is a big kahuna also because Google may potentially see these outcomes.
Additional Project Proposals Myself and Becky Carlton would like to open an online shop when we leave university selling products, humorous and mocking society/politics/music. I want to explore this further this year by producing designs for one of these fields and getting my head around putting those onto products whether it be t-shirts, cards, airfresheners, phone cases. This will be an ongoing project.

How I changed my mind in February:

How has my statement of intent changed?

The original 5 :

Ohh deer cushion designs - done

Talenthouse Borns visual artwork - done

House of Illustration War Horse - missed deadline

Graphic Competitions - Chicago Latino Film Festival - missed deadline

Graphic Competitions - Embracing our differences - missed deadline


Further briefs  :

Threadless
YCN
Secret 7
Business Rebranding


What I want to do now:

Ohhdeer done
Talenthouse done
YCN - Orchard Pig cider
Google Homepage templates x5
Secret 7

Revisited S.O.I:

SB7 Big Kahuna - Dicaprimerch Printed

Mug

Visual Quality

• text a bit green
• colour looks good on the illustration
• came with added teabag this time which I think is a nice touch

Problem

• box for delivery - not sure what packaging to buy to send it off in, need to figure that out
• the text on the back of the website is still not properly alligned it's difficult on the website to imagine how it will be printed out, it isn't central enough
• text has came out a little green

iPhone case

www.picturetheprint.com

Problem

• website was confusing! 
• design came out too big I think that the template includes the sides within it

Good thing about it

• cheap price £12 not bad for a case and you can collect it same day
• done within a couple of hours

T-shirt

www.picturetheprint.com

Problem

• design came out really faint
• not screenprinted, digitally printed - loses quality

Good thing

• Done within a few hours
• cheap - only ten pounds, could make a good profit off it

Some products photographed together

I think these work really well alongside eachother. The text on the first leonardo card is a little thin I need to be careful that I am using the same sized brush each time

I am really pleased that I chose to get my head around products more rather than wasting my time on prints I will never use such as Penguin Book illustration or Warhorse. These briefs seem so much more beneficial to me and my practice. 

I know I haven't experimented with colour, pattern, texture or my typography but there is a reason for this. 

The logo is black and white, when speaking to Oliver Sucho who created my logo we spoke about my website and how the logo would look alongside my work. I decided that black would be best to compliment my work and the typography style I have been using. 

I want to keep everything primarily black and white - this means it transfers across onto other products well and with ease such as business cards, frames, thank you slips. The designs are where I will add a bit of colour. 

The plan next

As my logo has been updated, I want to try it out on products, do some testers and decide whether to include it on there or not, for example on the iPhone. The original design was quite small and thin so it kind of worked and didn't take too much attention away from the design; but this logo is quite bold and thick so I need to consider where to place it. I really like i though I can see it on clothing!

Update my website with the products on it :
(mock-up)

My competition

I consider these my main competitors when it comes to illustrated products

Paperchase

OhhDeer

Not on the hughstreet

Urban Outfitters

SB7 & SB5 - Big Kahuna & Threadless - Printing cards

I decided to print all of the cards out together for ease

This meant I could see if I had a consistency of style and visual quality across the briefs too. It also gave me a good idea of how these would stand against each other in a shop or in the end of year show. It is nice to see typography cards against illustrated character cards and them actually working together as a set.

Problems

• cutting down - I didn't put any crop marks on the cards stupidly so it was a nightmare to trim them all the same size. The cards with patterns around had white spaces left where I could trim but with the white cards I was sort of doing it blind
• wrong size - I printed out the wrong size! I bought A6 envelopes but printed the cards (costing me 22.50!) in A5. So it was a mad dash to find some A5 envelopes. I couldn't find greetings card ones so had to settle for plain envelopes
• Ordered A6 plastic covers off Amazon for the cards! My cards are A5! It would take too long for any more to be delivered before the deadline. At least I know for future. 

Good stuff

• bone folder - this works magic on gloss but not so much on matte it kind of ruined the designs sometimes, marking them
• gloss or matte - I printed on both and decided gloss worked really well! Matte would get dirty easily and especially for a white card (and me being messy) I thought that was a bad idea. Gloss gives it a more proffesional finish

For submission I split the cards up into two folders, one with the matte testers and one with the gloss finals. Overall I am pleased with the gloss final designs I think I am well on my way to mastering cards. I just need to really nail the packaging side of things now, getting the right envelopes, putting them into plastic packets. 

What I need more of - ILO's

KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING - RESEARCH

• more industry research for cards and products i.e more of ohhdeer redbubble paper chase
• Linkedin Stalking of doodlers - how I was trying to get my head around what it means to be a doodler
• Topical illustrations - more research into possible news topics
• More satirical artists

COGNITIVE SKILLS - PROBLEM ANALYSIS

• Context - Talk more about BOW DOWN - how it can sell, where will it be seen
• Expanding all ideas as much as possible
• Topical - mock up editorial 
• Ohhdeer - mock up sold for laura ashley etc

PRACTICAL AND PROFESSIONAL SKILLS - VISUAL QUALITY

• brush up boards
• evaluate everything for its visual quality - time management
• products - how the work has context and how good the quality of the products are

TECHNICAL COMPETENCE

• Proposed products on boards
• print products 

EVALUATION 

• More about problem solving
• time management
• quality of work - balancing quick internet turn round humour and quality products

Crit feedback

Feedback by Alice Dear

Comment on the evidence presented on blog:

Good investigation and research into the production/final resolution. Good combination of writing and images. Good final resolutions

Comment on the selection of evidence on the Presentation boards:

Good organised boards for briefs

Comment on the organisation and presentation of information on the presentation boards:

Good idea to organise it into a folder. Could make them more illustrative - think about colour schemes etc.

General Comments:

• Good research into where the work could stand in a professional context, could look into some more satirical artists
• You have evidenced how your work can exist in real world context on your blog. You have evidenced decision making in posts
• For your blog use ISSUU for a lot of images then you can talk about them as a whole process in a smaller blog post
• You have thought and investigated Professional context - would be good to see your FMP pieces practically e.g on a mug etc
• Good thought and evaluation about work step by step

Feedback by Will Grout


Comment on the evidence presented on blog:

This blog is not very clear. I think you need to organise it a bit. I can't see what briefs have been done
You have not labelled individual briefs i.e studio brief 12345..
ISSUU images
Blog more

Comment on the selection of evidence on the Presentation boards:

Boards are very thorough and show each project from start to finish
You need to physically submit some of the work
Label boards studio brief 1,2, etc to correlate to blog

Comment on the organisation and presentation of information on the presentation boards:

Clear and concise

General Comments :

Label blog studio brief 1 etc... 

Have boards in a portfolio labelled with studio brief

Have a plastic wallet of 1 final image for each brief to support it

I think a lot of these comments are what I already know I need to do i.e sorting out my blog and printing out final designs but some of them I think are a good idea such as putting studio brief numbers on my boards to make them easier to understand and some comments Alice made about looking at more artists.
I feel I wasn't as prepared for this crit as I have been in previous modules because I was yet to print any of my products and I felt that everything appeared flat compared to everyone elses work. However for hand in I know I will be ready and feel better about it seeing final finished outcomes.

Crit questions

• Do you think my Big Kahuna is big enough, i.e is there more I can propose 
• Do you think my typography style works well on products
• What do you think I can develop further
• In the next week what can I do to improve on my Big Kahuna realistically
• What else do I need to physically print

Boards for crit

I decided to print boards for the crit as I am yet to print my products out properly and a lot of my work is online or proposed. I put all of my boards in a folder to keep them together. 

Doodle for Google

Ohh Deer

Talenthouse - Christmas Jumper

Talenthouse - Borns

Thoughtbubble

Threadless

Topical Illustrations

Big Kahuna

Visual Quality

I feel that the visual quality of the boards does not really represent my practise and I focused too much on trying to make them look professional that they just look stale and the text does not work very well. I should have spent more time on trying to make them work well as a set with perhaps pattern borders or the use of my own handwritten typography. 

When printed, the text looked too big too and I think I put too much of it on there I should have left my blog to explain the work and had minimal writing on the boards.

Also, I think that the boards don't really do the work justice and instead of being the main platform of showcasing my work, they should just act as a support mechanism besides the physical product.