Live Brief- Summer Show Poster

I started the project by drawing some of the first things which came to mind when i thought of Plymouth College of Art and how i could best illustrate this. 

It was difficult to illustrate the many different things which take place in PCA (and to include all of the different subject areas). 

                                       I decided to go for a different design and try to create  poster which shows creative growth. 

Here i was trying to highlight the individuality within creativity which is promoted at PCA, through the juxtaposition of black & white images with brightly coloured elements. 

Re-drew the birds from my initial sketches so i could include more detail. 

Same birds drawn in fineliner, ready to be scanned in to photoshop.  I decided to colour them digitally because it would give me a better, more professional finish. 

Some ideas for layout, including some pencils (!) which i didn't use in my designs for the hoardings brief last week. Also i was playing around with the lettering but i think the type will have to be done digitally.

The first beanstalk i carried through digitally... my skills are not the best on photoshop but i tried some shading and i don't think it's too bad. I'm wondering whether the colours are too similar?

My second try... i started basically from scratch and i think i prefer the simplicity of the design without the shading, although i may change the colours as, again, i think they are too similar. 

Same image with a coloured background. I think it looks much more like a poster already! :) 

Final Poster design: I have left it quite simple because i know the college people want to add information etc. I also don't want to overcomplicate it. Overall i think i am happy with the outcome. I might play around with the colours though, see what other effects/outcomes i can come up with. 

Poster number 2... I'm thinking that maybe the background is now too dark but  i liked using the reverse colours for the PCA logo. I think the pencils are a good way of conveying creativity and they also look, to me, a little like a city scape. 

The Hobbit Bookmarks

I have decided to start blogging some of my exploits from Illustration Cafe at PCA, mainly artwork created for fun!

My inner geek loved creating these bookmarks! I drew the original design, photocopied it and coloured each of them in different mediums. This is my photoshopped version of my epic bookmarks. It took forever and i discovered some new (to me) brushes etc so it was a real learning curve! I know it doesn't display the most fantastic skills when it comes to photoshop but i really want to try and use it where i can in my personal artwork so that, one day, i can be good at photoshop! Fingers crossed. 

Live Brief- Hoardings (Make your mark)

So, for our live brief this week we were all commissioned to create designs which could essentially be stenciled onto the blue boards surrounding the building site that is PCA at the moment. A fantastic idea and quite a fun project really!
I decided to choose some of my designs from Print Processes and adapt them for stencilling.

First though, i looked into some other stencilled work on Tristan Manco's website stencilgraffiti.com. I just wanted to get an idea of how i would need to change my designs so that they would be easy enough to make into a stencil.

Blek Le Rat-- Bold, block colours, simple shapes.

Snub23-- Bold colours, black outlines. I love the colour palette of this piece and the background too, how it interacts with the main characters of the design. 

With these images in mind, I began to sketch some ideas.

Page 1- I was jotting some new ideas which popped into my head, i think i like the prospect of the label type logo. I did some research into the college and found out that it was built way back in 1856 and thought that it maybe something that not many people realise so i wanted to include in my design, 

Again, these are new ideas i was playing around with, just trying to get the creative juices flowing. 

Here i was trying to create the appearance of a hole in the wall with the slogan 'Make your mark, make it here' behind it. I really liked the idea of showing people what goes on inside PCA and thought a literal hole in the wall would be a creative way to show this. 

Looking into the logo idea again, not sure how easy lettering will be for a stencil design but it will be done by lasercutter so perhaps possible. 

Trees! Not just because i love trees but because they represent growth, maturity and branching out trying new things. I have tried to integrate this idea with pencils to represent creativity and art. 

I chose to adapt this tree design from my previous print processes work and add some text to give context to the design. I have tried to make the tree trunk quite stylised to make it more of a design piece, also easier to stencil. For the foliage i have tried to create the illusion of it being pencil shavings. 

Same design, just drawn on blue paper so i can see what it would look like on the boards. 

Here i made my design into a vector image on Illustrator . Now  just have to choose the colour scheme!

In the end i settled for natural colours considering the content. I think the vividness of the blue background of the Hoardings boards would juxtapose with the neutral tones i have chosen for my design.

Idea 2

I decided to take my first idea forward and using pens i tried to figure out how i would create it as  a stencil. I like this design because i can make it fun and colourful but also because the writing allows me to get some information across. In this case, i have chosen the phrase 'inspiring creativity' because i think it sums up what the college is all about. 

To finalise the design i made it into a vector image by scanning in the blob shape and the oval shape separately and layering them in the same artboard. I love these two colours together and think they would stand out better against the blue background of the Hoardings boards. 

Although i like the colour scheme in the first image i decided to change it to make it stand out better. I think it really stands out now :)