Assignment one – sketches

Content. Back to the mind map. Family, Food, Active. Perhaps academic. Hmm… that was easier than I thought it might be.

Paper and pencil time,

First sketch

The idea: me holding a giant cake in the slightly coy style of a vintage pin up.

The result… Not good. Even this rough sketch shows that this idea does not show off me at all. It looks more like a wedding invite. I like food, but I don’t have a love of giant cakes. I’m going to come back to food. I want the idea to show more fresh, home grown. Needs more thought.

Sketch two… Family

The idea: Me and my family

The result… not what I was aiming for. I stopped half way through because even in my head it started to look more like a line up for an ID parade than a loving family. It had no quirk at all. Very dull idea. I’m going to come back to this one to.

Sketch three…

My bike and me.

The result: Oh dear. Not only is this misleading (it makes me look like a pro-cyclist when in reality I haven’t sat on my road bike in about a year. I ride my city bike daily) it is boring. There are a millions of images out there of people on bikes. Also it shows nothing of the other out door stuff that I love to do. Granted it looks like I’m wearing a swim suit in this sketch, and that idea did crossed my mind before reality kicked in and I realised there is no way that I’m going to dress in a swim suit and sit on my bike.

However, purely accidentally I drew the bike too big and therefore half of me is missing from this pic.

This has given me an idea. Sticking with the active theme:

I like this. It has potential. I’m wearing my walking boots. Hinting at a love of other outdoor things. I had thought about adding other sporting equipment to the image, maybe other pairs of shoes, or some goggles hanging from the pedals, but it might look a bit cluttered. I can have a play around later with illustrator. I like the idea that a different bit of me will be in each of the post cards.

Family:

This needs a lot of playing with. The scale doesn’t work at the moment. Not nearly enough people in there and yet it already looks like too many. The idea has potential though.

Food:

This also has potential. My sketching has not done the idea I had in my head any justice. I like the apple, although it does look a little sleepy beauty esqu which is not what I had in mind. It does hint at the love of fresh, farm, home grown-ness that I was after.

And all together: I’m going away to work on these for a while.

Assignment one – collecting some inspiration

An idea…

These post cards are primarily about me. The first design decision is easy. I would like to be in them. I don’t know in what form my presence will be, but this decision seems quite natural. It means that regardless of what else I do there will be at least one theme to cards, something that will make them a series. Me.

It’s far too early to pick a number of cards. I’m hoping that that decision will make its self at a later date.

The styling… time to look to the mind map for a little inspiration.

Vintage, pretty, people, British.

The 1950’s pin up. I love the simple backgrounds; the’ illustrated so perfectly it could almost be a photo’ quality that they all have; the cheekiness of the images, sexy, but not overtly so; and of course, the beautiful girls.

Hmm… I’m ok with a pencil, but not that great and so I think I’m going to turn to the wonderfulness that is adobe to help with manipulating a few photos to help achieve the illustrated look. But how far to go? (I’m glossing over the fact that my illustrator/ photoshop skills are not that hot either. But these are ideas I’m talking about. I should aim high.)

Blur ‘The Best of’ album art.

One of Andy Warhols pop art prints of Marilyn Monroe

Ideas are definitely starting to form.

Assignment one

Design a series of at least three postcards that say something about who you are, your interests in graphic design and your wider cultural influences or interests.

You can use any medium or materials you want to.

My first thought. Panic! Who am I?!

Step one – Mind mapThen… relief. I know who I am. It’s also quite nice to know I’m too complex to put all of me on a mind map, so I’ve trimmed everything back to the core and only left a little bit of fluff where I think it might help me remember things.