neon glow!

I wanted to try and give the text a neon glow for the 'into the night event'. I had a look on tube and found a few different tutorials. After trying a few out I found this one was the best and gave me the effect I was looking for.

From following the instructions I managed to create this basic example.

I want to have a play around with the arrangement of this text but this was just a first try.

The Phoenix

I thought the phoenix would work well as part of the logo for the alight brand. The phoenix is a mythical bird that at the end of its life cycle bursts into flames and from its ashes a new phoenix is born. It fits in for the obvious connection of fire and the brand name 'alight' and for the fact that it could represent the arise of Sheffield and its performers.

The phoenix symbol has already been used in the sheffield area as a symbol of regeneration.
The two images below aren't very good quality but they show a steel sculpture and mural wall that appear on a round about on the outskirts of Sheffield.

These next two images show a different steel sculpture of a phoenix that is near Sheffield's meadow hall shopping centre.

fairy lights!

As Alight is split into three different events; daylight, twilight and into the night, I thought it would be good if they had the same logo which differed slightly for each event. My initial idea for the 'twilight' event was to have fairy lights hung over the alight type face.
I decided to have a go and see what it would look like. I cut out the letters from corrugated card and placed them on my windowsill. It was a task trying to get the letters to stand up with the fairy lights on so I had to use Sellotape to stick the letters onto the window.
I really love the result it really works well for the event, it looks so warm and exciting!

Music and Arts Festival

I decided to do some research into other Music and Arts festivals that are around at the moment and see how they have tackled branding their event.

I have never heard of this festival before but I can tell straight away it is aimed at a young audience probably between the ages of 18 and 25. The logo is made up of 2 different type faces. The type 'Rox' has a hand drawn freedom to it but has obviously been edited on the computer. I like the simplicity of having a single image as the background, it isn't too fussy and shows exactly what the event is about.

Again I have never heard of this event before but I really like parts of has it's branding has been designed. First off I'm not very keen on the type face it looks a little unprofessional and I think this aspect could have been thought through more. Other than this I like the ideas that have been used. I think the contrasting, block colours work well and I really like the silhouette images in white on the orange background. I think they possibly could have been arranged a little better but I like the concept. There are improvements that I would make but over all I think the idea works well. I can tell from the branding that the festival is similar to the Alight event.

Again not keen on the typeface on this design I think it makes it look unprofessional which is a shame because I like every other aspect of it. It is as if they have simply placed some text from microsoft word on and matched up the colours. I think I am going to have to really think about the typeface I use because as I have found from these two examples a rubbish type can easily ruin a good design.

As a well known festival Glastonbury doesn't really need to sell that its a festival in it's branding, people already know this. This design uses an illustrated landscape. It almost looks as if it has been collaged. I can't make my mind up whether I like this design or not. It is certainly not a bad design but there is something about it I don't really like.

Again a very popular festival. You can immediately tell from looking at the design that it is aimed at a younger audience. I really like this style of illustration but this doesn't seem to flow or fit together quite right. I think it could do with a little rearrangement. Other than that I think the colours and illustrations express the mood and atmosphere of the festival well.

Alight Research

On Saturday 3 March 2012 Sheffield will come 'Alight' with a myriad of music, dance and visual arts events throughout the day and into the night.

Last modified on: 13/09/2011

There will be various indoor daytime venues in central Sheffield including The Winter Gardens, The Hubs, The Town Hall and both the Weston Park & Graves Galleries. The daytime activities will lead into an explosion of musical exuberance in the region’s première concert venue, The City Hall.

Led by Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, 'Alight' is already engaged with over 650 potential performers and is discussing a number of outreach opportunities for schools. The opportunities especially for young people to participate in this inspiring project are growing weekly and 'Alight' is open to new projects, concerts and Cultural Olympiad inspired events to come onboard. Participants from any music, dance or visual art genre are welcome to add their talents; email the coordinator of Alight. Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus aims for 'Alight' to inspire a new generation of music, dance and visual artists within the region to excel not only in their given art, but also in their desire to participate in their community and work in true partnerships to produce a legacy of music, dance and visual arts for many years to come.

Venues and date

Saturday 3 March 2012

Daytime events will take place in a variety of venues including the Winter Gardens, The Hubs, the Town Hall and Weston Park & Graves Galleries, Sheffield, South Yorkshire.

The evening event will take place in the Irwin Mitchell Oval Hall, City Hall, Sheffield, South Yorkshire.

http://www.makingmusic.org.uk/our-work/projects-and-programmes/London-2012-Cultural-Olympiad/music-nation/alight

Some information I found about the Sheffield events.

Professional Practice Brief

New Brief. New start.


So I have a new brief and I actually want to try with this one! Il'll see if this enthusiasm sticks!


So the brief is to design for the 'Alight' music festival.

"On 3 and 4 March 2012 the BBC and the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) will present Music Nation, a spectacular weekend of music around the UK to set the scene and create excitement in the lead up to the London 2012 Festival, the finale of the Cultural Olympiad."

- http://www.makingmusic.org.uk/our-work/projects-and-programmes/London-2012-Cultural-Olympiad/music-nation

Music Nation is happening in towns and cities across the UK and the Sheffield festival has been named "Alight".

I can choose between designing the brand, print, promotion, projections, Alight artefact or street art. As my specialism is now general graphics I think it is a good idea to go down the brand root. The central visual identity that will be used across all items/media. I could then follow this through by designing the flyers, posters and possibly a brochure of events.

Action Plan

As I have now moved groups to general graphics my action plan has changed.

I will still try to draw in my own time so I will still try to achieve my illustration aims. I want to improve my drawing skills especially within figure drawing and getting the faces right. I will do this by trying to draw people in my spare time, when I'm sat on a bus, in the park or even just sat in my from room.

As regards graphics my aim is to become confident using photoshop and indesign so that I can easily transfer my ideas into a finished piece. I will do this by follow tutorials on YouTube and possibly purchasing a book that I can keep refering to whilst working.

In general my aim is to think about the work I am producing in more detail. I need to have a reason behind every aspect of my work and the way it looks. I will try my best to carry this out in my next project.

final three drawings

finally decided :)

After playing around with a few different styles I have finally decided on what my final piece should look like. I really liked the simple like drawings I have done with marker pen and think they look better with out any colour. I think that using the simple black and white drawing placed on a coloured back ground would look good.

I made a blue wash background and scanned it in to use a background and then placed the hand drawn images on top. As I had used the magic wand in photoshop to select the original background, when I deleted it some of the white from within the images was erased as well in places where the outlines didn't quite meet. Even though it was a mistake I like the effect it gives. I will play around with the images I have drawn up and see which ones work best for my final piece.

Stamps!

Was thinking about a stamp set I used to have when I was younger and remembering that it had a dog stamp in it. Managed to dig it out from the back of a cupboard and loved it! Felt like I was 5 again stamping away! These are my favourite examples of the ones I did, especially the bird in the tree one. On the actual print the colours look really good but it hasn't scanned in as well.

dogs on springs!

This one is similar to the first style except i drew it out in wax crayon before going over it in marker pen. I then used water colour to fill it in. This gave an interesting effect around the edges as the paint dryed around the wax crayon.

These two are a similar style just using different dogs. This time I used a fine liner round the edges to make the drawings look more delicate and detailed. I dont really like the one to the left but I do quite like the one above as it seems to have more character to it.

Whats my style?

I'm finding it difficult to find my style. Every time I draw a dog it looks like a different person has drawn it! I'm not sure which style to go for in my final piece.

I tried drawing this quickly in pencil and then over in black marker. I like the style but i wasn't sure about how i would add colour. I tried out painting on some grass which looks awful so I decided to scan it in to the computer and try adding colour in photoshop.

This was the original drawing. I like the lines but if I carried on doing the colouring like this I think it would ruin it.

This is my attept at adding colour in photoshop. Not being a pro at using photoshop it didn't work out quite how I had imagined but it doesn't look bad. Obviously if I decided to use this I would need to develop it further, adding more of a background etc.

Arghhhhhh!

The fact that I haven't drawn in so long and my brain to hand function has seriously deteriorated, is driving me insane. Trying to develop my three final ideas into anything worth looking at is seeming to be a task! I know I just need to keep drawing and drawing but the thought of drawing another dog is bringing me to tears! I think its time to call it a day and try again in the morning, hopefully with more luck!

Walkies!

Used the same technique as before to draw up some of the figures from my photos of my friend walking her dog. Obviously drawing from photographs isn't as effective as drawing first hand but trying to draw someone while they're being dragged round the park by a dog also isn't much fun!

Back to Basics!

So I decided that I needed to go back to basics with my figure drawing to help me get back into the swing off it. I got out my wax crayons! :)

Started off by quickly sketching out the basic shape and form of the figure using wax crayon. I quickly felt much better and realised I wasn't that bad at drawing after all!

I carried on using this method as it seemed to be working but i developed it by drawing over the basic shapes with pencil to get a more detailed drawing. I did quite a few drawings like this and really like the final outcome.

L Filipe Dos Santos

Really love this guys style, I could look through pages of his sketch books for hours. I like how some parts look like hes splodged some paint around and other parts are so perfectly drawn. Almost asif hes picked up a childs drawing and decided to finish it off.

Why haven't I drawn a human figure in soooo long!?

Did these few pencil sketches whilst sat in the studio this afternoon. They're not bad to say I haven't done life drawing in over a year but I still feel really stiff. Think I'm going to try using something less precise than a pencil see if I can loosen up and get back into it. Can't believe I haven't drawn a figure in so long I really used to enjoy life drawing at college, will have to get back on it!

Dog Exercise Machine

After hours and hours of trying to come up with 20 different dog exercise machines I finally did it and narrowed it down to my 3 favourites!

 

number1 :) remote control dog.

number 2 :) dog on springs.

number 3 :) robot walker














I will now develop these ideas into three final pieces. :/ wishing myself luck!

Edited Prints

I scanned in my prints from the session and gave them a few tweaks in photoshop.

I love how the background on this has turned out. I've seen some work by another artist that had a similar looking background and I tried to recreate it with paint and it never worked out but now I know how they did it!

I don't think that this really works compositionally but again I love the textures that have been created.

Changed the colouring on these two to a vibrant purple. Love how the tones have worked in the patterned section below, alomost looks like animal print.

Print Room!

I started to use some refrence material to create some simple mono prints. I didn't try to achieve anything too complex as I found it quite hard to draw onto the ink.
With the first one I just tried drawing onto the ink with a sharp pencil. I found it difficult to draw accuratly but the print came out really nice. I really like the texture that is created by the background ink. I had also sprinkled powder onto the ink which has created the white splodges.
In the second print I tried placing a piece of paper on the ink and drawing over it so that the ink lifted from the plate onto the paper. I then placed the paper ink side up on the otherside of the plate so that it created to opposite images. I also used other materials to create a sort of collage.
The main aim of this print session was to experiment with mark making and see which techniques produced the best results.
I think I will scan in this prints and edit them on photoshop to see how else they can be developed and how I could use the monoprint technique in the future.

Primary dog research!

I wanted to get some images of a dog running to help me with my drawings. Me and my friend took my friends dog for a walk. I also wanted to capture some shots where it looked like the dog was dragging its owner along. I tried to take images from different views to help when trying to use them as reference in my drawings. It was hard to take images while the dog was running so I didn't get as many shots as I wanted but here are a selection of the images I took.

flux task 1

Currently doing some group work looking into the changes of the modern world and how a designer is affected by changes in technology, society, culture and context.

I have been given the task of concentrating on the ‘context’ heading.

My first thoughts were what does this mean? What am I actually meant to be researching?
After some further discussion it was decided that i was to research the context of where the art was being shown. Whether it was on a gallery wall or whether it was displayed in a downloaded app.

Firstly decided to look at design as a whole.

With the constantly updating digital and mobile world it is now becoming easier to view on the move. With ideas such as ‘iplayer’, programs can now be viewed from any device that has access to the internet. And now with most phones and tablets having 3G and WiFi connection it is becoming ever easier to have a constant link to the online world. The BBC are currently producing ‘iplayer’ as an app making it even easier to access at the touch of a button.
This is where designers are having to change the way they work. We are having to quickly adapt to creating our work for a digital and interactive context. We are having to think about where the user will be when they view the work, what device they will be viewing it on, how they will interact with it and use it.
Being a designer at present, it is less likely that you will be creating work purely for its beauty; and more likely that you will be commissioned by a company to produce designs that solve a problem, that communicate a message. Design is becoming less about beauty and more about function in this advancing digital age.

I then decided to concentrate more on my chosen specialism of illustration. See how the changing world was affecting the way illustrators are working now compared to say 50 years ago.

As an illustrator the digital advancements are affecting the way we work. For example 50 years ago it would be likely that a company such as Disney would be made up of predominantly illustrators. As technology has advanced it has pushed illustrators out of this area and created work for digital animators, working for Pixar.
Just because work has gone in this area doesn’t mean illustrators are becoming extinct. In fact a cultural change of opinion and trend means a whole new industry has become available. Some illustrators are now creating their work for a very different context. Tattoos.
Not that long ago, in our grandparents or even parents generation, tattoos were related to sailors and criminals. It was an underground business that wasn’t seen as socially acceptable. This was seen as recently as 1993 when it was still illegal to tattoo in New York City!
Nowadays that has changed and it is very ‘normal’ to be tattooed with some people covering themselves from head to toe as a fashion statement, a reflection of their personality drawn in permanent ink on their skin.
The advancement in this industry allows designers to carry on creating work purely for its beauty, for the way it looks.