Struggling.

Really feeling like I am getting no where with this project. None of my ideas feel good enough, and I don't seem satisfied with anything I currently do. I have to present my idea to my workshop group tomorrow, and I feel sick about it. But I think that is partly due to the fact I am also poorly. I don't think that my idea comes across strongly enough. I am just really struggling with ideas. I have one. But is it really good enough?

Research into Alight awareness.

The other day I went around the venues of the Alight Festival, for research into this project, my main idea was to take images of the buildings/draw them. But I also wondered if there may be any advertisement for the festival in any of these venues. I thought that there may have been some information about it in brochures and events listings etc. So I went to have a search.
I picked up this from Millenium Galleries/Winter Gardens:

An events guide for upcoming exhibitions/events from october 2011 to march 2012. I thought that it might include the alight festival. Weirdly enough it didn't. I'm not sure if thats because technically the event is listed as being held in the Winter Gardens or maybe the event was organised after this leaflet was printed, I'm not sure.  Either way it didn't really help me, however I'm pleased I researched how well advertised the festival was. I also looked in City Hall and found event brochures but once again nothing on Alight, it was just events for singers and comedians etc. 

Artists

I got some books out from the library to help me find some inspiration. It was suggested to me that a good way to find inspiration in a project is to have a look at other illustrators. So I thought I'd get a few books out and I found a few artists. Here are a few :

Kate Moross
    Kate Moross is a London based graphic designer/illustrator. I found her in the book For Love and Money. Her style isn't usually something that I would be drawn to or interested in, but I think that in this case it links into my final pieces idea. I like how busy her pieces are, how bright and eyecatching they are, and how they don't all necessarily make sense, to me, her pieces depict movement really well. Which is something I want to come through with mine, especially because I want my illustration to show music visually.

Pomme Chan


Bangkok born graphic designer, who relocated to London to study as a Graphic Designer, Pomme Chan is more my kind of illustrator, she focuses mainly on hand drawn illustrations adding colour using analogue and digital techniques. I do like the fact that she specifially uses hand drawn illustrations for the majority of her work. I want my final pieces to still include hand drawn illustration, or analogue colour at the end of the day, even though I did want to use an element of Photoshop. The reason I want to include Photoshop is because I never really use it much, and I just want to see what I can create.

Jess Wilson

London based illustrator who likes using crayons and paints within her illustrations, her pieces are always bright and busy, something I'd like to incorporate into me pieces, I found her in For Love and Money

Steve Wilson

 Brighton based illustrator, Steve studied illustration at Brighton University, "Circus posters, fairgrounds, victorian postcards and tribal body art" are apparently part of his inspiration. Steve's pieces are more digital based, which isn't really something I enjoy so much, but I really like the flow of his work, just like with Kate Moross, and I love the busy-ness of his pieces and the fluidity.

Experimenting.

As a part of development and experimenting, I began to try and think of ways of creating the style of my final piece idea. I wanted to create an image that was bright and appealing enough to place on a tshirt or bag as a contribution towards the alight festival. I started off with the simple image of the hands that i drew as part of my research, I created a copy of the hands and then began drawing lots of flowing patterns coming out from the hands, I listened to music whilst doing this, a lot of different genres, just to see what I could get when they all came together visually. I did lots of different colours. I used Posca Pens and pencil crayons for colour. After I'd finished I scanned the image on photoshop just to put it onto a tshirt, you know just for a rough idea of where I was going, how it'd actually look. I mean, I know it's not the ideal way to find out if it would actually suit, but I was busy trying to get an idea together for when we have to pitch out idea to the client. I would love to actually get some tshirts and print some designs on them for a better idea. And maybe I will as I progress into this project. The overall pattern I created I decided was a little too busy and clashing for my liking. I thought that there were too many conflicting colours. I think I need to work more on a colour palette, and I need to create more flowing patterns, I am pleased I've done this though because it's part of the development of my piece.

Research within books

I took out some books from the library to help me inspire my ideas a little bit more. I also think it's a good way of researching, looking at other art. One of our tutors Lynne suggested doing it, and it has really helped me, I don't think I do it enough, I think I rely too much on the internet to help me with my research. But nothing feels as good as finding a good book!

this book "For Love and Money" is great, I found alot of artists that are inspiring towards my idea for this project, it really made me feel alot better about this project. I'll write some info about some of the artists I found later.

This book "illustration a theoretical and contextual perspective" was quite interesting but I personally, didn't find it helpful for me, didn't really find it inspiring.

getting on track.

 So idea wise for my piece I have decided to focus on the ideas of togetherness. So I began drawing images of hands holding, as I thought back to when we were given the 24 hour brief and I created an image including hands, which I believe can be a simple visual representation of togetherness and relationships/closeness etc.

I also thought of other ways I could show people together, enjoying themselves, or just showing a simple image to show that Alight is about people being together as a community, I didn't really want to do an elaborate image on this, I know that it's an important part of the festival, but I also needed to still find  way to incorporate music, venue etc.

I then came up with an idea of creating a visual image for my music, So creating swirling, flowing images that would symbolise the music, but also the feel and atmosphere of the festival. Just overall positive imagery. I thought of illustrations flowing from a venue, flowing from hands holding, or maybe even coming from a crowd of people. I just wanted to think of different angles that I could come from.

Research

I decided to help me along with my research, I would take photos of the various venues that alight will be using around sheffield, I wanted to look at their over all looks and the shapes of them, to see if they would be interesting to work with within my illustration design. I took photos of the City Hall, Town Hall and Winter Gardens whilst I was walking around Sheffield yesterday as part of my primary research. I didn't have chance to draw any on that day, but I will be going back to do so.
I walk through the winter gardens/millenium galleries every day I am at university, I walk through it on my way to the bus stop home. I always enjoy looking in it. So I took some images of the inside too. The Winter Gardens is such an interesting building in itself.
Unfortunately I couldn't really get into the City Hall due to the graduation ceromonies taking place. But I will be going again to take photos inside if I can!
For the project Obs and Comms that we did for first year, I focused the project on the town hall building on pinstone street. So I have quite a few images of it from that project which I can use, however I don't really think that I will be basing much of my project around the town hall building. I really do like the shape of it's clock tower though.

Alight Strapline...

This is the strapline given to us for the Alight Festival, it's quite wordy really, but it's something that could be considered to be featured on some of our creations.

"Alight, led by Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, is part of Music 

Nation, a Countdown event for the London 2012 Festival, the 

finale of the Cultural Olympiad."

Sketchbook Ideas

Here are some of my quick initial thumbnail sketches for ideas for my alight piece, I just began with thinking of things associated with light etc. 

as you can see they were very basic ideas, really, just to start me off with thinking. I began to think about gestures as well too, and looked into the meaning of the word alight.

In my initial ideas I thought that I wanted to include an illustration of a person, as the festival was for the people of Sheffield, but all my ideas and trying to incorporate "alight" into the thumbnails just made all of the images look holy, and I really didn't want that.

So, focusing more on the idea of including people, I started thinking of what the people within a festival would be doing. So, the orchestra/conductor, children, dancers. Just going through ideas

Because I was still struggling with a focus area, I decided to create a mindmap of all the things I could think of from the key words we were given which were: Colourful, Celebration, Upbeat, Festival, Venues, Rhythm. Eventually my mind map got a little frantic and chaotic, so I decided to list out all of the results that I got.

After creating the list I discovered that I had used some words more than once I used the word "Together" alot. I thought Atmosphere was a key word too as well as Positive.

Researching into Alight...

here are some images of some of the research I have been doing for the alight festival project, I researched and recorded all of the information i could find to help me get on with this project, hopefully the info will give me some inspiration and more ideas around the Festival itself

Rachel Malliband.

The other week we had a group lecture/meeting with the co ordinator of the Alight Festival, the idea was to ask her any questions and enquiries about the brief and about the festival itself, the do's and don'ts, what she wanted, what she didn't want etc. the meeting was around an hour, a lot of questions were put to Rachel, and in all honesty, I didn't feel like I got any information out of it, and I know I wasn't the only one. I'm sure it isn't her fault, but Rachel was very vague in what she wanted us to do, it was as it there were no boundaries, really, which in a way I suppose is great, but I felt like I needed more of a starting point really, which I guess is why I'm still struggling to get into this project as much. She made if very clear that we were not allowed to use the official Olympic Logo for London 2012 in any way at all , otherwise we would get in trouble. She told us the date of the Festival, all of the different concerts etc. just general information which was useful. She said that the festival didn't really have a slogan or anything, and that we could use that. I think to be honest she just wanted a slogan, and some images to play within the concerts. Nothing seemed to be organised, however I could imagine that trying to organise such a huge event, takes alot of time, and alot of money, and perhaps that money isn't currently available yet, and might be closer towards the event? I don't know! So really the meeting just made me even more confused about what to do. I myself, don't really enjoy briefs where so to speak the world is your oyster! and there's no limits! I do tend to like to have a guideline to follow!

New project, new blog.

    We have a new uni project, and like usual I've started a new blog, except now I've figured that, to be honest I'm probably going to be blogging alot this year, SO instead of making about 100 blogs, I'm, just going to do a blog for a year of uni work, and just put everything on one. I'll make it clear when a new project starts of course, but I just think it's easier to have it all in one place.
    So yes, we have a new project in Graphics, or more specifically to me in the Illustration area. We've been given the task of creating the branding for an upcoming festival in Sheffield. The festival is called "Alight" and is a part of the cultural Olympiad which is nationwide and is celebrating the upcoming 2012 olympics in London next year. The Alight Festival will take place in March of next year and will be a full day of events. The festival focuses on all of the talents of local musicians, orchestras, choirs, dance organisations etc, and has brought hundreds of performers together to celebrate the city of Sheffield. The festival is set into three different slots throughout the days which are Alight Daylight, Alight Twilight, and Alight into the Night. Each of which will have specific performers. The festivities will be hosted in numerous venues around the city including Town Hall, City Hall, The Hubs and The Winter Gardens. The Co-ordinator of Alight, Rachel Malliband has asked us second year Graphic Designers as well as second year Events Management students to create things for Alight. I think the Events Management course have to create rock bands with school children and create a sort of battle of the bands thing at Hubs on the evening, which sounds quite cool, but we're not doing anything to do with that as far as I know, and my flatmate from first year is on the course, and she currently hasn't heard anything to do with Alight festival or organizing rock bands full of school children...so yeah, I think I just confused her!
But yes, we've been asked to create images, branding, logo, illustrations, etc for the festival, and for items to be shown throughout the day. We were told that during some of the performances there will be huge screens for our work to be displayed on. So I was thinking of images that are sort of inspiring and positive for the crowd. This festival is supposed to be a celebration and I think culture and community play a big part within it, so therefore I think is should hold a sense of togetherness. Which I think will play a part in my illustrations.