Muchuu - Band Artwork Project

In this module I had to find one External Brief myself. This came in the form of a friend asking me to design some artwork for their band: Muchuu. Muchuu consists of two members, a brother and sister: Milky and George. It is Milky who is a personal friend of mine and who I had a lot of contact with throughout the duration of this project. This brief was characterised by the high amount of client-illustrator contact, with frequent meetings in which the client gave a lot of feedback and made many requests for the tweaking of the design.

I was asked to create 2-3 possible designs for a Spring Tour poster, but more generally to create artwork reflecting the Muchuu “brand” which could be used promotionally online.

I was also asked to rework the Muchuu logo. Here is a screenshot of their current website to give a feel of the image i was asked to build on:

Here is a link to this website where you can listen to their music:

http://music.muchuumusic.com/

I listened to their album on repeat while I roughly drew out idea after idea; trying to make the images reflect the tone of the music.

The brief I was supplied with was informal but extensive. They gave me a lot of information to work with but in the end decided to narrow it down to the following characteristics:

· Rainbow colours

· Earthy colours

· Creatures

· Nature

· Journeys

Milky also mentioned how much she liked this image:

...which I created for the Poetry Project earlier in the Semester. She particularly liked the drawing and the use of texture. This was something I kept in mind while researching and developing my artwork.

While creating the artwork for Muchuu I found the following artists inspiring:

Stacy Rozich. Her beautiful, colourful images work effectively on white backgrounds. They are floating objects or vignettes which would work equally well as part of a poster design or as promotional artwork on a web-page: this is a task my illustrations need to perform...

A couple of weeks ago I visited the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge and saw an excellent exhibition of Persian miniature painting. I found them appropriate to this brief because the aged paper gave an earthiness to the otherwise colourful illustrations. I found them a useful example of how I could combine the contradictory “rainbow colours” and “earthy colours” suggested in the brief...

Finally, Eleanor Davis’s series of screen-prints, "Fruit of the New Garden", also work well as floating objects or vignettes, like Rozich’s work, and the screen printed effect is both charming and graphically satisfying...

I asked Milky in a meeting whether she would like me to try and make some prints for this brief. She said that given the time we had and the amount of changes that would enevitably have to be made to the design due to the differing opinions of the rest of the band, the record label, etc. that she’d rather I “mocked them up” instead. She reminded me of the image “Eclipse” she liked from my previous project where i digitally added the printed texture. My final images were made using a variation of the same technique. It has been very useful for me to develope a method of “digital pretend printing” as it not only means i can quickly change a design to a clients specifications, but I will also still be able to carry on creating these sorts of images when I graduate and no longer have access to the college workshops.

I showed Milky my original design sheets to guage which aspects of my drawings she preferred to others. She liked the focus on mountains (a fixture in their lyics) and weather. She also liked the way I had depicted her and George from behind, as if we are on the journey with them – part of the travelling party...

Once again I looked back at my Poetry Project. I found that some of the images I had started sketching as the project drew to an end, with my FMP in mind, would work well for this brief. On the sketchbook page below you can see shooting keys and miscellanea, I incorporated these into some of my designs for the band...

I also started experimenting with paper cut outs:

he block colour worked well but Milky said the faces in particular were a touch too childish and she really preferred my drawings of them from behind.

Eventually I created a range of digital illustration made by manipulating my own line drawings and hand-made textures. I utilised the aged paper juxtaposed with bright colours of the Persian Miniatures and the printed/vignette technique of Eleanor Davis and Stacy Rozich’s work and applied all this to my own fantastical ideas and Muchuu’s stipulations...

I emailed a wide range of these ideas to the band. Both Milky and George said that they loved the work and added: “ ... the only thing is maybe change the colours of the logo to more darker earthier colours and a bit bigger. My ultimate version of the designs would be logo with new colours, the cat mountain globe and us from the back of heads either side of page. Then if you allow me I would like to use it as our facebook profile pic?”

This I did for them:

Which they said was "Perfect" and they are, indeed, using it as their online display picture for their band profile: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Muchuu/66498558144

They also said “...scrap the whole poster thing. Not needed now. Just ideas and images we can use for internet is cool.”

In this project tried to create images that could be made into poster artwork if needed, but work perfectly well as illustrations in their own right. This approach has clearly paid off with both illustrator and client being very happy with the results.

The Outsider.

For this project I have been asked to illustrate 3 key moments, and an idea for the binding of the novel The Outsider by Albert Camus. I had never read this book before and I enjoyed it very much, in fact; I loved it. This makes it very hard to illustrate because it’s unlikely I will ever feel I have done it justice. However, I shall try...

The novel is written in the first person, and I am sticking with this point of view in my illustrations. The protagonist, Meursault, should be hard to identify with, which seems like a good reason for me not to draw him in my illustrations, but I actually did not find him difficult to identify with. Even when he commits the crime of murder and does not show remorse, I still find him simply endearing. He is childlike in his petulance on many occasions, and speaks very matter-of-factly about things most people, unthinkingly, romanticise when they talk about them: like death, sex and love. In this way he can be seen as insensitive, even heartless, in fact he is not. He feels emotions, he just analyses his own feelings from a distance; his logic can, most often, not be faulted. We really are inside his head in this novel, with no filter on the selfish or inappropriate thoughts we often chide ourselves for having. With a first person illustration, we see the world through his eyes, as the author intended and as the Folio Society’s brief insinuates: Getting inside the outsider.

Throughout the book, heat and the sun are recurring themes; in a strange and confusing sequence of events the sun’s heat causes Meursault to shoot a man. For this reason I would like the sun to be present, as an ominous force, in each of my illustrations. I would also like to use a lot of patterns, especial wavy lines, to create the feelings of confusion and nausea Meursault often feels under the Algerian sun. My illustrations should include little, if any, human presence, as Meursault often seems to find it hard to deeply connect with others, and because he spends much of his time in the book alone. I would like them to be composed of inanimate objects which, somehow, convey a great sense of foreboding and pressure... A big Ask indeed!

I explained all this in my first Crit. and my tutor seemed happy with my ideas, especially once I had explained my interpretation of the book. He suggested that I look at:

William Scott:

This image is called Blue Still Life...I found his simplistic, abstracting technique of representing the kitchen equipment very useful. I hope to do something similar to create a feeling of alienation in my illustrations.

Mary Fedden:

This painting is called Near Sienna.

I found this painting interesting for the depiction of the still life in the foreground, with the contextualising background behind it. This is the approach I am attempting with my fried eggs illustration.

David Hockney’s swimming pools:

This piece is called Schwimmbad Mitternacht.

Water and swimming are also reoccurring themes and I wanted to use even more wavy lines to represent this. Here is a link to more of Hockney’s swimming pools:
http://swimsallyswim.blogspot.com/2008/08/art-david-hockney.html

I experimented with sponge textures and paint to create marks with a hot or watery feel (example below)...

I also experimented with stencils which had a much more pleasing, graphic effect. I remembered the work i did for The Poetry Project and that some of my work looked like lino cuts, so i thought I’d try the real thing.

For inspiration in print department I looked at the artists:

Edward Bawden. The way he uses a limited colour palette is very inspiring, in such images as these coloured prints:

I also particularly love his used of pattern texture to convey the weather in his lino-cut, Snowstorm at Brighton (1957):

Jon McNaught has somehow created screen prints which appear both serene and fraught with meaning. This is the ultimate aim I have given myself for this project. I also noted that he uses dark colours wisely, in moderation and hardly ever uses a true black. This is his Jet-streams series:

He also uses patterns to convey weather, water and plant life in a satisfying, graphic way.

This print is from a series called Broadcast:

This print is from a series called Pebble Island:

I had to do a lot of preparation before i began to make my prints. I had never created a lino-cut before and I had to get my head around the colour separation. Here are some photographs from my time in the workshop:

My sketches reflect this colour-separation working-out process:

On the left is my initial drawing for my print and on the right is the finished product.

I also spent a very long time choosing my colour palette, of just 3: which I wanted to convey heat and intensity while still remaining pleasing to the eye. I also felt the need to avoid black, as Jon McNaught does, so that the image did not become completely overwhelming or at all clichéd.

I was very pleased with the outcome, especially for a first attempt. Unfortunately, learning this new skill and the process itself took a lot longer than I had expected and, therefore, missed the Folio Society deadline. However I feel I have learned a great deal about my working process during this project. I hope to create more prints during my FMP and so improve my technique and technical skill.

Youth Theatre Poster Project.

We were given a brief, by a local theatre, to illustrate a poster for an up-coming youth theatre production. This was quite a short project turn-around: with the gap between being given the brief and meeting the client for the final time being only about two weeks long. Therefore, I needed to come up with a simple solution to the brief with an outcome that could be easily be manipulated to the client’s specifications if need be. This is why I decided to make my final product a digital image. A digital final outcome would also be appropriate as we were told the chosen design would be printed on both a small (magazine/ programme image) and very large scale (roadside banner).

It was suggested that the illustration would make reference to:

• Youth Theatre
• David Garrick – the 18^th century theatre
• Zombies
• Hereford
• Humorous/Fun

I decided to leave out the Hereford theme as it was just too much going on. I tried a few designs including some reference to Hereford, but found them too messy and confusing. Luckily, in a meeting with the client, she made it clear that this wasn’t a problem and Hereford was only an optional, suggested theme if the designers had decided to approach the brief from that angle.

I, however, concentrated on trying to make a simple poster which would appeal to young people and reflect the fact this is a youth production. The strongest idea I tried to convey visually was Zombies at the Theatre! I also tried to work in details which would create the mise-en-scene that this zombie-theatre activity was occurring in the 18^th century.

The brief itself came attached to a lot of mid-late 20^th century style zombie/ horror posters to give us an idea of the kitsch, over-the-top yet harmless gore they were looking for.

In addition to this, I gathered visual information concerning the 18^th century theatre:

And fashion, here are just a few of many examples:

In the end, my designs did not include very detailed representations of the ornate 18^th Century theatres as it did not work with the simple-silhouette design plan I had come up with. However, I was able to work in to period hair and hats into the crowd, subtly.

I also looked at the real-life characters portrayed in the play, but only actually included David Garick himself in my final design:

I also looked at very simple posters such as this one:

.... Created by Lloyd Stas for the humorous, recent zombie film Shaun of the dead (i felt this was a good move as this film was constantly referred to as an inspiration during our first meeting with the client). This is the image which confirmed my sentiment that using simple silhouettes would work well for this project.

And finally, in order to make history seem appealing to young people and adults alike, i looked at the Horrible Histories books I enjoyed so much as a child:

Using the light humour teamed with historical reference of these illustrations I hoped to create a simple image which conveyed history, horror and entertainment all in one. Below you can see one of my development sheets where have tried to depict David Garrick with the gentle humour used by Martin Brown, who illustrated the Horrible Histories...

I created my final images by hand drawing them first and then manipulating them on Photoshop.

When developing my ideas, I tried out colours using pencil crayon:

...it soon became apparent that this was not the appropriate medium for such a project. I didn’t think the pencil-crayon texture would scale up very well and was also slightly too childish. I found the worksheet (above) visually appealing, but felt this medium would be better suited to a brief not so concerned with horror. This was a step too far away from the zombie posters from the 70s-era originally attached to the brief. Block, digital colour was the way to go:

I also tried using the scanned-in texture technique I used for the Poetry Project, but I found this made the images too confusing and robbed them of their simple, almost cartoon-like clarity and humour. I left the texture on my marginally more serious image as an extra option for the client to view, but left it off the more humorous image I developed of Garrick peeking through the theatre curtain at the 18^th century zombie hoards. This second, simple, light-hearted image was selected to be used as an image to be to illustrate the cast listing, which I was very pleased about.

Joyce’s Poetry Project

I chose to illustrate 4 of Joyce’s 20 poems.

· Cheese

· Eclipse

· The Hay Fever Dream

· Midwinter

Here a brief Run-Down of the Poems...

“Cheese” was a poem about how, if the earth were made of cheese, humankind would simply eat it until we were just fat little balls floating in space; clearly a metaphor for our plundering of the earth’s resources.

“Eclipse” was an account of the 1999 lunar eclipse where the sun and moon are personified, and the eclipse itself is made out to be an unsuccessful lover’s rendezvous.

Both of these poems were space themed which appealed to my imagination and I felt i could really make some strong images based around these themes.

“The Hay Fever Dream” was a humorous poem about a woman who hates her nose because of how much it causes her to suffer with hay fever but then becomes a poster girl for hay fever remedies and makes a fortune. The poem ends with her retiring on a yacht.

“Midwinter” was a romantic poem about hibernating indoors with you lover when its too cold and harsh to venture outside.

I found Tadanori Yoko very inspiring while working on this project...

He is a Japanese graphic artist whose career was in full swing in the 1970s. Although I have enjoyed his full colour posters, I found his “Genka Illustrations” most useful for this project: a non literal representation of a novel. Find out all about the surreal fun here:

http://pinktentacle.com/2009/09/genka-illustrations-by-tadanori-yokoo/

Here are a few of my favourite examples of his work:

Although this book is meant to appeal to Joyce’s family, particularly her grandchildren, so I had to remember not to include too much psychedelia in my designs, and definitely no nipples.

I also found the work of Matt Relkin useful inspiration for these images, I like the contrast of eerie space textures and harsh, block-colour shapes....

I also really enjoyed looking at the work of Eric Nyfeler, who creates posters with these beautiful screen-print textures...

Having developed my images to a point where I knew what I was drawing but not how the final pieces should look, I used Photoshop to create a rustic, printed effect. I chose to use digital techniques over traditional in this case because of the short amount of time I now had left on this project.

I scanned in my simple Tadanoori Yokoo inspired drawings (example above) and filled them in using Matt Relkin inspired block colours (example below).

I then used rollers and ink, as well as splattered ink and my collection of old books to create a range of textures, I scanned them in to lay over my images; hopefully giving them a similar quality to the gorgeous Eric Nyfeller screen prints. The results were pleasing and creating my final images digitally was also appropriate for a book which was going to be digitally reproduced in full colour. However, it has inspired me to create the real-deal print-wise in later projects.

The space based illustrations: “Cheese” and “Eclipse”, work well together, whereas “The Hay Fever Dream”, although it is a successful image, does not appear to be part of this set. “Midwinter" does not appear to fit as part of this series either.

Because this poetry book was designed to be such an eclectic mix it did not matter that not all my illustrations looked like they belonged together. However, it is something I have born in mind in later projects where a string illustrative identity was essential. (See my “The Outsider” project – a series of images which clearly all belong together)

The space themed images have inspired more illustration ideas. I am now working on a possible series of screen prints for FMP called “Celestial Bodies” .