The Word Becomes Art

After my initial look around, I decided to look more into the feel of the illustrations that are being requested. I picked out the adjectives from the brief and looked at their synonyms. This is often part of my process, but it seems particularly important here because I’m being asked to create something which is simultaneously both relaxed and dynamic. These two words seem to pull in opposite directions in terms of energy, so do they share any characteristics that I can illustrate? The words are: creative, relaxed, dynamic, fresh and inventive. I circled the synonyms that seemed most relevant     I took all these words and inputted them into www.word art.com. I wanted to be able to visualise these words together, and the software allowed me to choose colours and shapes, so that it became a bit like a verbal moodboard. Interestingly, the colours I chose unintentionally reflected the thesaurus screenshots and my green circles, which was simply the colour I had last been using i...

This assignment is self-directed and gives us the opportunity to work with our own creative processes and consolidate our learning from the unit as a whole. Having said that, there are some requirements and guidelines. This is a good thing! Limitations are so good for my creative practice. They give me somewhere to begin, a way to push aside the spiralling chaos of limitless choice. For example, if I choose a limited colour palette, I immediately remove the worry over which colours to use. For this assignment there are three options. Perhaps because it’s the brief with most requirements/constraints, I’ve chosen the option entitled “In the kitchen”.  In brief, we are asked to create illustrations for a spread in a weekend supplement magazine with recipes on the theme of ‘everyday foods of the world’. For clarification, the instructions say that we can interpret the theme quite loosely. The illustrations are to have a sketchbook feel and be an inventive record and celebration of food...

Having been fairly blunt in my feedback reflections for Assignment 8, I did go on to benefit from the feedback and implement action points in my work on developing poster designs. I do really value constructive criticism and feedback, but my initial reaction can be negative. Once I get past that first reaction I am able, fairly quickly, to take on board what is useful critique and alter my practice accordingly.  I had already done the exercises within Project 9 when I received my feedback, so they didn’t benefit from the feedback. Looking back on the leaflets, for example, in the light of my work on the posters, I can see where I could have recorded some of my rejected versions and done some more worked examples. For example, I had tried varying the opacity of the leaves but I hadn’t taken any screenshots of this process of rejection and selection.  One of the things I found difficult with the leaflet was that I didn’t have any sample text. I found it difficult to plan the lay...