Tutorial

Todays one on one tutorial has helped me to understand how to plan out my work for this year. I need to concentrate solely on briefs that will help develop my practice and if I cant find competition briefs that will do this I should set a brief for myself.

Plan of action

Elmwood Studios- Window Brief- Already completed

Poster Spy- Red Dwarf brief- this will be a fun and quick brief to complete to start me off

Penguin Design Award- Children's cover award- The book for this project is 'Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman'. This isn't a typical children's book. The book tackles "racism, terrorism, the class system and the artificial divides we always seem to put between ourselves and others". The book ties in to the research I have been doing for COP this year and will help me to explore the theories from that module. The brief will also be a an interesting challenge, dealing with more serious subject matter than my usual practice. I think the change of subject matter could be beneficial to my practice and help me with future projects.

Editions- This will be my self directed brief. I want to write and illustrate a children's book. Later in the year we will be briefed on a large projected leading towards the end of year exhibition. To start I am going to conduct some smaller initial projects of character design that will be part of the final book. I think this will help me to spend more time in the development faze of the book and allow me to explore the characters in much more depth and help me to develop emotion, movement, posture etc.

D&AD- Beano Brief- To reimagine a female Beano character. This brief sounds like it could be fun and could help develop my skills as I would be required to animate the character. There are a list of characters to choose from and the brief states that " All illustration and animation styles are welcomed" so I would keep my visual identity within my work. The brief says the "the world (and Beano) needs more rebel girls." and that they want us to "bring your updated designs to life through a short, narrative animation, bringing new stories and exciting new perspectives to an established and well-loved character". This project will allow me to work on character design loosely based on a pre-existing character (providing some constraints to work creatively with), develop the character (come up with narratives for the character to be part of) and to expand my skills working with animation (could collaborate with an animator?)

Carmelite prize- Illustrate a children's book.

"The judges are looking for a series of original and outstanding illustrations demonstrating competency and creativity in visual storytelling for children. The illustrations should show characterisation, continuity and progression, plus a range of emotion and pace appropriate to the text. Originality is key as is the consideration for text placement and page design."

Author's notes

“This is a story about opening your mind to greater knowledge and wisdom. Sophie knows she will never find the place where the sea meets the sky but her own horizons have expanded.”

“I am very much looking forward to seeing how Sophie’s world is created visually. I hope my story will offer the opportunity to show a wide variety of scenes, from intimate, close-up personal moments to colourful underwater vistas and stunning, atmospheric seascapes.”

Spec

The full text is split over 12 spreads and entrants are required to submit roughs for 8 spreads and final artwork for 4 spreads. The text, with suggested page breaks, can be accessed on completion of the Registration form.

There is a choice of two formats for the finished book: 245mm x 245mm or 275mm (high) x 250mm (wide). Please choose the format most suited to your style.

Artwork must be created at 100% size, or up to 30% larger, allowing at least 5mm extra (after reduction) for any images that bleed.

Any medium may be used, but final artwork must be flat so it can be scanned. Illustrations with novelty elements or 3D structures will not be eligible.

Artwork can be supplied digitally but should be supplied as one low res PDF, file size to be no larger than 8MB. Please ensure file is labelled with your full name as follows: firstname_lastname.pdf. Note, original files should be created in high res – and retained as such – should your entry be succesful and selected for print.

Text should be shown in black, either typed or handwritten, and should be removable (ie, supplied as a transparent or trace overlay). For digital entries, flattened text on PDF is acceptable, but original high res files should place text on a separate layer

This is one of the bigger briefs and one that I plan to devote a large amount of time to as it is best suited to my practice and I think it will be one of the most beneficial.