Commercial Image Creation - Evaluation

At the beginning of the module we were given a range of brief to choose from, ome more open than others. I chose the One & Another brief. The aim of this project was to create a series of illustrations (minimum of 4) for a magazine called One & Another based around either The Underground Music Scene or Cafe Culture of York. After researching both subjects I chose to do the Cafe Culture of York as it was a subject that I was drawn to more than the Underground Music Scene. 

I looked at 3 artists Veronica Lawlor, Julia Sverchuk and Sunga Park. All 3 are reportage artists yet they all have a different approach to it. I really liked the lines they all use but I really like the technique Sunga Park uses for his water colours. I took a lot of inspiration from Sunga Park by doing a black line drawing and using coloured ink for the background. 

At the start of the project I took a few trips to York and went into a few cafes for research and drawing purposes. I did some reportage drawings but I only stuck to pencil and Aqua Ink Molotow pens. After the reportage I re drew from photographs I had taken just to clean up the lines and make the image more accurate. I wasn't sure on my idea at this point as I hadn't received the mood board from the client so I just did some drawings. I did a drawing of each cafe, one with a border and one without, for experimentation reasons.

My initial idea was to go along the lines of what Sunga Park does and draw the cafe in black fine liner and use some kind of water colour / ink to give the image colour and depth. I also had the idea of collecting napkins, leaflets and menus and making a collage for the background of my illustrations but this proved difficult when not all of the cafes had the things I needed. Nearing to the point where I needed to start thinking about creating my images, the client who wrote the brief still hadn't sent me the document I needed. This mood board would have told me what was expected, what style, what ideas, and the colours which she would have liked the illustrations but instead I had to create everything myself and come up with every little idea in less time than I expected. This situation didn't cause many problems but it did drag my project on a little which gave me less time to create my illustrations. 

Due to the client not sending me the document at all I had to start thinking of another idea. My new idea was pretty simple. I would use the drawings from my sketchbook and then create a background using Brusho. I think Brusho was a good choice as the colours are really loud and eye-catching. I tried out a few different techniques with the Brusho. The first did not work so well as the colour was too strong and the Brusho powder had clumped on top of the image and it did not look good at all. This technique was wetting the page with water and then sprinkling the Brusho on the top. After the first technique failed I took a different approach. I sprinkled the Brusho colours onto the page first and then used a sponge to squeeze water on top of the powder. This created large beads of water on the page which I then soaked back up with the sponge leaving only a light patch of colour on the page. This technique worked much better because I had a little bit more control and the colour and shape came out really well and I think they will be perfect to use in my illustrations.

To create my images I went through a simple but long process. I started out by scanning in all of the sketches, ones without borders and ones with. I then put them into Photoshop and took away the background so that only the line was left. To do this I went into the select tab, clicked on colour range and chose the white background of the image with the colour dropper and then deleted the areas it selected. I then used the levels tool to make the pencil line black. I could have made this easier and skipped this step if I had drawn over the line with a fine liner before scanning. Next I scanned in the Brusho pages and went through the same process as above, I deleted the background so that only the Brusho was left and the background was transparent. I then chose one sketch (with a border) and one Brusho image and assembled them together. I changed the opacity of the Brusho on some of the images as it was a little overpowering and it was hard to see the line. After I created all of the images with the black borders I decided they might look better without the border as it took away the attention from the line drawing which is the main part of the illustration. So I saved those images and created a new set without the border and I like them so much better. They are so much more simplified but I think it works. I think as well because the magazine style is rather clean the thick black border wouldn't have fit well with the theme of the magazine. (I created a comparison image which will be shown below). The colours I used for the Brusho were blue/red and yellow/green and this is because these are the colours I've seen most throughout the magazine issues and as my audience is teens and young adults I think these colours are most aesthetically pleasing and will be noticed. Because I didn't receive the information from the client I had to figure the size of the illustrations out myself. The magazine is around A4 size so I created an A4 sized canvas on Photoshop then put the images on one at a time and shrunk the image so there was a 1.6cm border all the way around, and an extra 5mm bleed. The purpose of the border is so if the illustrations were to be printed in the magazine there will be a lot of spare space around the edges for printing error. Also, because I planned on these images being full page the border will allow them to be centered rather than take up a large portion of the page but still be a full page illustration. I also printed out the illustrations on 4 types of paper in the case of making prints in future. I used regular cartridge paper, Matte, glossy and luster. Unfortunately I could only print 3 of the glossy and luster but out of all of the papers I think Matte would be best for prints as the paper is clean and white and the colours are vibrant and for the magazine it would obviously be printed onto glossy paper and that came out quite well too. The cartridge paper gave the image a duller colour and whilst the luster paper had a nice texture I don't think it is very useful. 

Overall I think I have tackled this project well. I feel that my images portray the unique and abstract style of the cafes in York and I think these images would make great prints. Unfortunately I don't think I did the best work as I didn't have all of the information I required and I dived into this project thinking I would get given requirements and I didn't which put a small delay on my work. I guess I will just learn from this and hope that it doesn't happen when I get work from other clients. But other than that small problem I think my illustrations worked out really well. 

Commercial Image Creation - Final Images

As you can see below I have chosen to go ahead with the images without the border for my final illustrations. As I've previously said I think these images work a lot better with no border and just the line drawing and the Brusho background. 

The colour pallet was chosen by myself as the client who wrote the brief failed to get the mood board I required to me. All cafes in York I believe to be really unique which is why I decided to use messy Brusho for a background because I think it shows the abstract style of the cafes. I think I would have been able to create much stronger images if I had received the document I needed to complete my illustrations but I am still quite happy with how they have turned out. 

I also didn't receive a size specification so I had to figure this out for myself. I thought these illustrations would work best as full page images so that it what I based the size around. The magazine is around A4 size so I opened the image on an A4 canvas on Photoshop and shrunk it so that there was a 1.6cm border around the whole image as well as a 5mm bleed. I put the extra border on the image as kind of another bleed so that if the image was to be printed in the magazine there is plenty of space around the edges for error and I think the illustrations would look better more central than filling the entire page.

I have printed the illustrations on 4 types of paper; cartridge, matte, luster and glossy. Even though the images will be printed on glossy paper due to it being in a magazine I thought that trying other types would be useful in case of making prints in the future. In my opinion the matte paper worked best for prints as it is pure white and the colours came out really well. Unfortunately I could only print 3 glossy and 3 luster so not the whole set was printed with these papers. 

  

Commercial Image Creation - Development

After I created my images with the black border around I decided to see what the illustrations would look like without it. When I was looking at my images I thought that black border was kind of overpowering so going through the same process I edited some new versions to see which worked better.
Below you can see the comparison between all of the images with and without the border. In my opinion the images without the border are more effective and easier to look at. I think the border is too much on the illustration and takes the attention away from the line drawing itself. Even though the border makes the image look more finalised the ones without look cleaner and will fit better with the theme of the magazine. 

There was also one image which didn't make the final illustrations, the reason behind this was because the drawing was landscape and the rest were portrait and it wouldn't have fit right and I think 6 is a good amount for a series of illustrations. Below is the image not used. I suppose I could have used it when I decided not to use the borders but I didn't really like the drawing and it just didn't look too great.

Commercial Image Creation - Photoshop

The next stage of creating my illustrations was to assemble everything in Photoshop. My process for this is as follows:

1- Open sketches in Photoshop.

2- Go Select > Colour Range > Samples Colours > Select white blackground on image > Ok > Delete > Ctrl + D. This has now deleted the white around the line image so that only the line remains and the background is transparent.

3- Ctrl + L to open Levels to make the line drawing black.

4- Open the Brusho image that I would like to use and repeat step 2.

5- Change opacity of the Brusho layer so the line drawing doesn't get lost within the Brusho.

6- Re-size and position the 2 images to where I would like.

I repeated this process for all 7 images.

When the image was completed I saved it at 300dpi, in CMYK as a tiff file.

Commercial Image Creation - Brusho

As I previously blogged, I needed to come up with a colour pallet for my illustrations. After looking at the already existing issues of the magazine and thinking about my audience I have decided to go with a blue/red, green/yellow colour theme and to use Brusho for the backgrounds. I tried out a few different techniques with the Brusho. The first did not work so well as the colour was too strong and the Brusho powder had clumped on top of the image and it did not look good at all. This technique was wetting the page with water and then sprinkling the Brusho on the top. You can see below how this turned out.

After the first technique failed I took a different approach. I sprinkled the Brusho colours onto the page first and then used a sponge to squeeze water on top of the powder. This created large beads of water on the page which I then soaked back up with the sponge leaving only a light patch of colour on the page. This technique worked much better because I had a little bit more control and the colour and shape came out really well and I think they will be perfect to use in my illustrations.

Commercial Image Creation - Sketches

The first stage of creating the series of illustrations was to sketch the cafes. Whilst visiting York I did some reportage drawing of the cafes using a pencil and an Aqua Ink Molotow pen to create borders. I chose to put borders on my images because i used them in previous projects and I really liked their effect. I may not keep the border in my final illustrations but for the mean time it's just a development stage. Once I had done some sketches I re-drew the images but this time I made the lines more perfect and accurate. I also drew a version with the order and without the border for development purposes. 

I scanned my sketches into Photoshop and cleaned up the drawings and made the line darker. Before scanning the sketches I should have gone over the line with a black fine liner but I didn't and this would have made it so much easier. But with the use of Photoshop I was able to make the line black. 

 

Commercial Image Creation - Initial Idea

My first idea was to do an ink line drawing of each cafe and the use watercolour as a way of making the image come alive, in the style of Sunga Park. Then I was going to create a background with napkins, menus and images from the visits but this didn't exactly go to plan. I was not able to collect the materials I needed to create this so I had to think of a different idea. 

I encountered a problem when coming up with ideas as the client that this brief was written by failed to send me the mood board required to complete the images. This mood board would have included ideas, images and colour pallets which the client would have liked to have been incorporated into the series of images. Due to this problem I have had to come up with the idea and colour pallet entirely by myself, this is just a taster of what could happen when I am getting jobs from clients in the future.

My idea now is to still draw the cafes using ink and to use some kind of water colour background but the colour pallet is still yet to be determined. As the images are for a magazine I thought that maybe the colours should be loud and eye catching and after looking at previous One & Another magazines I have noticed that blues and greens are used quite a bit. The audience of this magazine is mostly teens and young adults so I think making the images quite bold and exciting will be aesthetically pleasing to my audience. 

Commercial Image Creation - York Cafes

Whilst in York I visited quite a few cafes. When looking at the cafes I took photographs to work from and also did a few reportage sketches whilst there. In total I visited 7 cafes from around York for my project. The cafes I visited were; Cafe Concerto, Coffee Culture, Me and Mrs Fisher, The Hairy Fig, The Hungry Artist, Bettys Cafe and Tea Rooms and The Perky Peacock. I will talk about a few below.

Cafe Concerto 

Cafe Concerto is a very unique and independent cafe. It is based around music, as the name states, and even has an apartment above for up to 5 guests called The Music House Apartment. I was interested in this cafe because of the decor. The plates etc. that are used in the cafe have sheet music printed around the edges which I think gives the place a really nice touch. There is also sheet music plastered up on the walls which I really liked as it gave the cafe character.

Me and Mrs Fisher

Me and Mrs Fisher is a cafe of crafts and cakes. It sells home made bakery and craft items and even has workshops available for people of the public to take part in. I think this cafe is really unique and what caught my eye firstly was the logo of the cafe, the 3 stacked cups is a very cute little illustration and it reminds me a lot of Tim Burtons work. 

The Hairy Fig

The Hairy Fig is a small Deli situated in York and it is packed full of produce from York, Yorkshire and Europe. Unlike most cafes it sells Spanish, Italian, French and Mexican foods with a wide range of balsamic vinegars. What caught my attention about this cafe was the name, I knew as soon as I heard it that it would be an interesting cafe.

The Hungry Artist 

The Hungry Artist caught my attention because inside and upstairs it had a little art gallery. There are paintings on the wall leading upstairs and lots of objects like mannequins and painted tables which I thought was a really nice touch to the cafe. There was space upstairs in the gallery to sit and eat and drink and it was very peaceful. The artwork is created by local artists and artists from all around the world and are also available for purchase at affordable prices. 



















The Perky Peacock

The Perky Peacock first caught my attention because of the unique building shape, there is something very artists about the architecture that I just had to look into it. Outside of the cafe there are little table with jars of flowers on the top which just give the cafe a nice welcoming feel. 

Commercial Image Creation - I visited York ... Twice

I went on 2 visits to York to check out the cafes in the area and whilst there I took a look inside a few and took pictures of the buildings and done a few reportage sketches. I am going to draw more from the images I took to develop an idea which I have came up with. I am still waiting on the mood board from One & Another but once I have that I will have a better understanding of what is being asked of me and therefore I will feel more confident about developing this idea I have had now for a few weeks. 

The idea that I have in mind is to do a series of images where I will create an illustration of a cafe itself with inspiration from Sunga Park and then add in a background using images etc that I have taken whilst on the visit in a collage form. I haven't worked with collage very much before so I think this might be a new exciting change and the effect could be really nice. My brief is to create illustrations that represent the cafe culture of York and I thought what better way to present it than to use images of the cafes etc. I visited around 8 - 10 different cafes and after a little more research I will choose which cafes I would like to use for my illustrations. 

Commercial Image Creation - Cafe Culture in York

York is a historic city situated in North Yorkshire, England and is the traditional county town of Yorkshire which is where York gets it's name. The city of York offers a lot of historic attractions including York Minister and the variety of cultural and sporting activities makes it a popular tourist destination. Since 1997 York has held a Festival of Food and Drink each September. The festival is held to spotlight the food culture in York and North Yorkshire by promoting the local food production. The festivals brings over 150,000  visitors from all of the country to York over a ten day span. One of the most well known local food products is York ham. It is a mild flavoured ham which is a delicate pink in colour and it is traditionally served with Madeira Sauce. Accodring to Folklore the oak construction for the York Minister provided the sawdust to smoke the ham. The birth place of the original York Ham is Robert Burrow Atkinson's butchery shop located in Blossom Street and is why the premises became famous. In St Helen's Square of York there is the York branch of Betty's Cafe Tea Rooms and the founder of the Tea Rooms was Frederick Belmont. He traveled on the maiden voyage of the Queen Mary in 1936 and he was so impressed by the appearance of the ship he employed the designers of the Queen Mary to turn a neglected furnature store into an elegant cafe. War broke out a few years after Betty's was opened and the basement 'Betty's Bar' became the favourite place of a lot of airmen around York. 'Betty's Mirror', which many airmen engraved there signatures on, remains on display in the cafe today as a tribute. 

There are lots of Cafes situated around York and my brief is to create a series of illustrations which represent the culture around York cafes. For my next stage of research I am going to go on a visit to York and look at the cafes, inside and out, and sketch some images, take some photographs and pick up any leaflets or menus I find there.

Commercial Image Creation - The Underground Music Scene

"Un•der•ground (un’der ground’), n., adj. 

A genre in music and other forms of media intended for an elite audience, that is often characterised by it's high levels of originality and experimentation, and does not conform to typical standards, trends, or hypes as set by the popular mainstream media."

- Music that isn't found on the TV or big Radio stations
- Concerts aren't in stadiums or arenas 
- Not found in chain record stores, more than likely will be found at Tower Records
- Released on 7" vinyls rather than CD's
- Not featured in magazines such as Kerrang! or Rolling Stone
- Music isn't recorded in a fancy studio

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Underground+Music

Underground music is non commercial / non popular music. For music to be classified as underground it has to not be part of the corporate label music scene. 

http://www.newundergroundmusic.com/what-is-underground-music/


This website contains a lot of underground music bands: http://www.undergroundmusic.fm/trending

Basically any song which is not being legally commercialised is considered Underground. This music usually has freedom of creative expression unlike commercial music and relates to sincerity and intimacy. The Underground Music Scene also has an appreciation for artistic individuality as opposed to mainstream trends. Most types of Underground music are completely hidden but recordings or performances are still around for people to get hold of. The majority of Underground Music genres did not leave the non-mainstream scene such as hardcore punk band Discharge. However, some styles became mainstream over time such as the Underground Hip-Hop style of the 1980's. Cultural studies experts believe that there is no longer an 'Underground' because the internet has made what was underground music available for everyone at the click of a button meaning Underground Music is easier to distribute and access. 

'... now transmitted laterally and collaboratively via the internet. You once had a series of gatekeepers in the adoption of a trend: the innovator, the early adopter, the late adopter, the early mainstream, the late mainstream, and finally the conservative. But now it goes straight from the innovator to the mainstream.' - Martin Raymond, The Independent.

The term 'Underground Music' has recently been defined by any musicians who avoid mainstream commercial music industries but was formerly applied to various art movements such as the psychedelic music movement of the 1960's. Frank Zappa defines the Underground Music Scene as 'Mainstream comes to you, but you have to go to the underground.'

In the 1960's 'Underground' was associated with the counterculture of the young hippies which dropped out of college whilst in modern Popular Music 'Underground' refers to performers and bands that are signed to small independent record labels. In other music styles 'Underground' is used to state that the music is illegal or controversial, for example the early 1990's death metal bands such as Cannibal Corpse. Black metal is part of Underground Music and are well known for their association with The Occult, murders, church burning and their anti-christian views. Because of it's extreme nature, extreme metal is considered underground music.

There are 3 common misconceptions about the 'underground' and they are that; it refers only to the rave / electronic scene, that it can be described with the definition of 'anything which is not mainstream. and that the Underground Music Scene is kept a secret. - Shlomo Sher - Philosophy For Artists. 

UK Underground

The British Underground Scene developed in the mid 1960's and was linked to the hippie subculture of the USA. The movement generated it's own magazines, bands, newspapers and alternative lifestyle which was associated with cannabis and LSD use. The artists in the underground Movement were influences by 1950's Beatnik Beat generation writers such as William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. The underground movement was symbolised by the use of drugs and these drugs varied and most names and effects were unknown. 

http://www.demotix.com/news/702196/rangoons-underground-music-scene#media-702079

Commercial Image Creation - Sunga Park

Sunga Park is an artist / illustrator from South Korea and he has worked as many professions and for many companies. He has done cell animation, web design, character design, pixcel animation, flash animation, editorial design, graphic design and illustration and has worked for companies such as Liberty Magazine, Intouch Solutions, Garmin, Mojeh Magazine. Sunga Park does amazing watercolour paintings that blow my mind. They are so effective and they are very well planned out and eyecatching. I like his use of detail within the large areas of colour. His technique is amazing and I love him people drawings just as much as his architecture. 

Video showing Sunga Park's watercolour technique : http://vimeo.com/106736353


- Sunga Park - Behance
- Sunga Park - Flickr

Commercial Image Creation - Julia Sverchuk

Julia Sverchuk is an artist and illustrator from Moscow who currently lives and works in New York. She graduated from Parsons the New School for Design with BFA in Illustration and she works as a digital design director and exhibits her work and participates in Urban Sketchers global symposiums. She is mostly a reportage artist and draws on paper and with iPhones / iPads. 

- Julia Sverchuk - Pinterest

- Julia Sverchuk - Website

- Julia Sverchuk - Blog

I looked at her work because she is a reportage artist and that's what I am researching for my project at the moment. Her line work is amazing and really inspiring. I like the techniques and media she uses, looking at her images I can see she uses ink and graphite and I think the weight of her lines bring movement and dimension to her illustrations. I think her people drawings are really nice also, they show character which I think it really important in people illustrations.

Commercial Image Creation - Veronica Lawlor

Veronica Lawlor is best known for her reportage drawings that have led her around the world. She has created work for Brooks Brothers 185th anniversary campaign, 3M Corporation and the Hyatt hotel chain. She was the only artist to document the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the full series of drawings are published in the book 'September 11, 2001: Words and Pictures.' Her work has appeared in lots of publications and it was been exhibited in Washington DC, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Puck Gallery, Gallery 1482, the Society of Illustrators, the Rx Club and the Ellis Island Museum of Immigration. Studio 1482 has 7 members with the goal to communicate visually in new, unique and exciting ways. All members work both individually and together as a group and the studio is based on reportage. www.studio1482.com

- Veronica Lawlor

- Reportage / Location

- Architecture

- Veronica Lawlor - Reportage

- Veronica Lawlor - Portfolio

I really like Veronicas use of line as it is rather loose but still has a solid structure and I think the varying of thickness of line gives the illustrations a really nice effect. I also really like how she only uses colour in big bursts on her images and it brings out the line a lot. I am looking at reportage artists because for my brief I am going to go to York and do some reportage drawings and of the people I see around and I will be looking at the cafes around the area too and I will take a lot of photographs for inspiration too.