Contextual Research: Vector Illustrators

Anna Kövecses

Anna is one of my favourite vector illustrators as I love the simplicity of the work she makes. Her colour palettes use muted backgrounds matched against brighter, more saturated values evoking a feeling of nostalgia and harking back to children's picture books from the 60's, '70s and '80s - which used expanses of flashy colour against muted creams and greys with a musty book smell to match! She uses very rotund shapes with very little use of angles, and no stroke outlines, to give a friendly approach and tone of voice with effortless simplicity of reduced forms.

---

Susie Hammer

Susie Hammer is very playful with her shapes and proportions, and the way she arranges the shapes gives a quirky disjointedness and altogether imperfectness that works in such a naive and charming way. I love her use of colour and pattern to add a sense of fun and sillyness to her characters. Her colour palettes tend to be quite pastel-based with a mid-saturation level; not too garish but not too watery at the same time. The unconventional proportions and forms placed at odd angles provide a quirky aesthetic - and again, this illustrator uses very rounded vectors with no strokes to give an appealing and softer approach.

Visit: The Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery

Today I visited the newest exhibition at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery at the University of Leeds and wanted to document my thoughts, feelings and experiences...

Upon arrival I have to admit that I had absolutely no idea what this exhibition was about - and I still do not have a clue! I kept hoping to hear someone mention something about a featured artist or a certain theme or idea that sparked the culmination of these pieces together in one place, but there was nothing. I imagine that there would have been some sort of description printed on the wall regarding the relevance of the chosen work and plethora of artists and designers but, as a severely visually impaired person, who knows what it said? And where? Access to information was entirely inaccessible. Both leaflets and booklets were in small print and had to be purchased before they could be read and labels next to the work were even smaller... What on Earth was I even looking at?

There appeared to be a diverse extent of work across three rooms, from paintings to sculptures and books behind glass cabinets, but what linked them all together? Why were these pieces selected? I asked someone on the desk for some assistance and, after a lengthy phone call with her manager, large print was printed out on request. However, Braille and audio - the formats I can understand independently - was not available and the lady, who had just started working there, said she felt entirely embarrassed and apologised. Hopefully something will be put in place for the future and I have catapulted the winds of change.

These paintings by Victor Varasely stood out to me immediately because of their sheer size and the immediacy and definition of black and white. After a discussion with my tutor, who helps me to identify the artist from the minuscule labels, Op Art had instantly piqued my interest. What was it? When did this movement begin? What prompted it? Is it purely to play on optical illusions? Do you need a certain level of vision to be able to be 'tricked' into seeing imagery? How does it work? Is it still a movement prevalent today? Who were / are the key practitioners? Are there any theories at play or is it purely decorative?

It seems very '60s to me and I love the simplicity of it. The relationship between the shapes and colours. The perfection of line and curve. The boldness and stark different of black and white or a limited colour palette of green, red, black and white. Inspired by Notan? Balance? Could be replicated in illustrator. I need to research more! This is exciting! Transformative moment! How can this feed into and inspire my practice?

Google Doodle: Carmen Miranda's 108th Birthday

Today's Google Doodle celebrates Carmen Miranda's 108th birthday and I absolutely love the composition and aesthetics of this illustration - so much that I wanted to document a few thoughts on my blog! The bright colours, subtle textures in the brush strokes and soft, round shapes have a friendly and inviting tone of voice and the character design is truly charming. The symmetrical composition and framing gives a sense of balance and harmony, and the glowing light around Carmen's character draws the audience immediately to the centre. There is a big evocation of nature with the headrests being reminiscent of flower petals and leaves and it leaves me with an appreciation of mother nature and a fresh outlook and approach to my day.

Visiting Lecturer: Kristyna Baczyski

• Always liked drawing but now an illustrator in a world of wolves!

• Dropped out of A levels did art foundation then Beckett. Multidisciplinary degree comprising of graphic art, photography, typography and illustration. Loved making animations of weird things.

• Year after graduation was difficult but shaped her practice. Interim period of no one there and no one interested. "How do I make my work?"

• Thought Bubble - this amount of time to fill a table of stuff was exciting

• Makes things herself that helps her connect directly to her audience. Shop and working go hand-in-hand; client see the stuff she is making, they as her to make stuff which she loves

• Uses a combination of an iMac, Wacom tablet, risograph and sketchbook. She loves her world of making and scanning and sending off to clients

• Sketchbook - loves drawing for herself and isn't restricted. Works with different materials, stream of consciousness, measured. Shapes and colours. Obsessive with sketchbook, variations, project itself and becomes a zine and sell it.

• Feeds into her work and becomes her work because it is published. Or taps into it for themes. Or characters. Maybe make characters from them. Elect characters, navigate something.

• Local job at first, ripples go out and something echoes back. Leeds - northern - U.K. - international.

Timeline of work Kristyna has created:

• Picture house 100th birthday tote bag

• Leeds college of music: be nice, do a good job and you will get more jobs from the same client!

• White noise - motorcycle character, breaking through fabric of space

• Friends of Ham - family are from Ukraine and her work has those folklore and those sci fi elements.

• Leeds train station public installation with Leeds artists and designers - pretty cheap to live here, extra room in house, not vast amount of rent, creative and nurturing. Drystone walls and nature close by

• Gosh comics - retailer and publisher. Poster series of their 20th anniversary, nice to be regarded with other illustrators

• Metro newspaper ad piece. Fold out piece, weird characters, busy city scene

• Gateshead big posters used on printed material and on the metro and a big welcome mat. Modular so can be reformatted
• Worked as a greeting cards designer for a few years after graduating

• Design learning curve of illustration came after graduating

• Pad file so clients can move things around

• Beers in London published into a book. Made a fictional label. Citragalaxy hop. Fictionalised this and build the story of a special edition beer. Grain landed on a meteorite And created an abundance of beer

• Thought bubble - Beatrix potter - book cover for catalogue. One job is seen by the right person and links in a chain - forged by you alone in a studio - or forged by working with other people

• Chipotle Mexican restaurant - packaging. On the back of making comics about feelings. Cultivating thought. She put together lots of stories that would take 1 or 2 minutes to read while waiting for food to cool down

• Worked with a writer really beautiful thing to be proud of

• Etsy store - done a few jobs for them. Email sent out when making a shop and selling first order. Designer mentality.

• Set of stickers. Weird physical stickers with badass animals. The suburban crooks

• First job was with hallmark, hated the job as she wanted to be an illustrator. So it was great to be asked to do 7 or 8 designs for hallmark US

• Sample cupboard of stuff from the US, loved looking at it then ask to contribute

• Making stuff for yourself has its advantages

• Science tech engineering, she likes those microscopic galactic stuff with story through it

•Sci-fi, being an introvert, comics is for her. She just likes sitting, making and drawing

• Labours over her work. 24 hour comic page in an hour, 24 pages. 6 other artists in a room each of them making a 24 hour comics! Blur of activity. Sent to printers, made an edition to sell.

• Nominated for best short award

• Hand me down - an object having a cyclical story

Fanfare legit book with ribbon bookmark

• Nominated for a Canadian award

• Being braver to share stories about herself and share that after the buzz of the 24 hour comics

• Every year she makes a published edition

• Toronto vessel - autobiographical, steer your life how you want and breaking free escaping

• Debut, memorable, giving a deadline, new comic to debut. Half personal half fictional

• Sequential and TCAF - do a comic about Toronto or Ontario. Golden Horseshoe tall tell fake folktale

• Jobs lead into jobs

• Birmingham library pavilion workshops lead to working with the royal Shakespeare theatre having a season of events - blending of gender roles - creating characters who could interchange

• Hall full of tall wooden mystical creature things

• Comics for other people. Street press comic, won dury award at the Belgrave.

• Bimba - witch house - tapping into Russian Ukrainian - Baba Yaga - flies around in a pestle and mortar. Story about that.

• Empowering to self publish.

• Raw comics

• Comics anthology - trying out weird stuff.

• Keep making work, let the journey be organic, Twitter and Tumblr can be toxic ... sharing comics and zines, trading in her bag, sending in the mail, making friends, respect for other artists, supporting artists.

Reflection
Krystina has inspired me so much with her positive and quirky personality and her passion for creating images. She is a hard worker and I respect her grafting and crafting to create work that she loves. I want to be able to be so driven during the hardships and the misfortunes that happen with life and to just keep creating no matter what. It is something I'm trying to juggle with when having a 26kg Labrador who just wants to play all the time. When I'm at home, I can put Tami with my mum or my dad - but in the studio flat it is just one big room with us two in it and I can't always avoid her wanting to play or wanting to cuddle and stopping me from creating. Other times I am just some exhausted from life. I need to be more like super-dude Krystina!

Book Review: Chimidyue - A Folktale of the Amazon Rainforest

Reflections

• I immediately love the vivid colours, simple shapes and forms and use of light and dark to show
whether Chimidyue is in the rainforest or outside it. A simple but effective visual device!

• The book has a hand-made, crafted, papercut aesthetic though it has been illustrated digitally.
• The line patterns give the illustrations a certain charm and texture - almost alluding to hand-sewn
felt elements again showing craft and a feeling of family, something made and handed down just like this folktale story itself.

• Repeated motifs of butterflies, flowers, leaves, trees and branches on each page encompasses a sense of continuity,
flow and togetherness of the book as a whole.

• Each page is a surprise with its viewpoints and composition. Makes turning the page fun!
• Each page spread has been used to it's full potential, but without feeling cluttered.
• The text is either placed above or below the illustrations to make it easy to read and so as not to interrupt the visual storytelling.
• The chosen font is large, rounded and bold for readability.
• Pronunciations (Chim-ID-yoo-a) as well as other terms relevant to the story are explained at the back giving an educational angle.
• This is a charming story with a cultural aspect that is entertaining and interesting; important in today's political landscape. Our differences should be accepted, embraced and celebrated and I'm glad that an obscure fairytale from a different country is featured in a children's book to help children learn about other traditions and folklore as well as their own.

How is this relevant to my work?
I have started to play more with simple shapes and colours in my own practice as seen in my Visual Skills, Visual Narratives and Visual Language work. I have really experimented with and adopted this mode of image making as it is something I respond positively to and enjoy the aesthetics of. Simplify to amplify! Having just completed my own picture book, titled The Pearly Kings and Queens, and learning more about composition in Visual Language, I now look at children's books in a different way - is the composition and framing interesting? Is it fun to turn each page and expect something different? Is there a sense of depth and viewpoint? I can start to pick these apart and use them in my practice.

Contextual Research: GIF Illustrators

Matt Wilson | Gemma Correll

 Lilli Carré | James Curran

After doing some basic research into GIFs by illustrators I follow on Twitter and through editorial works, I really enjoy the simplicity of these GIFs by Matt Wilson, Gemma Correll, Lilli Carré and James Curran (SlimJim Studios). Everything from the basic shapes, colours, and animated elements make these easy to follow without being too overthought or complex. They each have an individual charm and the reduced shapes and forms help to push that forward. The digital ones have a smoothness in the looping of the frames making them seamless... This is something I want to be able to achieve in my own GIFs. I especially love the textures and morphing shapes of Lilli Carré's GIF - showing that even looped images that aren't exactly smooth in transition can work just as well and give visual interest!

Book Review: Cartoon Modern

Cartoon Modern has been intrinsic in helping me to develop my character design for the first brief of the Visual Communication module. The range and breadth of images and illustrative styles have allowed me to think beyond what I believe I know about character design (which isn't a lot, and is mostly informed by my favourite children's books!). It has helped me to realise a different approach to my initial sketches and incorporate the modernist Cubist style - which coincidentally links wonderfully with the aesthetic of jazz music that I can hopefully portray in my character. Perhaps? Perhaps not? But it's a starting point!

There were lots of lovely quotes throughout the book that really got the cogs and gears in my head turning... "Use the language of animation to convey contemporary ideas and themes." "New mature brand of animated film." "Bold visual styles derived from modern arts, adapting principals of Cubism, Surrealism and Expressionism expanding and redefining the art form." "Walt Disney believes that character design should be 'live, individual personalities - not just animated drawings." and so on. Here are some of my favourite illustrations from the book:

Petroushka (1956) and The Old Man and the Flower (1962)

Saul Bass: IBM Commercial and Sun Detergent Commercialand John Hubley: unidentified commercial directed and designed by Hubley

The Hope that Jack Built (1957) and Walt Disney: Model sheet for Mickey Mouse and Trix Cereal Commercial