Productions and Outcomes

Interpretation.

For an illustrator time and place can have a huge effect on the production of there work and use what is known as a ‘zeitgeist’, which is otherwise known as ideas and spirit of time to understand the message. Depending on the era something is created in, and what aspects of life style are present, affects the visual outcome of the illustration. 

For example I am going to compare two interpretations of the same idea, this being the story and film, Alice In Wonderland. I will be focusing on the illustrations and how they have changed and become very different depending on the spirit of time that it was created in.

Firstly we have the Disney interpretation of Alice In Wonderland.

 It was created in 1951, but released on video in 1986, the character designs have a very soft and friendly approach to them, all the characters look friendly as was created for young children, it’s a children’s animation film so it cant be frightening in any way otherwise the target audience wouldn’t watch it and they wouldn’t have succeeded in the aim of the film. The background and scenery design also have a magical, and fun loom to them, unlike Tim Burtons interpretation of the film that was released in 2010. 

He has a much more surreal approach to the film the scenery has a much more gloomy, mystical and unworldly feel to it and the characters are also the same. The characters are actors unlike the Disney’s cartoon edition. They have a much more unusual approach to them with strange costumes and make up and you can tell that it has been recreated for a much older audience as young children might find it slightly frightening. Tim Burton recreates childlike briefs for an older audience.

ITAP- Story Development

Three Act Structure.

Every story has some sort of structure. This includes a beginning, middle and end and is known as The Three Act Structure. I am going to be looking at the film Juno and identifying the story structure within it.

One

The beginning is something that gets introduced and established. In this case it is when sixteen-year-old Juno MacGuff, finds out that she has fallen pregnant, and the farther to be is her long time admirer Bleeker.  At first she considers adoption but then changes her mind and plans for the child to be adopted by a couple mark and Vanessa.

Two

The middle, other wise know as the crisis that occurs happens when Juno spends a lot of time round Mark, who then lets on to Juno that he is leaving Vanessa, then implies that he has romantic feelings for Juno and announces to Vanessa he is not ready to be a farther. This obviously causes a bad reaction with pregnant Juno.

Three

The ending, or resolution to the situation is when Juno gives birth to a baby boy and admits that she is in love with Bleeker, who turns up as she is giving birth. She then gets back in touch with Vanessa t tell her that she’s still in with the adoption if she is, and Vanessa becomes a single mother to Juno’s child.

ITAP- Draw, Work By Hand and Developing Visual Language

Draw. Work by hand.

 When producing an RVJ the most crucial part of it is drawing and working by hand, it enables you to connect physically between you eye, hand and brain and helps you think directly onto the page. Getting your ideas from out of your head down on paper visually, helps with the development of your work, especially for an illustrator. The aim for an illustrator is to use their creative way of thinking onto paper to describe a situation in images and drawings rather than in words. Drawing is also a key thing into problem solving, it’s easier to see what may be missing from an idea or problem when it’s visually drawn in front of you rather than in words.

Leonardo Di Vinci is a good example for this. He used to draw the individual parts of machines to get a better understanding on how they all fitted together and how engines and machines worked. This was his way of solving a problem and getting a better understanding of something he was unsure of.

Develop visual language.

Ideas and making notes don’t have to be just textual language there’s many ways in which you can develop your visual language to communicate your ideas with someone. Organising your text and images in a visual way can also help make something a lot easier to understand.

Tony Buzan is a good example and source of inspiration for the development of visual language. He creates mind maps using both text and image to solve problems and investigate situations and makes connections in these maps more visible and understandable to the audience.

Here is a really good example of this, and as you can see he has used images and also colour to indicate what he is investigating, which is life cycles. As you can see the images are a lot stronger than the words and you don’t even need to look at the words to understand what he is focusing on. This is good development of visual language.

http://www.sthelena.vic.edu.au/libraryonline/research&bibliographies.htm#MIND%20MAPS%20CONSIST%20OF

ITAP- Legibility and Tone of voice.

Legibility

What makes a piece of visual communication legible?

For a piece of visual communication to be legible, whether it is on a billboard, magazine cover or a website, it has to be clear to read and easy to understand visually for the audience.

As you can see from the images I have show above you can straight away see which one is the legible example. Colours are an important feature in legibility. If you look at the two images above, in the list of bad contrast colour combinations, the text appears blurry and it is almost impossible to be able to read, especially from a distance this is because the colour of the text is two similar to the background it is on and has a very poor contrast. But then if you look at the other example, good contrast, simply choosing colours that have a high contrast to each other makes a big difference, its a lot more clear easy to read and has a much more legible outcome.


Tone of voice

When communicating visually with an audience its important to include a tone of voice, it is one of many ways of getting the message across without causing any confusion. If the wrong tone of voice is used for something people can sometimes get mixed meanings. Tone of voice can be produced either by using image or text.

 

Above here are some examples i created of tone of voice used correctly and incorrectly.

You should be able to see that the writing on the left is correct; the right tone of voice has been used with each word to show how the word would sound like or feel like. But then if you look at the words on the right hand side you may notice that there is something not right, it gives mixed messages to the person reading them. This can lead to confusion to the audience. This is an example of bad tone of voice. Simple font faces and sizes can make such a difference to the outcome of a visual piece of communication when used correctly.

http://blogs.sitepoint.com/2009/05/20/focus-on-typography-part-1-contrast/

ITAP- What is illustration?

Audience

How an audience is important

An audience is a case study, it gives you something to work with and work for. Its important that an illustrator understands the audience he or she may be working with. This will help them end up with a more relevant idea to that particular audience. Knowing your audience will allow you to heighten the level of communication you are focusing on and for an illustrator it is crucial to have strong communication skills. Illustration is to get a message across to someone and tell somebody something in a visual way. Depending on the audience the way something is produced can differ in many ways, for example;

 This is an image of the front of a book and you can straight away see that it at aimed at children before you even read the title. You wouldn’t use this style of illustration on the cover of a book for an older audience, as it wouldn’t appeal to them much. It is designed to stand out to children, as that was the target audience. Children were the case study.

Inspiration

How are illustrators inspired?

Inspiration can be triggered off by pretty much anything, anywhere, and for an illustrator; this is the key thing to their creativeness.

Illustrators can find their inspiration from almost anywhere, whether it be from there own artistic imagination or something they have visually seen around them, anywhere they go. This is why you may see illustrators carrying around sketchbooks or notepads. This is so while they are observing what’s going on around them, if they see something which sparks off an idea they can simply draw, note down and record it there and then, so later on, they can come back to the idea and experiment with that they have collected. People and places can be important aspects to be inspired from too, especially children. Children tend to be a lot more open to their imagination, the younger the mind the stronger the imagination. This can bring the artist to think in a more immature way to allow them to be more creative within their work, especially those of children’s book illustrators.

http://www.windmill.nildram.co.uk/images/goldilocks.jpg

ITAP- Connectivity

Originality 


So, What is originality? Being independent with your own ideas. It is also said to be the earliest form of something, which can be then copied from. But there again, Does originality even exist? Iv found that this could be a more relevant question to ask, and have eventually come to the conclusion that maybe in fact… it doesn’t. I have been Looking at some examples of today’s contemporary art, I can see how similar some of the pieces are in comparison to some that were created hundreds of years ago. In some cases I find myself wondering, who was the first person to come up with the ‘original’ idea in the first place, and then I begin to question if whether or not, they themselves have also previously looked at another persons first idea or theory and somehow re-worked or re-contextualised it.

This has now brought me to discuss another key principle, this being about ideas that have been re-contextualised. Can they still be seen as contemporary?

Edouard Manet- Luncheon on the grass
1863

This painting was produced in 1863, and to me this is an original idea and concept, well, as far as the term original may go that is. But then below we have a re-contextualised outcome of the theory. This was produced in 1982 and you can automatically see that it has been re-worked in a much more modern approach, the idea is the same but using photography to portray the image, was more relevant and appealing to the audience present at the time of when it was produced. Therefore, can re-contextualised ideas still be contemporary? I am going to say, yes. Although the initial idea may not be original, but the way that Andy Earle has approached it has put a new and almost original identity on the whole concept of Edouard Manet's painting.

Andy Earle- Bow Wow Wow
1982