Complex Character Design on Pablo Picasso

You are asked to design an A2 format poster profiling one of the characters listed below. (…)

Marie Stopes: author, campaigner for women’s rights; Shami Chakrabati: director of Liberty, pressure group campaigning for civil liberties; Charles Dickens: author, campaigner for social reform; Eric Gill: type designer, illustrator, unorthodox parent; Adolf Hitler: German chancellor 1933-45; Eddie Izzard: comedian, political campaigner; Stephen Fry: actor, author, technophile, twitterer; Silvio Berlusconi: controversial prime minister of Italy; Stephen Hawking: theoretical physicist; Pablo Picasso: artist; Amy Winehouse: singer, songwriter; Alfred Hitchcock: film director; Peter Mandelson: politician;

The poster must be predominantly image based and must be constructed using an element of Adobe Photoshop.

It must be INFORMATION RICH. It should include a visual likeness somewhere, at least one map plus at least one other schematic element. Plus other elements that will build a complex profile of the character in question.

The composition should speak about the life of the character, their work, historical, political, cultural context… it is your job to find out what makes them interesting. Hierarchy will be an important factor – which pieces of information are most significant, which are of minor importance?

It is likely that the composition will include a variety of media (this might even be an opportunity for some hand drawn components). It will be important to devise a way of uniting stylistically different elements to make a coherent composition. (…)

Research and preperation work

Working as a team you are asked to construct a largescale full figure portrait of a given character.

You must use black white and/or shades of grey. Additional colour can be used, but only where it signals specific information relating to the personality of that character (so to make the signal clear colour should be used sparingly).

It will be constructed of 27 separate A4 sheets that will be bluetacked/taped in position on the studio wall (…), this is to allow you to work on individual components (to an agreed plan) and also to encourage you to use the whole of the picture plane to communicate as much about the character, and in as varied a way as possible.

FIGURE REFERENCE SHOULD BE MADE TO LIVE MODELS WITHIN YOUR TEAM + THE DESIGN SHOULD REFERENCE THE GRID.

Choose one of these characters to work on (…)

a) an environmentally conscious and committed person, good natured, sensitive to the needs of others.

b) mean spirited, clever but untrustworthy, indifferent to the needs of others

(…) The figure must be seen against a BACKDROP – think how a particular landscape or interior can reinforce our understanding of the character. (…)

Research and preperation

Final Design by Laura Crouch and Julian Deborré

Following a series of seminars about the use, history and techniques of illustration we started working on a group project. Each group was given an object and after exploring the item using photographic and illustrative techniques we were given our brief.

Design an information rich A3 composition describing material form and function.

Working in pairs, you will make a number of images using pencil, camera and Adobe Illustrator. You are asked to make analysis of your object in terms of form and material – is it heavy, light, sharp, soft, brittie, flexible, rough, smooth, colourful, drab, patterned, plain, single material, multi material, etc. and its function … , in which context is it usually found? Are there associated objects that are often seen with it, what is it for?

You will design an image based schematic piece that describes the object in the above terms as fully as possible.

As well as information rich – your graphics should be visually interesting/beautiful – they should intice us to read the imagery.

The finished piece can contain a mixture of techniques, but there must be substantial Adobe Illustrator content.

We then took our initial ideas to the computer and developed them using Adobe Illustrator. This projects brief asked us to do the following:

Create a delicious letterform which is aesthetically beautiful in structure and which is fully expressive of the personality you have claimed for it.

Work in large & black, white + grey tones only. Position your final letterform carefully within a square (minimum 210 x 210 mm) and include three descriptive words plus your name as part of the design (Hand or computer output). Flush mount on thin card.

'Q' - elegent | young | sophisticated

Following a short critique from fellow students and our lecturer we were given two words that were opposing the characteristics we had chosen for our first design. We were then asked to

(…) change its personality to match the words given through changes in media / tools / scale / quality of line / weight etc. The basic structure must remain the same although details will vary depending on the media / tools used. (…) Your name and the new characteristics must be included as part of the design. Colour may be used to intensify the expressive qualities. Flush mount at any appropriate size – min A5, max A3.

'Q' - elderly, confused

I very much enjoyed this project and feel it has deepened my understanding of typographic principle. I am also very much looking forward to learning more about the subject.

New York Skyline

Monday night I left my little home here in Swansea to go to the fabulous New York City!

Unfortunately I had to come back after four days already but it was still one of the most amazing trips of my whole life.

I didn’t manage to see and visit everything I wanted to and most certainly not even close to what the city has to offer but it was still an overwhelming experience.

After graduating from Uni I definately wouldn’t mind working and living there for a little while so if anyone has any tips for me I would highly appreciate comments, emails etc …

In case you haven’t been to New York or you think it’s an amazing place as well, I created a small image gallery with more picures I took. To open it please simply click on the image at this posts beginning.