Forgetting about to the lighthouse

After struggling with reading to the lighthouse by Virginia Woolf I have decided to change direction with my project. The book is one that I haven't ever read before, so I set myself with a difficult task straight away. If I had chosen a book I knew well, and loved I would have had certain imagery in my head about characters and scenes. I think that was a reason why I wanted to do a book I hadn't ever read, it was a challenge and one I'm afraid to say that I have stepped away from.

For the last few weeks have not been able to engage with the text at all, I'm not sure why, maybe because I felt that the book was going to be about an actual lighthouse, instead it although interesting follows the Ramsey family, it is not a dialogue and story line I feel connected too.

I have thought of different revenues to go down, a complete change in direction, a different subject to concentrate on. However, after a great deal of worrying and desperate thinking, I have decided that I chose to the lighthouse for a reason - that being my interest in Virginia Woolf as a person and author, why not shift my focus from her novel to her as a person. As soon I decided this I felt a weight lift from me, Virginia Woolf lead an incredibly interesting life full of turmoil and sadness, and I feel that focusing on her as a person will help center my project.

I now feel that I can engage with project once again, for a while it has felt like dragging a dead weight. I know feel that I can move on and progress through my project, this makes me feel so much better! So, onwards and upwards.

Pointless posters

This week the third year illustration students held a exhibition through the soul cellar (bar/restaurant) and graphic design company Johnny Toaster. The idea was to create a 'pointless'  image that we could exhibit as a whole year in a space that would contribute to fund raising for a London degree show on brick lane.

I chose to stay close to my own final project, deciding that I am the type of person that would let my work slide if I concentrated on another different subject. I wanted to do something quite simple that would look good aesthetically for the poster, but could also be used as an image for my project. I had the idea of using Virginia Woolfs side profile referencing from a prolific image of her aged 17, it was something that I kept going back to and I felt that as it was the only strong image that came to mind I would just go with it, finding that sometimes a image that only has a quick thought process behind it, can be successful and not look 'hashed' together in a last minute desperate attempt. And the brief was 'pointless'.

I printed off the image after tweaking the levels of exposure on photoshop and set about getting the initial shape of her face and profile, Ihad a rough idea of what I wanted the image to look like. As it was a floating image because of the first print off I decided to make her shoulders island shaped thinking of the isle of Skye where the lighthouse she was influenced from. I at last included a tiny lighthouse which is only visible after a while on the image, it looks like it could be a pin badge or button on her dress/island/shoulder. 

When the idea of the pointless posters was set, it was decided that the 3rd year students would have to use the same grey paper, and had a choice of four colours: CMKY (blue, pink, yellow, black).
I chose Cyan blue, I felt that it would tie the image together, enforcing the nautical feel to the image. The colour blue is often used to describe a person that is feeling down or depressed, I felt this fit in - Woolf suffered from depression most of her adult life. The placement also bears close to the isolation of the island in the novel to the lighthouse, the lighthouse symbolises sadness in the book. I felt that making the image to look like an island wold enforce the feeling of ominous sadness. 

Before I chose the final image, I used the side profile of the original image to make a paper cut college. I used left over wallpaper from my room that has roses printed over it and collaged the image of a lighthouse behind it. I liked this image a lot, I felt it spoke of unsaid messages of loneliness without being obvious, the wallpaper background shows a feminine profile with bleak and dark imagery of the lone lighthouse. Virginia Woolf wrote to the lighthouse and was said to have based the characters on her family members such as her parents. One thing that triggered an early bout of depression for her was the death of her mother when she was only 13. When the character mrs Ramsey passes away, the book goes through a somber period reflecting the loss of a mother and wife, in a way Woolf to me was always carrying around the weight of a lonely lighthouse in her head. 

This image, however much I liked it simply wouldn't have looked right as a screen print, part of its charm was the rough layers that you could make out, putting it onto a screen and flattening the image would have ruined it, so instead I chose the line drawing of woolfs profile. After I had screen printed it I realised that I had made the right decision, the composition and style of the drawing worked well with the materials given on the brief. 

Fig Taylor amazes us all

Today advertising agent Fig Taylor came in to talk to us all. The talk was literally a 'talk' - she had no laptop, no slide show to show us, it all came from her experience as an advertiser. It was an incredibly eye opening experience as Fig spoke of her career giving an abundance of advice for what is out there for us as graduates. As I said, it was eye opening, terrifying and exciting.

After her talk she sat in groups of people and offered to look at our work. It was like going to a medium, she held my work in her hands, muttered and then had a steady stream of advice tumbling from her. I got the feeling that she didn't like my work that much, but I was so grateful for the tips she gave me, and what avenues she felt I could go down. Fig mentioned that could see me working in (wait for it):

Food packaging/ bridal/ spiritual/ teen magazines and make up packaging.

YES, exactly what I was hoping for and a few more things to look at after I finish, so Fig, thanks.

Self promotion critique

Merion Pritchard – Wallpaper magazine art director – gave a talk today and then kindly stayed behind to help critique with all of the other lecturers. The idea was that all of the students were to send out their self-promotion brief to 5 art directors, and then a 6^th one to Jonny Hannah. It was a test to see how our worked survived in the mail.

Jonny took all of the post that he had received and piled it onto a table – it looked realistic to how it would on an art director’s desk. The ‘letters’ that stood out to a lecturer was the one they picked. It was incredibly nerve wracking; my work of course was at the bottom of the pile and upside down.

As I sat there I made a mental note to digitally print something on the back next time as the plain white looked so boring and dull. Eventually Louise chose my piece, and I’m sad to say that the bag looked really beaten up in the mail, the bunting looked like it was fine inside the bag though – phew.

Once the bunting was opened out, it received positive comments from the lecturers and Merion content wise, although they all agreed that I neede to find a better way to package it, and that the size might be an issue. Most people don’t have that much space on their work desk so smaller would have been better – they did say that the idea as a whole worked. I am pleased and relieved! And I have to say I agree with every comment that was made, and look forward to reworking the idea with all the feedback in mind.


Unfortunately, I forgot to take ANY photos of the bunting I sent in the post - I can assure you that I did send it. Obviously in my haste to get it sent on time I didn't take one single photo. 


I do however have an example of it digitally printed:

MOO.com business cards

As a second part of my self promotion, I sent off for 10 free samples of MOO.com business cards. They have a really nice website, and although fairly expensive I feel that the quality of the cards are going to be quite good. The cards I ordered have a image from the Kate Bush project with my details on the back, I ordered them yesterday and they need a week to arrive so I think they might be late for the brief hand in next week!




UPDATE:

The cards were indeed late, arriving two days after my hand in. The quality (as I suspected) is really nice, they have a satin finish and have a nice weight to them. They arrived in a small carry case with a 10% off voucher for if I want to order again with them - I think I will as I need to get cards ordered for my degree show!

Work in progress: Ceri

Today I had a group work in progress with Ceri. We were told to bring all work relating to our self-promotion brief. I have decided to make bunting to send to the art directors. I’m not sure what has drawn me to the idea of making bunting, but I wanted to create something different to a regular concertina book or business card. The thought of an art director opening a seemingly boring envelop, to find bunting tumbling onto their desks is the current driving force at the moment. 

At the tutorial, Ceri said to think about the images I use – do I want to create new images or use work that I have from previous projects? Ceri also mentioned the size of the bunting, and how I plan on posting it, all questions I need to raise with myself. 

I have thought about making a combination of new and old images from this project and perhaps my previous Kate Bush project. I did have the intention of screen-printing onto the images, but fear that time may have escaped me on that one, so I think I’m going to digitally print a few copies – I will need to find out the price of this. The issue I am currently worried about is how I send the bunting out to the selected art director, I really don’t want to use a plain envelop as I think this could potentially get lost within other mail they that receive daily. I think I am going to send it in a clear plastic bag (that sounds awful, I know) with cardboard holding the address and postage stamp.