GRAPHIC DESIGN
YEAR 1
i l l u s t r a t i o n
a children’s book
I created a children’s illustration after exploring children’s story illustrations which is part of exploration of the kind of techniques used by artists when producing children’s visual stories.
Originally I started with drawing the horse in illustrator and then I was having a chat with a close friend of mine in London and he showed my drawing to one of his close friends who then asked me if I would do a drawing for his children’s book that he is currently writing, I accepted his offer and I was presented with a small brief which was to design and draw up an illustration for a horses stables as the book it's going to be for charity and he would like an illustration of a horse in its natural environment.
I decided that I wanted to draw a white horse in an enchanted magical forest with white snow lakes and trees with a knight setting that would illuminate my illustration with a dark Knight sky and a glowing moon.
The main colour palette that I wanted to go with was in an air setting that would capture one of my favourite all-time films within my illustrations.
Author : Sir Timothy Aykroyd
the book is to be published late 2022, no date officially confirmed.
I received the most beautiful thank you card from sir Timothy Aykroyd in the post and this was one of the most overwhelming and wonderful experiences since starting my graphic design course because I was completely throwing as this was very unexpected to be firstly asked to design for someone and then later to find out the non-with this person loved my artwork but then to find out they were in fact very well-known and highly respected as very famous author, I'm so grateful for this opportunity and I hope that my relationship with Timothy continues and that he would like for me to draw and illustrate for him in again.
illustration techniques
YEAR 1 GRAPHIC DESIGN
wallpaper
Here I have been exploring mark making with the use of the drawing pad and touch screen drawing pen, I wanted to draw a subject of some kind so I chose a cat and mouse theme because I was thinking about Tom and Jerry and I thought it would be fun to draw my own illustration of a pussy cat and a mouse and then place them side-by-side and then copy and repeat with a pattern technique to create a wallpaper effect.
I have positioned the cat and the mouse in very random compositions filling the spaces in between and a soft pastel pink colour that does not distract you from my drawing keeps the wallpaper warm neutral and calm and then I've added my signature which I designed at the very beginning of my first year in my graphic design course with a little kiss after my name in a script style using a pen tool in illustrator, I wanted the wallpaper to look designer and that it could be a wallpaper that you would see in Harrods Selfridge's, Liberty and Harvey Nichols in such high end exclusive stores like these high street major brands.
minimalism
The brief; A local independent business is launching a series of events. They have asked you, as a freelance graphic designer, To create a promotional poster to help advertise this and so it can also be sold as merchandise.
I decided to design a minimalist poster for a famous night club.
Rational & Thought Process VIDEO - PLEASE WATCH AT YOUR LEISURE
YEAR 1 GRAPHIC DESIGN
Drawing the Star Wars Character
Rational & Thought Process VIDEO - PLEASE WATCH AT YOUR LEISURE
Rational & Thought Process VIDEO - PLEASE WATCH AT YOUR LEISURE
Drawing the terrains VIDEO - PLEASE WATCH AT YOUR LEISURE
Final Minimalism Star Wars & Final Evaluation
VIDEO - PLEASE WATCH AT YOUR LEISURE
Materials Techniques & Processes
YEAR 1 GRAPHIC DESIGN
Design a poster in the style of Malika Favre in your own expression of her style.
Malika Favre is a French artist based in Barcelona. Her bold, minimal style – often described as Pop Art meets OpArt – is a striking lesson in the use of positive/negative space and colour. Her unmistakable style has established her as one of Europe's most sought after graphic artists.
Digital
Drawing Tablet
Illustration Processes 3D
SAVANNAH - MAINE COON
Drawing my own female pussy cat called Savannah
It was easy to create, took me 30mins in total.
I enjoyed the process.
I would like to try people next and the use of different colours.
A background would look better now thinking about it.
I don’t think the use of additional colours would be so bad but I guess that's the style of Malika.
The use of 3 colours makes a great simplistic tone that seems to work every time as long as the colour palette chosen compliments each colour nicely.
Further Development
I would like to design a 2D illustration and add some 3D elements to create my own signature style combination between her style, a 3D artist taking the composition into consideration for the Avatar character as centre stage with elements of 3D added to him and around him to create an illusion of depth from background and foreground allowing the photo to move and come out to you and be alive.
To give a contrasting illustration that is both visually pleasing, colourful and expressive for the avatar movie that was also made in 3D, my idea was to express these elements of the movie that I loved but somehow make a 2D illustration look 3D with the use of Malika Favre style with my twist of both 2D and 3D additions.
I am taking my Avatar illustration Malika style design and developing this into my own style taking Malika and a 3D artist and combining them.
Influential 3D artists that I am currently looking at…
Aeforia
"Weary", a digital illustration by Aeforia
Alexy Préfontaine is a young digital artist who got into visual art by creating artworks for his band’s covers. By focusing on different perspectives of the world we live in, he creates surreal sceneries that echo the early 80s and 90s GCI work.
Research into 2D/3D images/illustrations/drawings/artists that I would like to try and recreate try the 3D aspect and implement into my drawings with the use of illustrator and photoshop.
LETTER TO Alexy Préfontaine
Dear Alex,
I hope you are well, I hope you don’t mind me emailing you direct, I was researching 2D and 3D designers/graphic artists online for my college course in Manchester, I came across your website and I absolutely love your art, it's incredible, I am so hypnotised by your designs, they’re stunning.
I was wondering how do you create your work and do you have any tutorials of some of the 3D art work you create and how to do this, I would love to try for my level 3 graphic design course here at college. Manchester Access to Creative College, Hulme Street & Oxford Road.
I am studying in my first year, I created a design recently that was inspired by Malika Favre and I added a little 3D effect filter to the floating jelly fish to made the whole image a little more 3D from a 2D design, I want to create something again like this and have more 3D elements like your art work, I love other-worlds alien like fantasy designs and your work is truly inspiring and so cool. If you have any tips or advice I would really appreciate your feedback.
Kind Regards,
Ky Dolce
Alexy’s reply;
Hi Ky!
Thanks a lot for reaching out, I’m glad to hear that you like my work
I create my work using these software: Cinema4D, Octane Render, Marvelous Designer, DAZ Studio, Substance Painter, Adobe Creative Cloud Suite.
There are unfortunately no tutorials on how to make my work online, but I suggest looking up tutorials for the different software I use. If you get to learn how they work, you will be able to combine them together and create similar work most probably! Channels I recommend: Greyscalegorilla, Motion Designers Community, Travis Davids, David Ariew, Phlearn.
Nice piece, thanks for sharing!
All the best,
-A-
___
Alexy Préfontaine (aeforia)
Digital Art
Merch: www.society6.com/alexyprefontaine
Prints: www.inprnt.com/gallery/aeforia/
Crypto art: www.superrare.co/aeforia
ICON/LOGO DESIGN AND THE GOLDEN RATIO
YEAR 1 GRAPHIC DESIGN
I found this task very interesting, very helpful for proportion and scale, I love technical design
and abstract so this really helps me with a strong guide to feel confident when starting a new
project and beginning the first stages of design, it allows me to look at the linear sections of
say an image, drawing or painting and discover a whole new angle of designs that could work
on a much simpler and more minimalistic approach.
I decided to use the golden ratio after drawing it up on illustrator and then I chose to use this on a drawing of a cats face, placing the golden ration shapes into the cats face and using them to make up the cat as an icon, symbol that reflects the simplicity and ratio pre-portions within the golden ration theory.
"Pussycat pussycat, where have you been?"
"I've been up to London to visit the Queen."
"Pussycat pussycat, what did you there?"
"I frightened a little mouse under her chair" "MEOWW!"L
The origins of the "Pussycat pussycat" rhyme dates back to the history of 16th century Tudor England.
One of the waiting ladies of Queen Elizabeth Ist had an old cat which roamed throughout Windsor castle.
On one particular occasion the cat ran beneath the throne where its tail brushed against the Queen's foot, startling her.
Luckily 'Good Queen Bess' had a sense of humour and decreed that the cat could wander about the throne room, on condition it kept it free of mice!
CUT AND PASTE ASSIGNMENT
The brief; Using your research for cut and paste so far, come up with three designs for Cut & Paste.
RESEARCH VIDEO 1
CUT AND PASTE STYLE POSTER - DAVID CARSON
BARBARA KRUGER CUT AND PASTE STYLE POSTER
BLOOD DIAMOND CUT AND PASTE STYLE POSTER
This was my own cut and paste style with my own concept blending historical movements of the gold and diamond rush topics I chose to research myself.
COLLAGE ASSIGNMENT
The brief; Using your research for cut and paste so far, come up with three designs for Collage.
illustration class practice
We we asked to produce a collage piece of art of our choosing to demonstrate experimental techniques with illustrator.
ILLUSTRATION PRACTISE CLASS
HYBRID KILLER WASP/HORNET
