Targets 11!

Now that I had completed my research for this project, I could alter my previously uninformed ideas into something far more suitbale for this project. I then decided too, having realised my previous initial ideas were not entirely suitable, create some more initial ideas, using both, my new found inspiration aswell some of the developments on my previous ideas.

After looking at Little White Lies magazine covers, as realising that most of the previous editions had only one portrait on the cover, two prominent ideas became apparent to me. The first of which is to simply have the character George Smiley on the front cover facing forward keeping in line with the modern editions of Little White Lies covers. Obviously, being the main spectical of the cover, the plan would be to make the illustration something special, for me, this would mean focussing heavily of the darks in the illustration as well as paying attention to detail and tone. So to create this idea, I would first all need to draw the portrait using one media I am more comfortable with, such as fine liner, biro or pencil. then scanning in the image and editing it on photoshop. As you can see, the text will be placed at the bottom of the page, being clearly visible while not getting in the way of the detailed portrait I plan to create.

The rest of my ideas play on my previous idea of having the four charcters that bare the names Tinker, Tailor, Solider and Spy on the cover. As I said, the previous Little White Lies magazine cover tend to have one character portrait on the cover, and so as I feel strongly about the four charcters idea, I felt the only way I could make this work would be to have all four characters split into quarters made to form the shape of one portrait. So my other three ideas are the most promising ways I could split up the four characters and form one portrait. These inclde, a broken glass idea, diagonal segments and horizontal segments. I feel this developent shows improvement on my behalf, not only showing that I can take influence from my research, but that I can only develop my own ideas based on new research. I feel the way I tackled the issue of my conflicting ideas (wanting one protrait and four characters) shows increased skill. Unfortunately, I am currently torn between these ideas so in the mean time I will solve other issues, therefore, my targets for this week are=

• Create character sketches for the purpose of both, getting used to drawing the film character and discovering which media I am most skilled with so that I can eventually create the most detailed sketches that I can.
• I will also sketch the most promising layout ideas on a larger scale, giving me a better idea of which ones I should take forward

Little White Lies

For the final part of my research I felt it was necessary to look at the previous Little White Lies magazine covers in some more detail. This has proven to be invaluable as I noticed one trend that most of the previous editions seemed to follow. It would seem that most of the covers use only one character from the film that they represent as the content of the cover. This discovery works directly against the previous idea I was pushing, of having all four characters on the front cover, those that have the nickname of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier and Spy. I now realise that I should perhaps simply focus on one crucial character for the front cover, possibly the character of George Smiley (played by Gary Oldman) as he appears to be the characters seen on poster and the like. One other important factor I realised about the covers is that, despite the Little White Lies logo being in the unusual place that it is, it does not appear to be an issue. This is because, all the more recent editions seem to place the portraits as though the logo is not even there, so the portraits are just placed suitably on the page with the logo happily overlapping some of the portrait. This has given my much less to worry about in terms of my layout if the logo can be treated as though it is not even there rather then treated as an obstical I must work around. The final aspect I noticed about the Little White Lies covers is that the colours they use have a clear relation to the film, such as the yellow for the Sin City cover. In the case of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy however, colour does not play a major part in the film, but instead, what I feel I should do, is perhaps use dark and dull colours to closer represent the dark and subtle themes of the film. Looking at the Little White Lies magazine covers in more detail has, without a doubt, given me the most inspiration, and new insight into how I should develop my ideas, namely, focusing on one portrait rather then four.

Targets 10!

Now that the Easter holidays are over, I am pleased to announce that I successfully managed to complete my To Do List. In the last week I complete some more research towards the project by looking at Juxtapoz magazine covers. I also managed to create some initial layout ideas, looking different ways to present the content of the cover. These layout covers were designed based on the idea that the cover would have the four characters that bared the titles of Tinker, Tailor, Solider and Spy respectively. Therefore my layout ideas focused mainly on separating the page up into 4 parts.

As you can see, I have tried to be somewhat diverse with my layout ideas while try to work around the Little White Lies header as well as giving each character a similar amount of space. Unfortunately, after looking at them all, it seems that none of the characters really have enough room where, once my illustrations were made, they would be recognisable.

Due to this realisation, my targets for this week are as follows=

• Complete more research on magazine covers, in particular, look at previous editions of Little White Lies magazines.
• Create some new/develop some initial ideas based on what I learn after looking at previous editions of Little White Lies magazine covers.

Juxtapoz

As part of my research for my Little White Lies Brief I felt, after look at the two artists, Matt Gondek and Olly Moss, that I should now focus my research on magazine covers in order to gain better insight into layouts and content. Looking at Juxtapoz gave me an excellent, refined sources of inspiration.

First of all, layout. Juxtapoz magazine covers do not seem to follow a specific layout except for the header. The header has remained the same for the past few years with only the colours and artist names changing. For my brief however, I do not need to worry about the header as it is provided in the exact place the client wants it. From what I have seen, most of the images on the Juxtapoz covers seem to be in the centre of the page, however, other then that, there seems to be nothing in particular that can be point out about the layout of the content.

The content of Juxtapoz magazine covers seems to be primarily focused on catching the eye as they display wonderfully bright pieces of graphic design, street art and photography. It is on this level that I have gained a lot of inspiration. Looking at Juxtapoz magazines, I feel strongly that I should experiment on making the content of the cover eye catching and now focusing heavily on the layout of the magazine. So long as the header stays where it is supposed to be, I should be alright when it comes to the layout.

Targets 9!

Now that I am half way through my Easter holidays, I am happy to say that I have managed to complete the bulk of my To Do List. So far I have managed to...

• Complete my proposal for the Little White Lies brief, managing to write 972 words. I will however have it checked when I return to college for mistakes and improvements as it is my first time writing a proposal.
• I have completely annotated my remaining Digital Skills lectures
• I have completed all 5 of my Assessment tasks for Contextual Studies. For this, I had to use the notes I had taken during several presentation and write a short piece of research on 2 subjects per presentation.
• I have also managed to complete my Contextual Studies Essay in which I wrote 1922 words for the statement 'Discuss the changing shape of contemporary design and predict where you think it will be in 10 years time.' I will be checking my essay at some point next week with a fresh set of eyes in order to correct any errors and add any improvements.

On top of improving my essay, I will also complete the rest of my To Do List which includes=

• Find another artist for my research as part of my main brief. For this, I will be researching magazine covers in order to conduct some more focused and appropriate research.
• Create scamps and initial ideas for my main brief. These will probably be more focused on layout rather then content as that is where my ideas are lacking.

I feel that it is worth noting that I feel Improvement in my work rate based on the amount of work I have done in the time I have done it. Whether it is down to improved motivation due to an increased work load or whether it is down to improved skill and time management  I am unsure, however my current work rate now compared to that of the beginning of the academic year is drastically different.



Targets 8! (aka. TO DO list)

As I am now on my Easter Holiday from college, I have created for myself a 'To Do' list full of different objectives to be completed by the end of this 2 week break.

TO DO=

• Write up my Proposal for my main brief
•  Annotate my remaining Digital Skills Lectures
• Complete my remaining Assessment tasks for my Contextual Studies brief
• Create an Essay plan for my Contextual Studies brief
• Create a first draft for my Essay
• Find another artist for my research as part of my main brief
• Create scamps and initial ideas for my main brief