ASS4 - Final Assignment - You Are Here

This part of the course has explored a wide range of different contemporary approaches to

illustration, many of which question the role of illustration itself. Not all the approaches will suit

everyone, so make a choice about how you decide to respond to this brief.

Creatively explore the statement ‘you are here’. Produce either a short self-published fanzine,

graphic novel or artist’s book; an online interactive experience; a piece of street art; or an

illustrative object.

This is a very open brief, so it allows you plenty of room for exploration and creativity. ‘You are

here’ can suggest a site-specific approach, an historical perspective, or you could be philosophical

or humorous or both! Remember it’s an illustration project so, whatever you decide to do, make

sure it focuses on developing your illustrative work in some way.

For the street art option you might want to develop a site-specific piece of illustration that

responds to a location of your choice. Remember that creating street art does pose legal issues,

so you don’t need to do the work directly into the space – use photography and Photoshop to

mock up your artwork

Initial thoughts

   For this assignment I want to be able to put what I have so far learned to good use to show my understanding of visual language and types of illustration.

   As it says above, I need to create something based on the title ‘You Are Here’ either a fanzine, art book, a graphic novel, model or some street art.

To start off I googled to see what comes up when you type in ‘You Are Here’ in the search box:

• 
  
• Maps
• Locations and Tourism
• Space and info about where we are in the galaxy
• Google maps
• A name of a fashion shop

These (apart from the fashion shop) were obvious choices to create something based on the title.

I decided to do some mind maps to help me.

Mind Maps and Ideas



   Here above are some mind maps that I created, I created a lot of ideas, so much so I struggled to choose one. I find if I get given a task which is so open like this one I generate too many ideas and then I get stuck on which one to do.

Some of the main ones that stuck out were:

Art Book

• Some form of art in an art book using maps
• A zig zag book with each letter of the title on each page to represent a country for each letter

Illustrative Object

• A diorama of planets and showing where earth is
• A ceramic model of something or one who is in my heart
• A city made from paper

Fanzine

• A Disney world book
• Animals
• Basketball

Graphic Novel

• Love story
• Story about my two rabbits
• Time travel

Street Art

Didn't want to do street art as its very limiting because you can’t go out and do it.

Further research:

     I felt that doing something based on travel, location or tourism was the first thing an artist would come up with. I decided that I wanted to do something that's out of the box and different. As I struggled to pick one, I decided to sleep on it. I then did some more mind maps to see if I can realise what I want to do.

I also went and did some further research online:

Map Jewellery by Talia Sari

    This jewellery maker inspired me, she uses maps but uses the pattern created (routes of an area) to create pendants and other jewellery. Here is some of her work below.

https://www.demilked.com/city-street-grid-map-jewelry-you-are-here-talia-sari-wiener-israel/

   I like how she has used the patterns that maps create and has implemented them in to her jewellery. It is a good way of looking at locations different. Once the routes become jewellery they look like individual pieces of art. I know I don't want to do something related with locations but this was great to see that the artist has thought outside of the box and inspired me.

   Another way to use the title I discovered was through a subject in meditation and mindfulness explaining about writing a list of the most important people that make an impact on your life and who you love dearly.

   Here's one of the illustrations I found above showing directions to the heart. This has given me an idea to create something to show someone who is important to me.

‘You are here’ - Based on my Rabbits

   After doing a bit more mind maps and looking on line above. I have decided to either create a graphic novel based on my two rabbits or an art book.

Bunny Art Book

For the art book I thought of three ideas:

   To use the zig zag book idea, which was one of my first ideas and put a letter on each page so when it is folded out it spells out the title of the book. I tried a few different things such as creating the letters using the rabbits to form each letter in certain positions. I tried paper cutting the letters and then drawing the rabbits around them.

    I then tried to look at making a pack of postcards in a box and each letter on each postcard with the rabbits doing different things around them.

Graphic Novel

   For the graphic novel I thought about telling a story about my two rabbits playing hide and seek as they are always chasing each other.

    Another idea I thought of was to create an informative funny book telling the viewers about my rabbits, their personalities, how they make an impact on my life and that they have a place in my heart.

Decision For Final Idea

   After creating some drafts for these ideas I decided I really liked the Graphic novel which will be a funny informative book based on my rabbits.

    I really like the thought of this idea. I have decided to make it more fun for the viewer by making it interactive so things open and lift up on the pages. This will get the viewer wanting to learn more about my two rabbits, Bandit and Bugsy. It will also incorporate the title ‘You are here’ in the sense that the viewer will be also be looking and searching within the book for things about the rabbits. This is also a good way to incorporate my working with paper too.

My book will relate to the title ‘You Are Here’ in three ways:

• How they make an impact on my life and I know they are there each day
• That they are in my heart
• The book will be interactive to get the viewer searching around for the rabbits, information and other things.

Info For My Book

   My book will be an A5 size because this is an easy size to create and use a printer when you are making a book from home with limited tools.

   Last time I created a book I glued the pages together (Ugly duckling pop up book for an old exercise). This time I want to have a go at binding it by sewing it together with wax string. I saw a video on it before and looks fun to do.

   When I was young I used to love reading a book called The Jolly Postman. It was a great book as the pages were interactive to the story and that has inspired me to create an interactive book of my own.

    The interactive areas in my book will be for things such as opening the doors to their home, looking an an illustration and then finding info about it underneath it. I want to make sure every turn of page gives the viewer something to interact with.

My own brief

• To create a graphic interactive novel based on my two rabbits. It will be of A5 size. The illustrations will show the viewers the personality of the rabbits and how they live daily in a humorous way.

• This will help to get an understanding to the viewer of having rabbits as pets, with their funny nature and to show that they are good for your mental health in that they make you laugh and smile.

• Each page will be interactive for the viewer with tabs and illustrations that open up in order for the viewers to find things. The story will be about introducing them and learn throughout the book how they impact my life.

• It will be colourful with lots of interesting illustrations of objects needed in a rabbits life to help tell their story

• It will be bound by sewing it together to create a sturdy book.

• Finally the front cover must be kept simple without showing the rabbits fully enticing the viewer to see what's inside the book.

• As this book is an interactive graphic novel it will be different to what's currently out there

• The book will be suited for children as well as adults. The book will also be great for rabbit owners and people considering to have one. This will then relate to some viewers and inspire others to have one or two as pets.

Drawing My Rabbits From Life And Also Creating My Characters For My Book

Today I have been outside observing my rabbits and their movement. I thought this was a good ideas to help me turn them in to characters showing their personality visually.

Bugsy:

Bandit:

Realist final sketch of Bugsy:

Realist final sketch of Bandit:

I had a real fun afternoon drawing the rabbits. It was very cold but I sat in a chair with a hot water bottle to keep warm.

I saw how they moved. Rabbits are of an oval shape with their bottoms being the largest area. Here are two photos below to show both of them.

     Bugsy is bigger than Bandit and when they move they are quite quick so had to really draw them fast. I decided to use watercolour and fine liners to capture their poses. I then did also a detailed drawing of each to capture their details. This had helped me to visually see them on paper and in front of me rather going from memory.

Character Development:

   Here above are some of my character sketches I did and I ended up liking one of each Bandit and Bugsy from these. I feel my illustrations pick out their main features and personalities.

Pages and Layout

The next step I have to think about is the content with in the book, layout and the length.

From my rough ideas above I came up with the below pages. each topic will be a double spread over two pages.

Front cover

     Here above are my designs of my front cover and my final decision. I tried various ways but I liked the cardboard box idea best. Its a great idea as the rabbits just love cardboard boxes and are always sitting and hiding in them. I also like the design of where I have put the title. I have incorporated it on to the card board box which usually would say this way up but I have changed this to the title You Are Here, a good metaphor. I also think it looks great with the added arrows. The title with the arrows then forces the viewer to see what is in the box and all they can see is two lots of ears. I hope that this will then make it enticing to the viewer who would want to open up the book to see what it is all about. I have left the background white to keep it simple and make the main feature stand out. I think its quite a clever idea.

Dedication page

On the dedication page this will be a small introduction and a dedication to Bandit and Bugsy.  I have drawn each rabbits bottoms each side and trails of rabbit little poohs.

intro to Bandit and Bugsy

    As you can see above for this page Bandit and Bugsy will be the centre features with arrows around them pointing to some of their funny features. I have written some of the content around them. To make this interactive their names will each lift up and a list of personality traits will be underneath. When creating it properly I need to think about the negative space around them and how much content to put on.

Their home

Here above is their home double spread. It will have their cabin which will open up for the viewer to look inside. This will include some object names on the inner of the door. On the other page there will be a birds eye layout of the garden space they have and below that will be a tunnel with Bandit outside of it looking for Bugsy. Bugsy will be inside the tunnel enjoying a carrot.

Feeding Time

   For the food page it will be about their favourite foods and what they need to eat to keep healthy. As you can see above I did two different designs as I was not sure but have decided to go with the first one where the rabbits are facing the viewers. This is because I wanted to show their hungry expressions and enhance Bugsy as he's the greedy one. Here each food item will be designed on to a disk which will lift up in the book and have information underneath each. Also Bugsy will be holding a letter which the viewer will be able to open. It will contain a list of treats.

Bunny Language

Bunny Language page will showcase some of the poses they both use to communicate to each other as well as me. Each illustration will be on tabs to lift up to reveal what each position means.

Making Memories

    This will be the final topic which will be mini story's of funny moments Bandit and Bugsy have shared with me. This will finish the book off nicely to show why I love them.

Back of book

The back of the book will have a small introduction, bordered with rabbit little poos. At the bottom  there will be an illustration of some vegetables and the bar-code to make it look like a proper selling book

This means the total number of pages including front and back cover will be 14.

Other pages

I did also think of some other pages that I could include but as I have limited time, I have cut it down to the main ones. My other ideas were:

• Their Bond
• Their Keeper
• Keeping Healthy
• Their Toys

Creating My Book

Here below are my finished final illustrations for all the pages in the book.

 Dedication Page

Intro to Bandit and Bugsy:

Their Home:

Food Page:

Illustrations for the food page to go on to lift up tabs. Also design for treats sheet:

Bunny Language Illustrations:

Memory page illustrations:

   I created my illustrations using fine liners and Pro-markers. I had to also work out the sizes to make sure everything fits on a page with out looking too busy. I am really happy with my designs and Bandit and Bugsy's are looking the same on each page to make them recognizable throughout.

I have looked at each one again and have written the content out for each page to make sure I know what description goes with each illustration.

Photoshop time

    To create my book with the illustrations and the text, I did consider doing it all hand written but decided it would be best through Photoshop to make it look neater and fit with in areas on the pages. It will also be good to edit my illustrations and enhance them adding shadows and tidying them up.

Here below are my finished pages

Front Page:

Dedication Page and Last Page

Meet the Bunnies Double Spread:

Bunny Home Page And The Separate Parts to Glue On After

Feeding Time Including Envelope Design, Tabs And Treat List

Bunny Language Page Plus Illustrations On Tabs

Memories Page

Back of Book

    I really like my designs and I think I have come up with a unique idea by making a graphic novel interactive.  I spent a long time editing it all in Photoshop.  I used two different types of font throughout the book which were of a hand written style to give an atmosphere of writing a journal. I added in all the writing and some areas shortened it down. I changed the layouts a bit and also shrunk some of the images by picking them out with the magic wand. I'm really excited to see it all printed and come together.

Mock Copy Of Book

    I did a mock copy first to look at all the spellings and any illustration errors. I also got my husband to look at it too. I thought is was good to have a second eye over it. We found quite a few errors and once I was 100% happy I reprinted it out.

Printing Difficulties

    I realised once it was ready to print out that if I was to print it out on A4 I would have to work out what page is attached to which further along in the book. I worked this out and cropped one side and pasted it together on a A4 blank canvas in Photoshop with the other parallel page next to it.

      I began printing and I ended up having so much trouble with my printer it actually delayed me by a whole day! At first when I was printing, it would leave a border of white so my pages were not exactly A5 size. I then sorted this out but when I tried again it was printing the pages too big and so the printer was missing texts off my pages. I then decided to try to print them out of Photoshop so I saves them as J pegs and printed them through my mac software. I was still getting margins. After I looked on google an spent many efforts trying to work it out I eventually got it right! but felt a bit bad as I had wasted a lot of ink and paper.  The next thing was to print on both sides on one sheet  which after a few attempts , I worked out which way I needed to put the paper in to get the other side printed on correctly. 

   Finally once I had it all printed out I folded them in half and noticed that some of the pages were too wide and were bleeding on to the next page like the photo shoes above. To solve this I then went back in to Photoshop to edit a few areas and after a few hours I got the best print of the book I could.

Binding My Book

Heres a link to my binding  time laps video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V9NjouaiV0&feature=youtu.be

I carefully measured the holes and where they were going through the book and uses a dowel tool to punch the holes ready to sow.

As you can see above I then sowed mt book together using an upholstery needle and wax coated string.

My book feels really sturdy!

Final book

Here is a video of my book being opened:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXzo_aN1O28&feature=youtu.be

Front Cover

   For the front cover I found some paper which was made with hairs merged in to the pulp of the paper. I thought this would go well with my rabbit theme as they are furry. I glued this on to some brown card to use as the inner cover. The brown card enhances the cardboard box theme and the trailing bunny little poos.

Introduction Page

Meet The Bunnies

    Whilst creating this page I changed the layout a bit and put their names at the bottom of the page. Their names are on tabs which I cut out and then glued down with pva. The descriptions are so funny and it gives the book a very funny start. I also created some arrows to point at certain areas and used some green with the paint tool to add some background colour.

Bunny Cabin And Gardens

     Here above is their home I think this page has turned out really well. I have glued the doors on and the top of the tunnel that is hiding Bugsy. I have captured a lot of details from the garden and I think it is all correct with the information.

Feeding Time

    This page is the centre of the book so you can see the stitching here. I have again glued all the tabs on and stuck the envelope down that Bugsy is holding with the treat list. I am glad I chose this layout compared to my other test as it show the rabbits hungry faces, which is what I was aiming for.

Bunny Language

     This page is full of information, there were so many more different poses I could of spoken about. This page took me a while in Photoshop to fit the text in and make sure the tabs were the same size as the text boxes on the page. I think it looks great now its come together. For the pink background I used a leaf paint brush in Photoshop. I though it looked very cool and suggests movement to go with the poses.

Making Memories

    On this page it tells some stories of funny moments with the rabbits. The illustrations really help with the written info and it brings a smile on my face when I read them, They are all true! The final image and story on this page shows the viewer whey I love them so and how they make an impact on my life. It ends the book quite nicely.

A surprise back illustration

Finally on the last page I decided to add another illustration which shows the two rabbits next to my heart with the title inside it showing the viewer what they mean to me. I think this surprise illustration finished off the book well.

My Final Thoughts And Conclusion

My Final Thoughts And Conclusion

The Positive

I have really enjoyed this Assignment final. It has made me push my style and try something different. With the use of paper I have created an interactive Graphic novel in a quirky unique way.

I like how I gave myself a brief and have worked from it to create my book. I think it ticks all the boxes for the assignment and it a great outcome. I have worked really hard on this and it was worth it. Its great that I now have a book about my little rabbits.

Yesterday I gave it to a few people to read and they thought it was hilarious and a great book. One of my friends is a bunny owner too and she said she could really relate to it.

The Negative
I have spent longer then I thought on the final due to struggling at the start for ideas and having printer issues. I have been catching up and trying to hit a deadline I feel I have put a lot of pressure on myself and this has been the first assignment (out of many) where I have felt I have struggled. The college did say I could extend it for longer but I didn’t want to, I just wanted to get it done. I think because of this added pressure on myself this was the reason I could not find an ideas at the start that I was happy with as I was overthinking it.

The printer issue was long, It made me realise that technology does not always go your way and you are limited at home to what equipment you have.

Ideas For Improvement
On the last inner page of the book you can see the page had bled on to it slightly, this is down to my printer just not working correctly and I could not get the setting right.

When glued down the tabs I had an accident with the tunnel that bugsy is inside. I thought it was ok but when I opened it somehow, the glue got on the actual page and as I lifted it up it ripped the page slightly so

If I had more time I would of liked to explore multiple layouts for each page, to make sure I had created the best ideas for each and added in the other page ideas that I liked too.

What To Take From This Final Assignment.
I feel I have took on this challenge well and understood the process showing my designs and ideas and progression. I enjoyed doing this assignment and creating a book about my rabbits for people to read and love them too!.

What I can take from this assignment is to learn how to cope better under pressure and deadlines. If I can feel myself not getting anywhere I should come away from it and breath and do something else and come back to it afterwards. Instead I found myself not being able to let go and overthinking at times. So I need to accept that its normal to have a creative block and it will pass like a cloud in the sky.

A Quick Reflection Of Assessment Criteria

    I have re-looked at the criteria and feel l have covered all aspects as much as I could in my time limit.  I have shown visual and observation skills by looking at my rabbits and watching how they move and their shapes.

    I have shown Technical skills and visual skills by working out illustration sizes and room for content on each page. My illustrations worked out well and show I am good at keeping a characters appearance the same with any pose through out the book.

    I have shown in this assignment that I have used different tools and shown composition skills to develop my book. Quality of outcome is great, I have made sure my book is presentable and easy to understand

    My demonstration of creativity is always high. I love using my imagination and ideas and bringing them to the table. My personal voice has been strong along the course. I have tried a few different new ways but I know my work with paper is what I am attracted to the most. I also recently really enjoyed working with clay so this will be an new ongoing try out to see what I possibilities it gives me.