meganwillettchsha4109

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After researching Eleanor Davis comic 'In Our Eden' I was asked to redraw a page from someones else’s chosen comic using Davis' style (as shown above). I was given a page from Brecht Evens comic 'Patherman' (as shown below). I found this a challenge, especially because Evens ignores comic conventions. He doesn't use panels, or guttering, to separate his drawing, instead all his drawing exist in the same frame. They format their comics very different to tell their story.

Brecht Evens ‘Patherman’

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Eleanor Davis

American illustrator and cartoonist who creates work for both adults and children. The pages below are from her book ‘How to Be Happy’. Davis’s style varies greatly in ‘How to Be Happy’, which is comprised of lots of short stories, one of which is ‘In Our Eden’. What drew me to this, was how Davis can create detailed emotive illustrations, using simple of colour as her medium. Her work is expressive, although uncomplicated. 

http://www.tcj.com/reviews/how-to-be-happy/ - A Helpful article

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Week 10: 11th March. Play & Participation: Children's Media

This week we focused on a specific target audience of animation and illustration, by analysing work aim at children. We looked at arrange of different media, but in particular how illustrators and animators engage children.

For me an important part of children’s media is character. They shouldn't be to complicated but complicated enough so that a child can feel a connection to them, whether this connection is formed through the child identifying with another child in illustrated books like Snoopy and Charlie Brown or come to adore a dog from Paw Patrol, or dream to be a princess like Cinderella. The most successful illustrations and animations aim at children are ones that make use of children's imagination, making use of play and creativity.

Alice Through the Ages 

Alice is a good example, in my opinion, of how media aimed at children  has changed through the ages. The characters and narratives are the same in essence, but the medium and style in which these are depicted has changed dramatically. The original illustrated book has been adapted into an animation by Disney and then into a film in 2010, during this time colour has been added, forms simplified and the narrative twisted to suit a modern audience. 

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, John Tenniel, 1865

Alice in Wonderland (1951 film)

Alice in Wonderland (2010 film)

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Week 9: 4th March. Spatial Design

This week we looked at illustration and animation beyond the confines of the page or the screen, and instead looked at them in public spaces, in the form of street art and installations. We also questioned how the 'space' in which these animations/ illustrations exist influences the body and how to experience art.

‘No Ball Games’ Banksy in Tottenham 

Banksy: ‘The people who truly deface our neighbourhoods are the companies that scrawl giant slogans across buildings and buses trying to make us feel inadequate unless we buy their stuff. They expect to be able to shout their message in your face from every available  surface but you’re never allowed to answer back. Well, they started the fight and the wall is the weapon of choice to hit them back’(in Young 2014,  p. 28-9) 

I like this idea of being able to 'answer back'. Its alright for companies to dominate public spaces with their advertisements and messages designed to make us feel dishearten, making us buy into their products and services, so they can line their pockets. However, it is considered wrong and unlawful for us to respond. Its vandalism! A violation of property! When questionably street artists like Banksy, are just using these companies weapon against them.  

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Week 7: 19th February. Comics and Visual Narrative

In this lecture we looked at sequential art and comics as a way of visually telling stories. We picked apart comics looking at how every panel and the way it is composed on the page, effects the narrative. The composition, shape and size of panels can influence the pace of the narrative and create tension through juxtaposition. This varies depending on not only genre of the comic but also the culture its produced in and for.

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Week 5: 4th February. Interaction Design. Study Trip.

V&A Exhibition Video games: Design/ Play/ Disrupt

This exhibition allowed me to explore compensatory games design and culture. What I enjoyed most about this exhibition was the insight it gave me into the design process behind different video games. I enjoyed looking at the initial sketches, the concept art and the prototypes.

I also liked the part of the exhibition which included a video of different experts in the industry discussing different issues concerning video games. These issues included the under-represented women and race in video games and the controversial topic of violence. Does violence in video games a good thing, allowing people to commit crimes, without hurting anyone in reality, or is it a bad thing, does violence lead to more violence. Does it teach us how to be violent.

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My GIF I created in response to The Guardian article ‘Vaping may raise cancer and heart disease risk, study suggests, Nicotine in e-cigarettes may convert into DNA-damaging chemicals, mouse trial indicates, but critics say results are irrelevant to humans’.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jan/29/vaping-may-raise-cancer-and-heart-disease-risk-study-suggests

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Lecture 3: Information Design: Scientific Illustration, Industrial Animation and Visual Literacy.

The main focus of today’s lecture was why we might choose to present scientific or technical information using images? In my opinion, the most important reason is because images represent seeing. This helps to generate a better understanding and acts as an aid, for example, is especially useful when the thing being discussed can’t be seen with the naked eye. Even the written word is made up of images as symbols. Images have been a form of communication for thousands of years. So it must make sense that they are vital for information design. No?

However, this doesn’t mean to say that scientific illustrations are by any means accurate or reliable. Things in illustrations may look very different to if we saw them in real life. I guess it depend on the skill of the illustrator, but also the interpreter to whether or not scientific illustration holds any true value, especially now. Would it not be easier to take photographs, aren’t they more accurate? 

Dürer's Rhinoceros 1515

An Overstuffed Taxidermy Walrus Comes HomeBY ALLISON MEIER SEPTEMBER 23, 2013

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/horniman-museum-walrus-comes-home

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Week 2: 14th January. Sensory Design & Reviewing Learning Resources

One of the key themes we looked at today, which stood out the most for me was the idea of embodiment. The view that we don’t just experience images with and through our eyes, but with our whole bodies. Its not a detached process.

Ellen Rocha Would a Heart Die?

For me Rocha’s animation, “Would a Heart Die?” illustrates this best. This is because I feel Rocha’s use of stop frame animation, as well as their use of tactile materials brings life to the animation. Their use of materials provokes memories, through using everyday materials, alluding to our sense of touch or ‘tactile perception’.

The BrothersQuay (1986) Street of Crocodiles

The BrothersQuay’s animation is a good example of the tactile imagination (jJennifer Barker). She argues our relationship with a image or animation goes beyond our bodies, its more intimate than that.

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Banquet Records

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Introduction to the Teaching Block & Lecture 1: Reportage, visual journalism and animated documentary

Today we looked at reportage illustration and animation.

The key ideas:

How we evaluate whether images are ‘objective’ or ‘truthful’ or ‘real’

or ‘authentic’?

 what are the ethical responsibilities of the journalist or documentarist? (Truth, accuracy, independence, fairness, impartiality, humanity, accountability)

 Relationship between the reporter and the subject they are reporting about.

   Miguel Jiron (2013) Sensory Overload for the Interacting with Autism Project

https://vimeo.com/52193530

Animation can depict things that film or photography arguably can’t, such as internal emotion. This is evident in documentary animations about mental heath and disabilities.

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Teaching Block 2 Themes in Illustration Animation practice

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Week 10: 26th November. MB0063. Moving Stories: Animation Film Festival

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The Beatles (1967) Sgt.Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Design by Peter Blake and JannHowarth

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Week 9: 19th November. MB0063. Postmodernity 2: low-brow hi-fi

What is postmodernity?

A postmodern identity involves the blurring of cultures, as a result of globalization. The meaning of truth chances, its subjective, things are only true for the people that believe in them. Reality becomes blurred, with the increase in technology, meaning its harder to distinguish between reality and the make believe. There becomes a blur between the boundaries between low brow and high brow, as media becomes mostly accessible to all. What is now elite? This is known as nobrow. Where as, pastiche, blank parody, alludes to the destabilization of ideas and how things can be vague and it can be unclear whats being referenced. This can be seen when we look at the history of album covers. 

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THE SHOPPERS 

From my Urban Tribes Project. This tribe may not be as obvious as punks or hippies and maybe we all belong to this tribe in some way. However, I found it interesting to see on location, how we all seem to dress in a similar, the same level of casualness if you will, we all do similar things, from trying to find our size in M&S or having a chat will friend. It also occurred to me that this could be considered a dying tribe, as more and more people prefer the ease of buying online and the cost of surviving increases for shops.  

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Week 7:  5th November. MB0063. Postmodernity 1: youth-, counter-, sub-culture

In today's lecture we explored the development of youth cultures and sub-cultures in response to post war Britain and the arguably move to an era of post modernity. The international style was challenged and a multitude of different styles came about, in the form of youth cultures, countercultures and subcultures. Each with their own individual styles and ways of expressing themselves. Some  of these cultures became demonized, resulting in wider political issues, and wide spread panic. This demonstrated a rise in generational tension. Examples of such cultures are the Teddy Boys, the Mods and the Punks. This fracturing of culture may represent a move to post modernity as past styles become appropriated, there is a pick and mix approach and boundaries became blurred between high and low culture.