Friday, June 28
Monday, June 24
Beyond the Page
Its time for me to slop some words together to form a confused rambley sludge about another booky wook I got for Christmas! Hooray! This is the last one, 'Beyond the Page' by Quentin Blake.
Yup. I really like Quentin Blake. Hes awesome. I wish I could draw and paint like him - he has a lovely fluid way of working and I wish that my own illustrations could have a bit of that flair! My work appears very planned and methodic in comparison to his spontaneous and playful style!
So yes, having a gigantic book of various bits and bobs of his work (its a rather large hard bound volume), packed with lots of full-page illustration spreads is a ticket to Drool Town for me (and should be for others!)
The main point of this book is to explore Blake's work beyond that of book illustration - such as public installation pieces (big old wall stickers and the like); but it also features sketches and book illustrations which you may not be as familiar with - which is good!
Blake's writing style is leisurely and down to earth, making this book an enjoyable read.
The 3 images above were some of my favourite illustrations made to adorn two public buildings - one being for some walls in the maternity wards of several hospitals; and the other being used to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the University of Cambridge.
I know I haven't really described/said much about this book, but I find I can't really say more than Quentin Blake is awesome! And this book is pretty darn good and well worth a look at!
(My apologies at the lack of waffle. Hopefully in my next blog post I will be able to articulate myself a bit better! Perhaps the power of Blake's work makes my brain go fuzzy?)
Yup. I really like Quentin Blake. Hes awesome. I wish I could draw and paint like him - he has a lovely fluid way of working and I wish that my own illustrations could have a bit of that flair! My work appears very planned and methodic in comparison to his spontaneous and playful style!
So yes, having a gigantic book of various bits and bobs of his work (its a rather large hard bound volume), packed with lots of full-page illustration spreads is a ticket to Drool Town for me (and should be for others!)
The main point of this book is to explore Blake's work beyond that of book illustration - such as public installation pieces (big old wall stickers and the like); but it also features sketches and book illustrations which you may not be as familiar with - which is good!
Blake's writing style is leisurely and down to earth, making this book an enjoyable read.
The 3 images above were some of my favourite illustrations made to adorn two public buildings - one being for some walls in the maternity wards of several hospitals; and the other being used to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the University of Cambridge.
I know I haven't really described/said much about this book, but I find I can't really say more than Quentin Blake is awesome! And this book is pretty darn good and well worth a look at!
(My apologies at the lack of waffle. Hopefully in my next blog post I will be able to articulate myself a bit better! Perhaps the power of Blake's work makes my brain go fuzzy?)
Tuesday, June 11
English Infographics
Phew, this blog post has been a long time coming! A few months ago, I worked (alongside other members of the groovy Splinter team) on a rather challenging project. We were to create a batch of infographics for the BBC Bitesize GCSE English webpages. It was pretty interesting to work on, but pretty tough too as we had to work to a very specific style guide provided to us by the BBC (this detailed the size images could be, colour palettes, etc). Needless to say, this project was a massive learning curve for me - in more ways than one!
Here is one example of an infographic I made to accompany a webpage on 'Frankenstein'. I was to depict Victor Frankenstein digging up body parts in a moonlit graveyard, which he was to use in his gory experiments back in the laboratory! The following are several versions of the one image - showing just how much things can change whilst going through the amendment stages.
As you can see, the last image is rather different from the first! Amendments were made to the colours, costume, image size, etc! It was interesting to see the image morph over time - I think as the illustrator sometimes you can't see past your original piece, so I like receiving feedback/suggestions from others that I wouldn't have thought of on my own.
I also worked on some pieces for 'Jekyll and Hyde':
And a little shot of a work in progress:
I enjoyed making an evil face in this particular style! (Plus I really like books set in the 1800s, the fashion back then was just oh so suave)!
And here are a few others that I worked on - with a lot of help from my colleagues!
So there we go, theres a glimpse at what was occupying me in work over crimbo and new year! I think in my next blog post I'll be having a waffle about Quentin Blake and his book 'Beyond the Page', woo! Time for a drink!
Oooh! Also, I've put this project up on my website if you would like to look at some stuff on there too! English Infographics on the Nafftastic website!
Here is one example of an infographic I made to accompany a webpage on 'Frankenstein'. I was to depict Victor Frankenstein digging up body parts in a moonlit graveyard, which he was to use in his gory experiments back in the laboratory! The following are several versions of the one image - showing just how much things can change whilst going through the amendment stages.
As you can see, the last image is rather different from the first! Amendments were made to the colours, costume, image size, etc! It was interesting to see the image morph over time - I think as the illustrator sometimes you can't see past your original piece, so I like receiving feedback/suggestions from others that I wouldn't have thought of on my own.
I also worked on some pieces for 'Jekyll and Hyde':
And a little shot of a work in progress:
I enjoyed making an evil face in this particular style! (Plus I really like books set in the 1800s, the fashion back then was just oh so suave)!
And here are a few others that I worked on - with a lot of help from my colleagues!
So there we go, theres a glimpse at what was occupying me in work over crimbo and new year! I think in my next blog post I'll be having a waffle about Quentin Blake and his book 'Beyond the Page', woo! Time for a drink!
Oooh! Also, I've put this project up on my website if you would like to look at some stuff on there too! English Infographics on the Nafftastic website!
Tuesday, June 4
Making Great Illustration book
Hey ho! I've gotten round to reading a couple of books bought for me last Christmas, so lets start off with this bad boy! 'Making Great Illustration' by Derek Brazell & Jo Davies.
Making Great Illustration looks at a large scope of illustrators working in their respective fields. Fields discussed within this book range from editorial & typographical illustration to children's publishing & graphic literature, as well as many others. I discovered a lot of illustrators in this book - some I liked, some I wasn't so keen on (there weren't many of them)! I personally really enjoyed the work of illustrators Yuko Shimizu, Jeff Fisher, Oliver Kugler, and Kitty Crowther to name a few! The book also covers the more familiar names of Quentin Blake, Oliver Jeffers, David Downton and Catalina Estrada.
Each illustrator's segment is written in a blend of career descriptions mixed with some of the illustrator's own words. I personally found the writing to be a bit flowery in places - what I mean is that there were some parts in which overly complicated words were used which made some paragraphs sound pretentious - which I found to be alienating in places. I'm a down-to-earth girl, I like my writing to make sense and not be peppered with over the top phrases that I barely grasp the meaning of. Although I should say that most of the writing in this book is nicely done - theres just a few moments in which I scratched my noggin (so maybe this is just pointing out the gaps in my vocabulary)! :S
Anyhoos, each illustrator is favoured with lovely large images of their work and we even get a glimpse of their studios!
All in all, a good book! It allowed a glimpse into the lives of known and unknown illustrators, how they work, and how they themselves tackle client briefs! I was pleasantly surprised by some illustrators whom I knew little about, finding that I really liked their work ethics and therefore enjoyed their work! So I would recommend this book, but if you're a bit of a yokel like me, you might need a dictionary handy in a few places!
Making Great Illustration looks at a large scope of illustrators working in their respective fields. Fields discussed within this book range from editorial & typographical illustration to children's publishing & graphic literature, as well as many others. I discovered a lot of illustrators in this book - some I liked, some I wasn't so keen on (there weren't many of them)! I personally really enjoyed the work of illustrators Yuko Shimizu, Jeff Fisher, Oliver Kugler, and Kitty Crowther to name a few! The book also covers the more familiar names of Quentin Blake, Oliver Jeffers, David Downton and Catalina Estrada.
Each illustrator's segment is written in a blend of career descriptions mixed with some of the illustrator's own words. I personally found the writing to be a bit flowery in places - what I mean is that there were some parts in which overly complicated words were used which made some paragraphs sound pretentious - which I found to be alienating in places. I'm a down-to-earth girl, I like my writing to make sense and not be peppered with over the top phrases that I barely grasp the meaning of. Although I should say that most of the writing in this book is nicely done - theres just a few moments in which I scratched my noggin (so maybe this is just pointing out the gaps in my vocabulary)! :S
Anyhoos, each illustrator is favoured with lovely large images of their work and we even get a glimpse of their studios!
All in all, a good book! It allowed a glimpse into the lives of known and unknown illustrators, how they work, and how they themselves tackle client briefs! I was pleasantly surprised by some illustrators whom I knew little about, finding that I really liked their work ethics and therefore enjoyed their work! So I would recommend this book, but if you're a bit of a yokel like me, you might need a dictionary handy in a few places!
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