Final Narratives

My Graphic Narratives

'Picture Yourself on a Boat on a River'

Hierarchy of Information? 

The main thing I wanted to achieve with this image is the flow of hierarchy of information and where your eyes are first drawn into. In particular, I wanted the attention to be on the camera as this is the element with the most detail and specific aspects to it - and also the piece that took the most time to finish. The viewers eyes would then follow the wording around to fully take in the picture. To achieve this, I made the camera quite bold so although black and white like the writing, I added in definite black lines and small eye catching and intriguing detail to draw in the viewer immediately. I made the camera bigger than more than half the writing so that it was so noticeable, it almost makes the viewers eyes draw into the lens of on the camera which I think is quite effective in making the piece compelling.  I finally wanted to add in the colour polaroid stripes, once again to add attention to the finer details and make your eyes catch on to the bright and vivid colours which are bolder than the background. 

The writing was a bit different as I needed to take into consideration the layout of the picture and not just the where your eyes are drawn into first. The top line 'picture yourself' and bottom line 'boat on a river' look bright and stand out against the vivd background therefore make a good prominent piece. I think most people would look at the camera and follow to the top line anyway as this is where the writing begins and obviously where the lyrics start of. Then, quite evidently the 'In A' is the following lyrics, there also in the middle of the piece therefore the middle lyrics. And although the boldest colour in terms of the writing all together, I don't think it draws any attention away from the rest of the narrative. 

Overall, I think that the information works well, looks bright and also attractive on the whole of the piece. I do think there is room for improvement, as now after completing the piece I notice that the 'In A' is quite prominent compared to the rest of the lyrics however at the time this was not something I noticed as I was focused on the layout and making all the lyrics stand out against the fluorescent like background.

'With Tangerine Trees and Marmalade Skies'

Use of Colour?

My use of colour was especially important in this piece as I feel I had to be quite specific and limited in choosing the mix of colours to use and the way to make them work together. As the lyrics present an idea of the colour for me i.e marmalade being yellow & light oranges and tangerine, being deep oranges & slight reds it was just a sense of how to put them together and and make them work without making the piece look too rooted in one colour.

As all the main images throughout the narratives are black and white with a single element of colour this was not something I had to think about to much therefore It was easy for me to pick the tangerine colours. I chose these bright oranges, yellows and light reds as I knew it would stand out against the blacks, whites and greys and would look bold and attractive. The background on the other hand took more consideration, as you can tell, I used the same picture for each background but just messed around with the Levels on Photoshop until I got the chosen effect. I liked that the background for this piece is not too yellow, or too orange but mixes in elements and similar colours i.e the greens, dark reds, bright yellows and oranges which all in all add such a good base to the picture and makes it look that much more fascinating.

The text colour again was quite simple, I wanted to keep this the same throughout the whole of the narrative so the black on top of white and vice versa. I think it's the easiest option for a piece like mine as they are so colourful, it would be adding in to much colour to have a vibrant font. I also think these to colours just stand out in general and go with any kind of colour.

Overall, I think all the colours are bold, vivid and daring, not just on this piece but throughout the whole narrative. It makes the whole graphic narrative interesting and extremely eye-catching whilst not looking to excessive with colour. I didn't have a limited colour palette as such, but I tried to stick with a theme for each separate narrative i.e. blue, orange, purple and pink, but this didn't mean I was restricted as there is more than one shade of each of these colours and therefore i could involve almost any of these shades together. All over, I think that the colour range is completely successful, so although each graphic narrative is a opposite colour to the next it flows really well and looks so interesting.

'Somebody Calls You, You Answer Quite Slowly'

Use of Text?

The typeface I used throughout the whole graphic narrative was called 'Riesling' which I found on dafont.com. Its an elegant and simple but works really well with the song I've chosen as it has a classic 60s vibe. I went through many fonts from hippy flower ones to patterned detail fonts but they didn't seem to fit not matter how much I adjusted them around - I believe this was because it just added to much detail. Once I found the font 'Riesling' it was just a matter of sizing it up and putting it on the page so it stood out amongst the bright colour and sharp detail images. I also needed to leave room for the images.

The scale of the fonts vary throughout each images, which goes with the theme of the song and the rest of the layout. Not only does it look interesting but it makes each piece look enticing and captivating. To adjust the font I used Photoshops 'Characters' tools, where I could adjust the height, width, spacing, sizing and placement of each individual word or letter. This made it really easy for me to move around fonts and make them fit into places so used up as much of the valuable space I could.

The colour, like previously said, was again quite simple to choose. Black and white were the most simple colours to pick as they add boldness in an eye-catching and readable way, rather than a colourful and striking way. I decided to switch round the black on top of white or white on top of black to again make the piece more interesting and compelling  and also easier to read. It also makes the characters have a 3 Dimensional effect.

I feel the font overall does reflect the theme really well with its elegant, mythical and old school vibe but the way i've styled it to suite the narrative gives it the slight modern twist it needs to attract people today. It flows really well with each drawing to as they represent quite a hippy and free vibe.

'A Girl With Kaleidoscope Eyes'

Use of Imagery?

The use of imagery is something that I could grasp in this particular image really well. The lyrics alone have a vivid visual representation that could be quite easily transferred into an actual image. And it was also quite simple to do, I created the eyes by drawing them by hand so I could add as much detail as possible then I used the scanner to get them onto the computer to begin editing. I adjusted the contrast, brightness and sharpness only, using Adobe Photoshop so that I could make the colour more bold without losing important detail. I then found two different images of kaleidoscope, once again adjusted contrasts and colour and transferred them to the picture of the eyes using various different Adobe tools. After that, I fitted them on the page along with the lyrics and matching the background.

I think this use of imagery reflects the theme really well, it follows the hippy, colourful and 70s vibe that is a continual theme throughout the whole of the piece. The abstract image especially, is eye-catching in a way that it draws you in and makes you want to look deeper into piece rather than just having a quick glance.

Tools and Techniques

I usd multiple tools to create all my pieces, I began by drawing the basic images by hand, taking inspiration from pictures I found online so that I could perfect them to his I wanted. I then scanned all the images and took time on Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator adjusting the size, contrast ad brightness using there tools.

Rough Drawings

             

  

Graphic Novels & Jack n Jill

Hansel and Gretel

The book I decided to analyse was the Hansel & Gretel Pop Up Novel. The use of colour is fitting within the novel. The artist uses a variety of deep autumn/earth (green, blues, browns) colours which fits within the feel of the story, for example being set in a woods relates to the earthy colour scheme. The most used colours in the Hansel and Gretel novel are greens and browns which refers to nature and wildlife environment and also follows the story of them being trapped and lost within the woods. This novel however does include several pops of colour, for example the moon in one of the novels pages has a crisp pearl white colour which makes it stand out from the page. The colours I personally feel are effective within this novel as it makes the overall book look very engaging and interesting; you straight away want to look through this novel as its exciting and something new.

This novel is excellent for its use of imagery. Each page has a different pop of illustration which makes the book extremely unique, as this traditional tale is usually seen through normal novels or film. I have never seen the tale be portrayed through pop up graphics which makes it exciting to read. The use of imagery is really good; the actual illustrations have been hand drawn and to a highly professional standard, furthermore portraying the tale very well. The pop up affect of the novel makes the imagery looks 3D which is different and intriguing. What I find good about this novel is the unexceptional aspect of it, when you first look at the book you don't expect it to be a pop up book this makes it very interesting. Overall I found the imagery in this novel to be really good, I liked how detailed the drawings were and the use of the 3D pop up affect.

The use of text in this novel is also very good. On the front page of the novel the text is an old fashioned style font which relates to the tale being a traditional classic. The text is easy to read and clearly positioned throughout the pages which is good as the main focus is the imagery. The text is the same within the novel which I feel is good as it makes the novel look more professional and slick.  The colour of the text is black which makes it easy to read, especially from a distance. The text on every page is placed on a white background, which I feel was did to firstly make it look clearer in the book as the animations are extremely engaging and the main focus. I also feel the text was placed like this to give the impression of a traditional fairytale style book, with the use of an old fashioned style font and placed on a white background.


Jack & Jill

I wanted to create a clear but creative design for my Jack and Jill storyboard. I decided to make my board quite bold and imaginative, for example the big arrows and exclamation points make each section of the story stand out. Every box I have tried to apply creativity therefore not keep to the same designs and shapes but explore different patterns as you can see in the first box i have used different fonts and arrows and I feel this makes the box that bit more eye catching. The second box was a part of the story I could make quite visual, I joined to images together to make the landscape of the trees and mountain that Jack and Jill climb up and put the arrow to signify where the two climb up. The next few boxes I put together a random collection of images to piece together the rest of the story. 

Photoshop Changes: 

To put colour onto the Jack n Jill board, I simply put the image into photoshop adjusted the contrast and brightness slightly (so that it was easier to get a full block of colour). Then I used the magic wand tool to pick out the blocks of white then finally used the paint bucket tool to fill in the blanks with colour. 

Graphic Narrative - Statement of Intent

What song lyrics have you selected? Why?

For my Graphic Narrative I have decided to choose the song Lucy In The Sky with Diamonds which, is originally by the The Beatles but I am basing it on the cover by The Flaming Lips and Miley Cyrus. I aim for my Graphic Narrative to be creative, colourful, and imaginative with use of lots of detail and bold colour. I have so far decided to use the first two verses of the song(shown below) but am undecided whether I want to do more as I am keen to put a lot of detail and time into each part of the narrative.

Lyrics:

Picture yourself in a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes

I will be doing a different design of the narrative for each line of the part of the song I have chosen, as each one is completely different to the other I feel as though I can really explore the range of ideas I have from being inspired from ilovedust - my chosen graphic designer. The song itself is artistic and visionary and I can fully apply this to my designs to make them stand out and different to any other.

What format will you Graphic Narrative take?

I am going to be doing my Graphic Narrative simply as a book featuring the illustrations, each design will  include the writing as a part of the artwork as it fits to artists I am being inspired on and tells the story of the song creatively. I think being in the style of a book means that each page can be dedicated to each line of the song therefore more detail will be taken in from the art instead of having to look at two or more design at a time.

How will you change your script to make it more modern, historical or futuristic twist etc to your script, illustrating a mood/style or intended target audience?

As my chosen song doesn't relate to a modern, historic or futuristic twist this will not be involved in my designs. The song, Lucy in The Sky with diamonds is said to be related to LSD therefore has a psychedellic vibe to it therefore bright colours, exaggerated patterns and designs and a lot of detail incorporating this into my design is going to be important to make it relate to the song in the best way possible. If people see bright colours and all sorts of patterns then they will feel a sense of the song for example happiness, esoteric and and creativeness which is what I'm aiming for. Despite not a full modern twist there will be a slight modern feel to the art as it will have some as it relates to my chosen artist, ilovedust.

What designers or illustrators do you feel will influence and inspire the style you are working toward and why?

Chris Dyer

Firstly I'm very much involving my inspiring artists work into my design, ilovedust incorparate a lot of detail and pattern into there work and I think putting in mine will give it a modern twist as well as adding a psychedelic feel to it. They also pic very bold colours and incorporate this with black designs to make it look bold and stand out, I feel as though for the type of song I am doing this relates well as the songs lyrics stands out itself and can more with a great design. Im also looking into many psychedelic artists such as Chris Dyer in terms of patters and Josip Csoor in terms of visionary and colour - trying to get inspiration from these as much as I can, I want people to look at the artwork and feel a sense of euphoria and imagination and by getting as much inspiration as I can from existing artist I can really achieve this.

ilovedust

Josip Csoor

Which techniques and materials do you hope to use? List and include source i.e. collage, photographic, typography, drawings, diagrams etc…

Im planning on making all my designs firstly by drawing, therefore doing the basic outlines then adding in the difficult detailed patterns into the object if this is what the pattern includes, by doing this I can really add everything I want to and if I feel as though I can improve if need be as i'll be able to start over and try out different designs with no problem - as well as drawing, I might add in paint to be able to incorporate the colours and get the sort of patterns i want without the difficulty of software on a computer. After getting my initial designs I will then scan them into a computer and use Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator to enhance colours, detail,. clean up errors, and add the lyrics using dafont. By doing the font on a software I can really get the detail and shape I want and fit it perfectly to the rest of the artwork.

Self Directed Work - Graphic Narrative - ilovedust

ilovedust 

'Never Not Working'

Founded by Mark Graham in 2003, ilovedust began as a small company in Southsea, England. They create fresh, innovative designs which make up for they're breath-taking, award-winning portfolio. They're work includes typography, illustration, branding, packaging, murals, animation and apparel designs. Throughout the 12 successful years of creating illustrations and graphic designs, ilovedust have grown to become a hugely successful company collaborating with brands far and near, including - RedBull, Nike, Coca Cola, wired, MTV, Virgin Media, Absolut Vodka, Empire Magazine and many more. Detail, craft and strong narrative are what piece together ilovedust' diverse portfolio. The 22 strong team are 'passionate by their craft' and love what they do, anticipating whats to come in the future.

They're Work: 

The piece above, made for BSSP was made by ilovedust to be put as the cover of they're Kiss Kama Sutra book. The heavily embellished illustration uses embossing and debossing to create this magnificent piece to be put on the final book cover. In terms of colour, despite the fact that this piece of work is only dark colours, mainly black and deep grey, the work does not fail to stand out. The limited colour pallete is what makes the piece so intriguing to look at because no matter where you look, left, right and centre detail can be seen and it gives it a certain depth and 'mysterious' look - this all helped by the embossing and debossing, of course.

The typeface, centred right in the middle has a range of different fonts which work well together and make a beautiful centre piece to the design. When first looking at the artwork, your eyes are immediately directed toward  'KISS' the typeface, I believe this links  to the popular metal band 'Kiss' - gives off a very rock n' roll vibe which I believe is what the designers where aiming for and also reflects the theme of the book very well - it's also great that this is what you are first drawn into as this is the beginning of the title of the book. Below the words 'Kama Sutra' stand out with a western, cowboy vibe and once again holds a touch of rock n roll. The scale of all the fonts work well as they lead from small, to bold and large, to long, tall and striking. Your eyes follow the name of the book in the way supposed to. Once again the typeface although black stands out extremely well, with the embossing and debossing making it shine in certain light or if looked at in a certain way I feel this  makes the book different and unique to most. 

An ancient bible 

Although no imagery, there is a heavily detailed illustrated border around and throughout the book, which once again looks as though it is very much western, rock n roll inspired  - it also looks like it has an element of ancient religion/church design  put into the artwork which makes it very intriguing and cryptic like. Like previously said the design has elements of creativity in every corner you look into all due to the extremely intricate design work - with it ancient and old look it makes the book look like it is important and holds importat contents inside.                                                                                                           When looking at the book I was personally first drawn into the title of the cover which is successfully done by the bold writing and intriguing fonts. After taking time looking at the title, you are almost immediatley attracted to the beautiful border giving you a chance to take in all of the book fine detail. The hierarchy of the book covers information is placed exactly right, your eyes being attracted to the main subject of the book then aloud to wonder and take in the rest of the design shows that this piece successfully fulfills the wants of the client.

I feel as though this piece of work was most likely to of been created on the computer using design software such as Adobe Illustrator. Beforehand some of the design ideas may of been drafted by hand but after that I feel as though to make the work design so detailed and specific it would of had to be done using software. To create the embossing and debossing the piece would of had the been printed from a computer using a special printer to create this effect. 

                                

Despite just a small piece of work, I feel this piece is holds so much detail and creativity that it successfully attract people towards it immediately. The different texture, the embossing and the use of just on colour is what makes this piece so noticeable and absorbing.

"we are always evolving, we are always changing and our direction is still unknown if I’m entirely honest. we just want to turn up to work and enjoy what we are doing  – that’s our first objective.'' - Mark Graham, creative director of ilovedust

More ilovedust Artwork - 

 Tiempo 94 Football Book Patches for Nike

'Seven Deadly Sins' - Scientific American magazine

T Shirt collection - karl lagerfield x ilovedust 

'#theworldislistening' - The Grammys

'Mural' - Nike US Open of Surf 

'Welcome To The Jungle'

 

        

Videos & Interviews

what made you want to become a designer / illustrator?


mark graham: in terms of being a designer/illustrator I’m not so sure it was an idea as such but rather that I just found myself going that way in terms of direction and interests. skateboarding to me played an absolute massive part in shaping that – even to this day, it’s the ‘thing’ which has made the biggest impact on me and my work. I was always inspired by people like mark gonzales, ed templeton, jason lee, people that mixed skating with more design based approaches in terms of their board graphics and the companies that they helped set-up. skating is just a big greasy melting pot of ideas and styles, personalities and values that you can’t help but be inspired by it and want to go out there and make your own mark too.

what do you think your strongest skill is?

MG: personally I think my strongest skill is knowing that there is a huge amount of people out there who can do things a lot better than me, and those are the people I want to work with and collaborate with. as a company I would say our biggest skill as a studio is being able to keep a cool head whilst all those around us are losing theirs and deliver a quality of work that makes everyone involved very proud.

in such a competitive industry how do you try to ensure you’re always in demand?

MG: by keeping young blood pumping through the veins of the company. ‘make the best of it, improvise, adapt to the environment, darwin, shit happens, I ching, whatever man we gotta roll with it’  – tom cruise in collateral

Guess Who

The Guess Who task was the very first assignment we got given at the start of Graphics Year 2, the assignment was to create a replica person from the board game Guess Who, transferring an image of ourselves into cartoon. This task allowed us to get to know tools in Adobe Photoshop more and get practice for future assignments. Below is how I done this...

The first step was to pick an image of ourselves that was clear and would be easy to recognize the features on our face, as we had to create the image into animation we wanted it to be clear to make it look realistic. After choosing the photo we wanted to use we had to put this into Adobe Photoshop, firstly I had to lock the layer so that no changes would be made to this and we could work on the second blank layer that I created afterward. 

Now I could begin recognizing the facial features and using pen tool I began outlining the 'white' of my eye to create this shape into a animated shape,. I continued to do this with my features such as my, eyelashes and eyebrow etc. To create my pupil I used the shape tool to get a more defined round shape. I then added in color as I went along so I could distinct what shape was what and belonged where. After doing my eye area I went used hide tool to temporarily get rid of those features so it was easier for me to carry on with everything else. I continued to do my lips and face shape using the same method with the pen tool. To create my nose, I first used the shape tool to create the two hole as my nostrils then used the paintbrush tool to get small lines that would be the shading and outline of my nose area - to get the perfect colors, I used the eyedropper tool and kept the color it picked up or slightly changed it to make it look better in the cartoon. Below is a screen grab of all these steps put together:

As I wanted my cartoon to look as realistic I decided to add some shading on the cheeks, this made the image have a bit more depth and not look so flat. To add the shading I used the paintbrush tool and changed what brush it was to a lighter and more flared at tip - this made it so what I painted wasn't so heavy. To get the right color I once again used the eyedropper tool and picked the dark shading on my face from the real image. Below is this step:

The next thing to was to add my hair into the picture. Although the real image I had blonde hair, I changed it in the cartoon to brown as this is my current hair color! I used the same method as I did to get the eye shapes and eye brows etc, outlining the hair with the pen tool then filling it in with appropriate color, I also added in the darker layers of my hair so that it looked a bit more realistic:

I then grouped all the layers together, so that they could move all as one and i could easily move them around the page and into the center. I then added the background using the shape tool and drawing around the rectangle then filling it with the gradient of blue to white to blue below is this step:

My final Guess Who cartoon looks like this!:

UNIT 19: Arms Around The Child

UNIT 19: Arms Around The Child

Arms Around The Child is a Charity that seeks to provide a loving home, protection and respect for their spirit and soul for orphaned children around the world. The charity drives education for children who are vulnerable, often infected with HIV and orphaned having lost one parent or both. The also intend to provide a sense of community and safety. Arms Around The Child works around the world (Africa and India) to advocate for the needs of these children so that they may grow up with love and care and can look to the future with happiness. The charity will help to educate the general public concerning the causes and effects of distress, hardship and life as an orphan through our direct engagement with the public through events and major campaigns.

'We believe in a future for these kids and intend to do everything we can to make it a bright one. They deserve happiness'

Brief Description: 

The charity, was founded in January 2012 in London but supports children on a worldwide basis. The Charity works to provide a loving home, medical treatment, respect and education for children who have lost their parents or are living in adversity including sexual abuse, neglect and exploitation.

Anyone is able to donate to the charity by texting, this can be done worldwide.

142 million children have been orphaned worldwide, they are affected by many factors such as shame, fear, rejection, denial of basic education and health care, discrimination, Orphans suffer with depression, anxiety, neglect, emotional trauma with little or no support and this often results in exploitation and abuse. Arms Around The Children aims to advance awareness of this horror and through Global media and campaigning they try to engage the public and translate that engagement into action.


The Other Ball: 

The Other Ball is an event set up in support of Arms Around The Child. The Other Ball is an annual London event designed to raise finds to protect children ant risk in India and Africa. During the evening people will come together to transcend the machine lift the spirit to bring hope to these children. Mark Ronson, producer and artist is the Global Ambassador and will host The Other Ball, bringing along some of his enlightened musical friends in a collaboration with musical direct and producer Jeff Bhasker to create a 'magical' experience at the event.

The Other Ball includes guest such as ASAP Rocky, Florence and The Machine, The Black keys, Lily Allen and many more worldwide famous celebrity that give much to the charity and also do the event to raise awareness in publicity.

Social Media: 

Facebook: The Facebook page is there to be able to reach out to a wider audience and be able to be a part of social media. The Facebook page can be there so people are able to research into the charity through the page, look up onto events happening within the charity like The Other Ball. The page also posts quotes, trips and news on there website that people can visit and look into. People can become a part of the charity through Facebook. The page currently has 1,945 likes.

The Charitys twitter works in a similar way to the Facebook, it is there to be able to connect to a wider audience so more people can get involved within the charity. Similar to the Facebook page the twitter will post events and trips that are happening around and for the charity. They retweet people that are supporting the charity and also give links to different pages on the website. The Twitter can help to interact with celebrities and the public who are involved in the charity. The page currently has 1,656 followers.

This next part of work links to the Ethical Designer we studied. We took inspiration from the designs to make our own and join them and make them relate to Arms Around The Child. The research helped me come up with different facts that I could link to pictures and make them into a graphic. Below are the 4 designs that I planned out:- 

The first design on the bottom is an idea that immediately popped into my head. I personally feel this is the most effective design idea out of the four i came up with. I took a lot of inspiration from James Victore's existing artwork firstly I chose the orphan silhouette because it linked directly to the fact that is shown ('3.5 million children are infected with the HIV virus'). The type font was restricted at the time but if I was to choose this design I would possibly changed the fonts and sizes, giving a bit more life and complexity to it. Once again if I chose this design I would alter the colours, instead of black font and white image I wanted to switch this so I had a black image and white font excluding the word HIV as I want this to be red.
My second design once again relates to the fact that is written in the image. Clearly the shape is of a medicine bottle and the fact is '£20 per month helps to provide life saving medicines and treatment for a child'. I had the idea to have a white medicine bottle with black writing apart from the cross shape would be shown through certain words and letters in the writing being a bit lighter. I did think the idea was good however I didn't think it stood out as much and it wasn't so eye catching. 

I didn't want all my design ideas to look the same, so i varied the next two ideas. The top idea was to support stopping trafficking. I wanted to really make this design different and stand out. The idea was to have the typeface in a 'paintbrush' written way  and go gradient from black to red , then from the letter 'T' at the beginning of trafficking have the children again from gradient black to red, running and climbing away from trafficking as though they are trying to get away, and they want it to stop.  The second design was to represent the fact that '5.8 children die of hunger a year', I wanted to make the design for this really powerful. My idea was to have at top top of the poster a silhouette a collection of food or perhaps food shopping, then underneath the fact 'falling' from the picture, but joined onto it. Then once again beneath that, the children in silhouette reaching up and trying to get to the food, but they cant quite reach - this all on top of a red background.

So I decided on doing my first design, and I had different ways that I wanted to do this, my first idea was to have the writing of the fact in black 'paintbrush' like writing filling up the shape of the orphan, so there wasnt actually an outline of them but the writing would make it look as if there was. My over idea of how to go about this was to have the orphan painted in black as if it was a silhoueete then have white writing on top of it, in different fonts and sizes. I decided to go with the second idea as I think it related more to James Victores designs, below is how I did this:-

The first thing I had to do was create the silhouette of the 'orphan'. I done this by tracing an image onto a A3 sized paper so it was big and clear enough to type onto on the later steps. I thought the best way to get the clearest black was to paint it, therefore I used water colours and went over a few coats to get this really strong black colour.

 

The next step I had to take was to transfer the picture of my painting into Adobe Illustrator where i'd be able to begin putting in the text. After putting the picture into Illustrator, I firstly cropped it down so that the table round the outside was not visible. And as I wanted to make the black colour a lot stronger, I used the Levels - Curves tool to alter the contrast and brightness making it look full white background and dark black image. The I then began to insert fonts, I found two fonts on dafont.com that I thought suited great to this graphic and to match James Victore style of work. The two fonts I used were called 'Levi Brushed' which is the one that looks like a painting and 'So Thin' which is obviously the smaller one - i thought the contrast of the small thin font and bold large font worked really well and made the image stand out but not look to compact. Finally I added the Arms Around The Child Logo round the bottom so people knew what the image was representing. Below is my final outcome!...

Ethical Designing GIF 

As part of the Ethical Designing we began creating a GIF that will reach out to the people and notify of the problem going on out in India and Africa and why Arms Around The Child are helping. We had to include how people can help and a fact about the charity all through different images and typeface making it look creative, enticing and appealing therefore catching someones eye if it was an advert. 

From my previous research and design ideas I had already plenty of ideas of what I wanted to achieve in my design. I created a storyboard which helped me get the general idea of how I wanted the GIF to go, I included the colours and font ideas in this part so that it was easier for me to do the GIF quicker and avoid looking through all sorts of fonts. Below os my storyboard: 

The first half of my storyboard is shown above. I decided to go with the quote '5.8 million children die of hunger related illness every year'. Not only is this a touching fact but I thought that it would be great to represent in a GIF form. I wanted to accentuate the most important parts of the fact therefore I made the writing more noticeable and planned to do these in striking colours such as reds, blues and blacks. I also linked images in the GIF to the words appearing for example the world and the child sitting is representing the children dying all around the world due to hunger - this makes the GIF more powerful and moving. The 'ILLNES EVERY YEAR' I wanted to make the most striking, it is part of the GIF that shocks people the most therefore it needed to be the main part of the GIF, I planned to change the fonts on each word to make it more interesting and creative. 

This is the final part of my GIF, just the last word of the fact and the question 'is this ok with you' and the arms around the child website at the bottom so people know where that can help. 

After planning the story board, I began to transfer all my ideas  into InDesign. The first thing I done is gather all the fonts I planned to use. To do this I used dafont.com - the website has a great selection of fonts that helped me achieve the style I wanted which was bold, sticking, thick but also looked rather good. The first part of the gif was the '5.8 Million' - I looked for bold writing for 5.8, as it was the beginning of the GIF I wanted it to stand out and catch peoples eye. For the The million I began with just having it in the colour green however I thought it looked more striking and with the black behind it, this alms gave it a 3D look. This can be seen below. 

I continued to do the same sort of thing for the next part of the animation, using dafont to collect the perfect fonts and experimenting with how I wanted them to look. This can be seen below. 

For this section of the GIF I had originally started with a image of hand I got from google images however I then had the idea to create my own. I done this by painting my hand in a white colour and putting it on a pink piece of paper, this created the whole of my hand including the details in a white colour. I done this multiple times to get the best outcome. I then scanned in the best print I had, put the image in black and white, got rid of the background and then made it so that I could change the colour of the hand - resulting in what is seen above. 

After i finished designing the fonts and layout etc, transferred all my designs into Photoshop and began making the final GIF to do this I first -

Below is the final GIF, put together and moving: 

What are your influences from artist & designers?

After researching into James Victore's work I had a strong idea of what I wanted to create. Personally I loved his work and the  designs that he has produced as they have a certain originality about them and a look that kind of resembled that they were done quickly but the final outcome was a masterpiece.  I tried to apply this to my work as much as possible, despite the fact I wanted it to look professional and put together, I took inspiration mostly from the fonts he has previously used. These being the messy, freehand/handwriting inspired designs. As you can from my GIF, multiple parts words have the same messy, freehand look. I feel as though this gives the design on a whole a more authentic feel, similar to James Victore's work. 

Any areas to improve?

I think the thing I need to improve on the most is the layout of the elements in the GIFi.e the text, pictures. I had an idea in my mind of what  wanted but it changed a bit throughout the process of making the actual animation as I didn't take into considerations some things like the size of the writing or the picture sizes etc therefore this part took me longer. So next time I would plan ahead more and know that the storyboard of my animation might change throughout creating so i can be prepared for this. 

How successful is your final outcome? 

I'm really pleased with my final outcome. I think all of it works well including the fonts, the colours and the pictures etc and it send out the message that I wanted to perfectly (not to serious but still hard hitting to) I also feel it appeals to all kinds of audiences which is good for getting the message of the GIF recognised. The completed animation flows well and its definetly not to slow nor to fast, it's easy to read with the bold, colourful fonts which is exactly what I had in mind when I was doing the storyboard. Overall I think the final outcome is even better then what I expected. 

Does it reflect the ethical theme?

I believe that the principal message and ethical theme of the animation is sent out perfectly. Like previously said the message is sent out in a way that would appeal to a younger audience and also an older audience therefore the seriousness of the GIF is recognised by all people. The animation is bold and creative and I personally feel the natural colours for example the blues, greens etc keep the ethical theme strong. As well as this, the pictures for example the earth and hands both look quite rough and sketch like which I feel looks quite cultural. The praying child also puts out a strong message as it is quite hard hitting and shows desperation. 

Would you approach future projects differently?

I wouldn't approach future projects different. I think I took enough time to plan my animation so that when it came to actually creating it I had a good idea of what I wanted to do and could do it with ease. I learnt a lot whilst creating the animation in particular with inDesign and I am pleased with the final outcome.