'Initially' Studio Brief 1; Week 1

Brief outlines: Produce an A-Z poster of yourself, in monochrome, must contain 26 pieces of work, no typography/words, A1 portrait dimension.

I began this brief by writing down some initial ideas for potential themes I could explore, to see whether they contained enough scope for subject matter and ideas. Some of these initial ideas such as animals and movies, I felt were too obvious, and as I started drawing out ideas it became apparent that the ideas I felt most drawn towards were the less conventional and more original ones. One of my small sketches of a cat that was particularly full of expression lead me onto the idea of drawing breeds of cats illustrated through the name of their breeds as much as their physical attributes. I also found that through drawing my ideas out I was very quickly able to gage as to whether or not they would work as a poster. Some ideas I had initially written off as boring or lacking in depth actually pushed me to become more inventive to make the illustrations more interesting. For example the theme of crystals could have been simply beautiful stylised images of different types of crystals, but given the monotonal nature of the brief I felt as though they would lack a lot of their impact as most of the crystals I looked into had vibrant colours that I wouldn't be able to replicate. This obstacle forced me to look at new ways of making the illustrations more interesting. I eventually chose to look at the attributes and characters often associated with each of the crystals and input them into the design of the illustration. For other themes such as my A-Z of wishes, I re-drew many of the initial sketches I made for particular letters until I found one that worked best. This process of elimination and self reflection allowed me choose the best illustration for the theme.