Statement of Intent for Turnitin

SOI for the workshop

This was my Statement of Intent for the workshop, which i will have to change now as my briefs have changed,  but the feedback i got from this was that i was clear with what i wanted to do and why i wanted to do it and the briefs i've chosen go well with what i want to do.

Briefs for the Workshop

For the workshop, we had to write out our briefs that we have chosen for this module out in a brief format sheet. We then discussed this within our small groups along with our Statements of Intent.

I found this really helpful as the tutor came and sat whilst i discussed my work and pointed out a few things which made me change the briefs.

Firstly, he asked why i had chosen greeting cards as my one-a-week brief, to this i was stumped, why had i chosen greeting cards? He said that that's just adding pressure to make a certain thing when actually instead of it being my one-a-week brief i could change it to my personal interest brief, where each week i could experiment with a different technique or skill in paper illustration, not focusing on a product, but the skill. I really like this idea as i can focus my skill onto paper illustration and develop my skills with the medium, experimenting with different processes. I think i will make this brief ongoing as i would like to use the process in my big project at the end of the year so i mays well practice until then.

Secondly, he said that for my one-a-week brief, i could choose characters i've designed from my Inktober brief and do one a week to develop even further. I think this is really good as i wanted to go further into character development, realising its not my strong point and developing my skills further for my practice.

I also asked about my substantial brief, Penguin random house. I asked what would make it substantial if I only wanted to one of the books, and he said i could make the book cover for their deadline but for the module also make promotional stuff and maybe stationary etc.

Pan Macmillan

So looking at the old Pan Macmillan brief was quite important, especially when i want to illustrate children's books. Looking at the brief it looks amazing, i would look to illustrate my own children's book, although i don't think i would have the time to write my own story. I would probably have to find someone else to do it for me and work collaboratively as it seems like quite a big brief. 

I think i will wait to see what brief Pan Macmillan bring out this year until i decide to do something as big, as it would be nice to be in the running for a prize if you were going to create a large body of work like that.

Folio Society

Ive started looking another briefs after the workshop this morning, I liked Fred's idea of using a brief you like that might not necessarily have the book for you in it and changing it. So I've had a look at Folio Society brief and i really like the sound of doing a book cover and 3 illustrations to go with it.

Now i just have to look at children's book either fiction or educational to see what i would illustrate instead. I would like something contemporary, recent, and a best selling perhaps and interpret it in my own way.

Reviewing my work after the Workshop

After the workshop, i feel like it was really useful for me. At the moment i have started Inktober as one of my briefs to do, which is one a day but it is ink. I have adapted it to go with the type of work i want to do. I am using a list from instagram which is characters to make an epic fairytale, correlating with the Children's book and education theme i am going for within my practice. 

I also want to make paper cut illustrations within my work, but i have designed my cop work to be around that thinking these do not have to be connected within every module. But i think it would be nice to do briefs within Extended Practice that are papercut, as this is what i would like to do, although Inktober is in ink.

Im going to carry on with inktober and use it as a way to gain skills in character development as work to go with my theme.

This workshop has definitely made me re-think my approach to this module, as i would like a cohesive body of work at the end, i really like how Fred said that if theres a brief we like but not necessarily like the book, we could change it to fit the style of work we want to create. I think this could be really good for me!

Extended Practice - Workshop

In this session we discussed the briefs that we will be choosing to do in this module. 

We need something to tie together all our work within the module, it doesn't have to be style but with children's books and education, it could be:

• Character development
• Education
• Book covers
• Method

We should work out the mandatories in the brief, what needs to be there.

Work out what your actually going to deliver, what will you make or propose.

At what point you are going to resolve or re-write the brief

Identify the context of your work i.e. book covers - logos, type, barcode, format etc.

We wrote a list of briefs as a table that we were proposing to do:

• Inktober
• Editorial-a-week
• Penguin
• Folio Society
• Bradford Textiles
• Secret 7
• Threadless T-Shirts
• Macmillan Brief
• Self-directed
• Etsy Packaging
• Save the NHS
• Guardian Food

Then the context of the briefs:

• Editorial
• Packaging
• Publishing
• Digital Publishing
• Texriles
• Children's books and education
• Health and Wellbeing
• Fashion
• Product
• Self-publishing and Small Press
• Public Space art

We then filled out a form for a 1 a week brief to go through it thoroughly outlining the audience, tone of voice, deliverables etc.

After we made two lists of benefits from a self-contained brief (competition & live briefs) and the benefits of week long briefs.

Self Contained Briefs

• Adapt to meet your own needs and suit your practice
• New Audiences
• Good to develop the work
• Deadlines
• Shows you can handle a bigger brief
• Time management of a larger project
• More refined, bigger amount of work
• Real life problems
• Refined/focused response
• Winning and glory
• Research
• Professional experience - insight
• Purpose-function
• Shows you're Professional
• Shows Experience
• Shows you can work to limitations/deadlines and evolve your work to fit a specific brief

1 A Week Briefs

• Constantly making work 
• Instagram following
• Time management
• Time
• More efficient
• Have to be driven
• Bulk of work
• More playful and fun
• More scope for visual language and playful
• Keeps you making things
• Doesn't matter if one is wrong
• Collection of focused work
• Practice
• Individually
• Passion

5 Statements

• I want to learn typography because this means i will be able to create more professional looking illustrations for books
• I need to learn how to create 3D paper illustrations, this means i will be able to gain more skills to develop my practice
• I want to go into schools and talk to teachers and students, this means i will be able to see how children learn best and what they like to see in regards to education and children's books
• I need to talk and connect with fellow paper cut illustrators to see how their practice works for them, this means i will be able to gain advice and skills to further my practice
• I need to develop my character development by possibly going to life drawing classes, this means i will be able do better illustrations within my work.

Extended Practice Briefing

Today we had a briefing on the extended practice module. I am really excited about this module, it is giving us an opportunity for us to do briefs that we want to do and relating to our practice. I really like that we can write our own briefs, this means we can write it so it will be beneficial to what we would like to do with our own practice. There is no specific number of briefs we need to produce, although we need to collaborate on at least one.

I am quite happy with this, i wouldn't mind collaborating with another illustrator, although i would probably do this after January. We can also do past briefs that have already been done e.g. last years, i think this would be good as a practice and getting back into working to a brief.

This year i would really like to do more paper cutting, and hopefully go into 3D paper cut. Hopefully i can explore this further within this module as i also want to produce children's books, either educational or fictional.