Exercise: Getting the Gist

For this exercise we had to analyse the text of a magazine editorial and then design an illustration for it. I went with a special edition of ‘Le Monde’ on the History of the Mediterranean and I had so many ideas that it was hard to choose!!

I was also attracted by the ability to use bold colours and blues and greens for this illustration and I do love latin languages and Mediterranean culture.

However I was probably a little overwhelmed with all the possible things that could illustrate the Mediterranean and its history. I decided I was not going down the warfare road – there is a whole part of the mag that does that itself. So browsing through for inspiration I realised I wanted an editorial illustration that gave a Mediterranean flavour in a general and simple sense before diving into all the different issues covered by the edition: people, weather, migration, war, music….

After going through many options including using the trace of the map of the Mediterranean sea, the outline of an olive tree and a historical timeline, I stumbled across some simple designs I had done a while back and decided to resurrect the simple wavy lines that could represent the sea and insert some iconic Mediterranean artefacts, crops and foods that quite frankly, made me very hungry for food, wine and sun!

I first tried out some icons that I liked and then tried a full illustration in A4 using pencil (above). I liked the illustration but wanted bolder colours and something more linear for the middle pages of a double page A4 magazine where the text of the editorial would be on either side. I went for the below with back wash water colour and black ink with some splashes of coloured ink which seems to be my favourite medium at the moment and which echoed some of the images found throughout the magazine.

This is quite a busy design for my taste but I imagine it fading off to each edge and having white background with the black small print of the editorial so that it stays quite centred. I have also been practicing cross hatch but sometimes find it too ‘tidy’ when I use it so tried to be a little more organic and messy and mix cross hatch with hatch. Comparing to the above design in pencil, I do find that this has more depth and a more ‘illustration’ or ‘sketchy’ feel to it which I like.

Next up is my first work to be officially submitted to my tutor and for this I would like to explore different styles of the drawings. For this one I didn’t try a specific style, I just went with my own interpretation without thinking about style too much. I am not sure this is going to be easy so wish me luck!