Assignment 4: Magazine illustration

This assignment was meant to help illustrate my ever-developing style and use of tools and materials. We were therefore given quite a loose brief based on choosing one of four possible words/concepts: lost, disaster, discovery and guilty secret and building off a still life composition, to then create a magazine illustration.

I found these concepts hard to illustrate using objects I could find to use to create a still life but first started brainstorming around the four areas to get concrete ideas with a spider map:

I finally settled on discovery – from a perspective of travel and used a rucksack, travel guides, camera, sun hat, hiking boots, mosquito spray, passport and a map to create a birdseye view still life composition to suggest the discovery aspect of travel.

I then drew the still life onto A3 using pencil, first as a well-observed objective drawing.

I was then asked to consider what materials to use and experiment with thumbnail alternative compositions to the same drawing – distorting, taking some elements out, and all to convey the essence of the word.

Eventually, I got to an idea that I wanted to take further. I then drew this out fully again at A3 size as a line drawing and then was asked to trace it and do a tonal version.

I decided to add colour using pastels for a grainy rough and ready travel look as a first experiment with media. However I felt that I needed to brainstorm more and really think about what kind of magazine it would be for and how I could get a more in-depth message or something more creative. So I went back to my maps and did a little more jotting down of ideas and eventually decided that I would do a travel magazine and since my collection of Lonely Planets was the main feature of the still life, I would go for a Lonely Planet magazine special edition on post-COVID-19 travel and create the illustration for the front cover. The idea being that we will likely have to rediscover travel with continue restrictions and issues related to combatting the spread of the virus. So I created a moodboard in Pinterest of some examples of Lonely Planet covers, virus illustrations etc. so that I could then brainstorm more still life combinations with new additional elements to help convey this message.

I ended up with a kind of stack of Lonely Planet guides on top of a squished ‘beaten’ COVID-19 virus on top of the world as a kind of positive outlook on how we can rethink travel after we manage this global pandemic – noting that travel and mobility has never been so common nor so restricted in and also so linked to climate and environmental concerns so it’s something that very much is on the mind of many and will affect many of us. The next step was do a line visual of what the final design could be. I decided that pastel was not as good an idea as it was too soft and grainy but using background wash paint and alcohol markers etc. would be more vibrant and colourful and more positive, which I associate with the idea of discovery and travel and which would reflect the usual colour scheme of the Lonely Planet guides and backwash sky usually used on the magazines.

When analysing all my work to decide on the final cut, I realised that the Lonely Planet magazines have quite a cluttered look about them so I decided to take out the faded other objects in white I had added for the final version (camera, mask..etc.) So I did the final design with alcohol markers and then bring that online to edit on Photoshop.

I then experimented with blue and red as the main theme colours (blue for Lonely Planet, red for the virus) and came up with contents and text to add to the special edition in line with how Lonely Planet usually does their magazine covers and using a faded colour like the spine of the guides. I tried different fonts firstly as I was struggling to get a nice match for the main red title.

I then tried out different background colours in case I could find a nice combination and in some cases had to change other text colours to better stand our or match.

Comparing and contrasting, I settled for the background that was lighter and more yellow text which I felt was less overpowering and ‘dangerous’ feeling – given how news and graphics related to COVID-19 have been over the last year, with an overusage of red everywhere! I also quite liked the typewriter style font I found for the main heading which was more playful and fun, again being more upbeat and positive in relation to travel post-COVID-19.

I then started experimenting with colours of text and refining small aspects of the design. I made the background less or more vivid with opacity functions until I got the final design below!

Final reflections:

As I was asked to do visuals and redraw the visual and then add tone, this was actually a really good way to keep me thinking about the best media to use. Playing around with the still life was also a good way to think about compositions and then selecting the best elements for the illustration I wanted and discarding others. By creating a travel mag front cover of a magazine I am familiar with too was also really interesting as it helped me break down the composition of the front cover and really think about how to bring all the many elements together as these magazine covers are quite jam-packed with content. One of the most challenging parts for me was trying to get the right typefaces and use the right mix to mimic the style of Lonely Planet. I think that with more experimentation and I see I have exercises coming up on text, I hope to develop a better eye for that.