Exercise: Travel guides

For this exercise I was instructed to plan three illustrations for a series of book jackets, at the size of an existing travel guide for the locations Istanbul, Helsinki and Milan. The illustrations had to have various elements brought together in a diagrammatic way and with hand-drawn type. We were given flexibility to write our own brief and so I brainstormed around how I would like to see these illustrations as per the below mind mapping:

I first looked back at and logged what a diagrammatic illustration should be like (placing of free standing elements which you can ‘read’ in a systematic way’ and then decided that it would be standard A5 paperback that should reflect key sights but more importantly, cultural and culinary aspects as if to indicate what the reader could be in for spending a day in the city. The style of each did not have to match but had to reflect also reflect the common understanding or expectations of readers from a cultural perspective. It also had to be bold and colourful so as to attract attention.

Given that my tutor had encouraged me to experiment more with collage, I decide to do three different illustrations: one using more classic drawing, one collage of my own drawings and one collage of my own photographs to create three different styles.

Milan

I started off with Milan since I love and have spent a lot of time in Italy, including Milan, and started jotting down ideas of the main sights and things to experience in Milan: food, drink, shopping and street life!

With my first thoughts down, I started a moodboard that I continued to add to as a went along in my usual Pinterest account here.

I then started trying out some thumbnails and compositions to see what kind of illustration I could come up with. Since diagrammatic illustrations tend to be map-like, I tried out some ideas and found some inspiration in the moodboard to place key sights or things to do on a map of the city.

However, I found that I wasn’t too keen on the idea as it felt a bit too childish and messy considering I was trying to capture one of Europe’s fashion capitals so I wanted to do something a bit more alternative, artsy and chic – like the the Milanese – and went back to one of my ideas to place a few key aperitif cocktails, food items, shopping bags on a table overlooking a cosmopolitan area of Milan – the Navigli canal.

I tried out some colour and thought about making the background more subtle so as to give real depth and make the foreground items really stand out. To get this contrast I decided to draw the scene twice, using water colour and pen for the foreground, which I then cut out and put over the more black and white background and found it not contrasting enough so I also put a sheet of tracing paper in between as an extra layer and used blue tac to keep the pieces together and give a decoupage shadow effect to the foreground.

I had put in some basic elegant hand written text for now as a placeholder while I then went on to refine the image using Photoshop. I discovered the paint bucket tool to create edgy shadow effects and change the colour of the water in the canal for example, all the white trying to bring out that artsy Milan style.

I then put that aside to explore some fonts. I wanted a think and elegant, stylish font that was not too curly or flowy but true to the industrial yet modern city style. I found some ideas for my moodboard and then started experimenting with ink and pen to come up with something I liked.

I tried playing around with the A and M more concretely, as the most interesting letters in the word. I then decided to try out my digital note pad to create the text by hand but digitally at the same time.

I finally settled on an angular but elegant font using capitals that I wanted to run at the top of the illustration in a commanding manner. I used the jpeg, edited it using Photoshop and brought everything into InDesign to play around with and chose the following final result as a mock up.

However, based on feedback from my tutor, I went back and tried to bring out the text more as it seemed a bit lost in the grey sky. So I manipulated the sky with blenders and addition of white strokes in Photoshop and then put it back into InDesign to bring in the text again.

I then added a faded out rectangle in white behind the text to bring it out even more, using the blender to take out the line so it became more cloudy and came up with the final result:

Helsinki

For this city that I have never been to, I asked a friend who loved in Finland for a summer about what the best things to do and eat were for this city and jotted some ideas down.

This helped me get started with a moodboard in Pinterest here.

I fell completely in love with the ship-shaped library, the funky architecture, bright colours and cinnamon rolls. The Finns also do like a good sauna! Since I was experimenting with collage, I decided to do playful illustrations individually using alcohol markers and ink pens for a modern and bright style that I could piece together into the cover, throwing in the Finnish flag for good measure and since it seemed to match all the colours. The individual drawings are displaced below:

These I then photographed in high resolution and uploaded and edited them in Photoshop to get brighter colours and make their background transparent.

I still hadn’t entirely given up on the idea of using a map and this time traced the actual city outline using tracing paper and then onto cartridge paper so I could try placing the elements around the map.

However, as before, I still just wasn’t quite liking this approach, finding it too cluttered. I then tried some thumbnails to position the items in different ways and really wanted to go for something more abstract and overlapping – particularly since the colour scheme worked out very well with the flag, blue to reflect the sea and cold country and wooden/brown for the cosy warmth of interiors and architecture.

I then played around directly with the items in InDesign and came up with the below final background composition:

I then started thinking about text, using the moodboard and this time going for something less classic and more modern, Nordic and aligned with the more abstract feel of the illustrations.

I finally used a cobalt blue alcohol marker to do some of my favourite looks and then photographed these into Photoshop to play around with and get a transparent background. I had to play around in Photoshop to get the density right using the bucket tool and then was able to select by colour to take out the writing from the white background.

I then decided to add even more grain by using the posterising effect and came up with the final mock up below:

Again for this one, the tutor recommended that the text be brought out more visibly so I started playing around more in InDesign. I faded out the flag and moved the text up, then I tried a white rectangle behind the text between the illustrations, moving them around to make more room for the text. I then moved it up to the top and added text above, and brought the background rectangle down to allow for the flag image to run also above, helping to really place the text in the image but still with enough definition to see it clearly.

I then put it all into Ps to wet blend the lines so that the white rectangle wasn’t appearing too stark and angular, compared to the very soft illustrations and came up with the below:

Istanbul

Since I have been to Istanbul and at the time had my lovely Nikon with me, I decided to do Istanbul with a collage using Photoshop building on my own photos.

I first did a moodboard of the nicest things I could remember from Istanbul in my Pinterest here and looking at font ideas that were more traditional and fancy to go with the more flowery and elaborate Turkish colours and design.

I then went through the photos I have and picked the most interesting ones as per the below which had a lot of colour and detail which I believed would give a lively look to the cover, akin to the busy bustle of the Streets of Istanbul:

Since my favourite picks seems to be landscapes mainly, and given the sheer detail in all of them that would be hard to capture in one A5 cover – I decided to crop them all to the most interested parts and slice them together vertically on top of one another into the A5. It was hard to do visuals for this since it was all digital so I decided just to experiment directly in Photoshop.

I then played around with some hand drawn fonts as the below and finally settled for a nice rounded flowy text in red to match the Turkish flag.

I then played around with the layers of photos in Photoshop and used some of the colour editing tools to play around with contrast and saturation to get a really bright and fun mix of intense colour that matches the Turkish bazaars and decor. I also used the blending tool to also make the edges of the photos merge with each other and for a more dreamy and cloudy look and added a little crescent moon to dot the ‘i’ as a small detail from the national flag. I tried different example digital visuals as per the below, using different blending tools, changing the colours of the text, adding some detail and generally just playing around in Photoshop.

I finally settled on the below, with a blue background to the white sub text that matched the blues inside the pictures, using the eyedropper.

I quite like the different styles across all three and would propose the three to the client as mock ups/visuals for decision across favoured style or the option to stay entirely different:

Final reflection:

Perhaps its ironic that I started off trying to do map scenes, which I discarded for being too cluttered and not quite fitting, to ending up with quite cluttered set ups anyway, just not in map form! However, I really like how the collage-style approach ended up in quite different styles and it makes me look at all the Lonely Planet books I have with just one photo on their front end and think – but they could do so much more!! (Though I get they have their branding to consider.)

As with my collage cat from previous exercises, I think that using collage really helps me get out of my sometimes too-methodical box and helps me flow with ideas and build illustrations that I would not have come to if I had only done a one-piece drawing. I also have a new appreciation for the thought that goes into bringing so many pieces together into a unified illustration that works. I can be quick to judge aesthetically if something is pleasing to my eye but when you actually work out how things are done or try it for yourself, it gives you an entirely new perspective and understanding, which I really appreciate. The feedback from my tutor was also really helpful to continue to think better about how to place text and get the right balance between visibility and integration into the image!