Exercise: Educational Strip

For this exercise I was tasked with producing an illustrated strip of max 5 frames for use in schools explaining to young teenagers how to cope with the onset of puberty. Not the easiest of tasks and certainly one of my least favourite exercises in the course. The leaflet is called ‘What’s happening to my body? It’s all going mad!’

I first brainstormed around the different symptoms and changes associated with puberty for both girls and boys.

To be honest, I don’t remember much from my time except for how annoying periods were and so as a women, I decided to focus on what I know best and go with a guidance for young girls dealing with their first period. I then created a research/mood board to get more ideas on how we tell our youngsters how they can cope with puberty. I focused on girls and getting their first period and was already struck by the idea of dealing with it to become a ‘super’ woman – from a more empowered and fun kind of way.

Using this board and internet searches I then brainstormed down the ideas which I could use for my strip which I thought were the most useful for young girls. Ideas about being prepared, doing your research, how to ease pain etc. and came up with the main areas of what to do before: investigate – knowledge is power! Be prepared: for when it first comes. During: easing the physical pain and easing the emotional rollercoaster! After? Embracing the super woman in you! Cheesy but funny and hopefully an empowering message for women.

On the basis of the above I started thumb nailing ideas for the strip. I consciously made an effort not to show things that may make girls feel uncomfortable like hair, growing breasts, curves etc. I already think there is too much out there that affects our body image so I kept those kind of images out while still wanting to talk about them in the text that I would add with the illustrations. For the dealing with the physical pain part I also realised I didn’t want to make the girl look ‘weak’ or ‘ill’ and so made it about a relaxing bath and pampering and feeling good – which I think would better relate to more girls and be a more positive way of looking at it.

I also needed a character. So that it works from a being prepared sense ie at the age we get our periods our lives revolve mainly around high school, then I wanted a school girl casual look without too much of a formal uniform (not all schools have these) and I went for a darker skinned, brown haired and brown eyed simply dressed almost sporty girl that hopefully would not reinforce the ‘perfect white blond’ mainstream look.

Since I wanted to make the light connection with superheroes, or super heroines should I say!? 🙂 I went for a red blue and gold colour code to mimic Superwoman’s colours and came up with the above basic character visual. I then went to work to create the below illustrations that I would then bring into my education strip. Since I knew I wanted to put it into digital format, I created individual and stand-alone illustrations for each part of the strip that could be used for the front cover as per the brief and then pulled into the online editing to create the strip.

I decided to do this digitally because I wanted to create a fun super power comic style along with it using patterns and speech bubbles in a pop art style. For inspiration I created another moodboard around comics and their styles.

I then photographed everything into Photoshop for editing and creating jpeg characters to then manipulate into a brochure style strip in InDesign. I searched for free icons and patterns and speech bubbles I could use and started to put it together with a front cover (duly referenced below where required by the authors etc.)

I decided on an A5 4 page leaflet so I could get the four frames I wanted and still give space for the front cover. So I started building it and trying out text, text box borders, colours, speech bubbles and comic-style exclamations, positions and background colours etc.

I thought the white background wasn’t eye catching enough so I tried pop art style images and faded them out to make it more the style I wanted.

I decided in the blue pop art background and tried out other colours of similar backgrounds I could find in yellow and red to stick to the colour scheme.

I finally got the final leaflet as per the below. My main challenge has been getting good quality photo or scan of my original drawings as I felt that they lost some of their quality. However, with still having to work from home I dont have good scanner access but am working on getting a second hand printer to support this better as photos don’t always work – especially on the slightly transparent alcohol paper I used this to draw on with markers.

Final reflection

I found this exercise challenging and it took me longer than others, even the assignment, to complete as I kept going away and coming back to it when I felt I could tackle it or had more ideas. I think this is just related to my not necessarily being so interested in this topic and I think I find human characters harder than animals so I keep re-drawing the character and trying to get it right and perhaps got a bit too fixed on that, which frustrated my creativity. I have already been encouraged to keep working on my characters in the previous feedback from my tutor so I am glad I had a further opportunity to do so and look forward to more so I can improve there and be more fluid and creative with it. However, I am happy with the general tone, messaging and ideas behind it – despite the cringe factor of the topic!

References

Image by <a href=”https://pixabay.com/users/clker-free-vector-images-3736/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=295290″>Clker-Free-Vector-Images</a> from <a href=”https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=295290″>Pixabay</a>

Image by <a href=”https://pixabay.com/users/annaliseart-7089643/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=5102674″>Please Don’t sell My Artwork AS IS</a> from <a href=”https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=5102674″>Pixabay</a>

Image by <a href=”https://pixabay.com/users/geralt-9301/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=3169673″>Gerd Altmann</a> from <a href=”https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=3169673″>Pixabay</a>

Image by <a href=”https://pixabay.com/users/annaliseart-7089643/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=6081339″>Please Don’t sell My Artwork AS IS</a> from <a href=”https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=6081339″>Pixabay</a>

Image by <a href=”https://pixabay.com/users/annaliseart-7089643/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=5316774″>Please Don’t sell My Artwork AS IS</a> from <a href=”https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=5316774″>Pixabay</a>

Crazy red background for the front cover Background vector created by freepik – www.freepik.com

Lighter start and orange background for front cover Background vector created by freepik – www.freepik.com

Speech bubbles Abstract vector created by macrovector – www.freepik.com

Blue lines background Abstract vector created by macrovector – www.freepik.com

Yellow background free background photos from pngtree.com

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Free-Growth-Mindset-Social-Emotional-Learning-CBT-Coping-Statements-Poster-5318649

https://elen.nobadcat.com/p/NTY3NDUzNjIxODAyNjE4MDU4

https://www.boredpanda.com/plus-size-women-superhero-illustration-eduardo-santos-edull/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

If you're feeling #stressed but are unsure where to start with combating your #stress levels, we have you covered.

This great graphic explores some proactive things that you can control – such as good diet and sleep pattern.#MentalHealth pic.twitter.com/2iqa5xUN1B
— Mid Kent Mind (@MidKentMind) October 8, 2019