narrative illustration assignment 1
weighting 40% due date week 7 09/04/2013
definitions
Illustration as a general area of visual culture seem to be troubled by a lack of clear definition about its constituent nature. What is illustration we ask ? and we receive a range of muddled replies. This course proposes some definitions which I hope offer a clear summary of social purpose for the illustrator and examines how these ideas might be used to develop professional practice. Lets return to the question what is illustration ? this calls for a general debate but I think the following definition accounts for most examples of practice;
Illustration is the use of media and visual conventions to describe content to a range of audiences.
Most of the problems in the definition of illustration as a subject are related to a comparison with the purposes of fine art. The social context and audience for illustration is broader than the audience and social context within fine art. Art at its best explores media conventions and social and philosophical narratives as principal content. Arts evaluative emphasis is also predominantly on the innovativeness of the contribution the art work or the body of work the artist produces makes to the discourse of art. In other words it’s about progress, good art theoretically is about the innovative use of specific concepts and media ideas within fine art. Alternatively illustration is an activity which uses many of the media conventions and visual genres of art to describe a general range of content to a diverse range of audiences, its emphasis isn’t primarily on innovation and its content doesn’t exclusively relate to the philosophical and social ideas being explored in art at anyone time.
The fact that illustrators use many of the media conventions of art is one of the reasons people become confused over what illustration is. To make matters worse many artists haven’t really got a grasped of a useful definition of art and many illustrators want to be called artists in the fine art sense of the word. For our purposes though, it’s enough to understand that the audience and content of art and illustration are very different even though the methods by which things are put over (media and visual conventions) are often quite similar.
values
This type of discussion raises the question is illustration less valuable the art? The answer to this is no these activities are for different purposes; consequently they have to be evaluated separately. This leads on to some further questions about how we evaluate the quality of illustrations. What’s a good illustration, etc? I think the following criteria are reliable when it comes to assessing merit in illustration .
Good Illustration is;
· Illustrations which demonstrates a knowledge and control of selected media conventions, genres and techniques.
· Illustration which demonstrates a considered relationship between visual content and informational/textual content
· Illustration which demonstrates a considered relationship between visual content and a specific audience.
· Illustration which demonstrates an innovative use of media, technique and genre.
narrative
Narrative and metaphor are elements of all illustration. However some illustrations are ordered in sequences, such as a kid’s story book, graphic novels etc .We will continue to examine visual metaphor as an idea in this course but we will be making a specific examination of sequential visual narrative as a convention within contemporary illustration.
Procedure
- Identify two narratives that can be adapted in a sequential visual narrative.
- Complete media convention analysis task
- Identify to current illustrators who are using these genres of representation or media conventions.
- Identify a format for the exploration of content (e.g. children’s book, graphic novel, comic, ed text book, manual, culinary book, etc)
- Complete character and world task conceptualizing your story
- Complete audience analysis.
- Complete sequential narrative task identifying the most suitable story for development and develop a visual beat-script which experiments with framing sequences and transitions
- Complete image text task
- Experiment with the application of; - Genre and Media conventions
- P.O.V
- Scale relationships of individual frame within narrative sequence
- Image/text relationships
- Typography
- General layout
- Complete Format/Distribution strategy analysis
- Complete refinement task and develop a refinement strategy
- develop finished art and mock up layout documents.
- Prepare digital documents to prepress print standard
- Submit final outcomes and support research
Media convention analysis: task one
Because people have such a lot of trouble understanding what genres are, in media studies we sometimes use the term media convention to describes the genre or style work in illustration. This means explicitly the formal features of the work, how it looks, and some of the common themes that are associated with this convention. Whenever we talk about values in media analysis where referring to the priorities that makers and users, in this case illustrators and the audiences, apply to the judgement of a performance or production. So keep these two ideas in mind when you undertake following task.
· What are the stylistic features of the media convention you are examining in this project?
· What are the common themes associated with this style or convention of work?
· What are the common audiences associated with this type of work?
· What do illustrators and the audiences who used this type of work value and work of this nature?
· What stylistic features of this media convention can you adapt in your project?
Audience analysis: task two
· Identify your ideal audience, write a brief hypothetical profile which describes them e.g. consider age gender, ethnicity etc.
· Describe the tone of your address to this audience e.g. irony, humour, sincerity.
· Consider the relationship between your audience and your media convention, is this the best relationship? Give reasons why this is so.
· Describe the context in which your work will be received, does the context dictate additional limitations or possibilities for the reception of your work?
· Describe the tone of your address to this audience, e.g. irony, humour, sincerity etc
World and Character : task three
As an illustrator you generally begin with some understanding of the media genre that you are dealing with and will use to develop a visual narrative. Once you have established clearly the type of genre you will be using in a narrative, the type of audience you will be dealing with and the format most likely to be used for publication of the work, you can begin examining strategies for the improvement of the profile of the character and the setting that the characters will occupied in the text.
Character profiling
In order to develop a textual depth to the character's personality and visual appearance it is important to develop some sense of the characters prior experience in order to build a three-dimensional psychologically believable image. This approach is commonly used by screen-writers or authors and is referred to as the development of the characters back-story. You can develop the profile of the character by adapting a character from another fictional context or by developing an observed personality from real-life. I have included a questionnaire for you to fill out, it may seem irrelevant to begin with, but the detail that you think about in this process has a way of influencing your visualisation and later media exploration. Use the following questionnaire to build a profile of each of your main characters.
Character Questionnaire
What's the character's name?
Does this name have a meaning or history?
Do they have a nickname?
What is the origin of this name?
What's the date of the characters birth?
Physical appearance
how old does the character appear ?
What's the eye colour?
What's the weight?
What's their skin tone like and what's their skin type ?
Do they have any distinguishing marks?
Predominant features?
Type of body?
Shape of face?
hair colour?
Is the character healthy?
Do they have any physical disabilities?
What kind of clothes that they wear?
Attitudes and beliefs
Is the character cautious?
Is the character flamboyant?
Are they socially gregarious? Or shy?
What are the characters priorities?
What's the character's philosophy of life? Do they have a religious belief?
How you feel about themselves?
Do they have any psychological vulnerabilities?
Mental illnesses? Obsessive compulsive disorders? Phobias?
Are they happy with their current situation?
Satisfied or dissatisfied?
Are they resentful of life or other people who have done better than themselves?
Has their psychological experience affected their physical appearance?
Current situation
What's the characters current situation like?
Are they currently in a relationship with another? Do they have any children?
Where do they live? Are they happy with this situation?
Are they working? Did they have close friends?
Sidekicks? Are they a dominant or subservient personality?
Do they drive a vehicle? Live in a particular house?
Background
where were they brought up?
Do they come from a small town or big-city?
What was their family life like a child?
What was their financial status like?
Whether any formative psychological or social experiences in the early part of their lives?
Do they have any siblings?
But they part of a functional or dysfunctional family?
What was their birth order?
This analysis should give you a really good idea of the visual attributes of your character. At this point it can also be useful if used photography to formulate a visual idea of exactly how you character may look.
The characters world
The genre at times dictates certain physical features about environments, but at other times you need to have a strategy which allows you to research and prioritise various types of physical qualities and the characters setting.
I've provided a questionnaire for you to fill out in order that she might develop a textually rich and believable world or setting for your characters.
The world
where is this environment?
Is this a normal human world? Or a fantastic context?
What era is this?
Is this the future of the past? Or hybrid time zone?
What's the architecture like in this context? Is it futuristic or historical?
What type of technology exists in this context?
Is there a specific atmosphere in this environment?
Are there any characteristic natural phenomena in this environment?
Is this world spatially similar to our world or as a distorted?
Are there any unusual animals or creatures in this context?
Is the environment governed by the same physical laws as our physical world?
Gathering a collection of relevant photographic material that relates to the physical environment is an invaluable tool for any illustrator developing pictorial information about environmental world. These images can be treated in conjunction with the specific media convention which interprets them, but they are of indisputable significance as background material for the generation of creative ideas which have a textural significance to the narrative.
Use these to strategic tools to build some contextually relevant back-story to your new project
Sequential narrative :task four
Once you have identified the audience and the genre or media convention associated with your story
· Test out a range of approaches to layout which support this content
· Experiment with a variety of framing and P.O.V
· Test how these variations effect the pace and flow of the content
· Develop a beat script of your story’s content
Image and text : task five
Consider the most appropriate relationship between the imagery of your story and the words
· Experiment with the image /text norms of your media convention and your story
· Test out the relationship between the story’s dramatic pace and your selection of image text relationships
Format/Distribution strategy analysis : task six
· Identify a format for the exploration of content (e.g. children’s book, graphic novel, comic, ed text book, manual, culinary book, etc)
· analyse the conventions associated with a particular format you are exploring e.g. graphic novel, zine, product pamphlet etc
· find some examples of work produced in a similar way to your proposal.
Refinement strategy: task seven
As you are approaching the final few weeks of practice, it is important that you develop a refinement rationale to support the final development of work leading up to the final submission and assessment. There are specific criteria in the brief which referred to the development of a refinement strategy and this strategy should be a summary of following points;
· Review your contextual research and identify any improvements that could be made this
documentation
· Review your current media experimentation and identify the most successful outcomes to date.
· Identified at least two variables from these experiments that could be further extended over the course of the following weeks and write a strategy for the exploration of these issues.
· Draft a specific statement which clearly identifies the final series of work you will be developing in this project.
what you need for assessment;
· your media convention analysis approximately 750 words
· 2 beat scripts
· a storyboard which develops one of the beat scripts
· a character/world profile exercise
· preliminary experiments with media and genre convention which demonstrate your ability to test out concepts such as, framing, image text relationship, media techniques, conventional treatments, transitional concepts, point of view and compositional strategies, etc (a very important part of the project approximately 20 pages of experimentation)
· an audience rationale which describes the relationship between your media/genre convention.
· refinement rationale, which identifies two criteria which can be extended and refined from the preliminary experiments with finished art concepts .
· evidence of how these 2 refinement criteria have been extended in the developed of the project. (another very important part of the project, approximately 10 pages of work)
· 6 to 10 finished pages (negotiate with a tutor)
· a publication mock- up demonstrating actual size and layout concepts
· an InDesign prepress document containing finished artwork .
narrative illustration assignment 1 weighting: 40% 09/04/2013
Due week 7
Assessment procedure
Assessment will be graded in reference to the following criteria. Analyze the student’s performance and award a grade for each area of inquiry A B C D write a generic comment and an overall grade which summarizes the overall performance.
How successfully has the student:
· Identify and explored a range of narrative concepts within an illustration
context.
· Identify a specific media convention and explored these concepts in media
· Completed contextual tasks 1-7and documented your reflections on
research questions.
· Develop a series of experiments which test media convention , audience, format
and formal variables
· Developed finished artwork and prepress documents
· Developed outcomes consistent with research hours
Write a generic concept which accounts for the quality of the students performance and award a final grade
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