Author: millylozinski

The first step in this exercise was to collect as much reference as I could find for the 1950s period, and catalogue it into 8 categories. Usually, for a task like this, I would visit libraries and archiving centres local to me, however due to COVID-19 I am unable to do this. My inability to leave the house left me with only the internet to collect reference from.

However, I did not want to just google ‘1950s’ and save every image I found. A lot of the imagery online for the 1950s is modern takes on the time period, rather than directly from the period itself. Whilst this isn’t necessarily bad for research, reference images from 2020 are not the same as images from 1950. I chose to begin by exploring archiving websites, mostly magazine archives, and fill in the gaps from there.

I collected around 100 different images, and then organised them. Some images crossed over into multiple categories, so I included them multiple times. I then decided to display the images in a rough collage so I had a wider reference I could just glance at to get ideas from. If I wanted to draw from a specific image, I could then look at it closer.

There were some areas that were lacking in resources, like TV and film and transport, which I think is explained by the resources I used. I did try to fill these gaps, however struggled to find places online that had these images. If I were to do this again, I would hopefully be able to visit a library, and maybe look at a book on the history of film.

A review of the 1950s

The 1950s was all about the future. A world war had just ended, devastating societies, and people felt like a revival was needed; turning away from the old, traditional ways of life, and looking into the new, happy, war-free future. The development of spacecraft was accelerating and science fiction was gaining more and more traction, leaving every day people wondering: what is the future, and how can we get there?

This can be seen in all aspects of life in the 50s. From professional artists, to home decor, to the hobbies and interests of children. People were rejecting the things they had always known, and aspiring to create permanent change. Abstract expressionism, surrealism, pop-art, and avant-garde spread through the creative world like wildfire. ‘What if this looked completely different?’ seemed to be the question on everyone’s mind. Exaggerated shapes, patterns, and colours dominated interior design. The boundaries of pre-war expectations – being uniform, orderly, and toned-down – were being explored. People were trying to see how far they could take it. This then lead on to the wild and liberated visual characteristics of the 1960s.

Traditionalism was not entirely lost, however, with a new Queen captivating the world. Despite this, even she seemed to break the rules and do things a little bit differently. Nonetheless, the appeal of royalty and glamour remained unchanged. Hollywood was high on this trend. Lights, glitter, and glam characterised the scenes of the time. Technology was significantly advanced by the war, and having home technology and electronics was becoming popularised. With this, TVs slowly became a household staple for many – and picture houses were opening in every local town. The film industry was growing rapidly. Actors and actresses were now setting cultural expectations for fashion and design. Copying what you see in the movies was new and it wasn’t long before brands started catching on.

With the background of the cold war and the fight against communism, capitalism was pushing to assert dominance. Disposable income was a new and luxurious thing to most, having spent the war in poverty, and people were looking to invest in their lifestyles. They could now afford to buy into the glamorous and rich culture they saw portrayed. Advertisements were now able to be shown in more ways than ever before, and the culture around them was revolutionised. The graphics were more intrusive and manipulative, trying to prey on those willing to throw away money in exchange for status.

These adverts became integrated in every-day life. Magazines were full of adverts, mainly addressing women, who had a new role post war. Billboards, posters, and street advertisements continued, and TV adverts began to develop. The same exaggeration of colour, pattern, and even context, was used in these adverts, but delicately balanced with the ideals of glamour, royalty, and fame.

In modern day, adverts being this integrated into our life has become normality. The invasive nature and eye catching colours have not been lost. People continue to question and push the boundaries of fashion, interior design, and fine art. Modern art is somewhat of a buzzword and debated rather heavily. In contrast, within wider society, there is more of a visual appeal to minimalism and simplicity. There’s a great deal of talk around buying less and shedding the things we don’t need. The goal for many is to own less. Less clothing, less objects in the home, less visual clutter. The consumerist culture that began in the 50s still very much exists, however with visual culture, it is as if we have cycled back to those pre-war expectations of uniformity. Cultural phenomena run in cycles, so this doesn’t come as a surprise.

Perhaps, following this cycle, we will have a similar revival in visual culture, where we once again reject all our current ideals, and create entirely new ones. Art and culture will always move forward, even if the inspiration is looking back. With technology further permeating our lives and homes, we will see further advancement in our visual interests and abilities to create.

This exercise asked me to expand on the themes and ideas I had identified in the previous exercise, relating to the word(s) I picked. I decided to go with ‘exotic’, as I felt I didn’t really get a chance to see the full potential of this word with the previous exercise, and I had a lot of ideas I wanted to convey.

I decided to complete this digitally, as I don’t have access to a lot of physical resources, and I enjoy creating digital collages. I have experience creating mood boards, as seen in Exercise 1 where I created a mood board for my Mel Baxter recreation piece. My previous mood boards, however, are very organised, and focus less on idea generation and more on collating the final ideas I actually want to work with, in order to compose a piece of work. As this is focused on idea generation, I decided to do a more eclectic collage style piece.

To start, I began collecting imagery to use in my collage. I used the following websites to find these images, as they are free for personal and commercial use.
– Flickr Commons
– British Library
– Biodiversity Heratige Museum
– Unsplash
– Pixabay

I searched ‘exotic’ to start with, and saved any images I felt connected to my previous ideas of the word. Then I started searching for specific elements I hadn’t found yet, like wealth, tigers, rainforests, and South America. I then opened a large canvas in Procreate and added all the images I had found. From there, I started cutting out the animals from their backgrounds, swatching colours, and examining textures. I created 3 new brushes, 2 from the feathers of the parrot, and one of a flower I found. I felt the feather brushes worked especially well as a texture.

I then began organising and placing the various images in a collage style, with linked ideas near each other. I had wanted to use the map and the money as overlays, rather than standalone images, however in doing this I became too focused on making this a piece of its own, rather than just ideas. I decided to leave them as they were. I finished by finding images of newspaper headlines on google, and clipping the letters to spell ‘exotic’. I wanted that realistic mood board vibe, which I feel I achieved.

The exercise says to ‘collect swatches of colour and texture or create your own to establish a palette of colours and repertoire of marks.’ Whilst this was my aim with creating custom brushes, and generally by including plenty of bold colour, I feel I could expand this and show it more clearly. The definition of the brushes is lost somewhat in the collage format, and the colour swatches blend into the background. I decided to do a slightly more ordered, straight forward mood board, closer to ones I have done in the past. I feel this would be a natural next step, regardless, as it would help form an actual final image, rather than just sporadic ideas.

I think the next step here for me would be to begin studies of the different elements, and drawing out specific shapes to get a feel for them. I would then start to compile my ideas into an illustration, and work with composition. For idea development, I thought this was incredibly useful. Creating a collage rather than going straight to the orderly mood board helped me see the possibilities for an illustration. It helped connect ideas visually and notice how these ideas engage with each other. For idea development in future, I think I will begin with a spider diagram, then a collage mood board, then finalise my ideas with a structured mood board.

The next exercise was focused on building ideas in a different way. I had to pick from a list of words, and instead of writing all the ideas I had in a spider diagram, I had to draw the things that came to mind. The exercise wasn’t about accuracy or whether the drawings look good or not, but creating a visual shorthand of ideas. I had to use different materials, and add swatches of colour and texture. I also had to be aware of the steps I was taking mentally to arrive at the drawings I was creating.

At the end of the exercise, it says ‘Note how your drawing evolves when repeating this exercise. Can you see a flavour in the way that you are beginning to document through these little drawings?‘. Because of this, I knew immediately I wanted to repeat this exercise at least once, to see how my process changes and perhaps improves.

When beginning this exercise, I was very hopeful. I had a lot of ideas immediately for many of the words listed. I decided to pick ‘Exotic’ as my word, as it brought up a lot of colour and diversity in my mind. I also decided, as it says to not focus on accuracy or prettiness, to use drawing pens rather than pencil, as it forces me to just draw and not constantly edit how things look. I got a set of intense coloured pencils to add colour, and started drawing.

I almost immediately hit a roadblock. Not focusing on whether things look ‘good’ meant I was struggling to look at my own work without being critical and disappointed. I regretted starting out using pens, and felt maybe it was too harsh for ‘visual shorthand’. I continued drawing, and then hit another block.

As I mentioned in my previous log about the spider diagram exercise, I am not a visual thinker. I think entirely in words, and struggle to picture things in my mind. After drawing a few things that seemed ‘easy’ to translate, I found myself just wanting to write. I got frustrated with the exercise, wondering what I was achieving by straining to put my words into purely images. I took a break from the exercise, hoping I could come back to it with a fresh mind and more ideas.

I considered writing the words and illustrating them, but felt it missed the point. I also considered attempting it digitally, as I have more control and options for design, but again felt it missed the point of quickly sketching out ideas. I also considered beginning with a spider diagram, and then working from there, illustrating the words I had written, thinking maybe the process of writing the words would help me ‘see’ what I could be drawing better.

I decided to just try again, this time using pencil, and focusing on just getting the ideas down without adding colour or texture. I picked a different word for this, as I wanted fresh ideas. This time I picked ‘Travel’.

I found it so much easier this time. I’m not sure why, whether using pencil and focusing on drawing rather than colour/texture simplified the task, or if my approach had changed making idea generation quicker. I tried to look at it like a spider diagram, drawing anything I could think of that related to the previous thing I drew. Then when I couldn’t think of anything else, I looked at the bigger picture again to find more ideas. This process was still very words-based for me, though. I consciously named what I was drawing/looking at and thought of the words that connected to it, and tried to translate it into pictures.

After drawing most of what I could think of, I did add some colour swatches. Red and blue to represent the London Underground, greens near the map, and various shades of brown/cream/yellow that I felt connected to the general concept of ‘travel’.

It was helpful drawing everything out, and it helped me unlock ideas I perhaps wouldn’t have otherwise. I like the idea of ‘deconstructing a scene’ as discussed in this exercise, and will use that in future when generating ideas. However, I think a combination of words and images is necessary, and I found it difficult focusing on just imagery. I may repeat this exercise in future, to see how my creative process has evolved.

For this exercise, I had to create a spider diagram for four words: seaside, childhood, angry, and festival. I had to use different ways of generating ideas for it, including asking at least one other person.

I started by doing each spider diagram and just referencing my memory, and the thoughts/ideas that I thought of without external input. I realised after the first diagram that I was using too big of a pen for the amount of ideas I was generating, hence the change after that.

Next, I searched each word on Google and looked through the images it brought up. I then wrote anything I thought of that I hadn’t written yet, and underlined them to show they were influenced by this search. Anything I thought of that connects to the underlines words, I didn’t underline, but they were still relevant to the Google search.

Then, I called my girlfriend and my mum and asked them both to tell me anything that came to mind when I said each word. I wrote anything that I hadn’t yet written in a different colour, and ticked the words that they said that I had already written. Anything that is ticked twice, they both said.

It was really interesting hearing their thoughts and the words that were prompted. My mum grew up at the beach, and I spent part of my childhood there too, so to us both ‘seaside’ prompted similar words. Childhood, family, growing up, home, rain and bad weather, processing emotions by the sea, and a general sense of familiarity. Whereas my girlfriend grew up in London, pretty far from the beach, and her responses were mostly holiday themed, summer, sunshine, going away, and escaping the bustle of the city.

Seeing how different people may have different responses based on their experiences was really eye opening. It made me realise how we can’t rely too much on our own experiences when working with clients. We can have our own spin on things, and our experiences offer unique perspectives, but there could also be perspectives we’re missing by limiting our ideas to those experiences.

I found anger to be the hardest word to do this for, and also childhood. I think that’s because both things are so subjective and can be quite vague. They’re experiences rather than tangible things. Seaside and festival were very easy and words just kept flowing to me, but I found myself quite stumped with the others. Googling the words helped a lot, however, and I think I’d do more of that in future.

Overall, I enjoyed this exercise, and found it a useful way to generate ideas. I do struggle with spider diagrams, as I’m actually not a very visual thinker, so looking at the final diagram and trying to make sense of it and actually develop an idea is difficult. But I think as a starting point, it’s good.

The first exercise in part 2 asks you to work backwards, finding an illustration you have some connection with and writing the brief that could have been for it. To find my illustration, I started searching the list of artists I saved from IllustrationX in part 1. It was hard to find something I had a connection to that I also thought could be worked with for this exercise, as many of the illustrations don’t seem obviously for any purpose.

I ended up picking an illustation by Paul Daviz. I love the flat colours and style, and the texture overlay that makes the image seem like its straight from the 60s, despite it being from 2019.

The brief

I am looking for an artist to create a book cover for a children’s book entitled ‘The race to space’. The cover must include the title text, and the text ‘From Sputnik to the Moon landing and beyond…’. The authors name, and the name of the artist, will also be featured. The book is educational and aims to teach children about the history of space travel and the rivalry between the USA and Soviet union in the 1960s. It is being released to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the US moon landing. The book should look historical, dated, and of the time it is celebrating. Inspiration from 1960s space propaganda is required and encouraged.

The cover must include illustrations of the moon, multiple different space shuttles/stations/satellites, at least one rocket (used in the space race), and at least one astronaut. Use space technology from both sides of the space race. Moon and astronaut illustrations should be a focal point, as the book is about the moon landing and what got us there. The text should also be a focal point, and easily readable. It should be understood from the image what the book is about and what it contains.

Please use eye catching colours, especially bold ones, with a similar colour palette to NASA/Soviet space developments. Cartoonish and stylised designs are desired, much like those in early space propaganda. A hand drawn, photocopied effect would suit this well. Flat colour, and block shading.

Reflection

I found this to be a challenging exercise, and actually put it off for a while as I was quite overwhelmed. Working backwards was difficult and daunting. I felt like by choosing something that is obviously a book cover I was almost giving myself the easy way out. However, I ended up enjoying analysing it and thinking like a client rather than an artist. I feel like I understand how to get the most out of a brief too, now.

Exploring the past

This exercise asked me to pick from a list of illustrators who are famous in illustration history, and a contemporary illustrator whose work I like, and research the two together.

I started by briefly looking through the art produced by each of the 6 illustrators on the list. I then decided to research E H Shephard as, upon seeing that he illustrated Winnie the Pooh, I audibly gasped in excitement. Winnie the Pooh was a meaningful book in my childhood, and I wanted to understand more about the artist who brought it to life.

E H Shephard illustrated for books from early on in his career, having produced work for versions of Aesop’s Fables, David Copperfield, and Tom Brown’s Schooldays by 1906. It wasn’t until 1923, however, that A. A. Milne considered Shephard’s work. Milne did not originally think Shephard’s style fitted Winnie the Pooh, but after a huge success illustrating When We Were Very Young, a book of poems by Milne, he insisted Shephard illustrate Pooh.

Shephard’s depictions of Winnie the Pooh are cherished by many. The simple pen and ink drawings are so familiar and represent a beloved childhood character. Milne arranged for Shephard to receive a portion of his royalties, as he knew the illustrations made the books a success.

Whilst most remembered for his Pooh illustrations, Shephard’s real passion was his work with the satirical magazine Punch. He contributed pieces to the magazine from the early 1900s. When World War I broke out, he continued to contribute to the magazine from the trenches, and was hired as a regular staff cartoonist in 1921. He was made lead cartoonist in 1945, and continued to work there until 1953 when a change in editors meant he lost his position. He once said that he felt his Pooh illustrations overshadowed his other work, and he came to resent them.

Shephard’s wartime experience definitely impacted his creative journey. During the war, he kept sketchbooks and art journals, which were recently displayed in an exhibition at The House of Illustration in London. His preference for his work with a political satire magazine may have also been influenced by war. I agree that his Pooh illustrations overshadow his other work, which could offer a wonderful commentary on the experience of soldiers. But, then again, having just faced a very deadly world war, and sliding right into another one, it’s no surprise that the general public fell in love with a wholesome book about a stuffed bear and his friends.

Comparing the contemporary

Next, I had to pick a contemporary illustrator. I am pretty out of my depth here, as whilst I love looking at art and finding inspiration, there are no illustrators that immediately spring to mind. This is something I am hoping to change over the course of this unit, as I would love to find people who consistently inspire me.

I visited http://illustrationx.com and browsed the illustrators that the agency represent. I took note of any who stood out to me or who’s work I especially enjoyed. Then, I viewed their work one by one until deciding to pick Mel Baxter.

Initially, her work stood out to me because of the bold and rich colour palette. I was stunned by the usage, and loved how the line work complemented it. I thought her work would be good to compare with Shephard’s, as both use simple line drawings but achieve very different things.

Baxter is an Australian illustrator and designer. She is also known by ‘Moonshine Madness’, the name of her online site where she sells her work as prints, on various items of clothing, and on tea towels, which she herself is inspired by. Each of her prints honour places that are local to her, and the inspiration for each piece is written up on the website. She also works on commission and has illustrated for brands such as Ivy & Wood.

The restricted and vibrant colour palette she uses is a stark contrast to Shephard’s colourless ink drawings. Where Shephard does use colour, he uses soft watercolour washes, the emphasis given to the outlines themselves. Baxter’s work almost seems to do the opposite, the colour being the focal point and the ink lines merely adding detail.

Shephard’s work is either inspired by his own experiences, or drawn to accompany text. Baxter, however, takes inspiration from the world around her, drawing mostly fruits, plants, and birds. Shephard utilised the medium of his time by illustrating books and magazines. Baxter is doing the same, by producing prints that can be easily transformed to sell as almost anything.

Technology has revived many traditional art techniques, ink drawings included. Whilst Shephard had to hand draw all of his work, Baxter uses an iPad to enhance and finalise her pieces. She begins by sketching out her ideas on paper, and then completing them digitally. This enables the colours to be so much stronger, something that wasn’t possible in Shephard’s time.

Baxter’s work clearly shows how the illustration industry has changed over time. Because of the nature of her work, finding information on her was rather difficult. There’s not a lot out there in comparison to Shephard, as succeeding with an online business often requires an amount of anonymity. Her usage of technology and the purpose of her illustrations also show how different the industry now is.

I enjoy both styles of illustration, however different they may be, and I am looking forward to recreating them.