Hanbury Hall invitations

These are the final positives of the invitation sheets we have designed to be sent out for Hanbury Hall. The guests won’t receive a full version of this print, but rather a portion of it, cut into the shape of the university’s polygon logo. We thought this might be an engaging way to play with the expectations of our guests, as the invites will work almost as parts of a jigsaw puzzle, with no two people receiving the exact same image on their invite. We are basically screen printing the print at A2, and will cut it into smaller invites using what is essentially a cookie cutter method, ensuring that all the small prints are unique and distinct.

I really enjoyed working this way to make this image, as I made the digital design. The physical drawings were made by Bronte and Kieran, and I went through what they made, picked out what I thought were the most successful images and arranged them in this fashion. The inspiration was sort of a checklist of items that you might run through before going on a holiday or camping trip. Adding colour to these drawings was a good experience too, as it made me think of the work in a different light, as it isn't my drawing, so I had to consider how it works with colour in a whole different way, as I’m only receiving part of the picture. I’m happy with how these are coming out and we’re excited to get the screenprinting done with so that they can be sent out in time for January.

Hanbury - idea research

After a few meetings with the group regarding Hanbury, we’ve decided that the event should be centred around a theme of travelling. As we’re all based in the North and will be heading down to London, I think it's an idea that translates clearly and sort of portrays us as explorers, which we basically are, heading into a hub of creativity to learn and share with people from different backgrounds. We put the name up to a vote across the class through a Facebook poll, and the name “You Are Here” was chosen. This name reflects the travel theme, replicating the “you are here” icon you would find on a map. Because the event in january is focused mostly on the visiting professionals, we thought the use of “you” was also engaging, as it shows that the focus of the event is us being able to meet and talk with them about our work and practices. The idea was also floated that we could call the follow up trip in July , “We Are Here”, as that will be centred more on our work, portfolios, and basically showing off what we’ve been up to for three years of illustrating.

I’ve started to meet with some other people on the course to determine a solid visual style for the marketing materials, but I think the theme of maps and travel will be the backbone of this.

Hanbury roughs - invite sheet ideas

I’ve been working with Bronte and Kieran to start getting a solid idea of what we want to say visually with the marketing materials for Hanbury Hall. I’ve been researching images like this as inspiration. I like the grounded and wholesome feel of work like this, as I feel it links to our course being one based in the North, with a smaller and more focused outlook on illustration, rather than a super slick glossy outlook that might be had from an institution based in the centre of London. We mainly want these materials to best represent our course, how it functions and the work that comes out of it.

Hanbury group work

The group organising the bulk of the Hanbury Hall has been assembled, and I’ve found myself on the team!
This isn’t something I’ve done for a long time, I was involved in councils and meetings at high school (I was Head Boy, once upon a time), but since then I’ve always had a job outside of college or university, so I sort of stopped being involved with things like that. So I thought that this was a good opportunity to be involved again before leaving the academic landscape for good. Because I’ve started (unwittingly) to make promo materials for the event, mostly just the short animated trailer I was working on, I’m heading the marketing side of the event, which mainly includes posters, banners and invitations. I’m looking forward to working in this group, as everyone in it seems really engaged in making the event as good as it can be, which is only making it more exciting for when we go down to London in January.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - SoYoung Magazine competition

This is my entry for the SoYoung magazine illustration competition. This magazine is a very recent conception, with a relatively small but rapidly expanding fan base. This competition is the first I have heard of them but I think that it could be something that turns into a long time interest, as they seem to invest a lot of time into music illustration, something that other bigger music magazines don’t really seem to properly consider.

The brief was to illustrate a song by any band featured in the magazine, so I chose King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard for this, to embrace the weirder side of my practice that I’ve been looking at a little bit in COP.

IDER - Body Love

This week I was featured on the instagram account of the London based electronic duo band Ider. Their recently released song Body Love has been at the front of my mind since I first heard it, so making an illustration in response to it was inevitable. The difference this time was that I wanted this work to exist outside my own portfolio and maybe find a place to exist in the real world, connected to the music that inspired it.
I emailed the band’s manager and she was kind enough to get back to me and send the image on to the band. I don’t know if anything more could arise from this interaction, but it does feel exciting and progressive to start to reach out to these people and find some of them are excited to see your work as well. The illustration was featured on their instagram, and they have my name now, so hopefully I can send some more work their way when the time is right and I have a few more ideas in response to their music.

Bad Sounds @ The Brudenell

Last night I went to the Brudenell again for another gig, this time the band Bad Sounds. It’s become a lot easier to talk to people at these shows, as I often find people in the industry of creating anything, be it visual art or music, are usually on quite similar wavelengths. It’s been great to be able to talk to these bands at a level like this, as illustrating album covers and even a form of music reportage are both something that I would love to become incorporated into my practice going forward, especially after university. Through talking to them, I found out that all the bands visual stuff, such as album art and merchandise, is currently done by themselves. I found it really interesting to find this out, as it's evidence that you arent limited to a single field creatively, and can encompass a lot of different aspects to work that relates to one another inside your practice.