Silhouettes

Began to draw out some silhouettes of the dancers online, but i also got a friend to do some moves for me to photograph as primary research.

Dance!

Time to think about content and what the designs are going to be. As me and my friend Georgia Clark both decided to work on lanterns we've decided to team up but work on different aspects of the designs. Georgia being more interested in type is developing some text and interesting time to go onto the lanters where as I'm focussing on figures and silhouettes and actual imagery.

Because the whole point of this festival is a celebration of multi-cultural music and dance I've decided to look at different kinds of dance and movements, as well as patterns disticnt to certain cultures. 

Did some quick research on different dances: 

Secondary Research

After doing a bit of research online about the different types of lanterns I could use, I decided that there are 3 main ones that I should focus on. 

 The average and most popular of lanters would be beautiful and a great way to advertise the event as they're eye-catching and can be set off at some point if wanted. They're also not too hard to get hold of to use for experimentation.

 These floating lanterns I thought could be used for areas where there are fountains, for example the train station or outside the town hall. they also don't look too difficult to make myself (or atleast attempt them).

As you can see it is quite easy to put designs onto these bags. They also look amazing in bulk. Will definitely be trying these out if only for my own amusement and don't end up using them for the project!!

Lanterns

I've decided to focus on designing images to go onto chinese lanterns for this alight project. I've always been interested in candles and lights and shadows. I drew out some initial ideas of how I could approach the project. Started out by looking at different kinds of lanters and what could be done with them.

The most comon and most popular lanterns at the moment are the sky lanterns, being used in films, adverts and for festivals. Designs could be printed on to them, either imagery or text and places around the city as decoration and advertisement for the event.

I also thought about showdows and silhouettes. Designs could be cut out of the lanterns so that when lit they project the designs onto nearby walls/surfaces.

Another simpler and possibly cheaper idea would be paper bags. These would be easier to print onto as they are flat and can be cut into without ruining the product. 

24hr Brief

As a little project to get us going frazer set us a 24hr brief that looked at coming up with an illustration to go with a speech about britain and british culture.

I started out buy drawing out things that make me think of britain or british culture until there was one good enough to use and develop. (photos to come later)

After a brief chat with frazer I decided to go ahead with the little drawing of the mustache and monocle. The concept was 'fake britain'. Taking things that weren't british and making it look like or come across as if it were.
From there I started thinking too hard and was making it more complicated than it had to be. I moved away from the monocle and decided to focus on a pipe, and though of a plastic childs pipe made out of plastic and  blows bubbles as a way of showing how people in britain try and portray this image but are infact fake.

I was ridiculously busy that day and had had no sleep for the past 3 days so my time management was ridiculous and I didnt manage to finish the project on time. I did get round to doing some potato prints but decided they were no good for the image I wanted to use.

If I'd managed my time more carefully and focussed a bit more I'd have tried out these last images in water colour to show the delecacy of the bubbles and how the image can be shattered at any moment.

Utter Confusion

The begining of this project was extremely confusing. When given the briefing from the client she seemed to contradict herself A LOT and we were told different things by different tutors. It seemed more sense to work in groups across specialisms so that logos. brands and designs would all link but we then heard that wasnt allowed. We were told we could focus on any part of the project even if that didn't fit in with your specialism, and then were told we weren't!

In the end each specialism was given a more focussed brief from tutors.

Point of this post: Getting briefs from clients in the real world (outside of uni) can be frustrating, confusing and make you pull your hair out!! But you have to stick with it if you'd like a career.

Alight / Cultural Olympiad

Alight is a multi-cultural music and dance festival being held on the 3rd March 2012 in sheffield and will consist of three different parts; Alight, Twilight and Into the Night. A whole range of products are needed for the event to advertise and use during performances. We've been asked to design posters, flyers, animations and all sorts to advertise the event in and around sheffield.

Although this event is in partnership with the Olympics we're not allowed to mention or use any logos associated with them.. (confusing i know)..

Audiences for the three events will be different, which should be concisdered when thinking about design.

To check out the official website for alight go to : Alight Music Nation