What Makes a Princess, Grandma?

Our next brief is for the Macmillan Prize 2012. You have to come up with your own story, or collaborate with a writer, or use a traditional story (i.e. a fairy tale). Well, I'm not the best at writing stories, so I was concentrating on a fairy tale, first looking at a French fairy tale called Starlight, but I wasn't feeling very inspired by this after researching it some more; I then started to look at Cinderella, the other name known for this tale is 'The Little Glass Slipper', so I was trying to re-work the tale from the glass slippers point of view, but this proved more difficult than I thought, and then I started working the tale from the Fairy Godmother's point of view, but again, I wasn't feeling very inspired. I was looking through the Yellow Book of Fairy Tales, and saw one called 'How to Tell a True Princess,' which is The Princess and the Pea. Well, then I had the idea of a little girl, who's favourite story was HTTATP, and was asking what makes a true Princess, and lists off things in her imagination. Anyway, I have finally got it okayed, and can now start illustrating the tale.

A Day in the Lakes with Beatrix Potter

So, on Sunday I went to the Lake District for the day. You may have read in a previous post from last year, about my weekend in the Lakes, and that the Beatrix Potter Gallery was closed when we went to visit it. Well, this it has since re-opened, and so this is what we went to see.

The exhibition for this year is 'The Tale of "The Tale of Peter Rabbit."' This is from the website: 'To help celebrate Peter Rabbit's 110th birthday, our Gallery exhibition for 2012, is a fascinating look at how Peter Rabbit came about. Using a range of items from our Beatrix Potter Collection, seen together for the very first time, you can learn how Beatrix Potter brought Peter Rabbit to life and see the original art work used for the book's first privately-printed run.'

I saw these in real life!

Well, I actually saw the original black and white illustrations from Beatrix's very first published work. You could still see the pen marks, and scratches from the nip on the illustration. There also a few colour illustrations celebrating 100 years of Mr. Todd. These were so amazing to look at, you could see the brush strokes, and where she placed the watercolour paint. As amazing as the Peter Rabbit illustrations were, you hadn't seen anything until you saw the colour illustrations. They were truly inspiring and completely magical. The only downfall was you weren't allowed to take photographs, so I couldn't capture the magic. I would recommend anyone who had the opportunity to go visit the gallery; the gallery is even housed in Beatrix's husband, William Heelis' old office!

Hayfever time... part 2!

So, you may remember, I posted some hayfever packaging designs in a previous post. Well, I received some feedback on this, and so improved it, but have only got round to posting it on here now. Anyway, feedback was, the girl seemed a little obvious, and needed some more personality, the colours should be fun, and the dandelion seeds need to be made more of. Well, here is my (hopefully) improved design for the main medicine packaging and the bottle label:

Callling all French readers!

Lately I've noticed that my blog has attracted various readers from countries outside of the UK. I don't know if you just come across it, or whether you follow my entries, but I could really use some of your help please!

We were given a new brief for the Macmillan Prize 2012, which is to illustrate either an original story, or a traditional story, e.g. a fairy tale. After some researching, I have found a fairy tale that I am interested in illustrating, but I'm really struggling to find some information on it. The fairy tale is a French tale, called 'Starlight'. I only came across it on Wikipedia, but I really like the storyline, and think that it would make a great visual story. So, if any of you have any information on this fairy tale, and any books that have it in, it would be very much appreciated! Thank you!

Creepy Crawlies everywhere!

So, after the Caldecott brief, we were given another brief with a list of creepy crawlies facts. We had to choose 3, and illustrate each statement, and then place them in a grid, with the right typeface and spacing. Well, today we had a a group crit on our final pieces. I can't believe I'm saying this, but it went really well! My tutor was really happy with it, she said the concepts were really lovely, the halftones and shapes were really nice, the text grid was good, and the same with the typeface, weight and spacing. The only thing I needed to tweak was the text on the ant and rocket, as they were too close together. I have done that now, and here is the final piece:

I'm so incredibly happy that they liked it! Hopefully you do too! Drop me a comment, and let me know. Thanks.

Oh, hello again!

Sorry it's been a while. We've had our Creative Futures week this week, so it's been pretty much a full on week. I can tell you this though, I have never been so tired! (That's what 3 days a week does to you!) Most of the speaker's provided valuable insight into the industry, and gave us lots of advice on how to break into it. Some memorable lecture were from illustrator/animator Karen Cheung, Andy Cheetham from Cheethambell JWT, and Jonathan Edwards who did a smashing talk on Character Design.

We have been given a new brief (one of many, at the minute) to do a blog on Creative Futures week, and the sessions we attended, critically evaluating how the information we received can and will help our work in the future, along with research etc. Anyway, this will be going up soon in the next day or two. (I still haven't decided whether to set up a new blog, or add it on to my Contextualising Design blog.) Decisions, decisions.