Research Assignment: Summer Project

Research Assignment

MMc401.6 – Graphic Design & Illustration


Choose 2 Summer Project Briefs and produce a 10 page research booklet/blog dedicated to each brief.

The summer brief I chose was ‘Illustrate a Classic Novel’, and have decided to do both my research projects on this as feel passionate about illustrating classic novels and have studied them in the past so feel comfortable in knowing that my research will show my understanding and ideas.


Chosen Brief:


- Illustrate a Classic Novel

Illustrate a Classic Novel

Chosen Novel – Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’.

First initial research, the novel itself, Mary Shelley, and her life when she wrote the novel.

For those who aren’t accustomed to the novels plot, here is a brief synopsis:

http://www.shmoop.com/frankenstein/summary.html

 

The Novel & Shelley


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, is a novel written by English author Mary Shelley about eccentric scientist Victor Frankenstein, who creates a grotesque creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty. The first edition was published anonymously in London in 1818. Shelley's name appears on the second edition, published in France in 1823.


Mary Shelley & Her Life

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Shelley

Biography:

http://www.biography.com/people/mary-shelley-9481497

There were many arguments about whom actually wrote the novel, it was published anonymously but from the biography of Mrs Shelley, it is shown without a doubt that she - at 20 Years old - was the one who wrote the novel.


Frankenstein and the Modern Prometheus

http://www.shmoop.com/frankenstein/title.html

I have chosen to not even attempt to create my illustrations through photography, as I really don’t know how I would create gothic styled images that would link in with the novel.

I am going to focus mainly on how I will illustrate my work through sketching out designs, or creating them on illustrator.

http://motionographer.com/2014/06/05/gergely-penny-dreadful-portraits-dracula/

From a previous project I came across this short animation about the background of Frankenstein and Mary Shelley.

This educating illustration was created for the new TV show called Penny Dreadful which is set in the Victorian times and within London, all creatures of gothic literature exist and roam through the streets of London.

Frankenstein’s monster is a complicated character to understand, even in the novel the reader is unsure whether to sympathise with the monster, or hate it all the cruel and distasteful things it has done.

How would I illustrate this classic novel?

I love the illustrations done on this short piece of animation, it is sketched and designed in a way which adds to the horror and grotesque appearance of the Frankenstein novel.

It is difficult to imagine how I would illustrate this novel. My strongest material is photography, and if I could think up an idea on how I would illustrate it through photography, I would. But idealistically, I think physically creating an illustration would be better.

The form in which I would plan to do this, would be similar to the designs of Gergely Wootsch’s Penny Dreadful Portraits; it is a good way to illustrate the novel as the designs are quite scary, with the lack of colour and the harsh black stencil lines.


Chiara Bautista

Artist, Graphic Designer and Illustrator


http://beautifulbizarre.net/2014/06/23/chiara-bautista-love-sings-paper-interview/

http://www.urban-muse.com/blog/Chiara-Bautista-Milk-Feature/

Assuming that I’d stick to sketching out my illustrations, I would do mine similarly to Chiara Buatista’s - her work is so beautiful, yet strangely gothic. 

Her work is mainly simple sketches of weird and wonderful scenes with fantasy creatures and women who appear to be pining after a skeletal man who has a long beak like the ones the doctors used to wear in Italy.

I’ve chosen to look at her work and study from this because of the way she sketches. It is quite simplistic yet so full of detail that her images are brought to life on the page. My illustrator skills aren’t at the level I need them to be just yet, so for now I would prefer to sketch out my illustrations, and maybe scan them onto illustrator and edit on top of them to give them that final effective touch.

With Frankenstein, I would begin to sketch out simplistic things, and not the monster out right as no one really knows what the monster is supposed to look like. We all have our own versions of the monster envisioned in our minds. For me it isn’t the typical towering being with green skin and metal rods through its neck, I picture a man, whose body parts are all different shapes, sizes and colours and are stitched together and still leave the scars where the stitching had been.

If I were to focus mainly on sketching out my illustrations, then would choose certain objects or scenes within the novel, for instance I could sketch out the forest, and a black figure stood within that, or a little cabin, where the monster is stood as if he is looking in through a window, or a typical grave yard, with a shovel and lamplight placed against a grave stone.

There are many things I could choose to illustrate, but for now I am going to decide how exactly I am going to choose to illustrate.


Illustrator

If I were to focus on designing on illustrator, I would do simplistic things within the novel, like objects or things which for instance create life – so a lightning bolt.

Little beakers and vials filled with coloured liquids to show Frankenstein in his lab, creating this monster, or little graveyards or skeletons to show where he got the body parts and where he gained the necessary tools and objects to create his monstrosity.

I wouldn’t want to go too into detail in what I design, as I think simplistic things work better with a novel as serious as this. If I began creating whole scenes with a lot of detail, I personally believe that it would take away the readers free will to imagine a scene or location.

I as an avid reader I always find that reading and imagining a location or scene always sticks in our minds, so if the book you read a book that then became a film; the scene you envisioned is completely different to what you imagined it to be, it sometimes ruins it for the viewer and dulls their experience.

So with such a widely known novel as Frankenstein, I would just stick to creating simple illustrations like the ones I explained earlier.


Final Idea


The idea I feel most passionately about is sketching out my designs similarly to Chiara Bautista’s work, but doing simplistic little sketches of objects and beings within the novel.

My designs would be -

A sketched out lightning bolt to show how electricity created the monster.

Potions and vials to show how Frankenstein’s love for science, pushed him to create the monster.

A grave stone and shovel to show where Frankenstein got the body parts.

A pen and paper with writing on it to show the constant letters written back and forth between characters.

A cross with its shadow forming an X to show that Frankenstein is playing god and has done wrong.


Second Project Brief:

The Great Gatsby

For those who do not know the novel, here is a brief synopsis:

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/the-great-gatsby/the-great-gatsby-at-a-glance

http://www.articlemyriad.com/summary-great-gatsby-fitzgerald/

 

F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel,The Great Gatsby, follows Jay Gatsby, a man who orders his life around one desire: to be reunited with Daisy Buchanan, the love he lost five years earlier. Gatsby's quest leads him from poverty to wealth, into the arms of his beloved, and eventually to death. Published in 1925, The Great Gatsby is a classic piece of American fiction. It is a novel of triumph and tragedy, noted for the remarkable way Fitzgerald captured a cross-section of American society.


The Roaring 20’s

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Twenties

 

http://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties

The 1920s were an age of dramatic social and political change. For the first time, more Americans lived in cities than on farms. The nation’s total wealth more than doubled between 1920 and 1929, and this economic growth swept many Americans into an affluent but unfamiliar “consumer society.” People from coast to coast bought the same goods (thanks to nationwide advertising and the spread of chain stores), listened to the same music, did the same dances and even used the same slang! Many Americans were uncomfortable with this new, urban, sometimes racy “mass culture”; in fact, for many–even most–people in the United States, the 1920s brought more conflict than celebration. However, for a small handful of young people in the nation’s big cities, the 1920s were roaring indeed.

Illustrating through Photography

My initial idea was to illustrate the novel through photography, and do location shoots with a few models dressed and styled the way a flapper girl would look in the jazz age.

Though that would be quite difficult to do, as I would have to provide costumes, plan a place to capture the photos and to be honest; I can’t think of a place lavish enough for the images to work as well as I would want them to.
There are a few key scenes which I personally would like to illustrate, for instance the death of Myrtle, when Daisy is driving Gatsby’s car and hits her. I would like to find a car that could look to be dated back to the jazz age style of car, but again I assume I would have to hire one out and wouldn’t like to spend that amount of money.

Though I would like to have used the car in my photos, I don’t think I could get a car. Instead for the death of Myrtle, I could just have a model, lying on the road, with fake blood on her, or just have a body part like an arm lying across the road and have fake blood on that too.

All of this is just too over complicated and would rather not go too into using photography and explore other ideas.


Illustration

I began googling things on images in a desperate bid attempt to find something that gives me an idea, and I came across this image.

There are many interesting quotes within the Great Gatsby, and I did think about how I could enforce the quotes into an image/photograph, or into a design of my own.

With this image, I could simply design an object which links with the novel and put the quote flowing out of it like above. For instance for the parties, I could use a champagne glass, and the glass could be half quote, half actual glass. Or I could have the champagne being poured and the champagne being the quote pouring into the glass.

This is definitely a strong idea and would like to progress this further and see what other objects I could use as creatively as the champagne.

Creating/designing on Illustrator


I am not brilliant on illustrator so wouldn’t create something overly complicated. If my skills were great, I would create images of the flapper girls, and the scenes with the car hitting Myrtle, and also create Gatsby looking out over his dock at the green light at the end of Daisy’s pier.

If I were to design my images, then I would to focus on the female faces as the women (in the film anyway) are betrayed is beautiful and glamorous and I would love to create the women’s faces similarly to the designs above.

I wouldn’t go into great detail and just use block colour in places – so I wouldn’t attempt to create the tassels off of the dresses – too create simplistic designs which still look really effective.

Again, I could just take simplistic images of glasses, cars, and pearl necklaces and create my own designs of them.



For instance, above I have a cartoon style images of champagne flutes and a pearl necklace. I would do a replica design of these and they would fit into certain scenes in the novel, for instance the parties with be brimming with people wearing pearls and drinking from champagne glasses.

For other scenes, I could create a green light which symbolises greed, envy and Gatsby’s need to have Daisy.

The scene where Daisy is crying and hugging Gatsby’s shirts as he throws them around, I could find an image of shirts piled up and create a design similar to that.

These are simple ideas and would rather extend onto using typography and design like my last idea with the quotes enforced into the design.





The idea I have chosen to go through with and have chosen to proceed with further to create my final illustrative designs is the idea with the quotes flowing from an object, or forming an object themselves.

I’ve found a few images that I can work from as the gun signifies the death of Gatsby as he is shot right at the end of the novel, just before he is about to swim in his pool.

I like the little bit of red which is included on the trigger of the gun as that personifies blood, and death, even anger. As Wilson sets out to kill Gatsby for revenge on the death of his wife, not actually knowing that it wasn’t Gatsby who was driving at all, but actually Daisy.

With the arm/hand, I would create something similar to the image, maybe even creating a block colour of an arm and having the quote in red, spilling off and signifying the blood dripping and pooling beside her arm.

As I said earlier, I would also use the champagne flute idea and have the bottle pouring the drink/lyrics into the glass. I think that is a really strong idea and if I could design and create it right, it would be a really interesting design.