EGRD3015 FMP Portfolio

Portfolio Unit title: Independent Practice 3B : Summation & Production Unit Code: EGRD3015 Student Name: Yukina Nariita 8th May 2011

Proposal.

Following is the FMP proposal that I made in the beginning of the semester six.

And the illustrations on this spread pages are some of my everyday-sketch which is specifically relating to my subject, Travelling. 4 images on the left page are the drawing I created from the memory of the journey to Venice, Italy.

3 Images on the right hand side are here to express how much I love to draw human, and sometimes combine them to different object. title: Inspirational Journey Media/Outcome: Illustrations (possibly in book format) In the first stage I focused on making iconic illustration inspired by national costumes and the thoughts I got from each travel in the 10 different countries.

But I was a bit stuck because of the limited number of countries. This forced me to create 11 pieces of works at the same level, without deep thought about ‘What does illustration represent’.

On this final major project, I will develop my illustration skills more, and decide on the specific style that I can represent myself at the point of graduation. Because I have been exploring too many different drawing style.

And the theme would be concentrated on to ‘inspiration from travel’, so it will not be about specific country’s culture.

The subject I always tend to draw is Human (especially woman), Natural Objects, and some kind of patterns.

I create patterns or abstract drawing out of the inspiration of what I see through my eyes.

So the travelling always turns out great way to get new inspirations because it is full of new experience in unfamiliar environment.

Different historical architecture,landscape, people’s trend in fashion, food, music, and souvenir e.t.c.

The translation of real objects into abstract shapes/patterns & the mixture of realistic sketches and abstract patterns would be the other focus this time in order to narrow down the style of illustration.

The final outcome: a big scale of illustration, or 3D object using drawing skills.

The intended audience: will be illustration agency, art gallery, creative people

Research -Artist, Poet After I declared the FMP proposal, I have been thinking what subject I should specifically look in to and create appropriate illustration to communicate my concept to the audience.

At this stage I was not going to stick with the identity or specific feature of city or country.

It is going to be about the mind of traveler who explores and find their way to know other world rather than having purpose of touring the places.

So I started with looking into the travelling guidebook to know what sort of thing people require when they want to have a planned tour, such as the sightseeing place to go, the foods to eat, the music to listen, and the souvenir to buy.

After that I looked into Japanese author and haiku poet, who are: Basho Matsuo(1644-1694) and Soseki Natsume(1867-1916) Soseki Natsume is a novelist who has also studied in England for 3 years.

It must be really different and harder to stay in foreign country for him compared to now and that period.

And he wrote a book about visiting London tower, and describing how he felt, what he saw. It might be good if I go and visit London Tower as well, and take a note how I felt — and observe through my eyes what he saw 110 years ago.

Basho Matsuo is a haiku poet in 17th century.

He wrote some poetry through his journeys in his life, but the biggest journey was travelling about 2340km and he recording his journey by making haiku.

Haiku is normally writing about the beauty of nature / the vague thoughts&feeling.

So his haiku ‘Oku no Hosomichi’ (The Narrow to the interior) representing his mind journey inspired by what he saw and experience, rather than just describing the details of journey.

It gave me the opportunity to evaluate my thoughts and memory about my journey in the past.

This is the work of Maria Holmer Dahlgren, who is a Scandinavian artist illustrating several cities using the shape/silhouette/patter of its landmarks.

I researched her works in order to know her way of introducing each country’s capital, with these colourful colours and simplified landmarks.

I really like her style but at this poing I am stepping back from using those ‘famous places/tourist attraction’ so it is much more close to my work in the first stage.

But it is interesting to see how she translates those traditional architecture (some of them) in to modern patterns through her illustration style.

Contrast in illustration The illustrations on the right page are the entry works I submitted to the D&AD student awards this year.

The brief was to translate the music I chose into visual media, and I used two different style of drawing in one image.

The coloured parts are representing ‘sound’ and there are realistic drawings underneath.

I was thinking using this kind of illustration style for the FMP as well, because it can explain the idea of illustrating the contrast between the feeling of before and after you going on a journey.

The image above is what I made quickly for visualising the contrast of Imagination about the location you have never been, and the reality you will see when you actually get there and experience it.

Travel Quotes I have looked at the inspiring quotes about travel.

Some of them are explaining the beauty of going for a travel, sometimes implicating that a travel is like a life of their own.

And also they are mentioning the difference between ‘Going for the sightseeing as a tourist’ and ‘Going for a journey without plan as a traveler’.

Here are some of the quotes I really liked and might be the big inspiration for getting the idea and develop it.

“I travel not to go anywhere, but to go.

I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.”

–Robert Louis Stevenson “Life is short and World is wide.” –Simon Raven “The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.”

–St.Augustine “The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things maybe, to see them as they are.”

–Samuel Jhonson “A traveler without observation is a bird without wings.”

–Moslih Eddin Saadi “Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going.”

–Paul Theroux “Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.”

–Benjamin Disraeli

Using foreign languages I tried to use different country’s languages as well for the experiment.

Using languages as an association with the illustration is always nice, but my subject is about travel, so I used languages not only English.

Foreign languages are always looks mysterious and exotic but there is a risk of using wrong grammar. So I asked to my friends to translate the phrases in the most ideal way.

On the next stage I used photographs that I found during the journey, and write down the foreign letters on each, saying: ‘Life is short and World is wide.’

“Before & After� illustration Now I drew 4 sets of illustration which is illustrating the contrast between before and after I go on the travel.

Using a clear simple lines, I drew as much details as I can.

Describing these small things I realise is a good way to communicate what I always experience and think directly to the audience.

I want to find the better way to tell more vague feeling or deep thoughts in my mind such as the excitement of going somewhere new.

Collages, drawing with photographs To find the good technique to illustrate the idea of ‘vague imagination will turns to real’, I used photographs to do the collage and write texts onto.

And also I pasted the white pieces of paper on the photo and replaced its invisible parts to the hand-drawing sketch to show the contrast.

I think using pencil is working effectively because it is totally opposite from the photographs.

The very solid line like the one I created using Adobe illustrator in the end of semester five is not that effective way to express one’s mind because the thoughts always cannot be accurate or definite.

So I think the pencils or coloured pencils can be the good item to illustrate my concept.

Here is some different experiments using photos of Holga, combining with the drawing.

Using this kind of photo would give it more unique atmosphere, and some of them are ideal for making people to imagine the story behind the picture because they are not clear enough like the photo on the guidebook.

Information from the found object in scrap books On next stage I stop using other material such as photographs and 3d objects but only my pure drawing skills.

The material I used is colour pencils drawing simple line like I do in my everyday-sketch.

These three drawings are inspired by the stuff I’ve been collected: postcards, paper-bags, leaflets, wrapping paper… from different countries.

I always create a scrapbook after I came back from travel to keep the collected materials safe and easy to look at in book format.

This time I picked up Letter, human’s figure, and patterns that I can find within these scrapbooks, to know what sort of images/types used in each places, and compare them to my own memories and drawings.

But I realised these drawings are just introducing general image of the country, because the reference of each objects are originally from the found objects and I am not expressing enough my own thoughts.

Narrative As I noticed that I haven’t really been drawing my own experience in the illustration so far, I look back the details of my memory during the journey including how I felt, what I did.

I drew tiny drawings about how did I get to know about UK before I come here and how I tried to know what is actually going on here.

I filled up a page on sketchbook with these pictures in a rough-sketch drawing style.

The reason I chose the experience of coming UK was because this was the first big travel for me to know the different world.

And it was easier to pick up every little things I felt throughout the long process of experiencing it.

Here I also drew small sketches to represent the memory, story that I experienced through the travel in Venice.

In order to illustrate the personal statement into the drawings, I need to think about what makes my illustration unique, different from the others, and how I can translate my imagination and memories about the places.

Bus one day trip Seeking the new inspiration, I went to the one day trip to record my journey using bus.

I took a bus randomly to go any destination, and repeat getting on and off buses according to the bus No. ( bus 470 ...10 stops away, 264 ... 4 stops away).

I started from Epsom Clock Tower, and get on the bus which came first (it was 470).

I drew the illustration at each bus stop, focusing on three objects: 1.People 2.Buildings 3.Bus stop sign.

And I took notes of what I saw and what I felt interesting when I’m on the bus and looking outside the window, they are written in colour on each page.

I think this exercise made me think about how I can translate the thoughts and experience more effectively. And I thought it is very interesting because the memory becomes clearer and more vivid as I draw it out on the paper while I’m actually experiencing it.

On the next stage I could think about the ‘narrative’ much deeper, and create more sophisticated illustration based on my thoughts, imagination.

And after the meeting with Tim, I focused more onto how to express my feeling within the drawings, maybe using colours and layouts to give a message in each illustrations.

People in coloured lines After the one day trip using buses, I could clarify what I tend to draw, what I always see and try to observe during the trip. They are...

People, Signs(Typography), and the patterns and lines from objects.

The drawing on the top is the illustration I drew looking at the photo I took when I was on the boat for the Seine river.

I used bright colourful lines to draw people, because I wanted to express the feeling that I had at this moment.

It was very sunny day at the roofless top floor. I wanted to make a contrast between still background of buildings by the river and lively people’s atmosphere by using different tone of colours.

Travel Journal Research After I listed up the thing I always observe when I go on a journey, I thought about how effectively I can describe what I felt and what I thought, maybe as the format of diary or journal.

Then I went to Stanfords in London, which is the bookstore that sells products relating to Travel.

And there was a section for the Travel journals, and tried to investigate the contents of them.

Most of the pocket-sized journals were just a pages of notes with lines only, in a handy shape, but I found a few interesting travel journals.

The one in the photo at left top had pages for the scrapping, like the space to paste the picture, tickets, and found objects, and also the space to take notes about those collected stuff beside of them.

Also at the bottom of several pages there were quotations about travel.

And there were the series of journals designed for specific country (right bottom), it has got different cover with the illustration of landmarks and places of each countries.

I think this helped me a lot to think about the meaning of making a record of my journey, and what exactly I need to focus on, in order to tell people the story and inspiration I gained through the experience.

Journal mock up In order to tell the story in my illustration, I thought I need to write texts or memo for the moment I draw.

To make it in a form of journal, I made a small mock up to see how the book format works.

As I decided to focus on People/Pattern(Buildings)/and Typography e.t.c, I made the separate frame for the note space, which are :

I started to select photos for the reference to draw my journey’s memory, and it has divided in to three categories, People, Objects, and Typography(signs). *You can see this images on next pages.

And I picked up three colours to represent the impression of each place to draw. These are the chosen colours which I strongly remember.

WHO I can see WHAT architecture I can see WHAT sign/typography I can see

I decided to express the atmosphere of that moment using these three colours to create the line drawings like I did on illustration of Paris cruising.

This is just to record in what situation I was, including the date, the name of places.

I was thinking about expressing ‘inspirations from travel’ visually using these colours.

Secondly I made a page for other information I can take a note on to, and these questions are here to makes me think about how I felt in this situation.

For example, before you go on travel, your knowledge and impression about the place is blank and colourless.

But after you travel around places you can get the colours ( which represents memory, experience and inspiration ).

The questions are: What I … See/Smell/Hear/Taste/Feel Then I can combine the answer for these two different kinds of questions in order to give the stronger message of narrative what I experienced in the illustration.

But at this stage, I needed more design for the layout and contents of the journal.

I decided on each country’s colours that I personally feel that they are ideal to express the memory of my journey in each places.

Experiments - journal Here are some example just to see how does it work on different papers when it is printed.

I tried what sort of layout for the journal should be good, and what contents should be side of the illustrations‌

As I picked up 3 colours to draw for each places I’ve been, I decided to place blank square beside of the illustration.

This can indicate which colours (that represents memory and experience) I got from this illustrated situation.

Also I added 3 more colours which I can find in the picture, which is not exactly the same as the memorable colour from my memory as a reference.

Colour selection

I selected the scene and the stuff I remember strongly or specific object I want to draw, and drew illustration looking at the photos as a reference.

And selected 6 colours (3 are for my personal memorable colours, and other 3 are for the actual colours I can observe from the photo) to place them beneath without any extra description about it.

Using these illustrations and colours, I layout them in one portrait canvas (not like the landscape page) and make them look like a postcard.

I realised that people usually collect postcards when they go on a trip, to remember that place, and I thought maybe I can combine the idea of using colours as a collected inspirations to the format of postcard.

And in the past experiments I put too much texts and descriptions about the subject because I wanted to make it look like a travel journal with a lots of texts and information in.

But I decided to minimise these memo and make the illustration as a main thing to look at.

Background patterns As I chose 3 actual colours referencing photos, apart from my personal memorable 3 colours, I thought about how I can use those colours and collaborate with the main illustration of People, Object, and Typography.

And I thought, I can draw the background or the surroundings of the main object can be illustrated in my style of drawing, to communicate what kind of sense I have and how can the landscape be translated by me.

This abstract pattern as a background can be the strong contrast between the main image, because they are drawn quite precisely and detailed compared to the background.

I created 50 patterns in total by observing the inspirational things/surroundings of main object in the photograph.

Postcards testing I tried to combine the main images and the background together, and also insert the 6 colours I picked up for each pictures.

The texts underneath the illustrations are explaining which colours are from what part of objects in the photographs, and also the title for each objects and in what situation I encountered them.

Also, I put the colourful dots in a row and wrote white texts on the surface in order to see how strong it can work on those background. Actually it didn’t really work well but I could get an idea for the front cover for the entire set of postcards.

These are the final stage of illustrations, without texts. All illustrations in this spread are not selected for the final outcome after all, but I could see how do they works when they have all the factors together (Main illustration, background pattern, and the selected colour dots) .

I made 50 postcards in total at the end but I narrow them to 30 because it is the ideal number of cards to present my journal.

And I wanted to choose equal number for each category, so I selected 10 for each.

Final outcome Postcard set This is the final outcome, 30 selected postcards set in the box.

It has a hard-card cover wrapping the cardboard container, which you can push the side and slide it to take it out from the cover.

When you open it there are the first postcards which has a printed main title, and the preface on the second card. It is introducing the main thoughts and concepts for the work.

Preface Travelling is like collecting the inspirations and making your point of view wide and open.

Tight schedule might narrow your imagination.

The more you will be open-minded to observe every little things, the more you will experience the memorable journey.

This set of postcards about my memory through the travel is illustrating who I saw, what I found, and what I experienced.

You can find 6 colours on each cards, which represents the memory, inspiration, and experience. And you can see the process of how many colours (inspirations) I gained from the journey, as if people collect postcards for the memorial when they go on a travel.

The third postcard from the top is the description of how you can find the meaning in each drawn objects in one card.

For example, what those 6 colours stand for, or what meaning the background has.

I explained it as following...

Main image - Experience ...

People, Object, or Typography I found on my journey.

Background - Inspiration ...

My imaginary patterns, drawings inspired by main image or its surroundings.

Colours - Memory ...

3 colours on left ...Memorable colours: 3 impressive colours which reminds me the memory of the place. / 3 colours on right ...Real colours: 3 actual colours of the drawn object or its surroundings.

People

Object

Typography

Evaluation Independent Practice 3B : Summation & Production Yukina Narita I would say this final major project was the most hard and struggling period during my last 3 years.

Through this unit I felt how difficult it is to produce something physical based on the vague feeling such as this time’s my theme, inspiration I gain through the journey.

I could not really make my mind about the meaning of what I am going to create. Because I felt like I need to create something practical in order to get a job, and have been thinking too much about the format of work just because I thought it would makes me easier to move on to next step after the graduation.

Even though thinking about the future deeply is not a wrong thing, I forgot the importance of being a student to evaluate myself and create something unique to make my identity clear as a designer/artist.

After I realised it, I could find the solution quite easily and could have fun for challenging and solving new problems to improve them towards the goal.

It made me realised how important to listen to the other people’s thoughts and advices, and also keep being updated in order to judge my work correctly all the time.

I think I wouldn’t have done such a lot of experiment if I had only one solution from the beginning.

Especially when I did the one day trip using bus, I could get out from the bad cycle of using method I get used to.

This was the final project of entire my 3 years, but I feel like could finally understand the best way of how to work, and what kind of person I am.

Looking at my own record of journey and looking back the feeling (such as excitement, anxiety, and surprises) through my experience in my past gave me a nice opportunity to sum up what I have been doing in England and how I can represent myself after the graduation.

Bibliography/Reference Material The big Trans Sib : and it’s not the Orient Express Webster, Jane.

The Surrey Institute of Art and Design, University College 2004 Mess : the manual of accidents and mistakes Smith, Keri.

Penguin Books 2010

mid-point review Presentation [issuu] Yukina Narita 6.3.2011 http://issuu.com/yukinanarita/docs/mid-point-reviewsubmission Collage book- Martin O’Neil workshop [issuu] Yukina Nariita 8.3.2011 http://issuu.com/yukinanarita/docs/collagebook

How to create a portfolio & get hired : a guide for graphic designers andillustrators Taylor, Fig. Laurence King.

2010

One Day Trip illustration - bus [issuu] Yukina Narita 27.3.2011 http://issuu.com/yukinanarita/docs/onedaytrip

What is illustration?

Zeegan, Lawrence.

RotoVision 2009

Drawing Denmark [issuu] Yukina Narita 8.4.2011 http://issuu.com/yukinanarita/docs/drawing_denmark

Everything is illuminated [DVD] Schreiber, Liev Warner Home Video 2006

Drawing Greece [issuu] Yukina Narita 20.4.2011 http://issuu.com/yukinanarita/docs/drawign_greece

High way [music video] Quruli 21.4.2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNQk_bnt_E4 Caravan Girl [music video] Goldfrapp 21.4.2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_ embedded&v=FjuPtkno5t0 Radwimps [music video] Oshakasama 23.2.2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MaFbWeLGw&feature=player_embedded