cosmetic surgery

I want to aim my brief at a young audience based around the idea of cosmetic surgery, illustrating self enhancement. These are some techniques that i've tired out, by building up materials, which is something that really interested me when working on previous projects. 

The idea of picking up on cosmetic surgery is because I cant find any current illustrations on the subject, im starting to think this could be because its hard to not sway the audience either for or against surgery, maybe im taking on to much of a challenge?!

Orlan

http://www.orlan.net/

http://www.english.ucsb.edu/faculty/ecook/courses/eng114em/surgeries.htm

I herd about Orlan a while ago now and I still find pictures of her work hard to look at, she's an artist who used her own body to basically form the art, creating video performances of the surgery. Both of these links explain her and her reasons behind it a bit more. As its in french im a bit confused to if the images above are her own work, but I think they are. They both use the style of layering and although the top image is in 2D the sense of texture is still really there. Maybe this would be the way for me to go if I want to make my product easy to reproduce?

dove evolution

I saw this video in a lecture and although I no it happens, I didn't realise just how much editing is done to completely change the original person. I think the line at the end "no wondered our perception of beauty is distorted" is almost the most powerful part of the campaign, I think its only because the media shows pictures like the final image that people are constantly trying to be perfect when it never really exists, by showing real people with real deformities in my campaign maybe it would change how people feel about themselves too? 

Katie Piper foundation

http://www.katiepiperfoundation.org.uk/

Her campaign is trying to raise money for an advanced rehabilitation and burns clinic in the UK. If  I can create hard hitting posters (and other products) to work a long with this idea of fundraising I feel like I can give a lot to this brief because its real and happening right now, and because its currently in the media im hoping the influence I get from it will come through in my work.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/katie-my-beautiful-face/episode-guide/series-1/episode-1

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/katie-my-beautiful-friends/episode-guide/series-1

After watching both of these episodes I've narrowed my idea down a lot more, if I focus on Katie Pipers actual campaign and foundation I could produce products like posters and books to be given to schools to explain her story or something to help explain why disfigurement shouldn't be looked at so cruelly?

just remembered another programme that I watched recently that covers the same ideas...

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/beauty-the-beast-ugly-face-of-prejudice

media research (self initiated)

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3496582/Glamour-girls-Katie-Piper-and-Katie-Price.html

I found this article really interesting, and seemed really perfect for influencing my work. When you read the viewing and selling figures of both there books I realised that its more the media that enhances how we look at disfigurements than the public themselves...if Katie Piper was on the front of most magazines each week wouldn't it make it a lot easier for children to accept people for who they are and not look at people differently because they just don't understand.

self initiated research

I really enjoyed the reinventing illustration brief because I chose to work in 3d I found a whole different side to illustration that I hadn't considered before. I've been thinking about working in  a similar way for this project too, but I really want to think about my time management too, and working in 3d took a lot longer than I thought (something I really don't want to risk when its so close to the assessment deadline!)  

I need to consider the product and its audience straight away. theres so much debate about surgery if I am it at a younger audience then it would be catching them before there lead down looking at magazines etc and being really influenced by the media. maybe 9-13...im not sure if this it too late because there already at secondary school?! but if I go younger im worried I will end up making it to childish, thinking 6 is too young for shock tactics! 

- am I going for the cosmetic surgery or the reconstructive side....think I will be taking on too much and sending out a mixed message if I don't decide, also if it's cosmetic is it pro or con....

self-initated brief!

Im hoping Im going to learn a lot from making a complete brief up for myself, I always feel like im still trying to find my own style, and so to start from completely nothing seemed pretty impossible at first when theres so many routes I would like to take.

I thought the easiest way to start would be to look into things that im interested in straight away, (if I pick something i don't care enough about its so easy to loose interest) so I've thought back to my dissertation idea of photography and truth. Im still defining this too but find the whole cosmetic surgery debate really interesting and because its been in the news so much recently I would have a lot of research to help me.

typography final piece

I feel that this outcome has been one of the most successful, it took me a long time to work out how best to make the shapes out of the twigs and leaves as they were hard to shape around the circular parts, but once I used wire they all seemed to shape. 

where the type will be placed.

http://www.saveourgreenspaces.org/index.html

Here i've been trying out the same as below but with using ink on the leaves and pressing them, im pleased with the effect, but im not sure how strong it would work on a background.

http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/en/Pages/default.aspx

working with leaf veins

Above are a few ideas that i've tried out, by scanning in leaves and slightly changing the contrast the central vein becomes really clear, so i've placed them together to form letters.

ideas for typography

-by cutting around the leaves I think the letters would just look really cheesy, and to obvious for where I want them to be used. 

- im thinking that if I actually use the leaves themselves scanned in and not an actual photograph they won't loose the first hand reference they seem to of here. 

photography for type

I wanted to take an object thats normally not focused on when it comes to typography, so many campaigns seem to forget about how much it can draw in the audience, and even explain there thought just through the text design itself. 

I mentioned below the idea of using leaves and decided to stick to this natural element when it comes to the object I use. 

- I could work around the actual photograph itself, picking up on the shapes of the leaves to form the lettering.

(I need to look into the  exact place and audience that would use the typeface before I settle on an idea)

-by picking up on the bright colours of the leaves the campaign could be focused more towards a younger audience, giving the campaign a chance to widen its audience and attract the younger ages that in the end need to help the environment the most.

- im not sure if by physically drawing the leaves I would loose the understand of what it actually is im illustrating? think I need to try  it out though because so many shapes can be formed from them, making them really easy to manipulate.

-thinking about positioning of the lettering again,  im also going to take photographs to place the text onto, think this will really help me back the idea a lot more and make it a lot clearing in my mind of where it will be used.

ideas...

at the minute I think my strongest idea is to take the leaves and manipulate the idea to work best for me. Whilst looking through illustrators blogs, I realised a really simple but strong technique would be to use the imprints of the veins of the leaves I find, at the minute I am thinking more of the object rather than from photo's but think I need both before I can make a proper decision on it. So I am going to go and take some photo's at the same time as collecting leaves. I will upload what I find on here in a couple of hours.

links

http://www.keepbritaintidy.org/

- quick idea is to use images of litter to campaign for helping the environment. I could take images of the litter and cut around it all to form the letters.

http://www.worldlandtrust.org/supporting/donation.htm?gclid=CKyyxpyE4qcCFchO4QodwGvL-A

- I've had the idea to use leaves and there x-rays to form the letters, I think that they would relate well to a campaign on the rainforest.

http://www.bto.org/

- Because feathers are so flexible, by aiming them around birds I can give them more of a direct meaning and focus.

research...

Before I looked into ways illustrators have worked with text I've always thought of it being much more hand illustrated, but looking through lots of books I realised how photographs and the actual product can be used in so many ways. 

Like the two images above, once an objects is thought of, as long as it can be worked around to fit the different shapes of the letters, you can take pretty much anything to form letters. This book also made me realise just how hard it is to come up with a subject thats completely unique. I think a good route for me to go is to look into current campaigns and advertisements that I can aim my work for, I think this will help me to focus my work a lot more. 

new brief

I tried to work type into my zine and although it wasn't my own it was the first time I have properly played around with the type positions. This new brief will allow me to work around this a lot more because we have to create a type set for a particular audience or campaign by using photographs or an object. 

I spent a lot of time in the library yesterday researching different ways other illustrators have created typography, hoping they would help me come up with my own ideas. Above are a lot of the illustrations I found. 

final zine images

working progress

These were the photos I took while I worked, first of all i printed the photos off and worked over them with inks and paint, and then above you can see how  I scanned them in and enhanced them on photoshop; adding the text over them.

final images

these are the photographs i've chosen for my zine, I really want to work into the photos a lot, at the minute im researching different poems ( I think I will be using the one below) that I want to relate to the text. These photographs were all taken while I walked back to my car from uni, its about 15minutes and the same every day, by working over them, I want to turn them into a narrative of my thoughts as I walk along.