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Freelance

This is a Persian family tree created for a client. Created on illustrator.

The flowers represent the women and the leaves represent the men. The client insisted on having the leaves bigger than the standard size because there is more women in the family so in comparison the leaves looked insignificant. Hence why the leaves are the same size or even slightly bigger than the flowers.

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Graduate+ Week

I attended the Networking workshop with Zoe Bennett AKA “The motivational queen”. She’s an international inspirational speaker, personal development trainer, author and a humanitarian. She  has worked with some impressive companies such as NHS and Lloyds bank. 

The objective of the workshop was to discuss what the true essence of networking is. She highlighted the importance of networking and how it has helped her and many to find jobs and grow themselves as a business. However she said it is crucial to find the right group for you, it doesn't necessarily mean that you will get along with everyone out there so it is important to be professional and but your differences aside. A tip that she gave was to brand ourselves when networking and perfecting our elevator pitch and really grab peoples attention. That can be done by being a confident speaker and also being consistent with what our business stands for. 

Below is a few of her other tips.

She also emphasised on the importance of social media but mostly LinkedIn. Most of us sat in that room already had an account but had never actually engaged with the site. She provided us with tips on how to perfect our LinkedIn account and to get the best use out of it.

Towards the end, Zoe asked if he had any questions. I raised my hand and asked her if she had any tips on networking if you have social anxiety or are generally a really shy person, to which she replied you kind of have to get over yourself and start pushing yourself out of your comfort zones. She then gifted me with a copy of her book and she told me to have a read as she talks more in deathly about this issue.

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Final Piece #3

Two versions. 1600 x 900 and 1200 x 1200.

Incorporated three of the childline colours. sky blue, green grass and the yellow stigma. 

I changed the background from black to blue, as it makes the image appear more hopeful. 

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Final Piece e #2

Two versions. 1600 x 900 and 1200 x 1200.

I decided to go with the orange background. The orange adds a bit more pop to the image and make it appear more fun and engaging.

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Final piece #1

Two versions. 1600 x 900 and 1200 x 1200.

I kept some of the same elements as my initial design but changed the font and the placement of the font.

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This two illustrations were developed from the scamp that i had drawn earlier. Different colour schemes were tried before settling on the final piece. It was a challenge trying to incorporate the childline colours in some of the illustrations. The illustration on the right is using 4 out of 6 childline colours, however i don't think it works very well in this scenario.

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Another illustration development from one of the scamps. I started off with the illustration on the left, however i soon realised the text isn't sitting right on the arms, so i had to change the way that the type was flowing. Both illustrations have the childline colours used in them throughout. I have tried a different font on the image on the right as well as changing the background and adding stars to it which is an element that i have used repetitively in these series of illustrations.

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The top illustration was the initial idea, i chose the red and blue colour scheme because it sort of made my characters represent superheroes for being so strong and i felt that the galaxy background helped bring that vision to life. The placement of the text and the font don’t work great though so they were changed. On the bottom image i have changed the colour scheme of my illustration to represent childline’s colours and i felt that the colours ended up working in harmony and complemented each other. I also wanted to represent diversity in my work which is another thing that the brief asked of us. The characters all have wide features and their weight or size is ambiguous, that’s done on purpose as i wanted everyone from ever size and colour to feel related.

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Scamps

These are some rough initial design scamps that i came up with in order to decide which route I'm going to take and develop further for my final pieces.

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Practitioners

Childline’s guidelines requested that we use flat colour illustrations as well as having a “hand drawn” like illustration with out too many details. So i looked at different practitioners looking for inspiration. The three illustrators that caught my interest were Polly Nor, Ashley Lukashevsky and Jade Purple Brown.

Jade Purple Brown has actually worked with big brands like Adidas and Underarmour and she's proud that she's a “colour obsessed” designer making her sophisticated design fun. 

Ashley Lukashevsky is an activist and an artists her instagram bio claims her purpose for drawing is “Illustrating to dismantle patriarchal nonsense + systemic racism”. i love how simple her design style appears yet so impressionable. Likewise she incorporates a lot of colours into her designs.

Polly Nor is probably the most famous or ‘recognisable’ artist from the bunch. Her inspiration is “women and their demons”. Her design is very cool in a sense that she draws quite ‘ugly’ characters but they feel very edgy.

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Research 

I looked into various illustrations online concerning Mental Health, as i decided thats the main subject I'm going to focus on. 

The top two illustration on the left side are posters made for childline. They funny and humorous, in order to make the matter more light hearted. It also encourages the audience to contact childline and forget the donuts that they might be having towards reaching for help.

The anxietea illustration is a cute play on words illustration that i actually found on the childline Facebook. Flat colour illustration, bright colours and a relate message for those suffering from anxiety. 

I also found a hashtag called “mental illness feels like” this was a campaign by MHA (Mental Health America). They also followed the same humorous concept, in a very clever way to raise awareness for those that might not understand what mental illnesses feel like for sufferers.

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I also visited the children website https://www.childline.org.uk

The website is very thorough, it has every information a teenager or child might need. Kids can read advice upon issues such as family problems, bullying and school stress. 

There’s also a whole section on how people can get in touch and get counselling with an advisor from Childline. They have the options of calling, emailing or chatting online. In fact theres an informational video on what to expect when contacting childline which runs through some important information like the child’s confidentiality being protected etc.

They also gave games on their website that are meant to allow kids to distract them from their issues, pass time and take their mind off of how they're feeling.

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Childline is very proud of their engagement with their audience online, so i had a look at all their social media platforms to see what sort of content they put out there.

Their youtube account is pretty impressive, they cover every topic there is out there from anxiety, autism and cultural difference. 

Their Facebook page is full of ‘relatable’ celebrities talking about their struggles and their advice for young people. Their Instagram consists of inspirational quotes along side illustrations that portray messages to the followers.

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For the competition briefs, i chose to work on the YCN Childline brief. The brief asks us to create to produce an illustration or animation for 13-18 year olds going through a tough time.   The reason that i chose to work on this brief is because i highly respect what childlike stands for as a company and the work that they do is admirable and i would love to be part of that healing process for teenagers going through a tough time.

Here is some background information about Childline. 

Childline is a free, private and confidential service where young people can be themselves.

Young people going through a tough time can reach children and seek help and guidance.

In 2016/17 they provided more than 295,000 counselling sessions online and on the phone – increasingly many young people talk to us through one-to-one online chat rather than on the phone.

They use their social media accounts such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to communicate with young people. They try to encourage conversations and reinforce inspirational messages. 

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Contextual Studies:The Hyper-Connected World

We are living in an increasingly connected world. According to Nicholas Mirzoeff, in 2012, 1/3 of the world’s population had access to internet and Google predicts that by 2020 there will be 5 billion.

This matters to visual communication because as designers we should tackle relevant and current issues and trends. People have different opinions about the now hyperconnected world, on one hand the internet can be educational and on the other people are zombies glued to their mobile phones.

The internet differs to other forms of media in the sense that anyone, anywhere can express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity. Whilst in other platforms of media everything is filtered.

There had been a few people that predicted the internet, one being Marshall McLuhan. When he came to prominence in the early 1960s, TV was a relatively new part of people’s everyday lives. The way information is shared and communicated was at the centre of his thinking.

With the growth of technology and the internet privacy is becoming an issue. Other than the fact that people choose to share their location with the whole world, our privacy could be invaded with out our consent too. Many people cover their laptop’s webcam so no one can hack into it and see them thorough the camera, but do we do that with our smartphones ? Our conversations, texts, photos maybe listened to and seen by third parties that we are not aware of.

The Investigatory Powers Bill was passed in December 2016, and is the biggest reform of the UK’s surveillance - but many have criticised it for the measures it entails. There is a list of public authorities who are allowed access to your whole internet history, including the police, the Home Office, HMRC, and even the Food Standards Agency.

‘Once we have surrendered our senses and nervous systems to the private manipulation of those who would try to benefit by taking a lease on our eyes and ears and nerves, we don't really have any rights left.’ - Marshall McLuhan, 1964

The internet has changed the way that we live, people go out less, talk in person less. So relationships are different to what they used to be people are communicating less and taxing more. There are memes and art works that glorify isolating yourself from the society. This may be one of the reasons why depression and mental health issues are rising higher. 

Telepresence is a sensation of being elsewhere, enabled by communication technology or virtual reality. “Communication technologies have the potential to alter our feelings of presence” (Miller, 2011)

We discussed whether the internet is killing art. According to Sontag, photography “certifies the experience but also refuses it.” For example people go to concerts and all you see is mobile phones in the air recording the performance. Instead of people actually living in the moment and soaking up the memory they feel the need to record everything and most of them will probably never watch that video again.

It also a very different experience to look at art in a museum than seeing a picture of it on Instagram. The thrill of seeing the Mona Lisa in Louvre, Paris than just seeing it on google images.

‘Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in space and time, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.’- Walter Benjamin, 1935

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Contextual Studies : An Introduction to Queer Theory

One of the key concepts in queer theory is the idea of “heteronormativity,” which pertains to “the institutions, structures of understanding, and practical orientations that make heterosexuality seem not only coherent—that is, organized as a sexuality—butalso privileged”. Heteronormativity is a worldview that promotes heterosexuality as the normal and/or preferred sexual orientation, and is reinforced in society through the institutions of marriage, taxes, employment, and adoption rights, among many others. Heteronormativity is a form of power and control that applies pressure to both straight and gay individuals, through institutional arrangements and accepted social norms.

Why the word Queer ? The word ‘Queer’ is used as an umbrella term for anyone who us not a heterosexual or cisgender.

This is based on the cultural assumptions that its natural or normal for there to be attraction between the opposite genders. Other forms of sexuality or gender are less normal, thus people people assume everyone is heterosexual unless proven otherwise.

Structuralism is the methodology that implies elements of human culture must be understood by way of their relationship to a broader, overarching system or structure. It works to uncover the structures that underlie all the things that humans do, think, perceive, and feel. Post-structuralism means to go beyond the structuralism of theories that imply a rigid inner logic to relationships that describe any aspect of social reality, whether in language or in economics.

“Cripple”, when I use it, allows me to take ownership of everyone’s misconceptions of disability. I know you’re scared of me; I know you think I’m different from you, and guess what? I am. I’m owning that as best as I can when I use that word. It is a term of personal empowerment for me. I wouldn’t use it to describe another disabled person without their consent, but for me it helps me navigate the experience of disability with an honesty that I think is really important. - Andrew Gurza in “Here's What This 'Queer Cripple' Wants You To Know About His Sex Life”,Huffington Post [online] (21st July 2017).

Much of queer theory developed out of a response to the AIDS crisis, which promoted a renewal of radical activism, and the growing homophobia brought about by public responses to AIDS. Queer theory became occupied in part with what effects – put into circulation around the AIDS epidemic – necessitated and nurtured new forms of political organization, education and theorizing in "queer".

People invent categories in order to feel safe. White people invented black people to give white people identity. Straight cats invent faggots so they can sleep with them without becoming faggots themselves. - James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni, A Dialogue (Philidelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1973).

The Bury Your Gays trope in media, including all its variants, is a homophobic cliché. It is the presentation of deaths of LGBTcharacters where these characters are nominally able to be viewed as more expendable than their heteronormative counterparts. In this way, the death is treated as exceptional in its circumstances. So it can be fairly said that, in aggregate, queer characters are more likely to die than straight characters. Indeed, it may be because they seem to have less purpose compared to straight characters, or that the supposed natural conclusion of their story is an early death.

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Contextual Studies:Psychoanalysis

What is Psychoanalysis ? According to oxford dictionary it is “‘A system of psychological theory and therapy which aims to treat mental disorders by investigating the interaction of conscious and unconscious elements in the mind and bringing repressed fears and conflicts into the conscious mind by techniques such as dream interpretation and free association.”

Art and Psychoanalysis correlate in the sense that many artists incorporate the topic into their work. But also it’s interesting to see how the mind works.

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis. He introduced the concept of ‘The Unconscious’. The idea of the ‘unconscious mind’ is key to psychoanalysis. The treatment itself revolved around the analysis of various things Freud believed brought it to the surface, including:-Free association Dreams Parapraxis Freud believed that unlocking the unconscious was key to curing his patients.

There is also the idea of there 3 selves; 

According to Oxford dictionary, Neurosis is defined as: ‘A relatively mild mental illness that is not caused by organic disease, involving symptoms of stress (depression, anxiety, obsessive behaviour, hypochondria) but not a radical loss of touch with reality.’

Freud believed that these mental illnesses were caused by repressions of both the pleasure principle and childhood traumas.

Freud’s Psychosexual Stages discusses the development of an infant, which consists of 5 psychological stages. 

The oral phase (0-1 year)

- The anal phase (1-3 years)

- The phallic phase (3-5 or 6 years)

- The latent phase (5 or 6 to puberty) 

The genital phase (puberty to adult)

He believed that disruption to any of the stages leads to neuroses in later life. For example he believed a disruption in the oral phase could be an explanation to why certain people bit their nails. 

Freud had a lot of bizarre concepts as well; such as the Oedipus Complex

In psychology, sublimation is a mature type of defence mechanism, in which socially unacceptable impulses or idealisations are transformed into socially acceptable actions or behaviour, possibly resulting in a long-term conversion of the initial impulse. Salvador Dalí once said, “Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature. Never try to correct them. On the contrary: rationalise them, understand them thoroughly. After that, it will be possible for you to sublimate them.” 

We then move onto the ‘Torches of Freedom’ which talks about Parapraxis.

Even though Freud was one of the very first people to study the human mind and was successful in many aspects there are some criticisms to Freud’s theories

Some of his data is not credible 

His patients only represented a very small demographic

There is no evidence to support his theories of child sexuality 

Some of his theories can be damaging to certain groups - such as for instance his belief that homosexuality was a failure to reconcile the anal phase - and his now laughable idea of ‘penis envy’

John Bowlby was a British psychologist and psychoanalyst who had a particular interest in child development. He is most famous for his work on attachment theory.

There are 3 different attachment types 

He also introduced the concept of Separation Anxiety. Where when a child is left alone they become distressed, they begin to think all good things will disappear at any given moment, therefore becoming anxious or volatile - or they may become detached as a way of dealing with this. He believed this happens there isn’t enough maternal care in a child’s life

Jacques Lacan (1901 - 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and philosopher, considered by many to be the most influential after Freud. His work was perhaps more influential in universities rather than consulting rooms across the UK. Within the arts he is most well- known for his idea of ‘the mirror’

Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher who could be thought of as ‘the Elvis of cultural studies’. He uses media and popular culture as a vehicle for exploring psychoanalytical ideas, such as desire and how it is structured, as well as the formation of ideologies.

We covered ‘The Male Gaze’ theory in the first year of uni however its import to mention the British feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey and her best known 1975 essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema in which she discusses the concept the media portraying women in a sexualised manner in order to appeal to male audiences. Mulvey used previously psychoanalytical ideas to deconstruct cinema from a feminist perspective.

Julia Kristeva is a Bulgarian-French philosopher, feminist, and psychoanalyst. She is famous for her work on the abject - ‘subjective horror’ - in her book The Powers of Horror. It is centred around the idea of the feeling one experience when one is confronted by their ‘corporeal reality’ and is disgusted by their own body (specifically feminine) - it is a theory which builds on the work of Freud and Lacan. It is also related to the work of Barbara Creed on ‘the monstrous feminine’