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reflection

1. What do you like most about your Final Project?

I love how I successfully created a story and a sense of journey in my illustrations. 

The accordion folding technique allowed me to tell the story in a linear format that can also be viewed as a whole, as well as be viewed like a normal bound book. (I made sure the focus element of each illustration pointed to, faced, and/or moved towards the next page to enhance that idea of movement)

The cutouts made the experience more dynamic and made the viewers become curious of what was behind the story itself, which revealed an array of stripe patterns, which in turn brought the focus over to the pattern itself.

On a technical note, I’m very happy about the printing results. The colours came out very vibrant.

2. What would you have done differently if you had more time/resources available?

Since I originally had planned to make more illustrations to make the adventure more immersive to the readers, I hope to not only make more illustrations, but also increase the size of the book itself.

With a little more planning and less suffering from a cold, I would love to make more cutouts, perhaps on each page.

3. If you were describing your book to someone over the phone what would you say about it?

It’s a book that takes you on a journey filled with stripes taking form in various objects and phenomenons of everyday life. Perfect for stripe-lovers and even better for others who may rarely notice how stripes are such a big part of our daily lives. Upon experiencing my book, I hope that you will appreciate the beauty of stripes!

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inspiration

My main visual inspiration was the works of illustrator Tom Haugomat. He creates his intricate illustrations with basic shapes and colours that also touched on nostalgia and familiarity. 

One of Haugomat’s various visual motifs is the stripe, which allows him to create a new level of depth and value while also forming a visual texture, be it minimal or excessive. 

This sharpness of the colours and texture was what gave me the inspiration to create an illustration-focused book. Additionally, I purchased an artbook by Haugomat and he created illustrations that were strictly of the vertical format, which made me see how putting a restriction in the drawing plane gave me more opportunities to play with depth and space in a new way.

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Sketches & Mini-mockups

These are some of my sketches when I first started making the illustrations. They mostly cover some of the illustrations when I began thinking about them in a vertical format, along with a few illustrations that did not make it into the final.

I created a tiny mockup of what the accordion fold was going to work along with the cut outs and where I needed to place the patterns on the backside in order of them to show through. 

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Initial Concepts

My initial ideas and experiments are quite different from my final. I originally aimed to have a square format book with a more minimalistic approach. The idea of letting the stripes weave and continue the narrative was still what I wanted to execute, but at this stage, I had not really figured out how I wanted to do it.

The subject matter also focused more on the fashion itself, and that may have been the main reason that slowed down my brainstorming stages. 

I also wanted to use transparencies (clear acetate, plexiglas, etc.) like the Sock book I made for my experimental book, but when I decided to pursue the accordion fold, I dropped that idea. 

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Finalized Stripes Anthology!

Specifications:

4 x 9 inches

accordion fold

inside cover, 8 illustrations, and back illustration

front & back covers: laser-cut black presentation board

adhesive: double-sided tape

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going forward

Upon working on my experimental book that utilized transparencies and unusual shapes, I became a little more familiar with some of the techniques that I wanted to incorporate into my final project.

I can play with the stripe pattern onto a transparency and allow it to emphasize or create a contrast between the negative space and stripe. The unconventional page shapes can take form by making the stripe pattern with the pages itself, by cutting the page horizontally into thin strips.

I also started creating illustrations that I can use.

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pop culture stripes!

Top row: 

Sailor, old-timey bathing couple, Captain America, the Lollipop Guild, strong man, Abed

Second row: 

Tattooed lady, Timmy from Jurassic Park, mime, Harry Potter, scene kid, Rocky, Audrey Hepburn, Bananas in Pajamas, me

Third row: 

Marvel Sandman, Isabella and Hugo Cabret, Juno, pirate, Coraline, Charlie Pace, Mathilda, referee, Waldo

Fourth row: 

Freddy Kreuger, Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett, Raggedy Ann/Andy, the Fourth Doctor, Margot Tenanbaum, BBC’s John Watson, a stereotypical Frenchman, Rat from The Fantastic Mr. Fox

Fifth row: 

inmate, Miette from City of Lost Children, a gondola man, Bumblebee, Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum, a preppy bro, and a barbershop quartet.

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areas to explore

fashion

sharing friends’ fashion coordinations with striped clothes

my own wardrobe

“how to“ style an outfit with stripes

planning a week of striped fashion

popular association of stripes in pop culture

waldo

prison

french sailors uniform (x)

tartans

brands: adidas

history (x)

art (x)

nature

accentuating the various visual elements in nature (or our environment) that has stripes that would normally be overlooked 

bees, zebras, cityscapes, roads, etc.

typography

geometric sans-serif fonts to emphasize long blocks (repetition)

didone fonts like bodoni (thick blocky stem with hairline to contrast)

korean (very geometric in nature)

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topic proposal : stripes

Stripes, as a simple definition, is a visual pattern comprised of repeating parallel horizontal or vertical bands.

As simple of a pattern as it can be to some, stripes has always been a constant visual pattern in my life that never failed to provide a sense of consistency and stability. Looking at my wardrobe now, I can pretty much fill up an entire (small) dresser with just striped clothing. They are even a consistent visual component in my design and illustration work over the years.

The versatility of the pattern will allow me to show the pattern not only in printed images but also with the paper itself. Different materials can also help accentuate the visual quality of stripes. Upon seeing Peter Mendelsund and Quentin Fiore’s use of bold shapes with the contrast of colors, black and white being the most prominent contrast, I wanted to take a similar visual approach, as the basic nature of stripes is the heavy contrast between the filled bar shape and the background color.

Lately, I had a chance to reflect on my own timeline based solely on the striped pattern and realized that it has been a bigger part of me than I imagined. Stripes surrounds all aspects of life, all the way from the pedestrian crossing and the urban skyline to bees and zebras. Although for my book I want to focus more on the fashion aspect, I want to make a book all about the most significant pattern in my life and how it manifests itself in various forms.