Collab: Research & Initial Ideas

Considering that the final aim of this was to create an effective advertising campaign, I looked into current campaigns that I thought did this.

The brief talks a lot about dispelling judgments about ballet that are already embedded within society such as it's too expensive, it's only for old people, it's just girls in tutus etc. This is what we want to change with our campaign, proving that ballet is much more than tights and tutus. We wanted to make a point of how a lot of emotion, talent and hard work goes into ballet and to make people appreciate it as an art form like anything else such as an exhibition, gig, theatre etc.

An idea was to possibly expose the behind the scenes of ballet, showing each aspect that goes into every stage of a performance; the composers, the choreographers, those who create the costumes & props etc. to show to those who we're appealing to that ballet is like any other form of art, a lot of hard work and dedication goes into it.

Another idea was to see the individual aspects of ballet as other things that people already appreciate and idolise other role models such as athletes, muscians or artists. Suggesting to people that you aren't just going to see the ballet you're going to see athletes (ballet dancers), musicians (orchestra) and artists (prop, set, costume designers).

Research into Public Spaces in Leeds

The first brief within this new module is to produce a poster that celebrates an event that happened within Leeds within a public space. Plenty has happened within the past 100 years but there were a couple of things that stood out in particular to me whether that be down to the theme itself or the endless ideas that could come from them.

First one is Love Parade, a music festival that has been around since 1989 originating in Berlin. The first one was very small around 150 people but soon expanded to a couple of hundred thousands within the next coming years. But come 2000, Roundhay Park in Leeds hosted the event where almost 300,000 people turned up to enjoy the music. The festival itself hosts only a couple of genres of electronic music, those being techno, house and trance. The whole premise behind the festival is seen as a political demonstration for peace and international understanding through love and music. Having such a big interest in electronic music myself this event immediately stood out to me as a potential option. Also with there being a lot to explore about the event such as the outfits worn at the time, which were often experimental and imaginative, and the obviously music itself.

Roundhay Park, Leeds 2000

Secondly was the Tour de France back in 2014, which consists of different stages starting at one city and ending in another. Lucky for Leeds, 2014 was the year it started in the city centre and finished up in Harrogate. Roughly 2.5 million people lined the streets of Yorkshire to see the cyclists during the stages which is a big reason as to why it was named the greatest 'Grand Depart' in the 111 year history of the cycling event. One aspect of this that attracted me to it was the clothing that the cyclists wear, highly colourful and interesting unique design to make a clear distinction between each teams. I think that the huge use of different colours and shapes could be something I explore within my visual ideas for this brief.

Tour de France, Yorkshire 2014

Collab: Establishing a Basis

After speaking to a handful of people wanting to do the Royal Opera House brief, I finally decided to group of two other illustrators who were equally as interested as me. During our first meet up we established a basis for the brief by figuring out what everyone's abilities were and how we wanted to go about taking on the brief.



Firstly we established what the brief was asking of us (right hand side) just so that everyone had a good understanding of what it is we had to do. Aside from telling us that the deliverables for this brief should be an advertising campaign, we decided to create some smaller deliverables within that so we had an idea of what formats we would want to advertise in and what formats would work best for this brief.



Along with that we quickly jotted down what our strengths lie so we know what we can expect from each other skill-wise. 



Before finishing up our first meeting we planned out the first week upcoming in terms of what each of us individually should do before we meet again the following week. My task was to research into current and effective advertising campaigns and also contemporary ballet, given that up until now I have very little to no knowledge of ballet as opposed to the other two in my group who have practiced ballet at a younger age.

Collab: Study Task 01

Studio brief 2 is a chance for use to collaborate with other students from both illustration and animation on a range of different briefs from D&AD and also YCN. My main motivation for doing this is to have the chance to work on a team and bounce ideas of other creatives that aren't necessarily from the same principle as me. Collaboration gives us the opportunity to combine the efforts of more than one person, which can lead to more interesting and bigger possibilities than what can be achieved by just one person.

As for communication between the group, face to face will be the most common and best way to discuss and work on the brief. But aside from that, outside of the uni Facebook will likely be the way to share ideas and discuss things in more detail.

Working with two other illustrators means that a lot of varied skills will be brought to the table, both in terms of styles but also mindsets and ways of approaching the brief. Both the illustrators I'm working with are much more hands on, hand crafted design work which is something I think I fall down on, an aspect of design that will be especially useful in the brief we've chosen to do. Those skills tied in with my more screen based design will hopefully be the recipe for something innovative and that works harmoniously.