Class Final Projects

This post is simply a compilation of all of our final projects. This project was one we got to choose out of a list to illustrate. Therefore, you will see a huge difference in what everyone chose to do. I hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed doing them. I'm putting the images in alphabetical order by our first names. 1-Amber Walters, 2-Angela Norman, 3-Bissie Buscombe, 4-Burke Stanion, 5-Gary Cosat, 6-Jonny Ashikyan, 7-Katie Balch, 8-Lisa Williamson (me), 9-Susan Coulter & 10-Whitney Coulter. Note that #2 & #9 are drawings and are NOT photos.

 

Classics Illustrated - Hamlet - William Shakespeare

This semester I've shared some of the books from my childhood that used illustrations in them that I have always really liked. This time I'm pulling from a really long time ago, the copyright is 1969. This issue was illustrated by Alex A. Blum. Please note the price was only $0.25 and you can also see my writing as a little kid. Haha!

I thought Ophelia was the most beautiful girl ever and I was so upset when she died in the story. Anyway, I digress... For the time in which this was printed, it was done really well. Note the full color not only on the cover, but the interior pages as well.

The image at right is of Ophelia falling into the water, to her death. As you can see, the edge of the page is even missing from my being distraught and rereading this section so many times. Note the movement that the illustrator give the water with it's swirls and waves around her. Then the use of light colors and making the water look transparent as she sinks.

The last two images I found online. They are in a bit better shape than my "well used" copy and mine is becoming a bit brittle with age so I didn't want to bend it to scan.

The third and fourth ones also show the ghost of the king. See how the illustrator shaded him to make him look "transparent". The third one took up one page while the fourth one was a two page spread.

I think this series was really well done. In fact, I used to have others in the series but don't really know what happened to them over the years. At the time that this one was printed, there were 169 different ones to choose from.

 

Alex Fowkes - illustrator, graphic designer, typographer

I ran across Alex Fowkes in the Advertising Annual of Communication Arts magazine (Nov/Dec 2013). He is listed in the "fresh" section. His typography and retro designs first caught my eye (see my blog for GDS 122) and then his illustrations. The images I'm including here are for T-shirts & removable bicycle mudguard. The product is Awesome & the illustration is, too.

These designs are for Full Windsor, which is a company that carries "Innovative cycle accessories that capture the imagination." Full Windsor uses a monkey (or ape - I don't know which) on their website and the designs also have variations & tribal influenced designs with a monkey skull in them. The t-shirts also have a design across the bottom on the back with a skull at the top center. 

Check out more of Alex' designs on his website.

A Local Company . . . McKenzie Wagner Inc.

While reviewing my process for my Illustration class this week, I discussed screen printing. I enjoyed the experience, but now know that it's not something I could do very often. This made me wonder whether or not any local companies design for screen printing any more. So... I started looking online & came across McKenzie Wagner's Illustration department. Above is a picture of a 5 poster series that they did that were screen printed. These were "developed for the Greater Community AIDs Project of East Central Illinois. Inspired by WWII propaganda posters..." This explains they "dated" look that these posters have, but, I really like that look for these. I think that screen printing was the right way to go in printing this style of poster, anything crisp & clean wouldn't have gotten the same message across.

Then I came across their cover for the 2013 Springfield Visitors Guide - SCVB. It is an extremely strong illustration that definitely gets the "Illinois" point across. Multiple images of Abe Lincoln with key "Springfield" points of interest catch the eye.

They also did the branding for SCVB's Celebrity Citizen campaign. The final designs for this are at left. Again, a VERY strong Abe Lincoln, tall hat and all! Very clean design with subtle hints of color, but overall pleasing to the eye.

 

The 10 images above are all part of the Springfield Grooves" theme that McKenzie Wagner created for the booth and pre-conference promotion to attendees of the
Illinois Society of Association Executives (ISAE) Annual Meeting. "Shag carpeting, lava lamps, incense, bean bag chairs, racks of records and rocking 70s tunes to get meeting attendees’ feet tapping set the flavor of the booth. MW designed a series of ten 70s-inspired album cover parody posters that swapped Abe Lincoln’s face or a Springfield scene for the original images on the covers. The posters were popular give-aways at the booth." The really funny thing is that I actually have some of the original albums that they are imitating.

Feel free to check the rest of their work out at McKenzie Wagner.

Illustrator Lesley Barnes

I was looking through Communication Arts Sept/Oct 2013 issue and ran across Lesley Barnes in the "Fresh" section. I don't usually go for these kinds of illustrations, but for some reason I liked these. I think usually bright colors & shapes like these are on abstract artwork, which I don't really care for, but these are more like children's book illustrations and I think that's why I like them.

She lives in Glasgow, Scotland and has been doing illustration for about four years. She also does 2-D & 3-D animation and studied English in college. She's had no formal training whatsoever.

You'll notice that both of the first two illustration I've included have castles in them. She seems to really like the castle, dragon, mythology, type of thing (I do too). But, she has also done adds for makeup and many other things that have nothing to do with her other imaginative designs.

I included this third image basically because I'm a big nerd and the name of it is "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". If you don't know that this is the name of a song, then shame on you! (Just kidding - kind of)

The fourth image is a Christmas card she designed for V&A Museum. I thought it was pretty cool! Having just done our Holiday Card project I thought my classmates could appreciate it. You can even buy these on her website.

The final illustration I'm including is a book cover. She has done quite a few book covers and book illustrations. They all just have a kind of fantasy feel to them. Google her or check out her website that I linked in the previous paragraph.

"Christmas in the Bell Shop"

Since we were looking at Children's book illustrations this week, I wanted to share a favorite from my childhood. This was put out by Ambassador Cards and doesn't even have any names attributed to it - written by or illustrated by. It was printed in the 1960's (I received my copy for Christmas in 1968). It is full color and even has gold on the cover. It is also embossed on the cover. Very cute & very cool!

This book only has 14 pages, plus a front & back cover (back is blank except for "Ambassador Cards" logo typical # info).

On every inside page, the first word always has this enormous initial cap. They are different on every single page - colors, styles, etc. never being the same. I like the way that every time the word "bell" appears, there is an actual bell design shadowed behind it.

The story is really good, too. You should look it up some time. It's kind of about not judging things by their cover/ price/place in life/etc. You get my meaning.

I wish I knew who the Illustrator was, but, there doesn't seem to be much information about it out there. I'll keep looking though.

Penguin Horror cover illustrations

In honor of Halloween, I found these covers in Communication Arts. They are by Paul Buckley for Penguin Classic Books. Note the names of the books - Frankenstein, The Raven, Haunted Castles and The Haunting of Hill House. They are part of a six-volume series that Penguin is printing.

The article makes some good points, it says "Forget gory special effects - there's nothing creepier than a good scary story."

Buckley said that with his designs, he was focusing on some of the main elements of the individual books, that give us "the kind of chills we got when reading spooky stories as kids." I (Lisa) have to admit that the raven did kind of creep me out in the story.

I don't know if I have read this one or not, but, now I think I will have to look it up and see what it's about. Looks like it must be about some kind of mad man or something.

I haven't read The Haunting of Hill House either. But, I've seen all of the movies & I like the one with Vincent Price the best.

These covers are being done for the special-edition hardcovers and are being printed with neon inks and "ominous black-stained" page edges. These will have a modern twist to them, Guillermo del Toro, "a lifetime fan of horror literature," did the editing and wrote the introductions.

Goncalo Viana, Illustrator

I was looking for something a little bit different this week...I came up with this set CD covers that were illustrated by Goncalo Viana the Fado Alma Lusitana collection. They were in the Communication Arts Illustration Annual 54 (May/June 2013).

Each of the images have a bit of a "quilt" look to it someplace, whether it's in the background, scarf, tile work, etc.

The images have a folksy feel to them but, with a modern edge. 

For more of her illustrations, please check out her website.

Robin Luebs - Illustrator

I went to the "Meet The Pros" on Wednesday, October 16, and was privileged to meet Illustrator Robin Luebs and get to hear her speak.  She brought a copy of each of her books for us too look at, had a slide-show presentation, spoke and had some of her "dummy" books that get sent to publishers when you are promoting and idea and trying to sell it.

"How Do You Say Good Night?" is one that she did the illustration work on. She told us how she taught herself how to paint the fur on all of the different animals and how she really enjoyed doing that part. This book has a set of animals going across each two page spread & they are different on every spread as you go through the book.

 
"Please Pick Me Up, Mama!" was Robin's first book that she not only did the illustrations, but also wrote the story, too. It is about a little girl raccoon and her Mama.

"Who said Coo?" was a book that Robin was able to do with her twin sister, Deborah Ruddell. Her sister wrote the story and Robin did all of the illustrations. It was a great experience for her to get to work with her sister. She said it was something that they had been trying to do and it finally became a reality.

Robin is, of course, currently working on another book that I'll look forward to seeing in the future.


She has a "fun" section on her website that has printables on it that you can share with little ones. Please check her out at Robin Luebs - Children's Book Author and Illustrator.

Mother Goose - pictures by Gyo Fujikawa

I've been thinking a lot about what illustrations have meant to me over the years. The first picture is a scan of my "Mother Goose" book. It's a big one - about 9 1/4" x 12" and the copyright 1968, which is when I was four years old, and a very influential age.

I have always loved to look at these illustrations, and shared them with my son when he was young, too.

Please excuse the yellowing around the edges, after all it is 45 years old. Haha!

The second and third pictures are of some of the full color illustrations found in the book. It is set up with 2 facing pages being black & white, and then the next 2 facing pages being in color.

I like the way that not every page is set up the same way. Notice the second picture is just very sporadic while the third picture is much more grid-like in layout.

I also like, on the color images, the way the lines aren't "harsh" looking. It doesn't look like someone simply colored in a coloring book page like some children's illustrations do.

In the fourth picture you'll see some of her black and white illustrations. These, although not in color, still have a great deal of detail. Just look at the basket of flowers and you'll see what I'm talking about. 

I'm not the only one that appreciates this book, I'm including a link to "Book of the Week" which will show you more.

Fresh Air Farms

This caught my eye right away. I love the way it looks like a barn floating in the air...the bright red, which used to be used on barns everywhere, and the hint of green in the other colors. I didn't even need to know what it was for, I just liked the design. Come to find out, it's an event location for things like company outings, reunions, weddings, etc. I would never have thought that it would be for that.

I first saw this in an edition of Communication Arts (Design Annual 54) and then ran across it on the web when I was doing some research for something else. So, it was "fate" that I would include it on one (or two) of my blogs.

The top image is just their basic logo, which is what drew me in to begin with.

The second image is the front and back of their business card. Isn't it cute? They even have some embossing going on with the clouds to give it some texture (very expensive to do, if you didn't know). But, they do save some money because it looks like this might just be a two color job (with there being shading and transparencies). I also like the fact that it's not your typical 3 1/2"x2", square corner, business card. They would also have to pay more for the die-cut shape.

I included the third image simply because I ran across it online and thought it showed the embossing and die-cut quite well. 

Their website is a thing of beauty!!! I'll be covering it in next week's blog for GDS 220. But, if you're interested, please check it out.

Fresh Air Farm

Illustrations of Todd Lockwood

I have ALWAYS loved dragons! I think because they are so much like dinosaurs, & I
love them too.
I first noticed Todd Lockwood's illustrations because of the dragons in his Dungeons & Dragons artwork. The color is spectacular & the action and movement of the images is incredible.

I almost feel like I'm in the battle with his characters. You can feel the gritty sand blowing in the air & the movement all around you.

Not only are his dragons extremely detailed, but his humanoid creations are, too. Just look at the long braided hair on the woman in the picture at right. Then there's the man, wearing armor, wielding the sword, with his hair blowing behind him.

Then he has these make-believe characters that are just fascinating!

Here is one of his fairy people. She looks as though she is growing out of the tree, and her hair could be leaves or grasses growing wild...even her clothes seem to be part of the forest.


One of my favorite illustration books, where I got this weeks post, is called Transitions - The Art of Todd Lockwood. (Which I will let anyone borrow if they want) He has so many interesting things, please check out his website.

The Art of Todd Lockwood