Friday 20 June 2014

Fail. Fail again. Fail better.

So my chosen quote is 'Fail. Fail again. Fail better.'

I am thinking of illustrating things that I am normally fail at ? or pick an object that I  can't draw so I have to draw it multiple time + improve my drawing skill.

I made a spider diagram to expand my ideas.

To be honest, when I heard this quote 'Fail. Fail again. Fail better.' the first thing that popped out in my mind was these ideas:-
Fail - broken circle illustration
Fail Again - not so perfect illustration
Fail Better - perfect circle illustration.

These are two pieces of graphic design that have some typography inside circles. I like how neat they look and I also love how the typography and the circles connected together by placing the typography inside the circle. 

I like the dimention 200x200 ( from studio brief 2) so I decided to use that dimension for this experimentation.



These are the original sketches. I used ink and dip pen. I am honestly not good at ink and a dip pen but it was worth to have a go though.

For future references whenever I want to use a dip pen and an ink, I shall apply in on a piece on paper instead of on a sketchbook as the ink will make the paper on sketchbook stick together. 

'Image trace' them in Illustrator


Some typography that I did and I used a dip pen and blank ink. I had to write the words few times just to get the font and word look good and readable. 

I divided my quote into 3 sections.
1. Fail.
2. Fail again.
3. Fail better.

So the illustration in the 'fail better' will look neater/legible compared to the 'fail'.  

In Photoshop, I manipulated the circles and the typography together but I did not think the typography are suitable with the circles probably because I don't think the typography look neat enough.

So I went back to my sketchbook to see if I wrote my quote with different style of font and I found this. (image above). As usual I went in Illustrator to image trace it.


Tadaa. This is the outcome. However I do not think that this idea is strong enough to communicate the quote which is 'Fail. Fail again. Fail better.'

I went back to my spider diagram and after I had a long thought, I decided to go with my second idea which to draw an animal using my left hand (I am right handed).

For some reason, I wanted to draw an elephant's head. I imagine my 1st drawing using my left hand would be pretty bad and would improve as draw for multiples time. 

At first I used a biro pen then I got bored. Then I start go back with a dip pen and ink. I realised that I am good at drawing with my left hand so I decided to give up on this idea.

I went back to my previous studio briefs (OUIL403 studio brief 1 and 3), you know to see what I have done and stuff. I really enjoyed experimenting with lino like using scalpel to make shapes, using a roller, painting and stuff - reminds me of rubber stamp.

This is the time where I want to retry my studio brief 3 unsuccessful experiment(s) (the one that I used cardboard and roller). 

So first of all, I got all the materials such as a piece of cardboard, a craft knife, acrylic paint and a cutting mat. I want my final illustration designs to have a rubber stamp effect.

This is the elephant head. I created like a handle at the back to make my life easier when I dap it on a piece of paper.

Reference Image.

These are letters that I made using a piece of cardboard and these are letters that I need for my quote. I recycled the same letters throughout the quote. e.g. A,T and E.




These are some tests that I produced using my cardboard letters and elephant that I created. I like the textures that acrylic paint generated. I also love the fact that they are not in perfect shapes and still look beautiful and unique, plus I can manipulate them in Photoshop. Now I start to see the bonus of having a pretty good skill in Photoshop :P

My hand when I was playing with paint to create my letters and the elephant head.

This was a spreader that I created using a piece of cupboard to spread the paint onto of my elephant/letters.

In Photoshop I set a document 200x200mm with 300dpi.
Copied and paste the chosen illustrations. I had to change the Level and used the erase tool to erase some bits and bobs around the illustration.

On a separate layer, I created the elephant's eyes by using the brush tool and the stamp tool.

By using the 'Hue/Saturation' I experimented with colours. I played with blue, black and red because that what normally rubber stamp colours ink are. I think  for my final design, I might go either with blue or black as I wanted my quote 'Fail. Fail again. Fail better.' to be in red. 



I don't know if you can any differences but I am looking for the right tone of red for the quote.

These are some layout ideas for the quote and the illustration.
The quote is too straight. Hmm maybe I should make it a bit wonky.

Yes, this is what I am talking about. The typography looks better when it is wonky like in a piece of paper. It is usually not straight anyway.

Frame around the rubber stamp + I might add some frame


These are how my quote looks like after I added frames. I still think that I need to edit the letter E and R or perhaps make the word 'better' smaller.

I made the word 'better' smaller and changed the Hue/Saturation of B and R to make them brighter as I think they were too dark compared to other letters. Maybe I need to move the word 'fail' a bit to the right as I do not think that it is centred enough. One second. 

Trial black:-


Trial blue:-

I think for my final designs of 'Fail. Fail again. Fail better.', I'll go with the blue ones as the audience can see the texture more compared to the back one.

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