24Steps Art and Design

This exercise left me somewhat confused. It appears to give a brief but then goes on to ask us to write our own brief; it asks for a diagrammatic illustration but then the example given takes a very painterly approach. My response was to research the various elements:

• travel guide
• diagrammatic illustration
• Milan
• Helsinki
• Istanbul

.

Travel Guides

My only travel guide is one of Wales and measures 12.9 x 19.7 cms so these are the dimensions I based my illustration on. I researched travel guides online and collected examples in a Pinterest board. I noticed from my research that the covers of these guides tend to be photographic and focus on specific features of the destination. There are also a number of travel guide maps I found on Pinterest: Travel Guides

Diagrammatic Illustration

I wasn’t exactly sure what was meant by diagrammatic illustration so I searched online and got the following definitions:

Diagrammatic: shown or represented by diagrams.

Diagram: 1. A plan, sketch, drawing, or outline designed to demonstrate or explain how something works or to clarify the relationship between the parts of a whole.
– The Free Dictionary

and

Illustration Diagrams are graphics that display an image, or images, accompanied by either notes, labels or a legend, in order to:

• Explain concepts or methods
• Describe objects or places
• Show how things work, move or change
• Help provide additional insight into the subject displayed

– Data Visualisation Catalog

Destination Research

I collected ideas about the 3 destinations in private Pinterest boards, which I use as moodboards:

Initially I focused just on buildings as they are fairly unique to their destinations but after re-reading the exercise brief I expanded my research to other features of the destinations. These included food, dress, pattern and activities.

My Adapted Brief

The covers should be created to show a range of features of the destinations. This should include drawn imagery of items of interest and include handwritten labels. The three covers should clearly belong to a set of guides.

Before re-reading the brief we were given by the college I developed the Milan guide through thumbnails then had a rethink. Initially I was very focussed on the buildings that represented the destinations and drew up the following thumbnails.


When I re-read the brief I was more aware of ‘range of features’ and decided to add further items relevant to the destinations. I chose to represent these in an iconic style using black and white for its high contrast. I decided to include traditional patterns for the destinations in a collage style background to, both, to distinguish them within a set and connect them together as from the same set.



Tagged as: Tags book cover, collage, illustration, Illustration 1 Part 5