PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE PART A

RESEARCH TASK

 EDITORIAL ILLUSTRATION IDEAS AND CONCEPTS

MICHEAL PARKIN

Micheal Parkin is a conceptual illustrator, his editorial work interested me as it often displays pressing matters like housing issues (shrinkflation of homes shown in the Portaloo image) and environmental concerns in a humorous way. He does this by drastically exaggerating the issue and conveying it at its most extreme/unlikely state.

EIKO OJALA

I was drawn to Ojala's work because of the simplicity in which he gets his ideas across, the backgrounds are often plain and the shapes/ shadow effects make up the idea. You don’t have to spend a long time considering what it means as he uses key visuals to help the reader make the links themselves. For example we can tell that one is about labour government and one is about teens and phones very easily.

JACK SACHS

I like how Jack Sachs’ work seems silly and fantastical but when paired with the arrival of titles/text you realise that the themes are much darker than his whimsical colourful illustrations, for example the plastic filled head is about the effects of micro plastics on us and the slightly goofy clippy is about controlling an army AI bots.

EDITORIAL IMAGE MAKING

MAISY SUMMER

Maisy summer combines a variety of traditional drawing approaches like with paints, pencils and pastels and often mixes this with digital aspects too. I really like how this creates multiple fun textures within her work particularly within this one about pub quizzes for Financial Times. She also uses paper cutting and collage methods too.

CHRISTOPH NIEMAN

Christoph Nieman is inspired by everyday objects, he positions them on the page and creates illustrations utilising their shapes- then a photo of the drawing with the item becomes the final art piece. I think this unique way of working is very effective and shows an insider of how he looks at the world. 

JOANNE JOO

I was interested in this clay like style by illustrator Joanne Joo because of how fun and silly the characters are, originally I thought that it was created using analogue methods and photographed then edited but it turns out these are all made completely digitally with 3D rendering! 

MAGAZINE DESIGN

RUBBISH FAMZINE

This magazine was made by the Lim family as a way to record their lives together, I really like the way that they combine different related objects with the presentation of the covers. Their pages make use of half pages and flaps and overall it has a nice homemade journal vibe as well as including interesting graphics and nostalgic photography. 

ASAHI NAGATA

I really like Asahi Nagata's colourful magazine covers, I think that her style works really well with the content of these magazines which are mainly about life style and art/illustration. I like how the titles are incorporated into the covers and although they're detailed it isn't to busy.

YUFEI YANG

Yufei Yang's spread Can You Kick It stood out to me as I was flipping through Beneficial Shock as I really like the way the text and the illustrations interact with each other. It is the same with this other article I found done by her, the pages both feel dynamic and interesting to look at without an overload of text.

MAGAZINE TOPIC/ GENRE

IT'S FREEZING IN LA!

It's Freezing in LA! is a magazine for writing and illustrations about the climate and environmental issues. They want to communicate the issue in different ways and not rely on the overused imagery of ‘polar bears, floods and fires.’ I like how educational and important this magazine is but it keeps you interested with unique visuals.

SEED MAGAZEEN

This is another environmental based magazine that aims to educate issues revolving conservation and climate as well as just general facts to do with nature. Seed Magazeen is for a younger audience of 5-7 year olds and I think is a really useful device to help make the future generations more aware of the world around them: it engages them with fun games, craft activities and mini comics. I am interested in children's book illustration so this really stood out to me.

FISH BOWL FEVER

This is a zine made by a past student doing this project. The topic of this zine is dementia, it has such a simple way of explaining dementia using narrative that everyone can understand- so is educational and thus serves an important purpose. To me this zine was also very emotional and the twist at the end leaves you in shock keeping it memorable. 

FURTHER RESEARCH

What techniques do editorial illustrators use to engage younger audiences?

For my final report I was drawn to looking at more children's magazines and spreads as I wanted to see how illustrators would adapt their work for a different audience. This is partly due to me being interested in children's book illustration.

Many illustrators take the approach of making their work interactive and giving a chance for the child to ‘play’ with them. For example Maria Neradova makes these search and find spreads for the magazines Pomme d’api and La Salamandre magazine. This can get younger children who can’t read big chunks of text immersed in the artworks and provides a different function to magazines.

This method of adding games is used in many well known children’s magazines too such as Aquila which is targeted for older children.

An important function of many children's magazines is to teach, so it is vital that illustrators are informative and accurate with their visual language. The spreads must be clear and engaging but the reader needs to learn something from it. This page for magazine High Five by Paula J Becker is a good example, it is easy to understand and provides information about the planets, their order and how they circulate the sun with the mobile at the top. Thought has gone into it and it isn’t misleading. 

 Similarly these spreads for a Russian older kids magazine by Victoria Steblava (who specialises in non-fiction art) show depictions of close up of animals and plants that are easy to interpret.

A key difference to other magazines that really stood out to me is that the majority of children’s magazines tend to have super bright colours throughout. For example all of these covers-

Upon further research I found out that this is intentional and a way the illustrators have once again adapted to their audience. Colour for children is very important in early development and can help stimulate their minds. These covers are very engaging and invite kids in to explore new visual spectrums.

EDITORIAL ILLUSTRATION LECTURE NOTES

Here are some notes from all the lectures (kind of just for me to refer back to)