Monday 10th February: Client Briefing and Ideation
This project asks me to create social media content creation campaign for the Waterloo Community Theatre. I am asked to use my existing creative knowledge and deep level research to create a convincing content for social media to help involve and encourage young audience to get involved with Waterloo Theatre in a diversity of ways. I am asked to create 12 illustrations for social media, which will be posted on instagram once a month for a year.
During our first briefing we were welcomed with Anna Glaring CO artistic director of the Waterloo Community Theatre. We had the opportunity to listen to her while she gives the brief and ask any questions related to the project.
The 12 illustrations have to share the impact of the work Waterloo community theatre is doing, and also encourage the potential funders to show their interested in supporting this community. It is about publicising the impact of the work they do, which will allow the young people to tell their stories and experiences and what it means for them to be part of this community.
Website: https://waterloocommunitytheatre.co.uk/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/waterloocommunitytheatre/
Inspiration: Artist: Moonassi
https://www.hugoandmarie.com/artists/moonassi/
Moonassi draw lines to forget about himself- as he said in his blog. ”I draw lines to forget about myself. I paint to end intangible thoughts, hard feelings, and ghostlike delusions in my mind. Lingering thoughts will be calmed by visualizing as it’s tangled. Raging feelings from the memories of the past will be cooled by otherizing them with interacting bodies. And my restless mind will be eased while I draw lines and paint black. That is the reason I draw, drawing scattering mind towards the past and the future, not to forget about myself. ” – Moonassi
What I am mostly inspired when looking at his work is the concept of his ideas. They are very powerful and have a lot of meaning. Each illustrations have a story behind it. They all reminds me of an art therapy, drawing onto paper to describe a story and
Illustrator: Mark Conlan
https://www.instagram.com/markconlan/
I am very inspired by the illustrator Mark Conlan especially his lively gif animations because they are both very playful but also professional. I think combining bright colours with something simple can attract both young people and cooperations so WCT can be interested to support them fainancally.
In my work, I have not produced many moving images, so I want to explore this further as I feel like it can be very effective for social media. It can attract people to visit WCT social media.
Illustrations by Mark Conlan
Moving image by Mark Conlan
Dixit cards:
1st lesson: Client Briefing and Ideation 10th February 2020
Group Brainstorming sheets
‘Idea creation’ requires practice in the same way the body needs exercise so does the mind.’
In this lesson we covered ideation strategies and I was able to find out more about brainstorming, mind mapping and lateral thinking, and who were they discovered by.
Alex Osborn – Brainstorming http://www.brainstorming.co.uk/tutorials/historyofbrainstorming.html
Tony Buzan – Mind Mapping
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5Y4pIsXTV0
Edward De Bono – Lateral Thinking
https://www.edwddebono.com/
Visiting Waterloo Community Theatre 14th February 2020
To create and design my 12 illustrations, I think the concept of my idea has to be strong in order to be successful. So I decided to visit the WCT on Friday for the normal workshops from 5pm to 7pm. Part of this experienced, allowed me to observe and talk to the young people about their experience with the theatre. It was a fantastic opportunity to get to know everyone as it made the project real. When I walked in to the environment I felt very welcomed by everyone, especially Anna and her daughter which was helping at the time. We started the workshop with playing a ball together and passing it to each other as an exercise to move around and kind of look at each other as there were a lot of new faces. The young children attend this community on Friday after their school, so Anna made sure they had rested and so the first 30min were just for them to do whatever they feel like.
After this I had the opportunity to talk to a 14 year old Rachel who definitely stood out to me very much from the whole class. I asked her few questions and we had a quite a long conversation. I asked her:
how do you feel in WCT?
I feel safe and happy to have a community. If I weren’t here on a Friday night, I would probably have an anxiety blanket and watch Netflix. It is definitely free and drama classes are not the same in high school. I can be myself here. I have a reason to wake up and look wait for something, so it is part of my routine.
What catches your eyes on Instagram when you scroll?
Memes, because you can relate a lot. I like pastel colours and games. I like sketches, you know like quick sketches that overlaps to create something weird.
If you were to describe WCT using three colours, what would it be?
Blue- because the place feels safe
Red Crimson- because we discuss a lot about ourselves and sometimes it is about opening up
Dark green- because the community is growing together
Rachel has also mentioned that she has been bullied, and the conversation we had together was very close, and I didn’t expect it. I felt like this community is not only a theatre, but also a place where these young people run away to from their life situations, where they can be free and enjoy the peacefulness and acceptance this place offers. It is almost like an art therapy for them.
Pictures taken at the Waterloo Community Centre with the permission of photography being taken
My brainstorming sheets – Exploring my personal ideas, what I am thinking of?
Theatre for me is allowing yourself to use everything your body has to offer. The movement, mind, heart.. It is all so important. Allowing yourself to become someone else almost coming out from your body into the characters, is almost like an art therapy.
For the concept of my 12 illustrations I want to focus of 12 words that describe Waterloo Community Theatre. When I first visited this place, it was very clear to me that this place is all for children who sometimes struggle, this place helps them grow from the overwhelming teenager life everyone faces.
By allowing myself to use 12 words that WCT mostly stands for it will help me to easily navigate my illustrations into a good concept. By having these 12 words, 12 illustration and one illustration posted per month on Instagram it will mean that each illustration should be special and make people understand what WCT is all about. So if I choose the word Community we can write a quote that describes community for WCT and explain what community is for us, as well as engage people in the comment by asking them for their own experience. I think this way I can promote WCT effectively on social media by brining people companies together to support WCT.
My brainstorming sheets
One to One with Vj
I have spoken to my tutor VJ about my first drafts, sketches and ideas. He made me understand that if I am doing work for a client, I really have to think about the client only and not only on my personal taste and style. This is very important, because as an illustrator we tend to stick to our own taste of colours and style, which sometimes can limit us. I took his advice on my colour pallet and I have toned it down, as well as by adding darker tones and colours.
Meeting with the client : 02. 02.2020
Today we had a meeting with our client we are working with: The Waterloo Community Theatre. Anna Glaring is the Co-Artistic Directior who organises this project for us. To get ready for my meeting with Anna I prepared a PDF presentation that outlines the brief, my research, inspiration, my development of work and what I am thinking of to create my 12 illustrations. One of my inspiration for this project were the Dixit cards, where each card is beautifully designed to represent a story, a word. She really liked this idea, and said that I can come again to visit in two weeks to play this game with the kids from the community as well as receive words for my illustrations, this way 12 illustrations have allocated words to represent something, and to engage people on Instagram we will have conversations of what those words mean for Waterloo Community Theatre.
The illustrations I have showed her were almost finished. She really like the bold colours I am using and the story behind them. I did not receive any criticism therefore I think it means that she likes the way this is going, so I will continue to create my illustrations this way.
To finish my meeting with her, I decided to create a momento for her that she can take with her. I printed her a copy of one of my illustration for this project with the contact details behind the card. The size of it was A5. She was very surprised and positive, and said she will show it to the kids.
Client Meeting: notes preparations
Further research into Theatre, masks and community
What is a theatre?
Theatre is all about live performances in which the plot is planned in order to create ”coherent and significant sense of drama” (Britannica, 2020)
The colour association with theatre is definitely, black red, gold,
https://www.britannica.com/art/theatre-art
Colour decisions
When thinking about my colour I wanted to go very bold and bright as my client mentioned in our first meeting that the illustrations should be bold and vivid. The colour suggestions from Anna (the client) were to use red, black and grey, three colours that she is interested in a clear but also creative approach to the illustrations. In my illustrations I decided to use colours like bright but toned down pink, with the use of bright and toned down green, as well as incorporate two colours Anna suggested, red and black. I think this colour combination works very well because it both represents theatre as red and black associates with a clear picture of what theatre looks like. By choosing to use pink and green, I am able to think about the trends on instagram, and what catches the eyes of young audience as well as large corporations.
When I showed my colour decision to Anna and my current development, she was really pleased with my option, and she also mentioned that I could include more brighter and stronger pink to highlight some of the areas of the illustrations.
Final colour decision pink, green, red, black
Illustration size and what medium I am using
For most of my illustrations I will be using the portrait size of 1080px by 608px as well as the square size of 1080px by 1080px. To start coming up with my ideas I will be sketching in my sketchbook, next I will be creating a clear image using pencil of a draft for my illustrations, lastly using digital drawing in this case my iPad to draw the illustrations as currently I have been really enjoying learning about procreate programme and I have been getting better and better.
I am thinking to create at least one or two moving images, as I have never created one before for any of my social media. I think by taking the time on easter break I want to learn how to animate digitally. By durning two of my concept ideas into quick gifs can be very effective for social media, as currently people like to view videos and something that is moving.
My sketchbook : IDEA GENERATION
Idea development
The creation of my first illustrations inspired by the word: Voice
Typography Exploration
When creating my second illustration with the hand holding together, representing the word Community, I decided to explore the different positions of typography. I think it is important to show to the client various options in order for them to choose what they like, it also guides me to know what directions they like the most. 
Further Development and colour decisions/sketches
24.03.2020
Developing my ideas? What is going on in my head? Am I producing enough?
Currently I am in the middle of developing my ideas further to really show across what WCT Community is really about. Lately, I have been developing my style a little bit in order to draw humans in a more fascinating way for social media. My current ideas of how I want to create social media content are all over the place and it has been a little bit hard for me to concentre. I am trying to get back on the track with creating my illustrations to be very pleased and eye catching for all my audiences.
Currently, I have 4 good finished illustrations, with 8 more ideas to go. Because I want all my illustrations to be different from each other, I really want the concept of each to be strong, and being stuck at home does not give you enough inspiration, and concentration to create with passion.
Here are some development of humans I am currently working on, these drawings are just sketches of my friends and I have been trying to develop this style in a way so I can try to draw illustration for the WCT instagram.
3 Images slideshow
These illustrations are not thematically related to my task, these are just my ideas of how I would like to carry on drawing humans representing the WCT.
25.03.202 What decision will I give to the client?
I have created 4 finished illustrations. One illustration is developed into 5 different layout compositions and colour decisions as well as text. I wanted to give the client the freedom to pick which compositions suits her the most for the WCT instagram.
By creating 6 different versions of how this illustrations can look like, by having different tones and shadows I am able to give my client the option to choose which one she likes. Personally, I think the final one should be the 4th one or the 6th one. As they are clean, bold and clearly show what I am trying to show. The 6th illustration on black background is very rich in colour, because the vibrant tones really stands out against the black background, However because the logo is black, I had to add a frame around it to make it visible, which is also what makes the company logo stand out.
2nd April 2020
Am I producing enough?
Constant question comes to my mind when I ask myself if I am producing enough in the time I have. The answer is NO. But there is so much going on in my head that the concentration level is somewhere different. As of today I have 6 illustrations finished, which means I have 6 more to create. It is very hard for me to come up with ideas but I am looking for all the sources available to give me inspiration. I have been developing my personal Instagram lately, and found many interesting illustrations that inspire my work.
So what idea I am working on today?
Today I am working on an idea to create a safe space illustrations for the theatre. I always like to search what the word is, in this case safe space what is it associated with, and what it really means. From there my ideas develop and grows like the leaves on the branches.
The term safe space refers to places created for individuals who feel marginalized to come together to communicate regarding their experiences with marginalization, most commonly located on university campuses in the western world, but also at workplaces, as in the case of Nokia. (wikipedia)
As you can see I have been exploring further possible branches for my illustrations. Here I decided to explore the wellbeing and safe space by using nature. Branches of leaves, and something that makes the space grow and look happy. I am still trying to have a consisted colour pallet, with few new colours showing in places, I think that this can be very effective because, it will still make my 12 illustrations have a similar flow, but each time something new is surprising the audience.
9th April 2020 Another week is passing
From my previous week, I have said that I have finished 6 illustrations, next week passes and I have produced 8 illustrations that are finished, which means I have created 2 new ones in a week. I have 4 illustrations left to complete, and before we start our new term there is almost a week to go. I am positive that I can achieve this task to the fullest and be proud of myself. Today I am focusing on idea development and how I want to lay out the 4 illustrations. I will put all my 8 finished illustrations together to see how well they connect together, what pattern I am seeing and if I am missing a content in any.
I have scanned few of my quick pencil sketches to show my process thinking and how I work as an illustrator.
In these sketches I am really thinking about the placement of the children and what they are doing, and how they are communicating with each other. Its important for me that each illustrations is quite different. I am a person who gets bored very easily, and I think people on social media often wants something new and fresh each time, so with this in mind, I am creating my illustrations.
What is my next illustration idea?
I have a Pinterest board, where I keep all my inspiration, photography, colour pallets that inspire me for each project, it is a good way to keep my visual inspiration going- I personally find it very useful! especially now- when the current global situation to stay at home is very real, I am limited to books and other resources. From this board, you can see that the next illustration will be inspired by light in the theatre- I think light really brings the meaning to acting, I think it is all about the atmosphere. I would love to create a small animation using the light, however I still haven’t gotten to the point where I have taught myself how to animate digitally… maybe this is the time.
My second inspiration for the illustration I want to create is this picture from the Waterloo Community Theatre Instagram Page: 
I found this to be very inspiring to create an illustration based on this picture. It speaks about the mind of these children, and can be visually satisfying.
More Sketches and development:
Colour, Process and composition ideas
Final Outcomes: 12 Illustrations
Despite my deepest thoughts 