Conceptual Illustration
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For this project I was given an article about throwaway culture and how France are taking steps to combat the waste. I began this project by writing down my first initial ideas that came to mind when I read the article and listed artists that could give me visual inspiration for an editoral illustration.
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Visual Inspiration
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When researching editorial illustrations, the ones that inspired me the most included bold, contrasting colours that attract the eye and bring the illustration to life.
Before starting thumbnails, I wanted to just draw any visual ideas down in order to find a direction I wanted to take. I find this way of working much easier as it allows me to quickly get more ideas down and not have to be worrying about fitting it into the given aspect ratio or worry about composition yet. Initially, I found trying to think conceptually quite challenging as I felt my ideas weren't exaggerating the concept enough and felt too literal.
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I realised that wrenches had similar qualities to hands which worked well with the concept of the article where people learn to fix their own devices, thus becoming the fixing tool.
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I first drew the idea out using graphite sticks to shade and then coloured it digitally. I decided to not use this idea for my illustration as it seemed too ambiguous, meaning it didn't convey the message of the article well enough, and just wasn't all that visually interesting.
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Spot Illustration
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For the spot illustration, I wanted to keep the idea and design quite simple since it was going to be smaller than the main illustration. The idea I decided to use for this was a parody of the recycle logo, using pieces of technology as the arrows. The recycle logo is widely known so as long as it is recognisable in my final design I think it will convey the message well.
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After Feedback
After feedback, it was suggested to go back to the idea of conveying the juxtaposition of the amount of waste used worldwide with what France wants the achieve. In order to fully convey the vast amount of waste, I decided to change the rubbish bins to skips so that they would loom over the people walking between them.
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I started by drawing out the composition traditionally and then scanned it in to create a mock up by editing stock photos to get a feel for how the final illustration will look.
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I decided I wanted to work quite loosely as it makes the illustration appear more spontaneous and lively so that the meaning doesn't get lost in adding unnecessary details.
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I realised that the end of a plug looked a bit like the arrow of the recycling logos so I decided to experiment with using that. I thought that adding another element to the illustration such as tangled wires would make it more visually interesting but it ended up looking less like the recycling logo and more like the Razer one so I decided to come up with a different composition solution.
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When researching the various different recycle logos that are widely used, I came across the 'not yet recycled' symbol. I felt that this worked much better not only visually but also better at conveying the meaning of the article, that technology is not yet recycled enough.
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Final Mock Up
