Claire Smyth AAD010 Introducing Studio Practice : (Pauline) Graphic Design and Illustration / Graphic Language Contextual Research
As a part of the continued graphic design and illustration workshop in AAD010 taken and led by Pauline we were in which instructed and are required to complete, document and submit a wide range of detailed contextual research as a result from watching the likes of a graphic design and illustration offset archive talks / speeches (vimeo) or a YouTube documentary, along with selecting 2 graphic designers or illustrators through reflecting upon, analysing and writing about their work. As a result, I have chosen to reflect upon the illustrator of Laura Carlin based on her intellectual talk at the 2017 Offset even based in Dublin, along with analysing the modern graphic designer of Wolfgang Weingart and Roald Dahl’s illustrator Quentin Blake.
Laura Carlin:
Graduating from The Royal College of Art based in London, Laura Carlin is in which an award-winning London based ceramicist and illustrator, whose eye-catching designs and quirky eccentric compositions / sketches over the years and from an early age have in which created and developed a huge audience and cult following both internationally and within the UK, as generally, her cartoonish and simplistic style can come across and represent itself as quite odd and childlike at first, but during her continued practices of her produced work, this type of style formally allows her express much more freely within her deigned illustration as a result to convey specific astmopheres and meanings. Throughout the years, Laura’s wide accolades include winning the Bratislava children’s book illustration awards, making her the first Brit to hold this tittle in 20 years, along whilst two years in row she was in which nominated to win the Quentin Blake Illustration Prize whilst studying for her masters at the Royal College of Art. Within her work and illustrations, Laura Carlins vessels and decorative pieces can be full of surprises. This is because, from illustrations of daily life to painterly abstractions, Laura tends to apply her playful aesthetic onto paper, ceramic and even the likes of household items through turning the ordinary mundane into the whimsical.
Whilst watching and engaging within Laura Carlins Offset talk held in Dublin throughout / during the year of 2017, Carlin continued to state and mention throughout about her overall journey and experience throughout her time spent studying in both Buckinghamshire University and The Royal College of Art and how in which she came to be a well-known illustrator for creating many children’s and illustrated books / projects, as within Laura’s work, her artwork is registered and seen to come across and talk to and of the ‘everyman` towards the feeling of creating a huge intimacy between illustration and the viewer that breaks down barriers, through the likes of particular scenarios which are then used to communicate ideas and thoughts with a huge amount of humility.
With her contained knowledge upon the subject of illustration and continuing to experiment with detailed drawings in a variety of sketchbooks and not initially knowing where her artwork could / will take her, meaning as part of her masters she travelled to Japan with the aim to establish a frequent style through beginning to produce multiple sketches of various significant areas, people, items, buildings and objects etc. During her time spent away, while producing these sketches, Carlin was in which able to analyse and discover a much more significant difference between both an illustrator and a drawer, to where and through knowing what exactly belongs in a piece of work and what doesn’t, including what aspects should become the subject. Once returned from Japan, she continued to work upon her sketches in order to publish the book ‘Ten Days in Tokyo`, which throughout emphasised, documented, contained and highlighted many of her sketches and work as a result of the time spent on / during her travels. Which as a result this influential process was able to give her that significant opportunity to experience publishing and to effectively choose and order images, opening doors for future opportunities
Famous illustrators such as Saul Steinburg, Andre Francois and Helen Oxbury where in which extremely / highly influential and inspiration towards Carlins processes and publication of work, as within the Offset talk she continues to include and mention how in fact their work especially has the overall ability to tell a significant story within one image, though also leaving enough room for the viewer to discuss and deliberate upon. However, in this particular talk, Carlin also reveals, makes note and references that in which generally throughout her work she doesn’t always insist on looking into too many illustrators in the great fear that she will just have a reflection of their work instead of defining her own style and influencing particular aspects of illustration. In some cases when looking into other illustrators she tends to convey how she goes about looking and analysing the work of illustrators including: Picasso, Louise Bourgeois and Caulder etc along with admiring how in fact all their work continues to be beautifully observed and thought out ( composed / positioned etc), through creating and establishing the ability to take the viewer into the extreme and huge array of realms of imagination simply from just an image. Lauren Carlin also mentions and makes note / reference to the fact that when producing work she normally tends to begin to experiment, act out and walk around the action / imagery in order to give a sense of assurance that and of what exactly she is portraying with her illustrations in real life, along with aiming to create the correct atmosphere within the selected surrounding but not too much that would result in giving it away, as she basically just leaves just enough wonder, fascination and questions (confusion / making you think etc) for the viewers to analyse, which is quite similar to the ways and techniques produced within the work of Andre Francois.
Over the years throughout her career in the illustration industry, Laura has worked for the Tate Modern on their Barbara Hepworth retrospective, creating exhibition guides for children, provided artwork for the branding and identity of Cosworth Park Hotel, part of the Dorchester Group and packaging for Gail’s Bakery. She has also worked on corporate projects for Land Securities, advertising campaigns for British Airways and American Express. Throughout her work, Laura had continued to illustrate a regular column ‘Shrink & Sage’ in The Financial Times looking at two contrasting viewpoints, along with illustrating several books for the likes of The Folio Society including ‘Le Grande Meaulnes’ and ‘The Collected Stories of Chekhov’. In great relevance to this when publishing work, within the Offset talk she makes reference to and highlights the fact that she has in which over the years taken part in illustrating many children’s books, most notably the children book by Ted Hughes, titled The Man Iron, published by Walker Books. For this book, Laura created the Iron Man as a paper cut-out that casts shadows, which is displayed at the end of the book, when the townspeople are united with the Iron Man, that all the characters appear in three dimensions. In addition, the Phaidon commissioned Laura to write her first children’s book ‘A World of Your Own’ Laura began to paint objects and make paper models, where in which as a result and during the development stages the use of pebbles, clothes pegs and drinking straws become people, as well as using a hair comb a mode of transport. These two books then went onto to winning the children’s book illustration award at the Biennial of Illustration Bratislava in 2015, where especially the award is a highly reputed industry accolade and the jury judging Laura’s work stated it to be “a dialogue between technique and medium with an extensive frame of reference”. Along the way Laura has also picked up a Bologna Ragazzi Award, V&A Illustrated Book Award and has been voted an ADC Young Gun, which is one of the 50 most influential creatives under 30 years of age and now within recent years she is currently working on her seventh children’s book.
Furthermore, as a well as being seen as a working illustrator within this / that industry, Laura Carlin is also well known as a ceramicist. Her work is for sale at The New Craftsman and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. She has exhibited in Japan and around the UK. In 2016, a solo show at The House of Illustration featured a 650-tile mural depicting the history of London as well as twenty illustrated plates, classical figurines and a Noah’s Ark. In relevance, ceramics and her personal work provide Laura with the opportunity to explore themes in history, battles, warfare and iconography that she has been fascinated with since childhood.
As a result from researching, watching and reflecting upon Lauren carlin as an artist / illustrator and throughout her 2017 offset talk, overall / personally, I am now to believe and feel that I have which gained a whole new outlook and perspective on the subject of illustration especially in regards to how in fact generally, an illustrators perspective is more than likely to be greatly varied from the / its response of the audience in which they are aiming their work towards or within their specified brief. From this Offset talk, I overly feel that I was able to notice and gain various tips, tricks and snippets of advice to use going into the future when approaching / designing pieces of illustration / graphic design.
Wolfgang Weingart:
Born in 1941 near the Swiss border of Germany, based upon aspects of graphic language, Wolfgang Weingart is in which an internationally known graphic designer and typographer, whose process of creating work tend to regard him as the “enfant terrible” and “the father” of modern Swiss typography, along with being credited with the developing of the ‘New Wave` in typography throughout and within the early 1970s, which can also be dubbed as ‘Swiss Punk`. In relevance to the publication of his graphic design and typography-based work, Weingart is in which also highly famous in regards to and for his experimental and expressive work that more or less broke the set mould of classical Swiss typography. Later in the year of 1947, during his childhood, when Weingart started primary school, it was in which around this time, after manipulating a piece of wire to form images such as the outlines of a house, motorbike and landscape, that he solely became aware of his desired interest into the area of visual design. As years went on during the month of April in 1954, he then moved to Portugal and lived in Lisbon for around 2 years to where he was enrolled into the German School of Lisbon and his artistic inclination was in fact noticed and picked up by his teacher who gave him private lessons to help assist and nurture his artistic talent. During that same month of April but within the year of 1958 at the age of 17, Weingart began a two-year course in the area of art and design in which he was very eager to engage and learn about the process of sketching and planning for Linoleum and woodcuts, both which are printmaking techniques. He was also interested in hand setting type and printing, which during his free time he continued to work on personal projects that included working with setting type and print, as during this time he first encountered metal type. During this moment, Wolfgang continued to state that he “could not foresee the potential, nor the creative freedom that awaited the typesetter with our 26 movable letters and their affiliated signs”. As a result, within 1960, Weingart began a three-year typesetting apprenticeship at Ruwe Printing and in which during this time, he became familiar with the Swiss typography which inspired him through enlivening his years as an apprentice. While setting was like a childhood pleasure for Weingart as the methodical procedure brought back childhood memories, as at this time he was very focused on Swiss typography. However, he soon became intrigued by the poster ‘Giselle`designed in 1959 as he thought that the way the word Giselle was in fact vertically arranged, both unabashed and courageous. Here, was then the first time that he fully perceived the overall continued meaning of unity between both type and image. At this time, Wolfgang had then mastered the techniques of letterpress printing through beginning to get much more experimental with his work with letters and type elements in round compositions, where he then began to experiment in round compositions and with unusual letter spacing, including the repetition of words on a singular page. In 1962, he chose to experiment with the letter M in which this was an independent project that would follow and interest him for many years to come. It was curiosity that influenced him to combine new signs with the letter M and to experiment with changing its size, positions on pages and also its angles. As a result, he now learned how to manipulate the letter that he had chosen through the techniques of; bending, twisting, recreating, deconstructing it and working with the space within the oases themselves. In 1963, Weingart then moved to Basel, Switzerland to where he enrolled in the Basel School of Design, which is the origin of the classical Swiss Typography
In the 1950s there was a full emergence of a design movement that is seen by many as the most important graphic design style of the 20th Century. It began in Switzerland and Germany, and although sometimes called ‘Swiss typography’, it is also often referred to as the ‘International typographic style’ due to being globally recognised. As a result, Swiss Typography had become synonymous with corporate design as Swiss style emphasizes on being neat and eye-catching, and on its readability and objectivity. It is also identified for its immense simplicity and exhortation to beauty and purpose. These two principles are achieved by using asymmetric layouts, grids, sans-serif typefaces, left-flushes and simple but effective photography. These elements are produced in a simple but highly logical, structured, stiff and harmonious manner.
Weingart is in which known to have a rebellious mindset and has liked to push the limits of what is considered ‘the norm` as from any early stage he broke the typographic rules by freeing letters from their restricting their design grids. He spaced, underlined or reshaped them through reorganising the typesetting. Weingart believed that the development of the Swiss Typography was in which becoming stagnant as it was sterile and anonymous, meaning his goal was to breathe new life into the teaching of typography, where he believed that the only way to break typographic rules was to know them (an advantage he gained from his apprenticeship). As a result, he encouraged his students to look and experiment with, not only the basic design relationships with type, placement and size, but also with letter spacing with the goal to test the limits of readability. He allowed his students to have the freedom to experiment and create in an expressionistic manner, allowing certain graphic modifications of type thus intensifying its meaning. Due to this, his students dubbed this style as a ‘Weingart style`, although Weingart states that he didn’t force any of his students, nor set out to create a style. The result based upon this experimental work conveyed the realisation that with increased space between letters, the words became graphic in expression as it became less dependent on the reading. This act of experimenting challenged the new role of typography in which for example, according to Emil Ruder, “Typography has one plain duty before it and that is to covey information in writing, as a printed work which cannot be real becomes a product without purpose.” This new style, or approach to typography that came from his students became more popular, leading to a new generation of designers that approached most design in an entirely different manner than traditional Swiss typography. This new style of typography is in which the stylistic movement to where graphic designers moved away from the International Style, focusing more on playfulness and then the grid, meaning they paved the way for future designers to explore graphic design. Characteristics of this new style include all the aspects that Wolfgang taught his students to experiment with, including; inconsistent letter spacing, varying type weights within single words and type set at non-right angles. The new wave differs from the International typographic style by stretching the limits of legibility, by ignoring the grid structure, meaning that type could be placed centre, to the left or right or chaotic. This then gave the artist the freedom they wanted or needed to express themselves. The text also became textured with the development of transparent film and the increase in collage in graphic design, which is a style that is very prominent in Wolfgang’s work as he mounted halftone films to form collages for many of his posters, enhancing an expressive analytical skill in composition
Weingarts’s new wave work and thinking included letterspacing, bold stair-stepped rules, rule lines punctuating space, diagonal type, mixing typefaces or weight changes within words and type reversed from a series of bars. His work is in which very experimental and included experimenting with the offset printing processes to produce posters that appeared both complex and chaotic but also playful and spontaneous resulting in unusual textures and building up images with his posters. As a result, these posters became his most famous and admired works and in creating these posters, Weingart revived the techniques inspired by Dada collage and photo montage by layering images and type that had been photographed. One of his most famous posters and experimental practices was in the making of the ‘Matterhorn` to which he created by crumpling up tissue and photocopying it to get a range of shapes, tones and textures
Throughout his career, Wolfgang has become a very well-known designed that has in fact helped change the area of design by influencing others likes myself included to break apart the norms and to experiment more with their work. Wolfgang started out with the aim to create his own work and to explore the world of design, which led to the accidental creation of a new style that continues to influence other designers including myself especially until this day.
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Quentin Blake:
Born in the year of 1932 on the 16th of December, Sir Quentin Saxby Blake, CBE, FCSD, FRSL, RDI is in which an English cartoonist, illustrator and children’s writer, as from reading English at Cambridge, then studying teacher at the University of London to partaking in life classes at Chelsea Art School, he had always continued to peruse and make his living as an illustrator, as well as teaching for over twenty years at The Royal College of Art, where he was head of the illustration department from 1978 to 1986. During this progression of interest in illustration, his first illustrative drawings / sketches where in which published in Punch at just the age of 16 through continuing to draw for Punch, The Spectator and other magazines for many years while entering the world of children’s books with his first book as an illustrator, which included A Drink of Water and Other Stories by John Yeoman in 1960.
Throughout the years, Quentin has illustrated around 300 books, through especially being known for his collaborations with writers/ authors such as Russell Hoban, Joan Aiken and Michael Rosen, along with being the major illustrator for Roald Dahl books, including The BFG, The Witches, Matilda and Esio Trot etc, where all of which have gone onto winning major prizes. Throughout his career, Quentin has also written, produced and illustrated a number of his own books, for which he has also won awards, starting with Patrick which was published in 1968 and including Angelo (1970) that was later used as the basis for a children’s opera, along with being the creator of much-loved characters such as Mister Magnolia and Mrs Armitage.
As a result of his illustrations they have in which gone onto win numerous awards and prizes, to where he was awarded an OBE in 1988 and a CBE in 2005 for services to Children’s Literature. In the year of 1990, he was voted “The Illustrators Illustrator” by Observer Magazine, where in 1999 he was appointed as the first ever Children’s Laureate, resulting in a post designed to raise the profile of children literature. He has also won the Hans Christian Anderson Award for Illustration and was knighted in the 2013 New Year Honours for his services to illustration, where in March 2014 he was awarded the insignia of Chevalier of the Legion d’honneur at a ceremony at the Institut Francais in London.
The energy and mischievous humour of Quentin Blakes’s art, as well as its compassionate social awareness are in fact very evident within and throughout his award-winning children’s picture book Clown (1995). Without dialogue, it has the purity of a silent film, creating movement and telling its delightful story entirely through pictures. After being thrown out with other toys, a clown doll flips itself out of a trashcan, joins a fancy-dress parade, is chased by a dog, and is then thrown accidentally into a poor high-rise apartment. There his antics help to quiet a crying child, and he helps the harassed babysitter to tidy the apartment. Then they all go out into the city, against a vivid red sky and grey city buildings, and retrieve the others. By the time the child’s mother comes home, the clown has become a loved toy again. Characteristically, the book also conveys an underlying moral theme, about rejection and connectedness.
Using a mix of both pen and water colour, Quentin Blakes dynamic pen strokes throughout his illustrations / drawings typically create odd, unruly characters, almost always seen in concert with children, rendering them in a sprightly manner. For example, Sue Hubbard, an art critic writing in The Independent, continued to observe and reflect upon his work through commenting, stating and mentioning that: ‘His drawings are wonderfully free and playful, the colour bleeding with carefree abandon over the ink outlines to give a sense of movement and vitality’. Within today’s society he is now seen and registered as one of Britain’s most popular artist, and so recognisible Blake’s illustrations have become, that his gently anarchic images have spread to greetings cards. In 1999 he was appointed the first Children’s Laureate, and his achievement has recently been marked by a major retrospective exhibition: ‘Quentin Blake: Fifty Years of Illustration’, held at Somerset House in London in 2004. His work was also a major part of the British Council’s ‘Magic Pencil’ Exhibition which began touring the world in 2002, and there are apparently future plans for a Quentin Blake Gallery.
Blake started out precociously, having drawings in Punch magazine while still a schoolboy in 1949, and becoming a regular contributor. He has been a prolific artist since then, returning to teaching in 1965 as a part-time tutor at the Royal College of Art, where today he is a visiting professor. Among his significant book illustrations have been those for Russell Hoban, starting with How Tom Beat Captain Najork and his Hired Sportsmen (1974), and the late Joan Aiken’s Arabel and Mortimer (1980), responding especially to her bizarre fantasy elements, horses with eight folding legs and magical motor cars. His drawings for Michael Rosen’s book of children’s verse Quick, Let’s Get Out of Here (1983) are perhaps typical, children and play being a perennial subject in Blake’s work. Here they are shown at play, doing the washing up, or consuming ‘mad meals’ (including matchbox on toast) and ‘mad drinks’ (fizzy mouse, hot petrol, paint shake). Such items recall Roald Dahl’s Revolting Recipes, and indeed for a whole generation of children and young adults, Blake’s collaboration with Dahl has been his most important. Blake’s illustrations are integral to books such as The Twits (1980), The BFG (1982), and The Witches (1983). ‘Part of the huge appeal of the Dahl/ Blake collaboration is their understanding of a child’s need to subvert the adult world. In this the foul Twits perfectly fit the bill’, observes Sue Hubbard. We see the food particles in Mr Twit’s whiskers, and the wormy spaghetti fed to him by Mrs Twit. The BFG (The Big Friendly Giant) is a lovable ogre with elephant ears and a leather jerkin, while the cover of Roald Dahl’s Dirty Beasts (1984) has two children wary of animals with predatory smiles. Dahl’s disconcertingly funny poems tell us of a ‘wonderfully clever pig’ that eats its owner, and ‘Crocky-Wock the Crocodile’ takes bedsheets in its mouth to terrify a small boy and his father. A scorpion, porcupine, and even an anteater wreak havoc, and then there is a boy and his mother beset by ‘The Tummy Beast’
Furthermore, Blake’s career as an author / illustrator began with Patrick in 1968, and this has become his main mode over the last two decades. Mister Magnolia (1980) is a typically spiky-haired character, with a waistcoat and bow tie, and carrying a trumpet. ‘Mr Magnolia has only one boot’, and the book proceeds by pursuing the end rhyme, somewhat in the manner of the ‘Dr. Seuss’ books. We see him juggling fruit, his sisters playing the flute, green parakeets pecking his suit, and in the most detailed picture he is riding a pedal scooter with six small children holding on to his leg. Blake repeats such a rhyming format in works such as Fantastic Daisy Artichoke (1999), in which two children are befriended by a joyously zany lady and meet her pets. Another of Blake’s eccentrics is the heroine of the series of ‘Mrs Armitage’ books. In Mrs Armitage on Wheels (1987), for instance, her car gets converted into a motorbike by a succession of accidents, and she ends up joining a gang of friendly bikers. Mrs Armitage and the Big Wave (1997) is another comically unlikely scenario, when she goes surfing accompanied by faithful dog Breakspear. The continuous thread in the story is her saying ‘What we need here is …’, as she proceeds to accumulate beach items and rescues a young girl, before finally riding a big wave.
In the past few years some of his more recent works for children are essentially moral fables about the need for mutual care. Zagazoo (1998), for example, is about growing up. A couple take delivery of a strange parcel, which turns out to be a baby. It changes into a succession of alarming animals, including a screeching vulture, a baby elephant (‘How can we cope?’), and even a bad-tempered dragon. By the time it finally changes into a well-mannered young man, the couple have themselves become a pair of large brown pelicans. It ends with the cheery caption: ‘Isn’t life amazing!’ In the very funny Loveykins (2002), a middle-aged woman experiencing the ‘empty nest syndrome’ finds an abandoned bird after a storm and takes it home. We see her wrapping it up in a duvet, feeding it creamed carrots, éclairs, black forest gateau and even taking it into a shop (where it longingly gazes at a passing beetle). As ‘Augustus’ gets bigger she installs him in a garden shed, but after another storm, he becomes himself, a giant bird flapping his wings. Flying over many upturned smiling faces, this new freedom brings him ‘such prospects! such vistas!’
In relevance to various aspects of his illustrated work, a Sailing Boat in the Sky (2002) returns to showing children in action, but also reflects Blake’s concerns with international problems of prejudice, pollution, war and the environment. This is a very simple but magical tale, as two children find and repair a broken boat, finding that they too can fly. They use it to rescue a talking stork, then some vulnerable children from persecution, and pick up Magda and her baby from a war zone. A fierce looking but kind granny assists them, and they fix a new patchwork sail. ‘And what happened after that’, it concludes, ‘you will just have to imagine …’ Quentin Blake’s graphic eloquence, his funny, tender and joyously anarchic artwork, has made him not only one of the most important illustrators produced in Britain since the 1950s, but also one of the best-loved.
