Exercise: Giving Instructions

Exercise: Giving Instructions

Diagrammatic illustrations are illustrations that aim to convey information through placing of freestanding elements which are then read in a systematic way. The category I chose to illustrate was, "Getting to my house", I thought this would be the most fun to get stuck into. I knew straight away though that I wanted to create an 'out of the box response' to the exercise, my idea was to give someone directions to my house but starting from Japan. I would then use the countries culture to create unique illustrations and find a unique way to display them.

I thought this would be more challenging and exciting. I created a list of things to focus my mind on what I wanted my project to be. I wanted to have an abstract feel, I think this is a strength of mine that I want to display. I then wanted the map to have elements of an old vintage map and then modern professional maps with a grid. I also wanted the map to contain different medians of work.

I then went onto experimenting with the placement of the countries, obviously, with a map, it is important to maintain order and have a clear path so it can be followed. I was playing around with visual hierarchy, I decided that it would be best to change the sizes of the countries so that the starting country is larger in size. I then think it would be better to have that on the left-hand side as this is where the eye will read from. One thing that'll help as well as the fact that there will be physical arrows guiding the eye.

Another thing I wrote down was how I was going to experiment with the typography and having them interact with the countries so some letters may be hidden behind. This makes them stand out more and be more impactful. 

This was when I began to develop a sort of background for the countries, my idea was to have them be displayed on top of tour guides, the tour guides will be laid out in a certain way so that the front covers connect together to make the map, I then developed that idea further so that each tour guide would be a tour guide for the continent the countries on the cover are in. 

I then developed another idea that would ultimately become my final one. That idea was to incorporate small patterns on top of a watercolour background. The watercolour background is important as it was heavily used on old school vintage maps.

These were the reference images I collected and were using during the sketching process.

The next thing I did was to begin illustrating the elements of my map, I decided that I would illustrate a few monuments from the countries on my map to give it life. I wanted to challenge myself and to do that I find making my work have more detail works well. I want to constantly be drawing and designing so when it comes round to these exercises I like to go a step further.

I have recently invested in an Ipad Pro for my design and artwork and also an Apple Pencil, I wanted to have a go experimenting with these tools and thought this would be a great project for it. I started by sketching out my first structure, The Taj Mahal.

I started out with a basic sketch, this allows me to get everything down and then I can refine the details of it.

I then inked the building and cut down a lot of extra detail. In terms of colour I wanted to be quite abstract, I used a base of 3 colours, I added a darker shade down first and then the rest with a lighter colour.

The 3rd colour was a solid darker brown, it provided a darker contrast and exaggerated the shadows.

I followed the same process with the leaning tower of Piza. I started with a basic sketch, used some other illustrations as inspiration, but I never just copied someone elses work.

This was close to the finished product, I was going for a more neon feel with this illustration so I added a light green before the neon colour just to enhance the contrast.

Here were the finished buildings completed and coloured. I think the shading really adds to the structures.

After completing the illustrations of the buildings I then went onto creating my country outlines, I sketched them out inside my sketchbook and then inked them. I then took photos of my drawings and used Photoshop to remove the background and leave me with just the outlines.

I then used Procreate and a watercolour brush to create this deep blue background for my map, I think this takes great inspiration from old vintage maps that used water colour backgrounds. To give my map a more vintage feel I then created the compass in the bottom right, this was also created in procreate but instead with an Inking pen and black chalk.

Overall I did enjoy this exercise, I like working with separate elements and then bringing them all together at the end, I think this breaks down the workload. I also liked experimenting with a different art style for the buildings, I think using the solid black not only to ink but to shade as well just adds so much. I still think I go overboard with ideas though, I tend to have a long list of elements that I want to include in my illustration such as typography and coordinates. When I get to a stage to add them I don't think they are required or would add anything. However, ultimately I think it's great to have a long list of ideas as It gives me a lot to choose from and different directions to take I just need to stop getting stressed out when I do not end up adding them all.