Target Audience

Shepard Fairey, Animal Farm
 http://obeygiant.com/images/2008/12/poster_animalfarm_lrg.jpg

TARGET AUDIENCE

The original Animal Farm that I purchased for this brief had the front cover design by Shepard Fairey, it has a really strong propaganda/revolutionary design to it with simple shapes within and it stands out well against other copies of this book. 

Shepard Fairey, 1984
http://obeygiant.com/images/2008/12/poster_1984_lrg.jpg

I decided as the design by Shepard Fairey caught my eye and was admired by my peers, that this shows that loud but simple designs are effective with a young adult audience with an interest in art and with the current disillusionment and disinterest of politics within my generation and the stereotypical interest in rebellion and revolution, my target audience should then be young artistic adults, possibly my peers and people I know. 

I did originally attempt to make my designs more childlike and had the target audience of children in mind, but then after realizing the book was too controversial and adult in content, I decided to go for an older target audience that could understand the images but still decided to keep with my colour scheme which was originally meant to be effective for children but I think I could be able to work around it to make it effective for adults too. 

Ralph Steadman's Animal Farm

Ralph Steadman
http://beautifuldecay.com/wp-content/uploads
/2014/04/steadmanillustration16.jpg

RALPH STEADMAN

I found another illustrated Animal Farm by Ralph Steadman, his designs are incredibly effective in telling the story with minimal colour but prominent black outlines. 

Steadman will be one of the many illustrators at the Illustration Festival, his designs really helped me understand the brief better and how I would be able to go about doing it. 

He has an interesting way of making the animals look morbid and sickly, which works well with the book's content. 

Ralph Steadman
http://designwithspine.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/boxer_color.jpg

Ralph Steadman
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/3c/ac/e3/3cace3fa41df0881c94dce152d359bb7.jpg

Choice of Materials

MATERIAL CHOICES

On beginning my Animal Farm narrative illustrations, I tried a variety of different materials and techniques in my design ideas but eventually decided to use watercolour pens, fine liners, as well as some white fine liners and brusho paint effects within my backgrounds. 

I used block colours and bold designs for the main parts of my designs and then used a more faded background so that the main parts of the designs would stand out above the background better. 

I tried using ProMarkers but stopped after realizing how much they bleed through paper and they looked too messy and were too difficult to contain within black outlines which is one of the key techniques I wanted my designs to have.



The Propaganda block effect of the pens is why I chose to use them, I had some difficulties in shading with them at first but then realized quick fluid motions made them work more like brushes than pens and utilized this in my work.

Thumbnails

The key events in Animal Farm that I chose to illustrate for my final pieces were quite easy to pick as the book only has ten chapters and within each chapter, the events that took place were key to the development of the story and all had individual references to the historical content of the Russian Revolution. 

Key Events in Animal Farm

1. Old Major's speech after Mr Jones falls asleep drunk - his speech is a reference to Karl Marx's communist manifesto. 
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/

2. Old Major dies and Animalism is formed in secret, the animals begin to starve and run Mr Jones out of the farm, the seven commandments of Animalism are written.

3. The pigs health is the most important, they reserve the apples and milk for themselves though the animals begin to work in harmony, some of the animals also learn to read and write.

4. The farmers of the neighbouring farms begin to fear Animal Farm, they attack the farm and the Battle of Cowshed happens, the animals win. 

5. Sheeps begin bleating 'Four legs good, Two legs bad.' The windmill idea is introduced by Snowball however Napoleon doesn't like it and Snowball is exiled. 

6. The windmill is built afterall and the pigs begin trading with humans. 

7. Napoleon orders the execution of the animals he suspects are working with Snowball and the song of the rebellion 'Beasts of England' is banned by Napoleon.

8. The other farmers decide to attack the farm and tear the windmill down before being ran out by the animals. 

9. Boxer breaks his ankle and is sent to the glue factory to be killed. 

10. The pigs are now indistuingishable to the humans and possess whips, the seven commandments have all been changed to suit the pigs needs and to oppress the other animals in a way that is unchallengable. 

I tried to push these key events in my thumbnails by layouting them so that they could include the key events altogether. I wanted to make them more surreal in their way of telling the story. 

Symbols

SYMBOLS & THEIR ORIGINS

Carrie Worthen, Wisconsin AFL-CIO
http://www.docspopuli.org/articles/Fist_images/fist-wisconsin1.jpg

Raised Fist Symbol

Socialist Party of Malaysia,
http://www.docspopuli.org/articles/Fist_images/PSMfist.jpg

Oakland General Strike, 1926
http://www.docspopuli.org/images/OWS-2011/OccOak-fist3.jpg

The Raised Fist has been used throughout historical revolutions as a symbol of unity and resistance, it has been used in different countries such as Cuba and Serbia within their rebellious propaganda posters. 

It's a strong and empowering symbol that brings the oppressed together. 
http://www.docspopuli.org/articles/Fist.html

Hammer & Sickle, Communist symbol
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/
Hammer_and_sickle.svg/1024px-Hammer_and_sickle.svg.png

Communist Hammer & Sickle

This symbol was created during the Russian Revolution to be used by the Communists, the hammer is a symbol of the working class and the sickle is a symbol for the peasantry. The hammer and sickle represents the alliance between the two and the revolution that their alliance can create. 
http://rbth.co.uk/arts/2014/07/19/serp_i_molot_38327.html

Animal Farm Symbol Design 

Own Design

I created a symbol to reference the infamous hammer & sickle design but instead of the hammer, I used a horseshoe to symbolise the working class in reference to Boxer as he was known for his hard work. 

I drew out a pig trotter and shaped it so that it could be placed between the horseshoe instead of having a circular section cut out from the horseshoe. 

I wanted to symbolize the pigs oppressing the working animals by dipping their trotter in the produce and taking the profits for themselves on the backs of working animals. 

Animal Farm Research

Animal Farm

by George Orwell

'Mr Jones of Manor Farm is so lazy and drunken that one day he forgets to feed his livestock. The ensuing rebellion under the leadership of the pigs Napoleon and Snowball leads to the animals taking over the farm. Vowing to eliminate the terrible inequities of the farmyard, the renamed Animal Farm is organized to benefit all who walk on four legs. But as time passes, the ideals of the rebellion are corrupted, then forgotten. And something new and unexpected emerges...' 

-Blurb of Animal Farm by George Orwell

Animal Farm was based around a kind of satire of the Soviet Union, Orwell's characters are based on members of this party. For example, Napoleon the pig is based on Josef Stalin, Snowball was based on Leon Trotksy and Old Major on Karl Marx. A lot of the book takes key parts of the Russian Revolution and simplifies them into events throughout the book. 

http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/site/work/summaries/animf.html

THE BRIEF

My goal for this project is to show fully developed and professional illustrations through research on my chosen book and different techniques and materials. I will do this by creating design sheets, thumbnails, medium exploration, peer and audience feedback and will show any design changes that were required for fully realized illustrations.  

WHAT I NEED;

SKETCHBOOKS 

WORK SHEETS

THUMBNAILS

DESIGN SHEETS

FULL RESEARCH DOCUMENTATION

TEN FINISHED ILLUSTRATIONS 

BOOK COVER

SHEPARD FAIREY

Shepard Fairey, Obey logo

 Shepard Fairey is a well known illustrator based in America, he's done many different medias within art such as Graphic Design and contemporary street art. He's most well known for his project 'Andre the Giant Has a Posse' which was a street art campaign in which he worked with pictures from the Weekly World News, which included the picture of Andre the Giant, and created a stencil out of them which became well known in the skating community and began getting tagged everywhere.

http://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/shepard-fairey#_
His designs for George Orwell's books, Animal Farm and 1984 caught my eye when I was looking for Animal Farm, the colours are in the style of the Russian Revolution propaganda posters I found which works well with what Animal Farm is based upon.

The Pitch

RISOGRAPH PRINTING

Risograph printing is the technique of using a risograph printer and creating stencil duplicates of an image, it was created by The Riso Kagaku Corporation originally for business printing and is known for its environmentally friendly materials and cost effectiveness. 

Risograph machines work with plates inside the machine, and prints on the material by using one colour after the other and each layer of colour has to be put through the Risograph machine one at a time. It's a stencil printer that is mainly used for high volume photocopying as well as duplication processes and printing. 

The inks that the Risograph machine uses are soya based and each screen is made from banana paper which is a paper that is created using the bark of a banana plant, this shows the natural based materials that the Risograph uses. It takes a single print to fully cover the print in ink, and each time the Risograph creates a heat based master screen for every colour it uses which it wraps around a metal drum inside the machine which then prints onto the paper that runs through it. 

The ink is pushed through tiny holes in the screen and onto the paper which is fed through the machine flat before being wrapped around the drum, the entire time the drum rotates at a high speed so that it can print onto the paper. 
Prints with a variety of colours have to be put through the machine one at a time as each time you have to change the drum colour to add up layers of colour. 

You scan your image through on top of the Risograph machine and the machine will print out the scan in block colours, thus if you wanted to add another colour this is why you would change the drum colour and put the print through again once it has dried, as well as the machine only prints in blocks you cannot have any kind of gradient effect. 

The Risograph machine currently only works with a small selection of colours, though you can blend these colours together to create new ones or different shades.
http://riso.deconstructed.org.uk

RISOGRAPH BASED COMPANIES

Ditto Print, Triptych
http://www.dittopress.co.uk/design/

Ditto Print

Ditto was one of the first companies in the UK to use Risograph artistically, they create warm and vivid designs.