Brief
English Heritage has commissioned you to record a specific environment - Park Hill Flats Sheffield for a future English Heritage publication. You should explore different art styles, develop an art Style and produce a final publication concept.
Throughout this module, I was asked to research a wide variety of art styles including watercolour to help with the publication concepts. A range of primary and secondary research was carried out so I could gather different perspectives of Park Hill. History research was also carried so I could tie in some aspects of the buildings history into a final publication.
01. Initial Marks
For the first few hours of having the project brief, I took a trip down to the Park Hill site where I took pictures and made some quick marks and took quite a lot of pictures from different angles and light exposures so I have a fair few to play with later on.
TIP When making marks and notes before starting a project, they're only suppose to be very brief so you have an understanding of the idea when you made that mark or note. Don't be spending 4hours on one mark to make it perfect, that is done in the development and art style research stage.
The writing page was
produced as part of a
class exercise where I had
to sit down and write
whatever came to mind
for 10 minutes.
I underlined the key part which
gave me inspiration for the art
Style research further in this project.
TIP If you're in the mindset for the project, writing like this helps ideas flow. Not just
for the Park Hill project.
The random scribbles page was produced during a class exercise where I listened to a piece of music and drew randomly without taking the pen off the paper.
TIP This can help for ideas if you get stuck on a whatever project you are set to do.
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02. Researching
After taking a fair few pictures myself of Park Hill Flats, I spent a few days just looking at the history of the building and looked at different materials for building blocks towards future art Style developments and a final piece.
TIP When carrying out research, always note down where you obtained the information just in case you have to refer back to it at a later date. It's also best to check multiple sites with similar information as that way you know if it's accurate or not.
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Primary
These images have been taken by myself so I could get a better perspective of the project by taking a physical look of the site and documenting what I see in picture form. I used InDesign CC to collect the images into a collage as shown above.
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Material
During this stage of my research, I made a collage of different material types in my sketchbook so I know what materials I could use and what would work best with different art styles. I also made a colour chart of the main colours of Park Hill just so I can see how they behave in print.
On the right, the collage was created as part of a class exercise to help me into a broad research technique
TIP Making a random collage like this enables you to spot different elements which can give you ideas for a publication concept.
I jumped onto Google and found some key history facts from a few websites, noted them down in my sketchbook to be used during art style development and made sure to make a list of every site I used.
Watch the Video
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After doing some rough research on the history behind the site, I created a 'string like' diagram in my sketchbook which briefly outlines the key facts with one or two words.
TIP History research is important as it helps you gather ideas for mark making and can be of great help depending on your though process when you come to do art Style developments. If you're clever enough, you could come up with some publication that ties in with the history.
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03. Art style exploration
With all the research, I became exploring pencil, crayon and watercolour paints art styles to see how things looked using the two main colours of the new renovated site of Park Hill, red and yellow.
TIP Only explore the art styles that you're comfortable with or think you can create and use in a final publication, the whole point here is to experiment so do anything and everything. Take a trip to Behance.net and Pinterest.com to see what other people have created.
In these art styles (Marker on left, Watercolour on Right),
I kept with a theme trend of using the colours and similar shape of the windows on the new renovated building.
TIP When using watercolour paints, you don't have to be precise. Just throw the colour where you want and you'll be surprised at the results.
As you can see, these marks have been made with Park Hill flats windows in mind. My though process was to try and produce a publication that replicate the key feature of the site, the red and yellow windows.
Moving slightly away from what the brief asked, I decided to concept a few logos to use on the publication, project portfolio spread and on property branding if a future project was to arise.
TIP Making one concept page like this can be a good thing because you can explain your thoughts behind this concept page and where it would be used therefore giving you opportunities for more work.
I used pencil and crayons here to try and create a rough look.
I can then use this as a guide
if I were to develop this style.
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04. Publication Concepts
Here is where the interesting ideas start to take shape using the art styles explored, developing them further and creating some out of the box concepts that are generated from inspiration. I still produced concepts that were developments of the art styles explored.
TIP During this process of any project, you aren't locked down to developing an art Style you explored, you can create something that's totally different to the art styles but still ties into the rest of the research and the project brief.
Piece 01:
This piece was an idea I original came up with using inspiration from an artist that created geometric animals. I tied that into the watercolour art Style to produce a minimalistic appearance, using the 2 main colours of Park Hill and an element of nature which links to the wildlife around the site.
TIP Use Photoshop brushes downloaded for free to create a realistic art-board, giving you better control over your art.
Piece 02:
Sticking with the chosen art style of watercolour paint, I made this using a sharp line structure in Illustrator and an art-board in Photoshop. I can say that I'm proud of
this piece.
Piece 03:
This isn't the greatest piece I produced to develop the art style but I wanted to create something that gave a 'rough' impression and a more wet look, hence the paint drips down the page.
TIP Some fonts work well with watercolour and some not so much. Use dafont.com to see if you can find any free font that fits your art-board.
Piece 04:
As much as I thought this piece shouldn't belong in a showcase, I stopped myself from dropping it in the trash for one good reason. This is a very good example of how an image works over the top of a watercolour art-board and I refine this style in another piece down the line.
Piece 05:
This out of the box concept allowed me to see things differently and what else is possible outside of watercolour paints. The idea behind this is a dark sky which fades away the old building and ties with the known quote, "streets in the sky".
Piece 06:
Using an idea generated from Piece 4 above, I used a range of Photoshop generate art-boards and image filters and levels to create this watercolour image. The idea behind this is for consumers to use it as a decorative piece of art
for homes.
TIP If you want to achieve something similar to this, you must use Photoshop brushes to create the
art-board for much better control over the outcome.
Piece 07:
I decided to explore Type a bit more to see how it would work with watercolour. This piece still has the watercolour
art-board created using Photoshop brushes but I have masked a rectangle with the type in the centre, over the
art-board to give it this window look.
Piece 08:
I dug a bit deeper into type to see if a letter on its own would work with an art-board. To give the creative piece a bit more depth, I added an image from the top of Park Hill and blended it with the watercolour.
Piece 09:
After creating quite a few art pieces, I wanted to create something that extends piece 1 by using another animal but have it as a line drawing on top of the art-board.
Piece 10:
For my last art Style development poster concept, I wanted to produce something that had a bit of history background.
I used a Serif font that is very similar to that on the original opening sign for the building thus giving this publication concept a historic definition.
05. Final Publication
I choose the best piece I produced, piece 6, and wanted to create something that can be used commercially and/or personally. to produce a range of flyers that can be used for advertising and framed posters to be sold for personal use.
TIP When showing off your final publication concept(s), search online for some great free to use mockups. These are usually in the form of PSD files which can be edited easily with your artwork so it can be shown in a situation thus making it great for client showcase or portfolio spreads like this one.
Poster Frames
I have designed the poster publication to be used within in poster frames that can be hung on walls inside homes or commercial buildings. This acts as a visual Geo-Stamp for the site. If I were to send these to print and/or sell them as poster frames, I would create a Shazam directory so people can scan the poster and be taken to a web-page about
Park Hill, giving it commercial value without any commercial information being displayed.
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Advertising Graphics
The idea behind these concepts was to have the same design but aim it towards consumers on the street that may not have thought of Park Hill as this modern, bright and luxury living environment because of its history. I created an advertising graphic to promote Park Hill but to still have the aspect of art currently obtained in personal posters.
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Thank you for viewing!
Bookmark this page if you're a VOCA VOCA student doing this project. Download the package below, included is the final publication PSD's and development PDF' s (reference only).
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Size: 2.70GB [Added 04/10/2015]
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