Roald Dahl Brief - Final Designs

I combined the screen printed backgrounds and the lino printed characters on photoshop. I consider hand printing the linos onto the backgrounds but digital was a much easier solution, especially after ripping my screen and having to change the background colours digitally.

• I tried out different backgrounds on the designs too see what worked best with the characters. The choice for George was blues and purples. Or a combination of both???

• I considered some solid block coloured backgrounds on the designs because it made the black shapes of the characters bold and visible, but I felt it dulled down the image and made them less exciting vibrant.

• I tried dulling some of the colours in the orange colour blends for the fox, to make it slightly less distracting from the characters. This again felt too dull, I like the combo of vibrant colours in the more exciting colour blends.

Finals.....

THE ENORMOUS CROCODILE

GEORGES MARVELLOUS MEDICINE

(I couldn't choose between the blue or the purple background, so used a blend that involved a combination of both which I think communicates the crazy scientific experiments pretty well. I got some feed back of friends and they all preferred this background.)


FANTASTIC MR FOX

• I ended up choosing the backgrounds that where most vibrant/exciting and with the most colours going on, it was tricky deciding on one because there where alot of variations but my aim had be to make the designs wild and chaotic to contrast against Quentins Blake versions of the characters.
• I had been sceptical that the backgrounds distracted you from some of the shapes of the plain black prints. But now I feel they make them seem less flat, more complex and exciting and much more suitable for a childrens book.
• I subtle thing that benefited the designs was how I coloured the eyes white, This helped to raise them off the background.
• I like how they all differ from one another but yet work as a set. Its interesting to see how different components of an image can be made to match one another but not be identical. I have enjoyed working towards a set of images rather than a single outcome.
• One thing that could have improved the designs slightly is maybe giving each I slightly different background image, or even just the sun being in a different place for each one. I think they may match slightly to much compositionally.
• After going through all the process, I dont think there was much point in lino cutting the sun background. I could have drawn it and achieved the exact same effect. I thought the line quality would be more obvious in the background, but when all the colour blends are applied it doesnt really matter. I could then could have hand drawn a slightly different back ground for each, and cut it out of a square digitally.
• The combination of hand printed and digital is something I want to continue to explore within my practice. And maybe how hand printed things can be recycled and edited digitally for new designs.