Evaluation Report ident

Evaluation Report
Introduction
The whole concept for the E-Sting 4 grew out of idea that was ‘urban’ and appealing to the youth market. I wanted to create an image that was striking to the eye and memorable. I began thinking of identities of a youth culture which lead me to begin to research graffiti and street art. I wanted the E Sting 4 to have a strong identity. My inspiration began from looking at an exhibition at the Baltic in Gateshead. The collection called ‘Spank the Monkey’ presented twenty two artists from urban centres across the world, this was my starting point.
Research
At this point I didn’t have any preconceived ideas but, I knew that walking around cities taking photographs of street art would provide me with suitable images to work with. I did extensive research in the following locations: Gateshead, Liverpool, Brighton and London. The excitement of seeing different pieces of graffiti and varying styles confirmed that I wanted to use this medium. ‘Spank The Monkey’ bridged the gap between the street and the art gallery. It had a strong graphic feel taking images from Manga comics, skateboarding and surfing, all of which are youth oriented. (See fig. 1, 2, 3) in appendix for examples of this graphic style.
Walking around the China town area of Liverpool provided me with many examples of street art including a Banksy original. (See fig. 4) One image kept on appearing which appealed to me, a figure of a woman just with simple outlines. (See fig. 5, 6, and 7)This was particularly pertinent as my research showed that there were few images of women in graffiti art. I wondered about woman graffiti artists and who they were. Ganz (2006) produced a wonderful book with many female graffiti artists for example Swoon, Jana Joanna, Cade and Den.
Swoon (2006) quoted the following …
“ I am thinking about people, about real life as I see it in the faces of all these millions of lives walking around, keeping my attention to reflecting our humanness, our fragility and strength.”( page 204)
It occurred to me that graffiti art is a male dominated sphere with strong masculine images. Jana Joana (2006) is another example of a female graffiti artist who is… “Searching for the valorization of the women as a singular productive and creative human being in a society.”( page 64)
Photographs in Brighton provided me with examples of graffiti art as stencils, spray- based, and sticker- posters (See fig. 8, 9, 10). A trip to South east London led me to graffiti art that would not be out of place in the National Portrait Gallery ( See fig. 11).I have come to a conclusion that I wanted the E-Sting4 to be based on a female character that I discovered in a Liverpool back street.

Working methods
I wanted the E-Sting 4 to be seen as a piece of animated graffiti art work and graffiti not to be perceived as act of vandalism.
Banksy (2006 )…
“They say that graffiti frightens people and is symbolic of the decline in society; but graffiti is only dangerous in the mind of three types of people; politicians, advertising executives and graffiti writers.” (page 8)
The process that I went through to develop my animation started by taking photographs (see fig. 5, 6, 7), and drawing the figure by experimenting with different media. I refined the line drawings by creating large canvases using simple outlines drawn with a pentel marker. The simplicity worked well and I drew the figure using a shell on Formby beach (see fig.12). This attracted a lot of attention and reassured me that this image was appealing.

My ideas were developed by drawing the images on paper and scanning the images in to see what they would look like. I placed the images on different backgrounds to see the combined effects and to determine which stood out rather than merely blending in. I found out that having images on a multi-coloured background didn’t work as there was a lot going on and it made it very confusing. Having one or two colours fitted well with my design. The light blue background made her stand out and drew your attention to the strong image of this female form. Developing from paper to design boards and doing the presentation made me think that it wasn’t suitable to use standard paper. I used tracing paper, so that my images would fit together and I could see the movement and then scanned the images in once again. A further development involved changing from using tracing paper to layout paper which made the animating a simpler process. You could align the images in layers over each other. When it came to importing the images you didn’t have to move them around or to centre align them.
Using Photoshop to manipulate my images I used the magnetic lasso tool in preference to the lasso tool as I found the process more accurate and quicker. I imported the background and then cut my character out on a separate layer. Placing her on the background and merged them together I repeated the process for each of the frames. Finally I imported the layers into Premiere, and then I edited my animation on the timeline and put additive dissolves on the end of each of the frames.
Throughout the process I checked out the views of multimedia students and found their feedback useful, however no significant changes were made to the project. One piece of advice I used was to number each of the drawings so when it came to importing them there was no confusion.
I needed some guidance from a tutor in to take the static image and produce an animation for the E-Sting 4. In a series of three surgeries, he took me through the correct process of drawing my characters from various perspectives. To help me we used ‘Lucy’ a character from cartoon ‘Snoopy’ I used the character as a guide to figure out the views that she would have. We developed continuity ensuring the images came together. There were various different processes that I went through to get the final idea. We tried putting additive dissolves on the end of the frames but it still didn’t look right at first attempt. From then we changed my original character, revising her to give her a whole body and begin a story sequence.
Product Package
The market that I have chosen was essentially youth- orientated. Thinking about urban culture I decided that a t-shirt was a perfect start to the package. I wanted to appeal to the skateboarders and youths in cities and the t-shirt would symbolise youth culture. The design on the back of the t-shirt, featured as the background of my animation, was originally photographed from a street in Liverpool. The female figure was in profile on the front of the t-shirt.
I found out that using pen on the fabric made the ink run and bleed causing the image to blur. Using a fine liner worked a lot better. (See fig.13) To market the product on a small commercial scale silk screening would be the next process to learn. Silk screen printing will keep the image intact and allow for multiple copies to be made. If I were to do silk screen printing the t-shirt wouldn’t have been as effective not as I wanted the image to ‘raw’ and urban. However, realistically, I would need to investigate printing techniques and costs for larger scale production.
I had an idea that you could purchase the t-shirt and other merchandise by logging onto E4’s website. I have not researched any costs at present. The basic white t-shirts that I purchased cost £3.00- £4.00. I would imagine that they could be sold for £10.00 as they would be limited edition. I failed to add the E4 logo on these trial t-shirts and future editions would have E4 as a coloured earring making it stand out from the black and white design. I found it hard designing posters or flyers as I had no experience of this graphic medium. Choosing particular styles, colours or fonts could be a complex task. I decided to keep my designs simple and effective in the way of attracting the younger audience. I used the E4 logo as an inspiration for the colour and the theme of the package. I found that in printing with purple I encountered difficulties keeping the colour strong. In discussion with a tutor the flyers / posters could have been simplified making the advert for E4 more effective.
I included an additional product, a receipt holder again to appeal to the youth market. Having purchased trainers in a shop called ‘Microzine’ they supplied me with a receipt in folded piece of triangular card. I felt that this was a cool way of storing receipts and copied the design using purple and the female image to link the animation and the package together.
I chose to use Premiere as an editing package as it was a familiar tool. I realise that using Flash would have been more versatile but, given the timescale I didn’t feel able to learn the new skills for the deadline.

Conclusions

This project has been a steep learning curve for me. I have begun to understand the relationship between advertising and the emotional reaction it has on the viewer. I could have made the image even more abstract to make a stronger psychological link with the E4 product. Looking at the Silk Cut Cigarette Advertisements in the 1990’s. I could see the power of the surreal image. McIntosh (1996)… “The successful advertisement revolves around association, metaphor and symbol.” To take the package further I need to have more examples of the image occurring in the everyday lives of young people.
In the future I would like to design trainers with the character who is to be named ‘ Lily’. She could be featured on many products as can be seen in the ‘Hello Kitty’ range for example stationary, cards, clothing, accessories etc. To take the product to a mass market ‘Lily’ could feature as a TV Animation as in McCracken’s (1998) ‘The Power Puff Girls’. This cult TV appealed to both boys and girls and was so successful that it became a movie in 2002.
I started this project with an idea that a drawing of a female on a wall could be a symbol that could be valued and represent youths today.
The medium of graffiti is becoming more mainstream as can be seen in advertisements for example ‘The Samaritans’ new campaign (see fig.14) as featured in ‘The Independent’ (26.5.07).I was encouraged that Banksy was recently nominated in the arts category for the 2007 Greatest Briton’s Awards. Graffiti art does seem to be appealing to a mass market and losing it’s earlier perceptions of being a criminal act. My research of New Millennium Artists led me to Yoshitomo Nara’s gentle paintings (see fig. 15) which are reminiscent of the character ‘Lily’ as they too have an illusion of childhood and innocence. His work has achieved cult status in Japan, Germany, and America. Perhaps the time is right to introduce ‘Lily’ to a wider audience?
At the beginning of this project I didn’t have a clear direction or a rigid timetable and consequently I spent to much time researching graffiti art, which left me with less time to concentrate on the finish product. I am disappointed that the animation lacked smooth continuity, however I was pleased with the way that the character developed. Overall I am satisfied that the brief I set myself to capture an interest in a youth-oriented market worked.








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