David Barnett

I stumbled across the illustrator David Barnett through one of my favorite rappers cover work (Curren$y's pilot talk albums/singles) i initially liked his work as it displayed nicely what the content of the music was about, which is quite odd considering the cover work often depicts surreal scenarios and objects. Whilst i was doing my A levels i thought i would look more into his work and find out more about his work and his illustrative style, upon looking at more of his work i noticed his work is based more in the surreal and quite odd which relates too the more underground work he does. My personal favorite is the bottom right hand due too the way he made everyone connect and made it look as if they feeding into the creative control sink hole.
( www.dbarnett.net/ )

Illustration brief

My second brief was the illustration brief for which i had too produce a book cover for penguin book publishing, i had the choice between illustrating either One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest or The Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales. I initially choice too do the One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest brief however upon drawing the trees at the top of the page i realized they looked quite sinister which was more appropriate for the Grimm Fairy Tales as majority of their stories are featured in the forests.
However i had the idea of going really dark within m designs and i spent a lot of time working with blood reds and grainy textures too produce a gory look however upon reading the blurb, i realized the book was targeted more towards a younger audience.
Although i had too change the look for a younger audience i didn't want too step back from the evil look so i thought i would go down a bleak looking road, so i based my design around the tree image and i used a lot of white space too create a sterile look.
If i were too improve my design i would get the tracking weighting and leading correct with my tittle, but if i get round too doing so i will upload the improved design, if i had spent a little longer reading the guidelines spelt out Penguin i wouldn't have spent as long on the other designs and maybe that would have left me we with a better final design.

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This is work from my first brief which was too produce a logo and stationary for a local cafe on site. The cafe is a staff only bistro which meant my work had too be both suitable too the audience and not too boring. With the final designs (the last two pictures above) i think i got the color scheme right because the orange and black stand out against one another however the darker toned orange isn't uneasy on the eye, i also think i got the weighting with the logo correct as the Mellow draws the eye in and the BISTRO is noticeable and readable but again doesn't take the focus away from the MELLOW.
However too improve my design i would say i need too stick with one obscurity with my logo i.e. the oddly shaped E or double O or even the upside down M too produce the M) but because i have all three it makes the design quite busy and removes the smoothness of the look.
If i were too keep one obscurity it would be the 'double O' as it works well and is adapted into my stationary quite well in my opinion but looking back on the overall brief i think if i did a little bit more in my research of branding as well as stuck too a scheduled time sheet (instead of rushing about in the last week before the deadline) i would have produce a better final design and got a better grade for my first brief.