Ray Wood

PART 4 ~ FINAL PIECE

CLICK HERE FOR FULL SKETCHBOOK AS GOOGLE SLIDES DOC

After pitching my idea , I decided I could push it further. I wanted an element of "exposing" the truth in my work. I wanted to spread the message that we should look past distractions and focus on the real issue , which is the class divide. I took my previous idea and I built on it by turning it into two separate poster designs. The concept behind these posters was that one was a funny and silly conspiracy poster and the other was an important political message. The conspiracy poster would be pasted on top of the political poster , to try and distract you from it and that you'd have to rip it down to expose the truth beneath the distraction. These posters were designed to be put in public and interacted with. I have shown the development of the designs for this piece below

I then printed out my designs and put my idea into action on a public wall. I have included a video of me preforming the interactive part of this work below and in my google slides sketchbook.

EVALUATION

In my visual essay “Conspiracy theories as distractions” I explored the concept of brief 2 and took several internet journeys using the “what was I looking for again” method. This led me to the subject of conspiracy theories. At first, I was just interested in monsters like bigfoot, aliens and the Loch Ness monster as well as the communities that believed in these theories, but after some research I began to find stranger and stranger conspiracy theories. I noticed in my research that some conspiracy theories played a role in politics so I decided to also use conspiracies to spread my own political message about the class divide. My idea was to use a form of public art to take advantage of people's innate fascination with conspiracies and the supernatural and divert their attention to the real political issues. I explored this idea through a series of sketches and research. My final piece was an interactive public poster in which the viewer is intrigued by the funny conspiracy image, only for it to be ripped away to reveal a shocking fact about the 1%. This was a comment on how conspiracies can be used as a distraction against important issues, it also helped me spread my own views on the 1%. Overall I feel happy about my final outcome, but if I were to improve it I would try and have my two poster designs feel more connected visually and thematically. Further, I'd like to find a way to make the poster more obvious that it is an interactive piece of art. I would have also liked to have made more and put them in different locations. In my project as a whole, I think it could be improved by more specific research into the psychology behind conspiracy and by finding more examples of when conspiracy affected politics which I could have done if not for the time limit and my trouble with procrastination. Procrastination is a common issue for me but I found this project especially challenging due to the encouragement of the social aspect of the briefs due to my social anxiety, but in the end I found a way around it by changing the brief I was working on. In the end , I enjoyed this project and learnt a lot about online research and the creation of a visual essay.

PART 3 ~ PITCH PRESENTATION

CLICK HERE FOR FULL SKETCHBOOK AS GOOGLE SLIDES DOC

The idea I liked the most was to create stickers using my designs from ideas 9 and 8 and to display them around Bristol. I created this pitch presentation explaining my idea. My idea was to use the interest people have in conspiracy theories as an attention grabber to spreads awareness that the 1% are bad people. I was encouraging people to look past the distraction of conspiracy and focus on the real problems. I did this though funny political parodies of conspiracy images.

Although after pitching my idea I decided to try and push it further and expand upon it.

PART 2 ~ PROJECT RESEARCH

CLICK HERE FOR FULL SKETCHBOOK AS GOOGLE SLIDES DOC

I began to mind map and research conspiracy theories to generate ideas for my visual essay. I looked into different conspiracy theories, monster sightings, interesting facts about conspiracies or anything that might spark and idea.

I researched into bigfoot by watching videos on people who have claimed to have seen sasquatches and bigfoot by listening to first hand accounts and watching sighting videos. I began to wonder why bigfoot was so wildly believed and why conspiracy theories are so popular on general by looking into the phycology of conspiracy. I found the fact that conspiracies are used as comfort to explain the unexplained and that we are drawn to them because of factors to do with pattern recognition. Although I understood that some conspires were there to explain and comfort like aliens or bigfoot, some seemed to do nothing but cause paranoia and misinformation. An example that stood out to me was The Pizza gate conspiracy which is a theory that Hilary Clinton was murdering children for the chemicals in their face and giving the chemicals to celebrities so that they could stay younger longer. The whole theory is based off some unexplainable emails from Clinton about Pizza. This theory somehow was believed and influenced the 2016 elections in Trumps favour. This made me think about the intention behind some conspiracies in the context of politics. It also made me think about why some republicans were wiling to believe something so ludicrous based off no evidence , but weren't willing to accept facts like trumps racism even when faced with undeniable evidence. I also began to explore how conspiracies might be used as a source of distraction and comfort to keep people from focusing on important issues and real world facts. This can all be seen in my image making process in my notes where I explore the role conspiracies have in politics. The only basis I had for my selection of idea was that I wanted to create public art so that I could spread my own messages using the innate interest we all have in conspiracies.

PART 1 ~ BRIEF EXPLORATION

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Brief 1 Exploration

In my exploration for brief one, I was planning on anonymously creating portraits/pet portraits for strangers and sending them to the subjects to "make their day". eventually I decided against it because I felt the idea wasn't original enough.

Brief 2 Exploration

In my exploration for brief 2, I went on 10 internet journeys and documented them through writing.

I started my first internet journey on youtube. I began by looking at music videos for popular songs I enjoyed , and clicking random youtube recommended videos. I was led to home made dance videos and indie music I had never heard of. After around a half hour of searching random music videos I discovered a reuploaded Japanese music video with a pixel art animation. The song and account that had posted it had no name, and none of the other songs by this artist had a name either. I found this mysterious artist really interesting and after researching I found out the artist behind the song was called Koronba. Koronba was a japanese music artist who used synthetic voices, also known as vocaloids, to create these exciting and unique songs that really resonated with fans of vocaloid music. Koronba never wanted to get famous or popular with their work though, and encouraged people not to promote their music or animations. They disliked the popularity so much that they requested their name not to be attached to any videos that used their music. Sadly in 2016 Koronba’s mental health took a dive and they became suicidal, which lead them to delete all of their music and internet presence. Now the only way you can listen to their music is through reuploads on youtube, where the videos have no title and the account has no name. This creates a really interesting discovery, as you cannot search for the music and can only find it via recommended videos. I found this all really inspiring and interesting to look into, and when I searched more I found a whole community based on this sub-genre of music formed around Koronba, who - inspired by his beautiful music - make  their own koronba-esque songs.

I started my second internet journey on a chatroom on discord. I asked some online friends on a gaming server I am a part of about any niche or specialist topics I could explore. One of my friends, as a joke, sent me the channel “Peter Cain Dog Training”. This is a channel originally about his dog training videos and his dog training business based in New York, but Peter will occasionally upload really bizarre videos such as being assaulted by bigfoot or how he found a dogman in his hayloft. After inspection, a lot of his videos are fake. He is an incredible artist who makes convincing props to further the conspiracies in his videos. Although it is made satirically for comedy and popularity it sparks my interest in conspiracy theories and why some people would believe this. I think it would be fun and inspiring to look more into conspiracy theories and the culture that surrounds them. 

On my third internet journey, I began on a site called reddit. I found a server dedicated to “shinies” , a term from the pokemon series that refers to a creature that is completely different to the rest of the species. This subreddit has expanded this term into real life to refer to plants, animals and organisms that are different to the rest of their species. There are plenty of images on this thread of animals with mutations, interesting plants and bugs. The specific thing that stood out to me was a brightly coloured blue lobster, because I love lobsters. I decided to research it more and found a surprisingly vast lobster fishing community, mostly based in America, dedicated to protecting egger lobsters and sharing facts about the beautiful species. I learnt many cool things such as the fact lobsters are almost effectively immortal and blue lobsters are around 1 in 2 million. I feel this would be fun to research more for me since I love lobsters.

On my fourth internet journey, I was on Tik Tok when I found a screening of the famous musical “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”. This wasn’t just a normal showing of the musical though, it had actors in front of the screen, acting alongside the movie in fabulous homemade outfits. I decided to look up whether this was a common thing and it turns out its extremely common with this particular movie and is a tradition called shadowcasting that has been going strong since 1975 when the film came out. After some research I found there was a whole fan culture around rock horror which is totally unique to any other movie. For 50 years fans have been attending midnight viewings of the musical and participating in dress ups, sing-alongs, shadowcasts, throwing food, using props and call backs. I found this out from visiting numerous blogs, I think looking further into this would be really fun especially since the community has a focus on lgbtq acceptance. 

During my fifth internet adventure, I decided to once again ask a chatroom about an interesting internet rabbit hole. This time I asked a group of strangers in the middle of an online game over voice call. Someone on my team suggested “Chris Chan”. After watching a documentary on youtube I found that Chris Chan is an infamous internet celebrity who some people claim has “the most documented life on the internet”. They have been on the internet uploading themselves and their sonic cartoons since the early 200s and have faced scrutiny and harassment the entire time. Chris has had a very interesting and disturbing life which eventually leads to their arrest. All this has been recorded and put on the internet and although the topic of Chris Chan is very unique and interesting but not something I think would be suited for a project. 

On my sixth internet journey I once again went to reddit where I found a post talking about the musician prince. Apparently when he died he left behind a vault that supposedly contained over 8,000 unreleased songs. I found this really interesting and dove deeper to discover a news article on the subject. Musician Prince supposedly had forgotten the combination. This giant vault is 6 1/2 feet tall, several feet wide, and weighing 6,000 pounds and required a professional safecracker to get into. It contains enough albums to be released annually for the whole next century alongside pictures and other treasures. The most current information I could find says that Universal Music and Warner Brothers are planning on unearthing this lost media and releasing it. 

During my seventh internet journey I went on tumblr. I started to search for spiritual practices such as tarot readings and meditations. It was in the comment section of one of these posts where I found someone talking about a practice called reality shifting. I searched this up online and i found a blog about it telling me that reality shifting is a phenomenon popular among young adults on online communities such as reddit or tik tok where individuals believe/perceive that they can transcend their physical reality and have their consciousness be transported to a different reality, leaving their current reality behind. I looked further into this on online forums and there are plenty of people who have claimed to have experienced this. This might be an interesting thing to research for my visual essay. 

On my eighth  internet journey , I decided it might be interesting to look at internet celebrities again. I started looking at news stories of people who have done great things through the internet. One story particularly stood out, The story of Deanna Thompson AKA Baudi Moovan. To learn more about her, I discovered there was a documentary on her exploits online which I watched. Thompson was one of the people responsible for catching murderer Luka Magnotta via vague internet posts. Her and her facebook group began tracking down this man after he uploaded videos of him killing kittens, and eventually a man. Thompson , a civilian casino worker, was able to use nothing but her internet expertise to help catch Magotta. This is a really interesting non-fiction story I thought might be interesting to look into further for my project.

During my ninth internet deep dive I started to look at positive news about trans people. This would be a really interesting topic for me as I enjoy advocating and researching the lgbtq community. I found a really uplifting story on Tik Tok. It was a trans-masc car was -a type of event that’s not often encouraged for trans people to participate in- based in Houston Texas, a city that is not known for being queer accepting. The Car wash was in support of trans people, and fundraising for a trans man to be able to afford top surgery. This story was really sweet and uplifting and I think it would be a really fun project for me to take this story and search for others and celebrate them in my visual essay. 

In my final internet expiration I once again wanted to look at queer spaces and stories. I started off by searching for drag queens on tik tok ,and found multiple drag clubs that supported drag artists, queens and kings. After scrolling through some interesting drag acts I found a club called the slay station, which is a play on the word playstation. It is a drag night where artists will dress up as drag versions of video games and do video game based performances. They will make beautiful outfits and make entertaining drag acts based off popular memes and video games. I think this would be a good subject to look further into and document in a visual essay because as I said I am interested in exploring queer spaces in my essay and also because I love gaming. 

In the end I decided to expand upon the conspiracy theories for my project, because I felt it had the most potential for a visual essay. t is something I've always been interested in and I was intrigued about the phycology and intentions behind monsters and conspiracy theories.

As someone who hasn’t explored or investigated the editorial industry before I was initially not clear on the standards of what a good editorial illustration includes and how to create an effective editorial illustration. With my research, I am hoping to find out what makes an editorial illustration effective and how I can use this in my work. Editorial illustration is all about giving a message more impact with the aid of visual representation.These illustrations can be seen as almost storytelling tools that use visual language and aesthetics to pique interest and understanding into published text. Editorial illustration always accompanies text such as narratives, articles, and written commentary within book, magazine, newspaper, or web resources and helps bring a new depth of understanding to the reader. It can also serve as a first impression to the viewer, so from first glance the reader has an idea about what the text is about. 

I want to create a good editorial illustration for this project, and to do that I need to find out what makes a good and effective editorial illustration. I did this via artist research and investigating things such as Editorial Illustration, Editorial Publishing, Magazine Genres and image making processes. In my research I found out A good editorial illustration needs to be clear and easily communicate the main point of the text concisely and creatively. In all the illustrators I researched , none of them just created drawings that straight up depicted what was happening in the text. They found a way to put a spin on things, such as artist Paul Blow who uses visual metaphors and surrealism to mash multiple ideas into a single scene that conveys his point.

The illustration should take a more creative approach and use thought provoking visuals to illustrate the text. I plan to use this research in Part B in my idea generation stage. 

sources

What Is Editorial Illustration? (& How to Get Into It) | Envato Tuts+

30 Best Editorial Illustration Ideas You Should Check

Pat Oliphant was born in 1935 and was a very highly regarded illustrator over his 60 year career. Only retiring recently in 2015 due to vision loss, he was regarded by New York Times as “the most influential editorial cartoonist” of his time. Oliphant’s work centered around American politics, culture and corruption. A lot of his work focused on mocking powerful leaders such as presidents or politicians. He did this by turning them into absurd caricatures with exaggerated and often ugly features. He did this to not only make light of dire situations but to negatively comment on three leading figures. Oliphant was never one to shy away from controversy or taboo subjects. A lot of the time he would be criticised, censored or ignored for how outspoken he was regarding certain political movements, sometimes resulting in him losing jobs. Opilphant mainly worked in physical publications such as newspapers and magazines. His editorial illustration consisted of artworks that resembled comic strips. He normally creates a monochrome brush pen illustration with a clever and often humorous caption at the bottom. These works are reminiscent of political cartoons that have been evident since the early 20th century. Presumably the choice of style and medium allows Olipant to create cartoons quickly , so he can address current political situations as quickly as possible while they stay relevant. Olipant using his medium primarily to make political remarks is really interesting to me, as well as the fact that he uses cartoon comic strips to visually communicate his point. When I think of editorial illustration I did not think to use a comic like format in addition to published text, and I think it's quite effective. 

storybook illustrations and his distinct style. His art style expertly combines sweetness with horror. Clearly inspired by artists such as Charles Addams, Brundage uses his cutesy cartoony artstyle often to depict sinister scenes and ideas. His visual style would not look unwelcome in a children's storybook so it is all the more effective when his work shows horrific fantasy scenes. Brundage enjoys drawing monsters that are often more funny than scary but often include adult themes. Brundage has been known for his editorial illustration. He has created political art that comments on current events and has worked with names such as Scientific American, The Weekly Standard, The Observer, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and New York Times. His cartoony illustrations are fun , colourful and eye-catching. He has a creative visual language that involves the use of metaphors. A lot of his work is really pretty to look at , and look like something from a kids book. Something in his illustrations that I like is how he illustrates politicians' faces. All of his characters are drawn with appealing designs , yet the politicians have an almost caricature look. Brundage exaggerates the realness and makes them look ugly in comparison. I also enjoy the style of his editorial illustrations. In a lot of his works he has vivid lively characters standing plain in a void. I think this really works, it would intrigued perfectly into an online article or magazine and really makes the subject of the illustration pop out. 

An editorial illustrator I found who’s bold and beautiful illustration style struck me was Alfred Charles Parker. Parker created gorgeous modernist illustrations for magazines , at a time in society when this form of media was at its most popular. His work pivoted around the mid 20th century, when not only were top magazine companies selling around eight million magazine subscriptions but also as America was recovering from war and depression. His striking artworks served as a symbol of betterment, hope and change as they advertised the values and aspirations of the post war American dream. Parker regularly worked for women's magazines and used modern visuals that created mass-appeal. Like many popular magazine illustrators at the time, Parker presented an idealised and compelling image of suburban life for Americans in the late 40s and 50s. Something that really appeals to me within Parker's illustrations are his personal touches, The images of women he illustrated are full of carefully placed props and poses that come together to form domestic scenes full of life. Parker also regularly used his wife as a model and painted scenes of hospitable moments between families, primarily mother and daughter. Al Parker’s illustrations normally took up a double page spread and was most often found in the magazine The Ladies’ Home Journal. His stunning illustrations, using the appeal of suburban domestic life , romance and motherhood, Parker was able to generate interest for whatever publication he was working on. He related to the viewer, primarily American suburban women, and romanticised their ideals subsequently generating interest. Within his artwork he became a master of editorial illustration, using graphic design, typography and effective compositions to blend together text and image in a really pleasing manner. Aside from the visual style inspiration, the main thing I'm taking away from researching Al Parker is to relate to the interests of my target viewer.

!! PLEASE READ THIS FIRST !!

I am going for the 48 hour window submission date, please do not mark this before Thursday 23rd at 2pm

this post acts as a table of contents , click any of the underlined text to be directed to the posts that contain my work

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~PART A ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CLICK HERE FOR ALL PART A WORK

CLICK HERE FOR ALL OF EDITORIAL ILLUSTRATION RESEARCH

CLICK HERE FOR ONLINE ONLINE EDITORIAL ILLUSTRATION PUBLISHING RESEARCH FINAL REPORT

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~PART B ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO DIGITAL SKETCHBOOK

^^ (CONTAINS ALL PART B WORK) digital sketchbook is formatted as a google slides doc

CLICK HERE FOR FIRST TWO PAGES OF FINAL PIECE

CLICK HERE FOR SECOND TWO PAGES OF FINAL PIECE

Game Informer

is a magazine series I am already well acquainted with as I used to follow it before it shut down recently in August of 2024. Before it's closure Game Informer provided video game fans with gaming news, reviews, insights and coverage for 33 years, the longest running video game magazine in the world. I loved Game Informer and still go back and search it's articles for coverage of my favourite games, such as this article which was in the final issue Game Informer released and covers the latest release from my favourite series of all time. Something that really stands out to me about game informer is how they create their page design. They use typography and graphic design to integrate screencaps and promotional images cleverly around the text, they are also known for decorating their articles by using stunning editorial illustrations from various artists or concept art.

ImagineFX

Is a monthly magazine published in Bath, UK that has been running since 2006. The magazine is tailored specifically for digital artists to inform themselves, create community, gain inspiration, improve their craft and learn more about the digital illustration industry. The Magazine also provides workshops, tutorials  program demos, free fonts, textures, images and Photoshop brushes. It acts as a vital tool for digital artists. My favourite thing about this magazine is that it features a lot of artists work, and is a great way to fin new artists and inspiration. As a digital artist myself It is one of my favoured magazines , especially as it has a focus on game art and fantasy which are two major inspirations for my work. The design of the Magazine always has a lot of flashy eye-catching typography which is compositional in a way that highlights the featured artists work.

Deadline

was a British comic magazine published between 1995 and 1998. Deadline was the go-to British magazine for mature comic fans at the time, it featured comic strips and written articles. The style of Deadline was edgy and it gave light to the work of many famed independent artist. Illustrators Phillip Bond and Jamie Hewlett , who are among my all time favourite artists, were featured in this magazine during the beginning of their careers. Deadline ,most notably , is the birth place of the famous - and my favourite- comic series Tank Girl. Its interesting to see this type of magazine as more of a compendium of stories and media rather than reviews or published writing and its something that really interests me.

The gentlewoman

is a magazine for the modern woman. It focuses on fashion, art ,culture and helping people cultivate heir own personal style by introducing them to fresh intelligent perspectives. The magazine is focused on giving spotlight to ambitious modern women and to illustrate how they think, look and dress. This is reflected wholly in their front cover design. The front page always spotlights a portrait of a modern woman making a statement accompanying simply typography displaying the name of the magazine, issue number and name of the lady photographed. This somewhat simple composition has a contemporary feel and really emphasises the woman.

Asylum

is a radical non-profit mental health magazine that has been in print for over 40 years, created by sufferers and professionals as a platform to air and debate about psychiatry and mental health. Asylum uses its platform to represent all different perspectives on mental health. The design on the Asylum magazine often differs greatly issue to issue, It invites artists - from photographers to illustrators - to create edgy expressive artworks that bring an idea of resistance and protest to mind of course accompanied by their bold red logo. I am very much inspired by this magazine and glad that I found it during this workshop, I plan to explore it more.

Brutalist map set

is a set of magazines that showcases brutalist architecture in different cities all over the world. Published by Blue Crow Media, this magazine set acts as a compendium of bare and minimalist post war buildings as well as a walking guide on how to take a tour around a city and sot as many brutalist buildings as possible. The set of magazines covers cities from Berlin to Hong King so brutalist architecture lovers all over the globe can find a guide to discovering local brutalist buildings. The covers of these magazines are very clever, the contents of the magazine works as an art book that showcases local brutalist artworks but the cover cleverly gives off the impression of an actual roadmap. The simplistic and contemporary design looks like any other normal map but with an artistic spin.

Katherine Streeter

is a visual communicator who brings a light approach to emotional topics, primarily working in collage and animation. Skeeter is an American based artist whose work stands out among the editorial industry for her unique making process. With her illustrations, she maps things out with a sketch before painting the scene and finishing the work off by gluing down a photo of a person's face. Streeter explains she is drawn to vintage photos because of her obsession with the lost and antique. When creating her own art, that will not be used for communication, Streeter tends to work backwards by finding a vintage photo that inspires her and building off that.

Jason Raish

Was born in South Korea but is based in America. His stylish hyper realistic illustrations are colourful and fun and have appeared in branding, advertising and magazine. He is also well known for his stunning and striking alternative movie posters. Raish is primarily a digital artist who explains his process as starting off by hunting for inspiration on social media, video games and other media such as movies. He then takes this inspiration to his toolset which consists of 2 monitors, a 2014 Mac mini, Wacom Intuos tablet, vertical mouse on the right hand side and a magic trackpad on the left hand. Raishe's process was intriguing to me because the way he described his inspiration in video games and art process was very similar to my own.

Yann Kebbi

is a very unique artist. His illustrations are known in the editorial industry but he is most prolific for his captivating and special gallery displays. He works in including drawing, etching, photography, mono prints, oil and wood engraving. Even his process is unique and creative. He explains that he doesn't particularly have a set of rules when creating art, the only goal he sets himself is to create something and this often ends with mistakes and spontaneous decisions leading to making and new pieces. He is totally open and free with his making process.

Jakob Hinrichs

is a Berlin based illustrator and comic artist who mainly works in the editorial and print industry. His vibrant and lively visual style is renunciant of vintage comics and he creatively uses it to illustrate articles. For example, this clever editorial illustration for a book review in which he implements elements of the novel's story and symbols , such as the devouring snakes - that are also cleverly representing the towns road and river- and Hock's menswear shop, to ornament the blocks of text in this zine.

Paul Blow

Is another illustrator based mainly in the editorial and zine industry, although he is known to create bold posters. Blow's striking visuals play with conceptualism in order to clearly and dramatically visually communicate and advertise. For instance, in this illustration that was accompanying a writing about infamous murder houses and how they are reintegrated into the neighbourhood. Blow uses drab and ominous colours to convey the menacing mood as well as creating an optical illusion with the house to make it look like a skull, an element he often uses in his work.

Geoff Grandfield

is not only an illustrator but an educator and Researcher. He is known for his simplistic yet dramatic and memorable style. Grandfield often depicts "emotional states of mystery and ambiguity" and often works with magazines and newspapers to sharply bring light to important political issues. This illustration is an example of what his work entails, using bold silhouettes and shapes as well as symbols to create scenes that represent a meaningful issue. In this particular artwork Grandfield is illustrating the importance of political feminist literature while highlighting the importance of protest and resistance within the feminist movement.