I couldn't resist it.
It would be a huge shame not to take advantage of using this book for the exercise. I mean the possibilities are endless, and actually the book provide them for you!
Straight away I knew I wanted to create a cartoon style illustration. I thought a small doodle would be perfect for this cover. Something very simple but really summed up the British problems.
I didn't start this exercise with research this time. I had ideas in my mind based on the book, and thought it would be good to sketch them out. I thought about Unit 2 and the brainstorming process, turning words in to pictures. I thought about the layout, and placement of the doodles on the book. Where would the title go and the call outs.
Here's what the page looked like:
A closer look:
The general direction I was going down with this exercise was the over use of "sorry" by British people. It's the most common habit we are probably known for across the world. We apologies for everything and nothing. We bump into a wall and we apologies. When we are well within our rights for whatever it might be, we apologies. SORRY I'M BRITISH! Should be the tattoo given at birth.
I was thinking of illustrators I knew of that currently used British habits in their artwork. Gemma Correll had a style that would be perfect for this book. Her pun and pug doodles are minimalist pictures with a limited colour palette, something I also wanted to bare in mind for this book.
I wasn't a fan of this layout, it's too simple! I thought she needed to be saying sorry to SOMETHING at least, so I extended the illustration a little to a good old seat war. Those bags without tickets...
I have to say I'm pretty disappointed in myself over the result of this exercise. The image is flat. There is far too much empty space and the font I chose was a disaster. Overall this could be re-worked and pushed further. Even adding a pattern to the background would improve this!
REFERENCE:
Very British Problems - Rob Temple
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