The brief
The brief was to select one of the words from the pre-defined list in Exercise 3 and then create a moodboard that further develops and explores the subject.
Keywords from the brief include:
- Expand themes and ideas
- Swatches of colour and texture
- Palette of colours
- Repertoire of marks
- Snippets of images
My approach
The word I selected was ‘Travel’. I created two moodboards, each with a slightly different objective.
Along with hundreds and thousands of other people, I’ve spent most of my working life travelling into London and wanted to use this exercise as an opportunity to explore commuting.
The first moodboard explored this subject. What interested me was the commuters and the experience of commuting rather than the method of travel. I started by taking a series of photographs using my iPhone from a typical journey. All the images in moodboard 1 were taken in a single day. I also kept my ticket and picked up a timetable and underground map as additional reference.
The second moodboard developed the subjects I’d started exploring in the first and gathered together textures colours and mark making in a more abstract way. The images were mostly photographs taken with my iPhone supplemented by magazine cuttings that I used to develop the colour palettes.
The mood boards
Moodboard 1
Moodboard 2
What I learned from the exercise
What went well
- The subject was easily accessible and something I know intimately. This has given me the opportunity to see commuting (from a visual perspective) in a different way. I will explore this subject in more detail at some later point; there are so many different angles I could develop.
- I feel that in this exercise I’ve finally started to loosen up and try things without being too precious.
- I like how the ink pen drawing and textures are layered into the pictures.
- During the process I discovered the work of El Lissitzky and drew inspiration from his collages. I think his work is great.
- I estimated that the exercise would take me six-hours to complete. I did it in seven; my time keeping is getting better.
What I would do differently/better
- Reproducing my photographs on a home colour printer gave drab results. I would consider using a repro service in the future to get better colour reproduction.
- I need to start a collection of old magazines for future reference.
Illustration 