Assignment 3: Destinations

Brief

This assignment asks you to look back on the styles and subjects you have explored in this section to produce an illustration based on a destination of your choice.

You could choose somewhere familiar, or you could choose somewhere you have always wanted to visit. Perhaps you will choose a place that doesn’t exist, perhaps another place in the universe.

Firstly, look back and reflect on the simple shapes, dynamic lines and simple colour schemes used by the Constructivists and the Avant-garde. You could also consider the rich colours used by the Fauvist inspired illustrators working in Paris in the early 1930s.

You might also want to begin with some research on the ‘This is’ series of Miroslav Šašek to see how successfully he captured the places and people he visited. Explore his use of shape, blocks of colour and simple linework in the way he constructed his images.

Once you have chosen your destination, think about what you want to focus on:

• Do you want to focus on the geography, the buildings or the people?

• Will you bring some or all of these elements together?

• Will you develop some thumbnail sketches before deciding on your way forward?

For the assignment you can produce either:

• A large travel poster of your destination for display in a travel shop,

• A double page spread about the destination for a magazine article,

OR

• An illustrated online post about the destination to inform travellers about the place.

Research and Reflect

Looking back at the work of the constructivists, a lot of their work involved simple line and shapes to convey subjects, and with that was bold colours. When I approach this assignment, I must remember to not go into too much detail as I would in my traditional work, and try to go into the more abstract route of designing if possible.

As suggested, I researched the children's book series 'This is...', illustrated by Miroslav Sasek. The books took place around the world with the first being 'This is Paris' and the last being 'This is Historic Britain'. The series itself ran from 1959 to 1974, wither republishing occuring throughout the 2000s.1

As I look through 'This is Rome' courtesy of 'Animation&GraphicsBooks', there is a lot of strong shape language and is very vibrant in colour; the linework makes the illustrations feel geometric and structured-- perfectly complimenting the text alongside. There are some elements where there is collaging involved, showcasing statues of Rome, it makes the illustration more grounded and real by applying real world elements to a drawing. Looking at Miroslav's work and reflecting on how I want to approach my design, I feel like I would like to include a lot of vibrant colour to reflect that of the life of the country of choosing.

2

Reflecting on previous research task and how I can use it for this assignment, I would like to gravitate to Vladimir Lebedev's style since I really like the friendly shapes and colourful designs-- maybe I'll merge Lededev and Sasek together. In terms of colour scheme, instead of using what the Constructivists used, I'll most likely use the colours that are in the flag, to really unite the images together- however, I would like to thumbnail and play around a bit before then.

Country of choosing and mood board

I have always wanted to explore South Korea, I really like their culture of food and drink, tv shows, music and their landscapes.

Thumbnails/Sketches

Development

I got to the end stage of this assignment and I didn’t want to continue this, I was so unhappy with this. I wanted an instant redo, the sketch was full of life compared this this. I tried my best to create that similar style of the Constructivists, however, it falls flat.

I revisited another sketch, thinking it’s because the composition wasn’t interesting; and I wanted to remember to keep the linework and colour simple enough. Similar to Miroslav, I kept to simple lines and bold colours- trialing out what colour schemes would work best; I resulted in using similar colours to the South Korean Flag.

Colour schemes

Planning the colour scheme, it did change however, after going back to redesigning and getting advice to invert the colours to make the illustration 'pop' more.

Timelapse

Final Work

Evaluation

This assignment was really difficult to do, creating a travel magazine page-spread with a focus on simple shape and line, and bold colours. I chose South Korea, with it being the place I would love to visit; I wanted to include the beautiful Gyeongbokgung Palace, delicious food, the N Seoul Tower, the music and the beautiful traditional Hanbok’s. In the end, I didn’t include the Hanbok’s unfortunately, since if I included it I would personally love to be more intricate in detail with it.

The result of the illustration is pleasing compositional with bold colours and simple shapes. Since the palace itself has soo much detail, I resorted to choosing shapes that stood out to me from the references of the palace. I feel like having this as the central point of the composition really reflects back to the history of South Korea and its culture, an iconic piece of landmark in Seoul that many flock to.

Overall, the illustration looks visually very pleasing and bold, however, it might be too much detail for what the assignment intended. With the previous attempt being much more simple in shape and line, however it lacked structure. I did lean more towards digital for this assignment due to previous personal projects that inspired me, I felt like it would've given me much more control over shape and colour by the adaptability of digital, and ultimately the smooth look that the Constructivists that in theirs.

1 Wikipedia contributors. (2024, October 14). This Is... (book series). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:28, March 16, 2025, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=This_Is..._(book_series)&oldid=1251078264

2 Animation&GraphicsBooks, YouTube 'This is Rome. Miroslav Sasek. 1960 (First edition) / Это Рим. Мирослав Шашек. Первое издание (англ.)', 16 Nov 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlqVhzeaVk4 Accessed Mar 16, 2025.