Madeline by Vivien Wu

So I woke up this morning and whilst browsing through my Tumblr dash, I came across this wonderful body of work by Vivien Wu and it kind of pretty much sums up what I want to do with this brief that I posted a couple days ago. For her graduation project, she reinterpreted one of her favorite childhood book series Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans in the style of a feature animation. 

"The story appeals to me because of its colorful rhymes, the beautiful boarding school in a Parisian setting, and the plucky, spirited heroine that every little girl can relate to."

“In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines

Lived twelve little girls in two straight lines

In rain or shine

They left the house at half past nine

The smallest one was Madeline.”

-Ludwig Bemelmans, Madeline, 1939

"I would like to share a sampling of the graduation project that I had so much fun illustrating! It’s an old series, but one of my childhood favorites. There has been a TV series and a live action film, but never a modern-ish animated feature, and it was a bit of a passion project to imagine what it would look like, down to the character designs and the actual scenes." - Vivien (more illustrations on her website).

A Step In My Shoes

Here is another idea - I said that I want to work on this in the future, not now, but it won't hurt to post on here too right? It is a Level 6 worthy idea after all, I think hahaha :-)

Another alternative to this idea is to create campaign posters to raise awareness of what is going on in the world, for example to children living in war zones or something along those lines - I'm really passionate about these types of things. I've not really created anything that is more of a sombre tone, so maybe something like this will be a good challenge for me, to gain more experience in other types of design work other than work for the animation industry. Every experience, is a good experience.

I think it'll also be harder and more of a challenge if I had kids as the target audience for something like this. Believe it or not, and as cheesy as I may sound, kids/young people are the leaders of tomorrow; they have the power to make a difference in our world, both in good and bad ways. It's our job to lead them onto the path that'll make them change the world for the better.

Things that I have in mind to create are something like:

• Picture books - that tells the story of, for example a character who's life is the complete opposite of how we're living our lives.
• Educational packs - with activities on how they can help improve the lives of people.
• Some sort of screen based, interactive work - because you know, kids are into their technologies now. - maybe like a game thing where they can choose a character to help (kind of like a virtual friend), but in order to help they actually need to go out and do stuff in real life which they can then record on the app or something (I don't know, just an idea for now hahaha).
• Something that will just make them understand of whats happening in the world in a child friendly way. hahaha I'm being so vague with this at the mo, but its something worth thinking about I think.

If I decide to create a book, I'd really like to collaborate with a writer so that I could get the wordings right; I love things that are sweet and snappy, almost poetic but full of feelings (like some of Dr. Seuss' works) but I really don't know any writers around here :( hmmmm...

The Visual Development Artist

I've been thinking some more about how I could use this year to develop my portfolio to suit what I'd like to do in the future. I came up with an idea to take an existing piece of story/play and produce a little book containing visual development pages (inc. character design, props, set/environment design etc.) like those produced in the early stages of a feature film production - a little bit like 'The Art of' books, I could include pieces of texts to explain why I've designed things a particular way, or how I got to that particular design solution. Not sure if I'm already being over ambitious, but if I also have the time, I'd like to create a simple animation or a series of short animations to go along with the book - kind of similar to what we did for OUIL 504 Studio Brief 2.

Examples:

For the story/play, I thought I could go for some of the older classics (or just something that is not as popular, but still as good as any classics); I think it'd be quite interesting to turn something like this into something that could potentially be made into an animation - to bring back an old classic to the modern generation in a fun way. Also I think that an older story would be full of interesting visuals, like the costumes, settings etc. - I would imagine that there would be a lot of researching involved and exploration into composition, colour, value etc. (OUIL 404 stuff) which I think would make a challenging level 6 project, and an enjoyable learning experience too!

For the animating part (if I am going to make an animation of some sort) I could collaborate with an animation student(s) if needed - this way I'll get the full(ish) experience of how a feature film would typically be made - all the stages, from idea, exploration, finalised artwork, to it being passed onto the animators to bring to life!

I'm excited already!

RSA Student Design Awards 2016

Receiving a commendation from YCN and being invited to attend the awards ceremony gave me a real boost of confidence in my ability. I'd like to get involved with more competitions in level 6 for a chance to experience that feeling again. The 2016 YCN briefs are not yet available, but once they are I'll be looking at the briefs from them, but for now I found these briefs that are of interest to me from the RSA Student Awards:

Animex 2016 & The INDIs 2016

For the collaborative brief of Responsive in Level 5, I collaborated with an animation student because of my interest in working within the animation industry. In my Level 5 PPP presentation, I said that I would like to work on my portfolio in character design, environment, colour and lighting; what better way to develop my portfolio than collaborating with an animation student again!

The Animex Awards 2016 (International Festival of Animation & Computer Games) aims to celebrate and reward the talent and achievements of students worldwide. Up to 10 mins, all animation styles and techniques are eligible and content is entirely up to us however must fit into one of the awards categories*:

• CGI Animation Award
• Visual Effects Award 
• 2D Animation Award 
• Game Animation Award
• Character Animation Award 
• Stop-motion Animation Award
• Experimental Animation Award
• Best First Animation

*Animex may also consider your entry in more than one award category.

The judging panels from previous awards have included representatives some of the animation studios I look up to from LAIKA, Pixar, Disney, Aardman Animation, Sony Image Works and DreamWorks, to name a few, so this would be a great opportunity to showcase my work and reach out to them. I'm not sure how doable this one might be though because the deadline for submission is 19th October 2015 (that is so soon!). If for any reason I'm not able to do this brief, I think I would still go the the festival in February for the experience and networking purposes.


The INDIs (Independent Directions) 2016 (Leeds young film festival) - similar to Animex. They are looking for up to 10 mins of innovative, cinematic, clever or engaging storytelling. The submission deadline for this is not until 5th of February 2016, so we (if collaborating) will have a long time to work on something.


Both of these competition briefs require discussion and mutual agreement with partner first (if collaborating).

Illustrated Home and Kitchenware

In Level 5 I never got the chance to combine illustration with textiles like I wanted to; so now is the time. The story behind this idea is that I've always been interested in products for the home - Always dreaming to buy my own house just so I can decorate it! Since I have a cousin who studies textiles in Indonesia, I thought that it would make a great collaboration business starter idea for the both of us which I could continue on and expand on the range to bedrooms, clothes etc. (gotta keep aiming big) if I wanted to in Indonesia (and here too, if it goes well).

As a starting point, I'm thinking of keeping this focused around the kitchen. Products include:

• Plates
• Cups
• Aprons
• Oven gloves/mitts
• Coasters
• Canisters/storage tins etc.
• Curtains
• Table cloths
• Tea towels
• Pot holders
• Curtains/blinds
• Seat cushions
• tote/grocery bags
• Illustrated recipe books/cards

I've been feeling pretty patriotic since I got back from Indonesia - maybe could use this as a theme. That'd be super interesting! Like I could do Indonesian Batik inspired curtains or tea towels or something! And illustrated traditional Indonesian cuisine recipe book! Amazing!

DamousAdventureShop

Whilst in Indonesia this summer, I met nature-loving Adam who have started a little business of his own selling outdoor/adventure products. He asked me if I would be able to design him some t-shirt designs with the theme of adventure. It's always such an honour to me to have people ask me things like this, as it means that my work is truly appreciated and I'm all for helping people out with their businesses especially self-managed ones. My passion for travel, exploring new places, sights and going on adventures, instantly attracted me to this idea and I feel quite excited with the things I could do and the breadth of outcomes that could possibly come out of this.

My previous re-branding project for ayasoBoutique was really enjoyable and thankfully a successful one too. I said that if the opportunity presents itself to me again, I would really love to delve further into this type of design work.

Although Adam only asked me for t-shirt designs, I thought that I could go further and do little bit of re-branding to improve his overall business image to attract and appeal more to customers. As well as this, I thought that I could expand the product range:

• Clothing:
• T-shirts
• Jackets
• Beanies, hats & caps
• Backpacks, waist packs etc.
• Water bottles 

• Educational products:
• Explorer's starter kits (kids and adult range)
• Explorer's Hotpots - Factfiles about must visit places.
• Could be separated into national, continental or international.
• Or maybe just places to explore in Indonesia as a starting point since business is based there.
• Could also include scratch maps in the pack.
• Posters
• Travel Journals.

Leeds Children's Hospital: Liver book

After completing the Kidney Book for Leeds Children's Hospital, they have asked me if I could illustrate a second book for the hospital, this one being one about having a Liver transplant. They are also planning to have a launch for the book and are in the process of looking for a date to promote them. I thought this would make a challenging project to undertake in Level 6 and it would be an interesting experience to try and continue on what I have already previously done but expanding on it. Since the target audience is children, I also I feel that this project would be beneficial to me. I have already thought of ways that I could expand the brief:

Expand product range:

• Bookmarks
• Children's apparels 
• Soft toys (e.g teddy that's mentioned in the book)
• Colouring/Activity books for kids who have just had their operation to keep them from being bored whilst recovering.
• Educational books for kids - about different organs and what they do
• Healthy Living packs for kids/tips for parents: could include fun challenges etc. to help kids (and adults) to live an active lifestyle; promote healthy living.

Since the hospital wants a launch party for the books I also thought about smaller, easier products that I could produce to help promote the launch/books:

• Posters
• Stickers
• Badges
• Screen printed tote bags

Ideas for Level 6

For level 6, I'd like to take on projects that will hopefully propel me in the direction of my chosen future career; this way I'd be able to gain more experience and develop a portfolio that will be relevant for what I want to be doing in a few years time. I would also like to take on projects that will allow me to explore my other interests outside of the animation industry. I started brainstorming all possible ideas and projects to undertake in Level 6, as shown above. Click on the links below to see further details and explainations.

• Leeds Children's Hospital Liver book
• DamousAdventureShop
• Illustrated home and kitchenware
• Animex 2016
• The INDIs 2016

• RSA Student Design Awards 2016
• The Visual Development Artist
• A Step In My Shoes