Alaska Trip Summer '23 (In Progress) - image 1 - student project

(My completed "Try This" exercises are below)

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I'm a very hands on learner, so I am really enjoying these "Try This" exercises. They're especially helpful for digesting the principles and then also are fun to be able to put them into practice.

Try This #1 - Photographic Vs Graphic paradigms

Admittedly this exercise took me a bit longer to complete. While in concept this was really easy for me to grasp, when I setout to find my image pairs I did struggle a bit to really separate the two paradigms, especially when it came to looking at stylized works and trying to separate photographic from photorealistic.

Alaska Trip Summer '23 (In Progress) - image 2 - student project

Try This #2 - Evaluating Your Illustrations

I'm a professional graphic designer currently working towards pivoting into illustration as of the last year. I don't have too many illustration specific pieces, but here are a few of my recent ones. (My evaluations follow the image below)

Alaska Trip Summer '23 (In Progress) - image 3 - student project

A- "Old Fashioned" This was an experimental piece. Made as part of my "Drawing is Important" month in January, the intention was to create a new take on illustrating this speakeasy staple. While it was a fun challenge in breaking the cocktail down into it's simplest components in a flat graphical style (based on a real drink I had in front of me), ultimately I feel this one doesn't quite work how I wanted. It is hard to read at a glance, particuarly the glass.

B- "Diabetuhs" Another one from "Drawing is Important" last month. I drew the components of my Pip diabetes testing kit (from observation). I approached it as if it were an illustration of the product for the brand Pip. Overall I think what works well is the hierarchy of the two main products which are the meter and their self-contained lancets (blue & purple) and the grouping of the related elements. If I were to re-draw this, I would probably play with scale/proportions to make it feel more dynamic.

C- "Cherry Pop Tart" This was strictly a nostalgia piece at first and as a way of testing the limits of what my acrylic markers could do (blending wise). After I drew it I had an idea of potentially using it as a card/ Valentines day greeting card, which I think in that context it does work well. (Also to my utter suprise @poptartsus commented on this post on my Insta which I shamelessly pinned to the top of my comment thread)

D- "DG Pencil Monogram" This one I feel certainly taps into both my work identity as a graphic desiger & the aspiring illustrator in me. I needed a new monogram to represent myself online. My original mark (a camp penant flag with "Dare") didn't scale well or work in the circle crop format needed for most online profile pics. I feel what makes this DG monogram successful is that not only is it aligned with my identity as a creative, but that it checks the big box that my original mark didn't - it works for the format I need online and is still legible at a small size.

I also really love that this reflects the hand-drawn process I used to create it on paper originally before finalizing it digitally.

Try This #3 - Composition Scavenger Hunt

I'm a consummate overthinker. While I'm familiar with most of these actionable principles in a graphic design context, I'm far less familiar with recognizing them in illustration so I found myself combing through hundreds of pins on Pinterest and often second-guessing myself on which principle best applied. I got particuarly hung up on closure vs. figure & ground. They feel very similar to me, especially since it deals with what's created in the negative space. (I'm still not sure if I got it 100% right in my examples, tbh.)

Alaska Trip Summer '23 (In Progress) - image 4 - student project

Try This #4 - ROT / Harmonic Armatures

I am really familiar with the Rule of Thirds and use it quite often in my graphic design work, but am 100% new to Harmonic Armatures. Although at first it looks very overwhelming to my ADHD brain, I found it so eye-opening once I overlayed the HA grid ontop of different illustrations. Something clicked (even though I can't pinpoint what exactly) and it's quite possibly my new favorite comp grid type.

For this mini exercise I wanted to see how the HA applied with more complex scenes and then comparing it to how it works with the simpler illustrations. I found that all of these pieces, both complex & simple, aligned in the Harmonic Armature. Being able to visualize how these elements are structured within the HA feels almost like a reverse engineering process, which since I am a visual/hands on learner really helps to clarify these structural composition principles. I then tried it with one of my own illustrations ("Walkman"). It was suprising in some aspects to see what was working nicely within the HA grid and also helpful to know how to improve upon future works.

Alaska Trip Summer '23 (In Progress) - image 9 - student project

Try This #5: 6 Composition Types

Found this to be the easiest of all the exercises. Just a few questions came up in my mind as I was looking for each of these compositions-- Does a collage or an illustration with collage elements included fall under Montage? Also, what do you consider an illustration where the elements are self contained (in like a rectangle/square) -- would this also be a Montage? (I put examples of both in question below)

Alaska Trip Summer '23 (In Progress) - image 14 - student project

Alaska Trip Summer '23 (In Progress) - image 15 - student project

Alaska Trip Summer '23 (In Progress) - image 18 - student project

Darren Girard Koch

Graphic Designer + Doodler

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