V&A Illustration Competition
Brief: Submit an illustrative response to a personal interest or editorial subject.
The V&A Illustration Awards is the UK's most prestigious annual illustration competition recognising the very best in book, editorial and student illustration. For the student entry I wanted to submit a piece of work that was personal, experimental and fresh. I decided to enter and build upon my project ‘Nigeria 70’ as I felt it was a strong representation of my illustration work and personal interests currently. ‘Nigeria 70’ is an exploration into a personal curiosity of mine. The music from Nigeria during the 1970s is filled with excitement, enjoyment and meaning; the stories behind the music inspires and provokes a message, whilst the accompanying culture is filled with igniting visual imagery represented through art and fashion, that is so compelling in Africa.
However looking back on my final illustrations, I felt something wasn't right about them. Viewing them with a fresh eye, I felt the background and colour scheme was somewhat jarring, and needed to be developed. On reflection of my research into the culture of Nigeria and Africa as a whole, I noticed the significance fashion, in particular pattern design, has over the country. Meaning and narrative is expressed through the varied patterns of Africa, yet moreover for me they highlight the exhilarating, exquisite and vivid visual language that is so apparent within the music of Nigeria 70. Drawing inspiration from a variety of different patterned textiles from around Africa, I developed a series of new backgrounds that highlight a fresh representation, yet still portraying my initial visual narrative intentions.
Working within Photoshop, I sourced my original illustrative portraits of Fela Kuti, the Lijadu Sisters, and William Onyeabor and removed them from the earlier backgrounds. After scanning and editing the new pattern inspired backgrounds, I placed them behind each portrait illustration ready to be coloured. Colouring was the second aspect I wanted to develop, I felt the colours of the original outcome worked well together as colours but not in relation with the pictorial elements. With this in mind I listened to each of the artists music and pictured a colour in correlation with what I heard; this in turn ignited a very personal response to the illustrations. The colours I chose - red, blue, yellow - are the colours I see and feel when listening to the music of Nigeria 70, thus evolving my original illustrations from being an interesting representation of a musical culture; to being a personal response to a personal musical interest. With the colours arranged, the last element was working them into becoming a final illustration; I experimented with numerous ways of subtlety blending colour, but settled with creating a two toned colour scheme which works well with supporting the pictorial elements as well reinforcing visual excitement and interest.
In contrast with my original outcomes, the final three re-worked illustrations depict an greater emphasise on personal portrayal. They are a celebration of my own sense, feeling and emotion of the music representative of Nigeria 70. The adapted colours I feel work a lot better, and in relation with the background each of the illustrations a whole feel more flowing and as one. Through entering the V & A illustration competition I have gained a better understanding of the professional practice and industry, yet moreover it offered myself an opportunity to re-visit previous work and really analyse myself and personal visual language - an aspect of my personal working process I want to broaden.
