EVALUATION: SYNOPTIC ASSIGNMENT LONDON HISTORY IN THE MAKING

BRADLEY SANTON 0380

LONDON HISTORY IN THE MAKING - BRIEFWe were taken to a location in London for inspiration that would form the basis of our project which involved the creation of our own brief. I chose to look at the area of London where The Great Fire had taken place and how it had been rebuilt from 1600’s to the present day. In particular I looked at St Paul’s Cathedral and the Lloyds building. I created an A2 collage using the original map of the location and drawings of the buildings I had done.

I wanted to look at these two building in relation to their architects – Christopher Wren and Richard Rogers. Then I needed to come up with my own brief about how to represent the buildings differences in style, materials and time.

MY OWN BRIEF – THE COMIC STRIP

MY BRIEF :The editor of The Architect’s Journal in London wanted to re-create one of their most successful magazine issues from 2010 headlining ‘ Measured Drawings’. The 2015 edition would concentrate on architects from the past and present whose buildings are iconic for the City of London.In particular they want to look at the building styles of Christopher Wren and Richard Rogers. My brief for the issue is to produce a COMIC STRIP which will talk about how the architecture has changed in the City of London hi-lighting these architects.

I did an observational drawing of a sculpture in London which reminded me of a comic book drawing from 300 like the one shown.

It was then that I decided I wanted to do a comic strip for my final outcome.My client would be the Architect’s Journal magazine and it would be for an issue about the history of architecture in London. The comic strip was something I loved drawing and would also help towards my university degree of Game Design.

RESEARCH & IDEAS – THE COMIC STRIPAfter researching Wren and Rogers, I then began to look at different comic styles that I liked as a way of presenting my comic strip .

I looked at the black and white style of Frank Miller famous for 300 and Sin City.I loved the simplicity of colour with shadowing to create drama and detail.

I also looked at the vertical style story telling of Mark Millar famous for Kick Ass and Marvel’s Civil War. I liked the fact that the strip was visually unconventional and thought it may work with the tall drawings of the Lloyds building. However, colours were not something that I wanted to attempt.

RESEARCH & IDEAS – THE COMIC STRIPI then did research into similar style comics that were specifically about buildings or architecture – or had this feature about them. I was amazed at how many comics were around and some of them influenced my final outcome. In particular, I found a top ten of buildings represented in comic form which was devised by Architects Journal so it seemed appropriate to look at these closely.

No.7 - Ubicand

No.3 - From Hell’s London

No.8 - Superman Metropolis

No.4 - Daredevil’s New York

THREE IDEAS – THE COMIC STRIP

Idea 1

Idea 3

Idea 2From the time of the interim review it was clear to me and my class feedback that Idea 2 was the best option for me to go with. I needed to work more on the drawings and characterisations and also increase the number of boxes to allow me to tell a good enough story. I would do my drawings in black and white only and maybe add some splashes of colour as Frank Miller does with his comic strips.

FINAL IDEA NARRATIVE

I found it very hard to make a decision about the content of the comic strip – how to tell a story without being too boring or trying to be funny. This process took a long time but I finally decided to set it out like the narrative and speech bubbles in an actual comic strip. This made the process a lot easier .

Setting out the story in bubbles also helped me to determine what I should show in the each drawing box as I had gone into a lot of detail in each bubble. This saved me a lot of time eventually because I was able to start my final drawings straight afterwards.

FINAL OUTCOME EVALUATIONOverall I was very pleased with the outcome. The picture below does not do it justice, it actually looks 100% better in reality as I did the comic strip on a large scale A1 board as if I would be presenting it to the client.In terms of my brief for both the project and my own brief from Architect’s Journal, I believe that I achieved what I had planned to do quite successfully – using a subtle blend of historic information with humour.

If I had more time I would have liked to have made it slightly longer or two comic strips which could follow on form each other in 2 editions of the magazine. I may also have played around a bit more with adding some colour as I decided to only colour the narrative boxes in the final strip.

This has been a great project for me to end my Art and Design year with. It has helped me to develop a comic style that I can take with me to university . It has also helped with my presentation skills and working to a brief – both of which I will have to do a lot of in my future career. Showing the comic ‘Insitu ‘ in a centre

page spread for Architect’s Journal