Where I live? First few stages...

The second skills module for Visual Communication is all about where I live. I have to create an illustration in repsonse to the title. My final work must be created on Adobe Illustrator - this will be a challenging task as I have never used this software before. I will also continue to keep my research and idea development in an A3 flip file rather than a sketchbook, so I can keep all my Vis Com work together in one file.

Firstly, I highlighted the main sections on the brief and began to brainstorm some ideas. I live in Bridgnorth, a historical town in the middle of Shropshire where we are surrounded by trees and the town is separted by the River Severn which leaves a High Town and a Low Town. My house and past schools are situated in High Town, whereas my work place is located in Low Town. Due to the river being in the middle, there are two bridges that connect the two together. The one bridge I commute over to get to university by bus.

Secondly, to get some ideas flowing I decided to do some quite drawings of some areas in Bridgnorth. The main attraction for tourists who come to visit the town is the Town Hall, situated in the middle of the High Street. I also did a quite drawing and tried to create tone of a bench that is along the Castle Walk where the whole of Low Town can be viewed from. To combine the two places Bridgnorth (Where I Live) and Wolverhampton (Where I Work) I did a very quick outline of the MC building that I can see from MK314 when doing work on the mac.

After doing these quick drawings I then started to look at artists who look at spaces around them. Firstly I started to look at Richard Billingham and the photographs he had taken of Cradley Heath in the Black Country where he had grew up from birth. I then started to develop some of my own thumbnail ideas in relation to his work but adding my own twist and using photographs taken by myself.



The second artists I started to look out was Storm Thorgerson and one of the album covers he had designed. The artwork was themed around things inside being placed outside. The sheep was inside a persons bed and the person was outside on the grass. I then related this idea to looking through a window and what I see on a day to day basis in Bridgnorth. So this would be my house, Town Hall, Church, trees and bridges. The main areas in Bridgnorth. I also started to think about signs that are associated with Bridgnorth and whilst on the bus one morning I noticed the Salop sign on one of the passing houses so started to think about how I could incorperate this into my design.

I found that the bottom thumbnail design with the trees either side of the Salop sign works well as it represents the fact that Shropshire is in the heart of the countryside where trees are visable wherever you look rather than a city scape. The clear sky and clouds also represent the fact that Bridgnorth isn't as air polluted as citys such as Wolverhampton due to there not being even half the amount of cars coming in and out of the town.