As I begin forming concepts for my magazine following the research I have undertaken to determine what kind of magazine I want to produce and in what style I have come to the conclusion a lot of the spreads will feature a predominantly illustration based format as well as mixed media and typographic design.
As I came to this conclusion a new avenue of research opened up to me. I keep sketch books, journals and scrapbooks of work I have seen and found over the years whenever possible as well as my own work done both in and outside of my degree. I went to these to find inspiration as to what style of illustration I wanted to use. This style of illustration will not be exhaustive and will not be the only style used throughout the entire magazine but at least for now I wanted to be sure of a style to start forming definitive concepts for the cover.
In looking at my hoard of design treats, as I often do, it became apparent to me I was looking for something fresh and clever. It is my job as the Art Director of this magazine to source talented individuals to form my own creative team, unlike briefs in the past in which I was expected to do the job of an entire design team, including all art work whether illustration or photography or even animation. This is a lesson I am more than happy to learn as it will improve the quality of the magazine exponentially, that is not to say I can't draw, I am an artist but I am not an illustrator.
In thinking on this new concept of inviting other creatives to work alongside me on a joint project I looked around me to find someone who is not only talented but who loves working creatively as much as I do and will therefore have a high level of commitment and passion. I therefore decided to approach a friend and previous colleague Rae Carter, an extremely talented and sexy little rascal who studied animation but as part of her trade is a fantastic illustrator as well. (And yes we hate her.)
Above is selection of her work, showing a wide range of styles all in her repertoire that I think will compliment the kind of magazine I want to create. The lovely Miss Carter excepted my request and we start work next week to start deciphering the content and how we are going to approach this budding working relationship (its ok we have done it before, it went really well, she tends to shove sweets in my mouth occasionally and I like sweets so we will be just dandy.)
For anyone interested in Rae's work her website is lovely and features a shop as well as portfolio, you can find her at http://www.raecarter.com
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