Although we were tasked with producing only 5 roughs that were to the actual dimensions of our books I decided to start this project in the same way as 'A Day in the Life' in that I drew out as many smaller roughs within my sketch book as possible. This is because it allows me to really explore/generate as many different potential ideas of possible without being restrained by how good they look aesthetically.
Given the subject matter of this book the initial ideas development was particularly challenging due to the fact that it was simply an abstract concept with no definitive motifs attached to it. This required me to actually read my book in quite a lot of depth to fully understand the concepts it presented and inform how I would choose to communicate them visually.
At one point I was actually considering changing my book due to this but thought that I should just persevere with it rather than give up at the first hurdle.
One of my initial roughs that depicted two graphic representations of a family of four ending up becoming one of my final roughs. The idea behind it was based upon the concept of the uncanny being the juxtaposition of familiar and unfamiliar being experienced simultaneously creating a feeling of dread for the viewer. Therefore I wanted to use the idea of the nuclear family ( married couple with two children ) to show this idea of the familiar but then strip the image down to the bare minimum through use of block shapes and negative space to create some thing somewhat unsettling and unfamiliar.
Initially this was one of my least favourite roughs as I felt it was aesthetically quite boring and conceptually confusing.
However in the group crits the general feed back was that it was one of my most interesting roughs both conceptually and visually and was to the point in what it was communicating. Therefore this is yet another example of where I need to just have more faith in my own ideas.
My next two roughs were aesthetically very different to the first in that they were both very character driven and visually a lot more humorous. This last point I felt, and this was also shared by those in the group crit, detracted some what from the function of the images due to the tone and subject matter of my book.
However I still feel that the ideas behind them were strong and well informed by the book itself. Both explored phenomenons discussed within the book that can be seen as examples of the uncanny in action.
The first image shows the concept of a doppleganger or double by depicting a janitor within a museum looking at painting of a civil war general that is the spitting image of himself. The latter shows the phenomenon of outer body experiences which is also discussed in depth within the book.
The main strength that both these roughs shared was that visually they seemed to be telling a story and giving an insight into what was being discussed within the book. However aesthetically it was argued that they, the top one in particular, looked more like the cover to a graphic novel.
This last point, when coupled with the humour, shows that how even well informed ideas presented in a pleasing when can fail to serve their function due to both tone of voice and the context in which the image is being used.
My last two roughs explored the idea of telepathy. However out of all my ideas I though these were worst visually and aesthetically. After creating these images the use of the head motif and brain waves seemed both incredibly half arsed due to how obvious the idea was and stale the image making was.
I also felt that they confused the message of the book, making it seem more like it was about conspiracy theories and new age spiritualism than an actually academic text that explored a philosophical context in depth.
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