2. Research Language

In this lecture I learnt about many different Research techniques. Research itself is a way to further investigate a selected subject, to find more about your subject and to understand it enough to make your own legitimate contributions towards it. To do a piece of art work without research may result in it not being as strong as it could be. There are different forms of research, primary research and secondary research. Primary research is information that the researcher has found themselves, this could range between study drawings of a specific subject (visual research), to data the researcher went out and found themselves. In the presentation, I learned that illustrator Paul Davis gathers information from around him by taking photographs, drawing and scanning, this is because he hates missing potentially good ideas. I also work in this way as you gather the information yourself and you witness it at first hand.

Secondary research is information found on the internet, in books or even on television, as long as it’s been found out before. As a illustrator, I find that my preferred way to find information is through visual research, drawing what’s around me and taking in the world around me, I also find that I often take photographs on my phone for future reference, I have many photos of things most people would think is useless.

I also learned that if you’re thinking about making living off being an illustrator, then one of the main things you’d need to think about is target audience, who is the artwork for? An understanding of the audience in which the artwork is for will help a great deal when it comes to design. For instance if you’re working on a children’s book, you might want the look of the artwork to be playful and vibrant. A good example of this is the Mr Men books by Roger Hargreaves.

It would be a waste of time putting high detail monochromatic pieces of artwork in the book as it wouldn’t be as appreciated by children. This is why keeping the target audience in mind will vastly improve the outcome. All this can be done by simply researching before you design anything, looking before you leap so to speak.