ILLU5050 - Conceptual Illustration - TheElliotWatson.GRILLUST.UK

ILLU5050 - Conceptual Illustration

1/2/2021

The Brief

To provide an appropriate conceptual illustration to fit a given article.
The article for my project is Videogames have replaced music as the most important aspect of youth culture an opinion piece published by the Guardian.

The parameters of my illustration are:
One illustration measuring 125mm high by 85mm wide, in a CYMK colour format
One animated illustration to be featured online (which is to be an animated version of the initial illustration), in an RGB colour format.

Out of all the articles on offer, I believe this is the one I have the most innate understanding on. My childhood was at a key point in this transition. I remember listening to cassette tapes & CDs on barely portable bulky players & clunky two-in-one cassette/ CD boom-boxes, then transitioning into video games as my primary source of entertainment.

Research & Inspiration

Video Game Symbols & Visual Language

Music Symbols & Visual Language

Initial Thumbnail Ideas

As my article is about music being replaced by video games as the prime spot in cultural influence, my initial ideas try to combine aspects of the two, showing video games in the spotlight, or music fading away.

Video games have a certain visual code associated with them. Very early on I decided to capitalise on a historical video game aesthetic: pixel-art. I concluded that appealing to the more retro aspects of video game culture would resonate with the demographic of the guardian more than modern video games, there's more historical ground to base my illustration on this way. Stereotypes become more defined over time, so a wider demographic will recognise certain visual language reliably if there's a precedent behind it.

Developed Thumbnails

The thumbnails I decided to explore further were the ones with the most retro video game appeal.

Classic, long lived, video game character Link (The Legend of Zelda 1986 - Current), smashing a guitar represents video games destroying music culturally through direct metaphorical representations of each industry.

Retro arcade game Space Invaders (1978) re-skinned to replace the traditional enemies into musical icons. The trappings of video game U.I. (user interface) elements provide a recognisable visual alongside the alternative content of musical icons. The frame becomes quite busy without communicating much. The simple assets lend themselves to animation.

Another retro arcade game, Pac-Man (1980) reskinned to replace the typical pellets with musical notes, I'm very happy with the cherry reskin. The frame limits what's possible with this idea I believe, but the simple assets would make animation easy.