A note from Chui.

What is Comparative Research?

It's a simple but multi-faceted device.

In order to appreciate great concepts and inspiring designs you need to search and find examples that usually fit into specific problems/challenges that you have in a brief.

By looking at how other illustrators/artists work with zines/artists book formats you can begin to compare your strengths and weaknesses, and more importantly identify what it is you need to work on.

It could be things that deal with the idea itself, or the design aesthetic, or both:

a collection
a journey
a sense of contradictions in what's written to what's drawn
a play with scale and perception
a sequence of mishaps
a bible
a dictionary of what not to do
a shopping list
a set of trump cards
an instructional booklet
a treasure map

Page layouts
Consistency of visual language
Use of limited colour palettes
Combination of text and image
The use of foreground and background
The visual experience of unfolding the pages
The feel of the paper
The awesomeness of the drawn details
The mark making qualites
The sense of emotion of the colours/drawings
The list is Fudging endless

Production for Visual Communicators An introduction

Novice to expert

I think that on the Novice-to-expert scale I would fall under the “Competent” section as I have a good working and background knowledge of area and practice. Although I do work to an undergraduate standard, I do think that my work could be more refined. I think I need to do a lot more sketching to help me to be able to finally polish my work to a higher standard. What I tend to do with my work is only create one or two versions and I do not experiment enough with images. I should start to think about the aesthetics that my audience are interested in and not just what I think is “pretty” or a good drawing. Although I am able to achieve most tasks using my own judgement, I would say that I need to gain more confidence in my work to have more tutorials. What I mean when I say this is that, when I do work I fear that it is not to a high standard or not enough there, so instead of showing my work in a tutorial I will just shy away from it, when this really defeats the point of my degree. I like to plan work, but I think I could plan to a higher standard. I like to work with my peers and find satisfaction when ideas bounce from one group member to another. I think that my perception of context could be slightly more backed up. I need to do a lot more research when I do projects, whether that’s artists or just background knowledge on a subject.