Primary Research

Jey Austen

Designer and illustrator Jey Austen uses a color scheme of white text on a black background for their professional website. Though it may sound simple, they’ve created a bold and eye-catching design. The heavy gothic style and the uniform tone I liked showed me the author’s style as well as his character.

Anna Sabatini

From the opening page displaying a pencil-lined self-portrait to the hand-drawn lettering and other doodle-like drawings, Anna includes dashes of organic textures throughout. This merging of traditional graphic design with digital is further emphasized with her use of typewriter-styled typography. These elements are a nice juxtaposition to the slick scroll-triggered animation on the right sidebar.Anna does a great job of incorporating her personality into a design that combines the best of digital and graphic design for an online portfolio with character. 

Website production options

I chose the different production websites for comparison, and I tried to select each of them. For me, WIX is the easiest one to operate. It has a clear list for me to choose, and there are many free typesetting for reference. The other three sites have different problems, I often have no clue where to start, because there is no complete tutorial, so it is difficult to be proficient in a short time, I know I don’t have much time, so I will choose the easiest one to learn.

Silhouettes Worksop

 I started by learning how to make my own avatar, which paved the way for the later production of my personal website. I learned how to make my own silhouette quickly by watching videos. Although the black head is easy to reproduce, some of the hollowed out details can add flexibility to your head without being too rigid.

Personal avatar making

In this workshop we learn to make individual head silhouettes, I combine my silhouettes with different materials and colours of paper, this workshop will be the start of a whole project. I’ll start drawing my personal website avatar.

Livia Falcaru

Good Daze. (n.d.). Getting Inspired By… Livia Falcaru. [online] Available at: https://gooddazeahead.com/blog/getting-inspired-by/livia-falcaru

Livia is from Russia and currently works in Bucharest, Romania. Livia Falcaru creates beautiful and uplifting illustrations, including self-portraits, and her illustrations are instantly recognisable in a light and cheerful style. I like the colors she uses and a series of her illustrations very much. I can always find her works in a series of illustrations. I want to draw lessons from her brisk illustration style to my head picture production, and I will use some skipping colors to draw the head picture.

Avatar rendering

I drew a self-portrait for myself, and I want to use it as my personal avatar. Because ordinary silhouette can’t let the audience know what kind of illustrator I am, I chose to draw an avatar for myself with bright colors.

Learning how to use WIX

By watching the official teaching videos recorded by WIX, I found that website production requires patience and the most important thing is Manifesto and personal introduction. How can the audience remember you at once and think of me when they see a painting or a style? I began to plan my website. Because it represents a range of my own styles and opinions.

Website layout

In order to successfully start my website production, I chose to watch the top five website typesetting, each website has different characteristics, they put different emphasis, some pursue simplicity and some pursue interesting interaction, I think my first website clear and concise is the most important, because simplicity will never go wrong. If it is too complicated, the audience will not want to continue watching.

Plan my personal website

Before making my personal website, I made a rough plan for my production scheme, which will be based on Home, Portfolio, INFO and Contact respectively. I want to make a clear and concise website, so that the audience can see my works and my personal introduction more directly, and help the audience to understand me in the least time.

A mind-map made by Self-Promotional Video

It is the first time for me to make a short video to introduce myself. I don’t know where to start, so I first draw a mindmap to help me sort out what I can put into my personal introduction video. I choose the animation that most represents me and some hobbies to introduce myself. At the end of the video, I put Manifesto to illustrate my personal art statement.

Learn how to write a Mission statement and an Artist Manifesto

Berman, N. (n.d.). Mission Statements for Artists: What They Are and How to Write One. [online] blog.fracturedatlas.org. Available at: https://blog.fracturedatlas.org/mission-statements-for-artists.

Baker, H. (2015). 10 game-changing art manifestos | Blog | Royal Academy of Arts. [online] Royalacademy.org.uk. Available at: https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/ten-game-changing-manifestos.

At the beginning, I did not know what the artist Manifesto and mission statement were. I did not think about how to write an artist manifesto for myself, so I chose to write a manifesto for myself after understanding the true meaning. I believe that the artist manifesto represents my own artistic philosophy, which can be written in several points. The mission statement is the core idea of my creation, which can be described in one sentence.

My mission statement

“Looking at the world and documenting events in a different way is my way of life and I aim to remind all those who have lost interest in everything in life that when you look at the world differently, you will find a whole new world.”

My artist Manifesto

BE FLEXIBLE BETWEEN THINGS AND HAVING AN OPEN MIND
1.Never critics the things that i am not familiar with.
2.Trying to understand the different perspectives.
3.Turn the rejection and hatred into understanding new things but still stand for the peculiarity and uniqueness of the things i am appealed to.
4.Regardless the methods, and explore from painting, sculpture, technology, film,music,etc
5.learning from others, cause other will always have something that you can’t done on your own.

First attempt at creating a Social Media Campaign

At the beginning, I thought that a Social Media Campaign only needed to upload my works, but it was not until my teacher finished checking my homework that I found my misunderstanding. A Social Media Campaign should have a certain publicity function and bring some iconic topics. In order to better promote myself, I have never tried to post something similar to Social Media Campaign so my first time.

Search for the meaning of Social Media Campaign

Although my teachers and classmates have explained the meaning of Social Media Campaign to me, I have read some definitions in more detail in order to have a better understanding. I will publish a series of my works on two different social networking sites with related topics. I used to think that publicity is just to publish some personal works.

The first version of personal website

My first website: https://onexall0126.wixsite.com/my-site-8

I was not very familiar with the operation of the website at the beginning, although I watched the production videos carefully. I chose a template to use at the beginning, and I put all my works and my personal introduction on it. Through the suggestions from teachers and classmates, I found that I need to modify a lot. First of all, I don’t need to add all the works, but just select a part to add. My classmate Jo said that I could classify my works, because I didn’t have too many categories of works, which might cause the audience to have no interest in watching them. At the same time, I need to pay attention to whether the sentences introduced by me are correct. I need to check whether my links work when I submit them at the end, which is very important. I really appreciate Alexandra’s advice. I will collect these opinions and modify my website. I think my website is a bit messy, especially the color makes me feel uncomfortable. I will adjust the overall tone.

Comments from classmates

The first version of the personal introduction video

 First Self-Promotional Video：https://youtu.be/HnB4_5uXOpk

This is my first time to make a personal introduction video, it is very brief but these represent everything I am now, the teacher suggested that I can cut the black part of the video and make it landscape video which might have better visual effect, because now the video is like a mobile phone video, trim the four sides might be more comfortable. I’m thinking that I’m going to have the font that I added underneath so I’m going to think about making the left and right sides a black background as well to make it a little bit more coordinated.

Final website

Website：https://onexall0126.wixsite.com/jiayu-yan

I chose a simple style, and since the background color of the last website made me feel uncomfortable, I chose a solid color as the base color. I put out my own representative works and classified them into several categories, so as to facilitate the audience to watch my works with different themes. This time the website looks more comfortable, and I adjusted all the details that need to be modified.

Final Self-Promotional Video

 Self-Promotional Video：https://youtu.be/fn5DnJ5dc5M

I changed my Self-Promotional Video into a comforting horizontal video and republished it on my private Youtube channel and I’m happy to have a video to introduce me. I will use it to promote myself. The background music and the overall style of the video can make people feel very light. I have added the production process I recorded before and the fun in my life to share with you.

Social media campaign

Social Media Campaign：https://www.instagram.com/sullillli/

I am very interested in making digital avatars. I am good at combining the features of game heroes and real characters to make exclusive avatars for players who love overwatch. I will select the top 10 players to make exclusive avatars for free to promote myself. I also published a digital illustration of heroes and heroics. When my posts get over 100 likes, I draw any of the comments to promote my digital illustration.

Social Media Campaign：https://twitter.com/Suli41846504

 I promoted my illustrations through two different social platforms. I never added topics to my posts before, so I did not attract many people to see my works. I am looking forward to the audience’s “thumbs up” for my illustrations.

Feedback from different groups

Reflections

The third project consisted of three small branches. At first, I was very confused about the meaning of manifesto. I had never paid attention to the manifesto of some artists, so I skipped the manifesto and looked at the works directly. In my spare time, I read their Manifesto carefully. I always start from confusion. I don’t know much about Social media campaign, so I need to revise it again. jo always gave me some good advice. She thought that my website classification was not complete at the beginning, which led to a little disunity of style, which would cause the audience to have no interest in reading more. Therefore, I clearly classified the works I wanted to show, so that my website looked simple and clean. I think I can try to do more personal promotional videos, I’m interested in editing videos, I will discipline my life and put together videos, it’s also a good way to record my life and promote myself. I’m happy with my final outcome, it’s not that great but it’s a start and I’ll continue to make more interesting personal websites.

Studio selection

I think my third project belongs to Studio 3. I will promote myself through my personal website, personal promotional videos and social media Campaign, and I will make efforts to promote myself and let people know what kind of illustrator I am.