Ruban & Books

Currently i'm working on a collaboration with my friend Abbie, a graphic designer from Bristol. The idea came about through a shared love of the work by Ciara Phelan and an interest in digital collage, so we decided to produce something together we could both work on and add to our portfolios. The project is called "Ruban", using found, taken or hand rendered imagery to produce a collage on the benefits of rural life in my case, and Abbie working on urban. Each sunday we exchange a piece with a 250 word rationale and then other person reacts to this in a style of their choosing. The brief is pretty interesting because it is short, creative but allows us to develop new styles based on the inspiration of each others work.

This week I had a few ideas in mind but when it came down to opening illustrator nothing seemed to look right. I have no problem using images from the internet when they are copyright free but finding or taking your own means you have so much more control on the outcome. With this in mind I went out looking for some images that would be suitable for this project and fit the design idea I had in my head. Living in the middle of a city means the chances of encountering a forest to photograph were pretty slim so I went out to find books I could scan images from and manipulate in photoshop.

I'm not suddenly a massive nature enthusiast but I got these books from Oxfam because old encyclopaedias like these have loads of great images with a retro vintage wear to them. I managed to get three old books and my knowledge of british hedgerow flowers is on fire which is a win win situation. I think they make for really good scans to give a retro instagram style appearance to the project which will fit really well with the design I planned for this week.