Molly-Rose Danielis

Graphic Communication and Illustration

Students on this course:

During my time at university I’ve acquired a key interest in creating conceptual illustrated posters as well as creating illustrations for a younger audience; specifically children’s book and poster illustrations. My design approach most often begins with creating roughs and initial ideas on paper and then scanning them on my iPad and finishing them on Procreate, however occasionally I like to do all the design processes on Procreate, as I tend to enjoy it more and I find it easier. I normally use digital media for my illustrative work, and sometimes on top of the base colour I like to add colour with my own Procreate brushes, I do this in order to make my work unique and stand out. In addition, with some of my own illustrations, I use unique media approaches that combine normal digital media with a particular adjustment or effect added to it; again I do this to grab the audience attention.

For my final project, I decided to create 5 posters and an activity pack for my audience (6-8-year-olds). The main idea behind this project is to inform and educate in a fun and playful way how important a hedgehog friendly garden is in order to stop their numbers from declining. The way that the posters communicate with the audience is by showing a family of hedgehogs stuck in their garden which is a non-hedgehog friendly garden, but as you move through the posters the friendlier the garden becomes. The next posters will demonstrate a type of improvement, and why hedgehogs benefit from it, as well as give a quick glance at the hedgehogs enjoying the improvements. To finalise and highlight the idea of showing the garden becoming friendlier and friendlier, I have added a final poster showing all the improvements together in the garden and the family of hedgehogs enjoying their new, safe and happy environment.

The idea of the activity pack is to educate the audience by making them create a hedgehog friendly garden by completing some activities. Each of the activities is guided by one of the hedgehog family members. I decided to do this to make it more engaging, fun and playful for my audience. The scope of it is to engage them in activities that overall aim to educate them on how the different improvements are created as well as what improvements are needed. After completing each activity the garden will gradually improve and hedgehogs will start to gradually appear. The end result will show the full hedgehog friendly garden with many hedgehogs in it enjoying the improvements.

I chose to undertake this project as today British hedgehogs are at risk of extinction as their habitat is getting destroyed by the construction of houses, building roads, crop farming etc. The only way they can survive is if people create a hedgehog friendly garden for them. Being an animal lover myself, I was interested in finding out more about this subject and expanding my research into this project. I chose to aim it at 6-8-year-olds as it is an interactive, fun, but most importantly educational issue which I believe children of this age would be interested in.

Within this project, I feel my strengths and skills are in the hedgehog character designs. I feel like overall my strengths in the illustration are within this area, as I can create characters that depict vivid and realistic expressions; especially in animal characters that are targeted at a young audience. I also really enjoy creating them and seeing them evolve into a unique, cute and fun characters. When doing the “Help save the hedgehogs” project, I really enjoyed creating the hedgehog characters and giving them anthropomorphism features in order to make them more engaging with the audience. To create a more playful, engaging and realistic story I gave the family human characteristics; I made the mum and dad hedgehogs look wise, whilst for the 3 children hoglets I gave them all different characters, trying to resemble a three siblings family. One of them is cheeky, another is a “miss know it all” and the other is shy and reserved, I believe this could create a deeper connection with my audience as they are more likely to form a bond with the hedgehogs in the story.

My career aim is to pursue a career in illustration, particularly within children’s books or illustrating for children in general

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Project 1: Hedgehog friendly garden poster (last poster)

This poster shows the full garden turned into a hedgehog friendly garden, it shows the family of hedgehogs enjoying all the improvements that have been added to their garden. When creating this poster and the following ones, the challenges I faced were creating a two-dimensional type of format as it is not my usual way of illustrating. I originally started this poster as well as the other ones without being two dimensional, but one of my tutors thought that since the hedgehog characters stand upfront giving a two-dimensional sensation, my tutor suggested that I reflect this idea on the overall posters. Another challenge I faced when creating this poster and the others were adding a colour palette that didn’t correspond to the real colours of the different elements on the poster. I really struggled with making the poster look good without making it unappealing to the audience. However, overall, I feel that the way it has turned out is good and effective.

On the other hand, When doing this poster as well as the following posters, I think my creative skills were primarily seen in the hedgehog characters, like I stated previously I really enjoy creating animal characters and I can depict their expression well, as well as making the characters have human characteristics; this is what I’ve done on the posters. I feel like the characters throughout the posters show that they are enjoying the improvement in a playful, entertaining and engaging way, which is what my audience needs to have in order to be engaged.

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Project 1: Hole in fence poster (first poster)

This poster is a flap poster. When the flap is closed, as shown here, it illustrates one of the improvements that hedgehogs need which is the hole in the fence.

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Project 1: Hole in fence poster- part 2 (first poster)

This poster is the ‘hole in the fence’ poster, but it shows what’s under the flap; the hedgehog family as well as some text. The text says “A hole in the fence, gives us the opportunity to travel from garden to garden. We travel at night to find food and a place to rest in, so a hole in the fence is very important to us”, this suggests as to why a hole in the fence is important. The hedgehogs inside the flap are interpreting what it says in the text, as of this I’ve made them walk through the hole with their bags and cases.

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Project 1: Log pile poster (second poster)

This is another flap poster. When the flap is closed, as shown here, it illustrates another improvement that hedgehogs would benefit from; a log pile. As the texts suggest this is a perfect home for them.

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Project 1: Log pile poster- part 2 (second poster)

This poster is the ‘log pile’ poster, but it shows what’s under the flap; revealing what this log pile is used for which is “it gives them a place to nest in and plenty of creepy crawlies to eat”, whilst the illustration is showing the hedgehogs cooking the creepy crawlies

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Project 1: Garden pond with a ramp (third poster)

This is another flap poster. When the flap is closed, as the text suggests, it illustrates another improvement that hedgehogs would benefit from, which is by having a ramp in the pond, this makes them get safely in and out of it.

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Project 1: Garden pond with a ramp- part 2 (third poster)

This poster is the ‘garden pond with a ramp’ poster, but it shows what’s under the flap; a hedgehog taking advantage of the ramp by turning it into a slide, whilst the dad hedgehog is safely getting out of the pond using the ramp.

Molly-Rose Danielis

Final year project

Help save the hedgehogs