IF: Theory

Illustration by Brandon Fall

IF: Tails and Legends

Illustration by Brandon Fall

IF: Plain

Illustration by Brandon Fall

Process: Phil Who Fell by Brandon Fall

The Start of the Journey:
Writer Rex Wilder approached us to set colorful illustrations to his playful children’s book. The story is set in ryhme and follows a boy named Phil who likes to fall. It’s not that Phil can’t help from falling, he just likes it, much to his parents dismay. In the end, a philosopher realizes the freeing feeling falling has and becomes a follower of Phil. Phil ends up with many other “fall”owers.

Approach:
After a few meetings to determine what Rex was looking for in the illustration style, character sketches were underway. The flow of the book definitely has a playful feeling; playful illustrations would naturally follow.

Early sketches for the character Phil




Concept:
We mutually decided that Phil should be just about the only normal looking one. The other characters Phil would meet along the way would look more abnormal, which would contrast with Phil. I also wanted to have the illustrations packed with other background information, events going on in the background that might tell their own individual story that you, as a reader, might not catch on the first read through. This is where I really had a lot of fun!

Sketches for the character Phil



Individual scans pieced together in Photoshop



Finished double page spread painted in Photoshop


More Than Meets the Eye:
The copy at the start of the book was very short and simple, for example one page reads, “Phil, who fell in football.” More than just illustrating Phil falling while playing football, I wanted to create a whole story within this spread...people yelling on the sidelines, parents getting in arguments, and a teammate surprised with Phil falling before making it to the inzone.

Fully illustrated page and close up background detail





Fully illustrated page and close up background detail





Technique:
The illustrations were drawn on a 18” x 24” sketch tablet. Each sketch was scanned at a high resolution in 3 to 4 pieces and lined up together in Photoshop. The advantage of painting in Photoshop was that it would allow for easy color changes, easy layout changes, or even completely eliminating a character if needed. The skin tones, where I usually started each illustration, were blocked in as a solid color and placed on their own layer. The Photoshop round brush was set with a hard edge at 50% opacity–this created the paint stroke look, as 50% opacity allowed the previous paint strokes to come through. A slightly lighter color was then used for high-lights. As the color was painted, other colors were sampled and blended in. The process was repeated with both lighter and darker colors. It’s just like painting!

Skin tones were added first as a solid color



Highlights and shadows were then added




The Outcome:
Along the way, Rex was shown the sketches and finished illustrations as they were created. He was pleased with the initial direction, so he gave us complete creative freedom for the rest of the illustrations in the book. The result was a book with which we were both happy about.

Illustration Friday: Rejection

Illustrations by Kimiyo Nishio (top) & Brandon Fall (bottom)

Illustration Friday: Suit

Illustration by Brandon Fall

Dishdogz

Design can be like skating, some rides are flawless and smooth. Other are a bumpy, rough cobblestone ride. Some are a little bit of both. You can hit one side of the ramp with a righteous 780˚ twist only to crash and burn with a mouth full of hardwood on the other end. EPOS recently had the pleasure of working with Lionsgate Films on dvd packaging concepts for the movie Dishdogz. It was a project that challenged us to demonstrate a variety of design tricks. Here are the highlights of the ride taken by the EPOS design team.


Round 1: Learning to Skate:
Eric Martinez: I was initially given a variety of skateboard magazines and skate movie packages to follow for creative direction from the client. We were asked to focus on a skate inspired design that appealed to teenage boys. Digging in, I found that todays skate culture has one foot in a hand-made, do it yourself, photocopy art that is inspired by the vintage punk music scene. However, the other foot is in a sleek, ultra modern, streamlined design. Often times they are both at once. Here are the results.





Round 2: Limited Resources:
Brandon Fall: For my first round of comps, I was given direction to create a movie poster focusing on the actors in order of priority, while definitely keeping skateboarding as the background flavor. The photos we had to work with were more like snap shots, so the available photos were few. Color correcting, adding that background sky and harmonizing the colors were the keys to this first photo collage.




Kimiyo Nishio: Below is one of my comps from this round. The initial direction given us was to focus on the main characters in the movie, but it also has to have the cool, edgy skateboarding feel to attract the target audience. For this one though, I tried to bring the skater elements forward rather than the main characters.




Round 3: Direction Change:
Brandon Fall: After the previous round of comps, the client wanted to shift the direction again and make the skateboarding element the biggest priority. The “skater look” became the overriding theme and the actors took second stage in this comp.

Illustration Friday: My Paradise

Illustrations by Brandon Fall (top) & Kimiyo Nishio (bottom)

I Spy Books: The Ones that Got Away

This year's theme for the Children's Reading Club is "I Spy Books." Senior Designer, Brandon Fall, created a slew of ideas for the Los Angeles Public Library. In the end, the winning cocktail was a mix of James Bond, Mission Impossible, and a splash of child-friendly design. The campaign folder encourages young readers to seek out more books, while engaging them to stretch their problem-solving muscles by giving them messages to solve in Morse code, grid-ciphers, and the Dewey Decimal system.



During the discovery meeting with the client, all agreed upon a retro spy design concept. The theme was executed throughout the pieces, from the fonts to the heavily-warn textures and colors. Custom cutouts for spy disguises were created, along with special boxes for the kids to check off, making them feel like real detectives.



Folder Outside/Inside


Inserts In Folder


Bookmark


Certificate

The library loved our first round of comps, however, after the committee’s overview, they decided brighter colors should be used, as well as having it skew to a younger audience. Illustrations were added.



Folder Outside/Inside


Eventually, the client shifted to the James Bond/Mission Impossible direction (seen at top).

Mission accomplished!