Studio brief 2 (Print) Initial designs

At the start of any project, the best way for me to get a sense of what direction I would like to pursue is by both gathering a range of reference imagery and then starting to flesh out a wide range of thumbnail sketches. I've found that this stage of any project can be one of the most important as initial ideas and designs can have the potential to make the best pieces of illustration. These sketches should hopefully give me a good idea of the composition of my printed images.

With these thubnail sketches I'm trying to communicate some of Carl sagans theories and ideas, ranging from stars and planets to the possibilities of alien life and the pioneer plaque. I am also trying to taking into consideration that these images will have to be printed so I've found that this actually changes the way in which the designs have to be thought about. I personally think that thinking of an idea that has to be printed can be harder because there can be certain limitations that can come with the process, it can be sometimes very unpredictable.

I have taken some of the designs that I had come up with in the editorial brief as some of these may work effectively as a printed image. At this stage of the project I do have little experience with the printing processes but I imagine that my final images will be sceenprinted. Hopefully the workshops will help me to decide which print process will work best for my way of crafting an image.

 These are some of space related images I have found that can spark some sort of idea for my own printed images. I still really want to include an astronaut into my design(s) as there is an obvious link to Carl Sagan and I have really enjoyed drawing astronauts recently and would like to further explore how I can turn an astronaut into a finished piece of illustration.

I would also like to explore shape and texture more in this project and the image above on the right has given me something to think about. I always work with alot of line and I am hoping that I can explore more shape based images within this brief.