I wanted to make sure I thought about various avenues that I could take my project down so I came up with three initial concept ideas for the editorial. I arrived at these through my creative thinking techniques but they are all based around the main themes and tones that run throughout the article. I also think that they reflect what impression a reader gets from the article.
Concept One
The first concept idea was follows the thought of how McKinnon’s memory is cloudy, foggy and unclear. One of the quotes that I took inspiration from was “blurring away my own memories” this gave me the idea of cloudy and how they reveal part of the sky. another quote that inspired this concept was “I know bits and piece” which again made me think about how clouds can only reveal certain parts of the sky. As the concept would inspire both the imagery and type for the editorial I thought that through experimenting with photography and hand rendered type would give me chance to visualise this concept.
I wanted the imagery to be fairly metaphorical in this project, so I decided to experiment with ink in water. The ink cloud represent the memories of McKinnon and as some parts of more vivid in colour compared to others this represents the fact that she is only able to remember bits. Also, the colour of the cloud would be different to represent the emotion in memory. The imagery would be developed further if I was to take this concept further, possibly adding people behind the clouds.
The type in this concept I would experiment with blurred typography, parts of the heading being clouded over (maybe using ink clouds) and elements of the characters missing. This again would be to reiterate the idea that McKinnon’s memories are “clouded” and parts are missing.
Also as I thought that it would be relevant to come up with an initial layout idea for each concept. In my sketchbook I just sketched various layouts before thinking about which would work best with the imagery I have created. Below is the spread sheet that I have produced for concept one, I have included a variation of layouts within the set of spreads.
Concept Two
The second concept is around the idea that McKinnon is unable to make connections between objects and experiences. In the article there is a lot of talk about there being objects in McKinnon’s home that she cannot place next to a experience, for example souvenirs from her travels. Her wedding day was another one of these days that she cannot picture and her wedding photos she’s unable to connect with.
I wanted to experiment with the ideas of what I could use for imagery, which has helped me to visualise the concept. I used string to represent a connect between object and memory. The photographs represent the memory and I have used objects from my home which are important and have connection to certain events. In some of the images the string isn’t tied which represents the idea of making no connections. In one of the images I experimented through not using a photograph, and the gap where this should be highlights the missing connection.
For typography in this concept I experimented with missing characters, broken up characters and spaced out characters. The idea again to try show the missing connection that McKinnon feels from her past.
Concept Three
The third concept for the editorial was inspired by the quote ‘finding herself guessing a lot of what her experiences must have been like’.After using the creative thinking techniques it gave me the idea that McKinnon is attempted to decode her life, make sense of her parts of her memory that she has, trying to piece together her own life story. I thought that this was a very important message in the article.
Again to help me visualise the concept I decided to use my photography skills to create some visuals for the concept. As the idea is ‘decoding’ I thought about overlaying images then cutting away parts of them to highlight that idea that parts are missing again, I used some of my childhood photos to create the overlay. I then thought about the fact that these memories are very unclear to McKinnon so I took the same image repeated it twice more and overlaid them to create this blurred and interesting composition which I think really highlights to the audience that McKinnon is so unclear about her past.
As for the typography in this concept, I started by looking at coding typography to inspire me but I also experiment with reputation to try and create the blurred effect that I had achieved with the imagery. This style of typography would be used only for headings and subheadings.
I will take all three of these concepts to the next tutorial and from the feedback I gain I will make an informed decision on which concept is best to take forward into the project. I will also consider any feedback that I am given regarding visual ideas.
Abbie Louise Williams 