Online Journal

online journal - issue two The award winning Varoom magazine was established in Received by major institutions internationally, Varoom 2006 to address the lack of opportunity for writing and magazine makes research available to a diverse as a vehicle and platform for enquiry within the specialist international audience: design houses including the subject of illustration. Nike graphic design studio in the USA, Pentagram, Universities, illustration and design professionals in Rick Poynor, in his paper The Missing Critical Link, Europe, the Far East, USA, South America, Russia and suggests that the lack of critical framework for the subject the Middle East. Through symposia and publication of leads to it being marginalised as a discipline, describing papers in this digital format VaroomLab augments this Varoom as “a ray of light in this poorly lit area”. effective mechanism for dissemination, seeking optimum impact. An invitation from the AOI to academic institutions to form strong partnerships through VaroomLab as a catalyst for Issue Two contains selected papers submitted for the innovation in illustration in the 21st Century has been Swansea Metropolitan/VaroomLab Spatialising Illustration instrumental in fostering essential discourse between the symposium held at Swansea Metropolitan on 24/25 practice of illustration and relatively emergent academic January 2013. The shortlisted papers were selected into research, building upon the success of Varoom magazine two categories: peer reviewed and non-peer revieved. in asserting its cultural value. Laura Carlin, Chris Aldhous, Nicola Davies and Simon This unique collaboration between the UK’s professional James were Keyote Speakers and their presentations subject association and representatives from respected about their practice in relation to the symposium’s theme academic institutions with critical support from its panel were not peer reviewed. All four Keynote Speakers were of peer reviewers is testimony to an ambition to cultivate invited to submit a synopsis of their presentation or a a symbiotic beneficial relationship. The exchange short statement, and they are included in the Journal as facilitates both an interrogation and nourishing of the an important contribution to the Spatialising Illustration rich complexity of practice, drawing upon and optimising symposium. areas of expertise. online journal - issue two Hosted by Swansea Metropolitan, Spatialising Illustration In thinking of Marilyn Brooke Goffstein’s observation that was the second VaroomLab symposium. This two day “all the pictures in a picture book add up to one picture event explored many ways in which we encounter that isn’t even there,” there is an argument illustration, space and place through illustration. The symposium itself, is invisible: that illustration is mindful. roamed beyond seeing illustration solely as a commercial online journal - issue two discipline and explored it as a visual language inherent Papers and presentations that took us on journeys from in many artistic activities: a medium that evokes ideas the non-spaces of Luton airport to spaces of the cyber and narrative, and one that offers subtle messages about kind; from the commonplace to the bizarre, showed we worlds we encounter. experience our surroundings in a profusion of ways. In the true spirit of illustration, academics, practitioners, Whether geographically or historically, culturally or writers, illustrators and artists came together, all with psychologically, place is bound to shifting meaning and personal interpretations and meanings about the significance. Illustration has the capacity to lead us to symposium’s theme. Mitch Miller’s enlightening and both physical and mindful places: like a symbolic map of vernacular documentary of the daily life of a street society, navigation is by way of interpretation; putting into through his Dialectograms were celebrated in his paper context - spatialising. titled Draw Duke Street, whilst Bella Kerr’s searching paper explored the ‘building’ of a space in words, visually. Derek Bainton Editor of VaroomLab Journal issue 2 All 13 symposium speakers and 4 keynote speakers Programme Director, offered many perspectives and ways in which illustration BA Hons Illustration, Swansea Metropolitan locates us in the world. The picture book narratives of University of Wales, Trinity St. Davids Nicola Davies and Laura Carlin had an airy, spatial aura that almost left the symposium audience without words. Derek Bainton is a founding member of VaroomLab online journal - issue two Keynote Speeches Peer Reviewed Papers Presented Papers 1 Laura Carlin 24 Mitch Miller 125 Paul Edwards & Carole Burns The Space Between my Work and Myself Illustrating Space as Collaborative, Socially Engaged The Space Between: The Relationship between Image Practice: The First Report from the DRAW DUKE and Narrative in ‘Imagistic’ 2 Chris Aldhous STREET Residency. Architects of the Invisible Idea 139 Geoff Grandfield 41 Nick Dodds Illustration and Narrative as a Spatial Experience – 9 Nicola Davies Control of Time and Space in Graphic Narratives The Jewel House at the Tower of London Story Space 51 Sharon Beeden 144 Roderick Mills 10 Simon James A Place for Picture Books Utilising Spatial Positions to Promote Idea Generation Illustration for the Internet Space and the Enhancement of Creative Thinking Processes 153 Chloé Regan within Illustration Contexts The Set 11 Selected Abstracts 68 Rachel Gannon Being There: Conversational Drawing in a Non- Place 78 Bella Kerr Word Room 91 Richard Levesley & Marc Bosward Illustrated Worlds 106 Allan Walker Alternative Traditions: Flat as a Way of Visualising Space online journal - issue two The Space Between my Work and Myself Laura Carlin ‘…I think it’s difficult for students when speakers come in, stand on a stage and say, ‘I did this and I did that,’ - failing to mention the five years they spent working in Pizza Hut and dragging round their portfolio. Those years can be just as important as any commercial work. One of the most difficult pieces of space to form is the gap between my work and myself. And the ability to be honest with it. When you become an illustrator, you’re an artist, but an artist that has to solve a brief. I spent all my spare time drawing in sketchbooks because that was what I knew. It took me years to come out of them and make them into anything. So much of studying is the balance between working and then being able to step away – trying to see what’s developing or whether it’s even worth developing…’ The Promise by Nicola Davies illustrated by Laura Carlin, Walker Books, 2013 online journal - issue two 1 Architects Of The Invisible Idea Chris Aldhous: Creative Director GOODPILOT - Ghost of Gone Birds We once opened a chain of DIY pop-up art galleries across Europe: London, Paris, Moscow, Milan, Berlin and Amsterdam with a slightly off-brief detour to Singapore. We called it HYPE partly because it gave local up and coming artists the tools to print, project and promote their work to a new, wider audience; to get their name out there - their work noticed. The galleries started off empty- blank walls, blacked out film screens, then the space filled up with digital art and film and we invited the local movers and shakers of the art world to pop along and see the work on show. We also called it HYPE because we’d persuaded Hewlett Packard to pay for the project and we thought the letters HP should appear somewhere. To their credit HP didn’t plaster the galleries with their logo – or even dress any flat surface with their brochures and leaflets – they were just happy for contributing artists to see the HP name on the printers and projectors that they were using to produce their work for the exhibitions. For once, it seemed a fair deal. An open exchange of exposure for endorsement and suddenly the potential for advertising briefs to open up, rather than close down, creative experimentation seemed very real. We call it ‘strange chemistry’ – that wonderful collision Hype London frontage of incongruous ingredients that is guaranteed to yield an unexpected creative outcome. The spirit of experimentation extended to the promotion of the show: online journal - issue two 2 Architects Of The Invisible Idea we invited 12 young filmmakers to shoot HYPE films (they simply had to feature the letters H and P in the title so we got ‘Hairy Pooches’ and ‘Hedonistic Penguins’, ‘Help’ and ‘Hair Piece’). We also recruited a wonderful artist called Moose, aka Paul Curtis, to use his clean graffiti technique to inscribe the HYPE logo in the dirt-encrusted pavements and rusting skips of the Shoreditch neighbourhood. Artists and visitors seemed to like the concept: in just three weeks, HYPE London attracted 1,200 pieces of art and 9,000 visitors. The gallery filled up three times, so we refreshed the hang each week so that there was a reason to return to the show and see a whole new selection of work every Monday. Hewlett Packard clearly got the attention of the creative Hype fly poster Hype artwork community they wanted to open a conversation with, but what did the artists and film-makers get in return? There was the exposure to the 9,000 visitors that made it to the HYPE Gallery – but we also uploaded everybody’s work to a clone of the space online: that unbelievably got over 4 million hits from 140 countries. We made sure that most evenings there was an event that would attract picture editors and commissioners, curators and art buyers to see the work. And the way we managed the press

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