Applied Illustration - Bristol Zoo Gardens - Professional Brief

Back in January, I started looking for a summer work placement, relevant to my course and career. At this point, I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do. However, I knew I loved animals so I started there. I had a look at some zoo websites and found that Bristol Zoo had an Education and Learning Department that offered work experience. I decided to apply to it as I thought I could stay with my boyfriend who lives in Bristol if I was offered the position. I didn't hear anything back from the Zoo for a month and so I dismissed this altogether.

One day out of the blue, I had an email from Dan Cragg who is head of the Education Department at the zoo, apologising for the fact that the applications weren't supposed to be open as they had already filled the positions. "I’m very sorry but due to an error with our website, our application form went live over the weekend when it shouldn’t have. We have received a huge number of applications this year and we are currently at capacity for 2019."

I was disappointed, but I hadn't given up. I replied to this generic email asking if they had anything they could offer me. To my surprise, he replied back asking for more information on what I would like to do and then he would see if they could offer me anything. "If you are interested in our graphic design dept. could you please send me an email saying what you would like to gain from a work experience placement and how long you would like to do? I can then discuss this with our Graphics Manager and see if we are able to offer you something."

I replied with a paragraph saying that I was a second-year Illustration student studying at the University of Portsmouth and that I have relevant A-Levels in Art and Design and Graphic Communications. I mentioned that I also have experience in Photography, both through college and my University. From a summer placement, I wanted like to gain more experience of Adobe software, as well as experience working in a professional environment as part of a team, managing my time within working hours and in this instance creating artwork about animals. I also wanted to create designs for professional use rather than just as a University project and this would also help solidify my portfolio.

Dan spoke with Phil who is the head of the Design Team and replied to me saying that they would be willing to offer me a one-week placement in August, pending a short interview! We scheduled my interview for Thursday 11/04/2019 at 1500. I met with Phil for the interview and he was very friendly. We talked about my artwork and projects I have completed for University, as well as a bit about myself, where I come from and the hobbies I have. The interview was a success and I was offered the week's work experience!

This blog is to document the work I completed for the zoo whilst I was there. I am using a section of this work for my Professional Brief aspect of the Applied Illustration Module. I have decided not to write this in chronological order. Instead, I will write about each separate project as it makes for easier reading.

Crowned Lemur Project

On Wednesday, I was with their in-house artist for the day. Her name was Ann, and she works three days a week in the studio due to her commute. Her job is to repaint all of the animal infographic signs and posters for the animals with a realist portrait of each species. She took me on a tour of the zoo and we discussed how she created the paintings for the infographics. This was interesting as she has to paint a generic animal that represents the species, rather than an existing animal with specific markings as they don't all look the same. This meant that she had to do research on whether different genders and ages were different colours or had different features so that she could show both of these on the infographics. To get a natural but equally generic pose, she would observe the animals and carry out life drawings. After our walk around the zoo, we went in the crowned lemur walkthrough (this is open to the public). We stayed there for at least half an hour, sketching and taking photographs. I sketched on my iPad whilst she sketched on paper. After a short while, you learnt to recognise the consistent poses, body language and movements they showed. Ann was impressed that I was very free with my sketches and that I didn't try to make them perfect or neat. Below are my sketches.

When we got back to the studio, Ann set me a task to create three illustrations focusing on composition, poses and showing the different features of both genders. She said not to worry about making them look perfect and detailed, she knew I could do that but my time needed to be spent on the other factors. The three dimensions she gave me to work in were 120 x 60, 80 x 120 and 85x 85. I needed to make it clear that there was a difference between both genders as the females are predominantly grey with an orange crown, while the males are a much darker reddish-brown with a black and orange crown. However, they still needed to look like the same animal. I tried to think about how best to fill the spaces, whilst showing as much of the animal as possible. By adding branches this added information about their environment, but also gave me the opportunity to place the animals wherever I wanted. Showing their face was also important, so I made sure to have one lemur facing forwards in each illustration. I used my sketches and photographs as references. Below are my three final illustrations. Ann was delighted with them, saying she was extremely impressed.

Here are some of my favourite photographs I took in the Lemur enclosure.

Wild Place Project

On Thursday, I was with their inhouse illustrator and graphic designer Sophie who was working on some animations and design work for Bristol Zoos other site, Wild Place Project. She took the time to talk me through the planning and development for the whole site, from colour schemes to textures, infographic signs and interactive sculptures. It was amazing to see the way she presented it in a folder with mood boards and 3D renders of the buildings and enclosures. They gave me a set of free tickets and said I should visit Wild Place as I haven't been there before. It is different to the zoo as it focuses more on the environment of the animals. "Our spectacular new Bear Wood exhibit takes you on a journey into a lost world.  Start your journey by entering a ‘time chamber’, where we rewind the clock back to 8000 BC when Britain was densely covered with woodland. You then emerge among the trees, ready to go on a time-hopping, wildlife-spotting adventure. Winding through beautiful ancient woodland on raised walkways, watch our magnificent bears as they roam below. And they’re not alone! Wolves, lynx and wolverine also live beneath the leafy branches – all native British species lost over time, now brought back in one spectacular immersive experience." They also have other exhibits such as the Secret Congo, Benoue National Park and Gelada Rock. I was asked to create some additional illustrations as they had bought an illustration pack with animals and nature imagery but wanted specific leaves for the trees they have at Wild Place, as well as a pumpkin for Halloween.

Halloween Brief

The rest of the week I was working for Sarah who was in charge, as Phil was away on holiday. I was given a professional brief to start working on, we discussed concepts and I started working on a mood board. I immediately had an idea in my head of what I wanted it to look like. I wanted to there to be skeleton animals with a silhouette behind so that you could tell what animal it is. I put together a series of animal x-rays of species that I knew were at the zoo but that were also clearly recognisable. I then looked into different styles as it needed to be aimed at children and not scary! I also made recommendations to change the colour scheme as they suggested green and red in the brief, as orange needed to be kept for autumnal content. Green and red as a colour scheme are very stereotypically Christmas and don't say Halloween at all. I suggested a lime green and a bright purple, as these are two colours more commonly associated with the holiday. Green can represent slime, ghosts, Frankenstein, aliens and witches, whilst purple can be used for bats, magicians, witches, spiders, night skies and haunted houses. They are also two colours that complement each other. I didn't expect to be involved much in the creation of the posters, but once I had finished the mood board, Sarah asked me to start illustrating the skeleton animals! I had free rein over how I wanted to do them and which animals to include. The head of marketing, Dagmar, requested a penguin as they are her favourite. I tried to include a variety of several mammals, birds and reptiles. My personal favourites are the chameleon, frog and monkey.

On Friday I sent across my illustrations as PDFs and PSD files ready for the team to use. After I had finished for the week I went home and awaited an email with the final images they had created with my illustrations. They sent me lovely emails inviting me back to the zoo for a visit. "Let us know if or when you're free and fancy coming in, or even just pop by for a hot chocolate! We'll send you the Halloween visuals once they're live - thanks again so much for your amazing work!" "I hope uni is going well and you’re getting stuck in to your final projects. Just wanted to drop you a message to check in and send you over some of the assets we have created using your illustrations. We have had lots of nice comments about the creative so just wanted to thank you again!" Below are the final images we created!

Not only was it wonderful to see my artwork used in a digital poster, I was really pleased to see my artwork posted online on social media sites and on their website.

I had another email from Sarah saying that "Our ‘Skeloween’ Halloween activities here at the Zoo run from 26 October until 3 November and wondered if you were in Bristol at all over that period if you would like to come in and see the on-site trail we have created? Just let me know and I can put your name on the door." I was able to go up to the zoo over reading week in order to see their Skeloween Trail and take some photos of my work used around the zoo. There were signs for maps and talks, as well as for information. There were also skulls and skeletons all around the zoo enclosures.

Overall it has been a wonderful experience and I would love to go back and work there with the team.