Editorial Illustration 

Article: A visit to the high street taught me this: hell is shopping with other people Nell Frizzell

Requirements: 1 x feature illustration 90 × 140mm YMCK
1 x illustration animated GIF for use on website (should be animated version of print illustration) RGB

Editorial Illustration Artists 

​Marella Moon Albanese

Benjamin Flouw

I found in a lot of modern editorial works used flat colour, very little lineart and somewhat limited colour palettes that were not accurate to real life

Sketchbook Thumbnails 

First set of thumbnails drawn out quickly to begin to get an idea of how I could interpret the article, the image already featured in the article was landscape so I chose to explore this in my thumbnails first 

Cleaner thumbnails of the ideas I had come up with 

Digital colouration of the thumbnails 

Refinement / Further Development closer towards a final illustration

I removed the line art from the piece to match the line-less art that was common among the modern editorial illustrations we had been shown in lectures along with the pieces that I had seen during my own research of editorial illustration 

I continued to test colour variations, settling on something which better separated the shopper in the foreground and the shops in the background 

I added details of devil horns and fire to link back to the title of the article and the use of the word ‘hell’.

Mock up in the article 

I created a second piece for the feature illustration as I was not completely happy with the first version, this time working portrait. I felt the first version was a little flat, and I aimed to be slightly more dynamic with the composition of this second piece. 

I again edited the colours within the piece aiming to have the main figure and sale signs stand out against the crowd and background 

I changed the expression to look more uncomfortable 

Again, I added flames and horns to link to the word ‘hell’ in the article’s title. The light from the shop window singles out the main figure of the piece to highlight her more and her discomfort.

Gif Version completed after formative feedback 

The portrait mock up didn’t fit in the original layout of the article, so I instead created my own mock up of a page spread for the image

Gifs - I kept to the same size as the feature illustration as no required measurements were given

I don’t have much experience making gifs so I made a simple idea at first that linked to the shopping context of the article; the article highlighting clothes shopping specifically 

I then developed a second gif based on one of my earlier thumbnails / ideas for the feature illustration