ResearchDocument

RESEARCH DOCUMENT
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RESEARCH DOCUMENT
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RESEARCH DOCUMENT
CONTENTS
7.
What Is Health Grenade All About?
22.
The Power Of Referencing
8.
Synopsis
24.
Jared Muralt
10.
Educating Through Graphic Novels
26.
NoBrow
12.
Similar Existing Projects:
28.
Maintstream Projects
14.
Dougie’s War
The Vegan Zombie
31.
The Value Of A Sketchbook
15.
Food Crisis
34.
Sketching Developments
17.
Amelia Rules!
41.
Traditional Vs. Digital
18.
March: Book One
44.
Digital Designing
19.
Nat Turner
47.
Logos & Branding
52.
Final Outcomes
54.
Essay
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RESEARCH DOCUMENT
WHAT IS
HEALTH GRENADE
ALL ABOUT?
In todays world, children loathe the idea of eating healthy. Their lives
revolve around or inside a fast food restaurant thus resulting in poor
nutrition and nutritional values which usually leads to both physcal and
mental negative outcomes.
Health Grenade is a healthy eating campaign that focuses on educating
these young minds about the health benefits of eating nutritious
foods and the negative effects of eating poorly through a carefully
designed graphic novel.
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SYNOPSIS
In a not so distant future, the world has fallen deep into the hands of
an evil food corporation by the name of “Grenade” that has aimed
at ridding the world of the possibility of eating healthy by removing
healthy food with false promises to everyone through its food and
marketing strategies. As a result, junk food is all that is available in
abundance to everyone. All attempts at going back to how things
were have been unsuccessful for many years.
Robert Piggs is just another man in the crowd who teaches history at
the local high school. Like every other person, Robert wants to make
a life altlering change, but can’t find it in himself to do so. After receiving
a distressed call from the hospital about a family member passing
away, he does a little soul searching. He meets a chimpanzee at an
abandoned circus and comes up with an idea to force people into
eating healthy foods once again by training the young chimp to be the
city’s personal Robin Hood of sorts.
Soon, people start to find that their usual food in their household has
been replaced with healthy fruits and vegetables. With no choice but
to eat what is there, the people of the city soon start to see a drastic
improvement in their health.
But as much as this seems to be having a positive impact on everyone,
this does not go unnoticed by the men behind the doors of
“Grenade”s desks. They hire a personal and private detective to look
into the matter, so that they can put an end to this before their profits
dip downwards.
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RESEARCH DOCUMENT
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EDUCATING
THROUGH
GRAPHIC NOVELS
It has become quite common for schools and other
educational institutes to use graphic novels as a medium to educate
both children and adults today.
According to John Lowe, the chair of sequential Art Department at the
Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia, Europe and Japan
have given a more positive feedback towards the use of graphic
novels as a learning medium compared to americans who consider it
as “fodder for children”.
In an interview, he goes further into explaining how if it weren’t for
comis books, cartoons and manga, he wouldn’t have made his career
leap into lirterature.
Apart from storytelling experts and various other designers and artists
who have seen the potential of them in a classroom, various educators
have felt the same about them too.
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Sheiley Hong Xu, a professor in the department of teacher education
at the California State University in Long Beach is a strongly feelts they
help build complex reading skills. Bridging literacies is something that
has been tried to be achieved for educational purposes. Using them
has resulted in motivating students to learn, enhanced students’learning
and even provided more opportunities for those who struggle with
literacy tasks.
There are many graphic novels that have been used in classrooms to
teach not only about a genre but about life values and the history of
the world. A great example would be Persepolis, which is a popular
novel, which acts as a memoir of a girl growing up during the Islamic
revolution in Iran. The book brought about awareness related to
prevailing islamic stereotypes and also brought about fair thinking and
choices.
Other books worth mentioning that have found their way onto school
bookshelves would be Maus and American Born Chinese.
Persepolis Graphic Novel
Front Cover
Adding on the development of reading skills, the need to understand
and learn a new language comes out of reading them too. Manga
(a type of japanese comic), has gained popularity over the years
amongst young children, making them want to learn the language
itself so they can continue reading upcoming comics and issues of a
series rather than wait for them to be translated into the appropriate
language.
Looking at an in depth view of their importance to teach grammar
related issues, students who have difficulty with visualizing while
reading a book, such types of books have been proven to provide a
graphic sense that approximates what good readers do as they read.
According to Rachael Sawyer Perkins, a teacher at en elementary
school in California. She goes on to say cartoons are an effective
way to teach outlining skills and also shows children how every panel
represents a paragraph of the book. To quote her, “the narrative text
at the top became the topic sentence of sorts, communicating the
main idea of the paragraph. The details were found in the visuals of
the dialogue.”
Graphic Novels has become a new pillar and foundation in educating
children and others today effectively. I have tried using cleverly designed
and illustrated artwork along with monologues and dialogues,
to produce a graphic novel that aids the campaign ‘Health Grenade’. It
could have the potential to reach a large number of kids and even be
incorporated in schools to promote healthy eating.
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SIMILAR EXISTING
PROJECTS
Dougie’s War
A
graphic design company called Gaslow Design Agency Freight
published the graphic novel Dougie’s War, which revolves
around a scottish veteran who returns from Afghanistan who
cannot forget his experiences in battle.
The book which was written by Rodge Glass and illustrated by Dave
Turbitt took around 18 months to complete and aimed at emphasising
on the post traumatic stress disorder a soldier goes through after
their service. The agency’s personal typographer and illustrator Derick
Carss worked closely to this project as well.
Freight received funding from the scottish government throught the
scottish veteran’s fund. The aim of the book was to educate families
of veterans on the big impact it has on them after their service and to
understand their situation.A website was developed and launched by
Freight to promote the graphic novel and release of it:
www.dougieswar.com/index.html
Illustrated by Dave Turbitt
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The graphic book features interviews by the agency’s managing director
Adrian Searle with veterans about their stories and experiences during their
wars. It also features a few excerpts from classic comic strip Charley’s War
and a few pictures taken by a photographer named Nick Collin during his
time of the war in Afghanistan.
Like a lot of graphic novels out there, this one sticks to a minimalistic style
of art, showing off a vibrant red to emphasis pictures, which also seems to
be the only color in the book. The use of comic language to depict noises
has also been widely used and expressed. In an interview, Turbitt talks
about how “Charley’s War” was a graphic novel that helped inspire the
tone of Dougie’s War.
The novel was highly praised by a lot of magazines such as The Sunday
Express, Sunday Herald, Big Issue etc which praised the illustrating style
the most as it captured the very essence of stress disorder veterans face.
Above: A few introduction and interview
pages from the graphic novel
Two scottish veterans David Cruickshanks (left) and Shaun
Davidson (right) attend the launch of the graphic novel at
Edinburgh Castle
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The Vegan Zombie
One of the most interesting and relatable project out there is
The Vegan Zombie. It is a New York based cooking show that
is hosted by focuses on eating healthy, vegan style. Chris
Cooney and Jon Tedd, the creators of this youtube channel came
up with this idea by mashing together their love for veganism and
horror flicks to produce The Vegan Zombie. The idea revolves around
John (the host of the show), trying to eat healthy, vegan food during a
zombie apocalypse.
They decided to combine all their recipes which are both online and in
small books and create a create a cookbook in the form of a graphic
novel.
The graphic novel shows Jon Tedd trying to survive the apocalypse by
cooking all sorts of vegan recipes.
The graphic novel/cookbook was funded on fundraiser by 1,273
supporters who donated around $43,000 even their budget was
initially only $18,500, thus making it highly successful. The extra
money was used to upgrade their kitchen, add 30 more pages and
even add dozens of siders such as bookmarks, stickers to the book.
Above: The launch of the Vegan Zombie
Cookbook
Left: Sample pages from the Vegan Zombie
cookbook illustrated by Rob
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Food Crisis
Food Crisis is another fundraised graphic novel that focuses on a face
paced apocalyptic story set in 2025 about a food crisis that hit North
America. Based on real facts and past food crises like the depressionera
dust bowl famine and the 2011 unrest over food prices in the middle
east that resulted in the arab spring development.
The book is aimed at high school students and addresses these severe
issues , aiming to make them more understandable.
The graphic novel has been written to be attention grabbing, hoping
to inspire readers to create their own solutions today. It also includes
12 essays and 200 footnotes that provide a balance and bring a
certain amount of focus to the the story. It was illustrated by long time
collaborator and illustrator Scott Mooney.
The fundraiser ran for an entire month leading to an income of $7000
which would help in turn distributing the book into schools in Canada and
the United States.
Above: Food Crisis Cover Page Illustrated by Scott
Mooney
The fundraiser ran for an entire month leading to an income
of $7000 which would help in turn distributing the book into
schools in Canada and the United States.
The contributers to this campaign would get access to a
number of rewards such as a soft copy of the book, and a
“Learning Pack” that could be used personally or donated
to a school of your choice. which includes a DVD featuring
animated videos of the global crisis and soft copies of the book
itself.
Left: Illustrated sample pages from the graphic novel
On the side, the campaign had T shirts promoting the
campaign with pictures of the graphic novel on it.
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Apart from graphic novels like Persepolis and japanese manga, there
are dozens of books worth mentioning. Some of the greatest ones
to have hit the shelves of a school include March: Book One, Amelia
Rules and Nat Turner.
‘March: Book One’ is a fist hand account of congressman John
Lewis’ lifelong struggle for civil and human rights. It also reflects the
good and bad things about the civil rights movement.
‘Amelia Rules!’ is about a young girl who tries to adjust to the town
she has moved to after her parents’ divorce. The book focuses on
important aspects of life such as family, loss and love.
‘Nat Turner’ is the story of Turner himself, a native rebel and his slave
rebellion. To some he is a famous hero and serves as a symbol for
black people.
Such books have gained so much popularity, that they went on to
becoming a series of books which came out on a monthly basis.
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Amelia Rules!
Amelia Rules is a series which is used to teach kids in school the
different values life has to offer. The series has made it to eight
publications in the series so far.
The graphic novels have been nominated for 13 Eisner awards and 5
Harvey Awards. It has been written by Jimmy Gownley, an illustrator
based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and started work on the series
back in 2002.
Gownley’s artwork is clean, colorful and easy to look at. He makes full
use of the vocabulary of comics, flipping the page sideways when a
negative moment is on the rise.
The book has also proven to be a success in terms of life values and
its impact on people, therefore making it quite certain that it would be
success amongst kids in schools.
Above: A page from one of the books of the
series “Amelia Rules!”
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March: Book ONE
In depth, the story revolves around congressman John Lewis and his
life and memories related to the long struggle with civil and human
rights. The graphic novel is a part of a three series trilogy, which is
displayed in black and white stylish art.
The book is known for its strong illustrations by Nate Powell, an
illustrator and musician by profession. The book is a great insight to
this historic figure from his early days in Alabama to his life changing
meeting with Martin Luther King Jr.
The book received high praises and was the first graphic novel to win
a Robert F. Kennedy Book award along with an average rank of 9.4
out of 10 on the review aggregator website Comic Book Roundup.
This has proven to be a rescourful book and makes studying history
more fun.
MARCH: BOOK ONE
Front Cover
A look inside MARCH: BOOK ONE
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Nat Turner
The graphic novel centers itself around Nat Turner, a rebellious
slave in America. Kyle Baker, the illustrator and writer of ‘Nat
Turner’ decided to move away from his clean, cartoon style of
drawing towards a more controlled one. With that being said, the
look of it is quite expressive and rough in nature.
This sort of style has been made with the use of ink and charcoal on
most of the pages making it feel “heavy and important”.
The depiction of such a famous historical figure in the world of the
comic industry has proved to be educational and enlightening.
Children can learn and appreciate historial facts and stories a lot
more better through such a medium of learning.
Nat Turner Cover Page
Illustrated by Kyle Baker
Left: Kyle Baker’s illustrations for the book
Nat Turner (using charcoal and ink pens)
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“I think when you’re knee-deep in
coming up with editorial plans, the desire
to sit down and pencil something is pretty
strong.”
- Jim Lee, comic artist and a true inspiration always
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RESEARCH DOCUMENT
DESIGNING
PROCESS
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THE POWER OF
REFERENCING
Visual referencing has its place in designing and illustrating today.
Visual memory referencing has its limitations. It is an access to
imperfect, past or limited visual memory of a subject. Bridging the
gap between an imperfect visual memory and reality lies the power of
referencing.
Aspiring artists like Kent Trammell and Tim Von Reuden talk about how
from their experiences, it’s far more enriching learning and using references
to craft out illustrations and projects. French painter, printmaker
and illustrator Henri Marie Raymond has paintings and illustrations that
were created using references back in the 19th century.
Contrary to popular belief, referencing is used by all artists. Some may
argue that it plays a vital role with beginners only, but as it stands, it
aids every artist to produce refined work. According to Kent, it does
not matter what level of skill you have reached, referencing will always
have its place in your work.
As a texture and shading artist, Kent uses a variety of images as reference
material for his projects. He looks into various types of
material with interesting textures that provide both dull and vibrant
colors as the like strikes it.
Reference doesn’t have to be an image. Inspiration can be drawn
from various places, including videos.
Top: A fairytale character sketched out from a reference picture of a
plant. He likes working with both reference material and illustrations
in one photoshop file at the same time. This allows easy access to
both textures and colors immediately.
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The key to using referencing as a powerful tool to aid one’s designs
and illustrations is to use it with the intention of learning from it. A lot of
artists today misuse and misunderstand the power or efficient referencing
by tracing images. It should act as only a guide for one’s work
and should not dominate it.
If used correctly, the need and intensity of referencing fades overtime
as one develops a reference guide in their mind’s eye.
Being an artist and illustrator, I have always used referencing to perfect
various kinds of imagery that ranges from human angle proportions
to maintaining or improving landscape and architecture drawing.
It has allowed me to develop my skills as an illustrator and designer to
work more efficiently.
Top: Back in the 19th century, famous french painter Henri Marie
Raymond used staged photographs as a reference guide for his
paintings.
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Jared Muralt
Amonst all the illustrators that I’ve looked at for referencing, Jared
Muralt’s unique inking style stood out to me. He is a self taught
artist who has worked in a number of firms in his home country,
Switzerland.
His style is quite an intriguing one and stands out from the others in a
number of ways. He uses exaggerated, yet strong strokes and linings.
Along with that, his characters possess exaggerated facial and body
features showing off alternate futuristic realities in some illustrations.
His graphic novels possess earthy, clean and beautiful colors. All of
this serves is highly influential and has somehow found its way into my
inking style and sketching.
Such a style has proven to be highly inspiring in my project. It has
helped and given me the confidence to keep a steady hand while
drawing and designing with ink pens.
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Jared Muralt is a strong advocate of the process of comibining
both traditional and digital techniques of design. His process
involves traditionally drawing and illustrating his work and finishing
it up with colors and other imagery for his projects.
Above: A sketch which shows the initial process of design and
illustrating by Jared Muralt
Top Right: The final piece of illustration fully colored
Above: A sketch which shows the initial process of design for
‘Portugal The Man’
Left: The final piece of illustration for the cover page fully colored
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NoBrow works with a bunch of talented artists to produce
beautiful storybooks, graphic novels etc. They are mainly
colored using the process of screen printing which preceedes
the digital age.
Nobrow’s artists’ work possess organic, eccentric artwork, which
appears to be more abstract than other styles out there. Mostly, they
possess earthy colors, which is another reason why I decided to draw
inspiration from here.
Bottom: Cover Art and page of the book Megaskull and cover page
for the graphic novel ‘Everything We Miss’ illustrated by Luke Pearson
(bottom left)
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RESEARCH DOCUMENT
Nobrow collaborates with a number of artists to produce a variety
of work. Their screen printing work has always proven to be fresh,
vibrant and energetic. The use of multiple colors in both simple and
intricate illustrations and designs has always been eye catching.
These have proven to be great references when looking for a certain
color scheme to work with.
Top right and right: Screen print works by Nobrow
Left: Cover Art and page of the book Megaskull and cover page for
the graphic novel ‘Everything We Miss’ illustrated by Luke Pearson
(bottom left)
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Mainstream
PROJECTS
To fully immerse myself in the process of designing a graphic novel,
I even explored various maintstream options. The mainstream genre
includes style referencing sources like Frank Miller’s Sin City which is
well known for it’s graphic content and grueling art style of art. Frank
Miller’s work also includes famous 300 and The Dark Knight Returns.
The artist is chosen based on the genre and type of graphic novel it
is.
You get a better understanding and broader view of the tone,
structure and layout of a graphic novel and how they work when they
are visually led with minimum words.
Gary Frank is a well known artist in the comic book world. His recent
work on the retelling of the Batman origin story was a masterpiece in
terms of visual authenticity.
He started out his career back in the 1990’s in Marvel’s world and
worked his way up. He has simultaneously worked for both DC and
Marvel, producing extraordinary work.
‘Batman: Earth One’ was another graphic novel that was just looked
into for a broader understanding of how graphic novels can be visually
led. The illustrations in this book is something is quite something,
making the typical, intricate style of comic art look simple and
minimalistic.
Above and below: Sin City Front Cover art
and page illustration.
Below left and far left: Gary Frank’s Batman:
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THE VALUE OF A
SKETCHBOOK
The creative process that revolves around designing a graphic novel
is a vast one. Apart from referencing
existing educational graphic novels and relevant styles, the importance
of maintaining a sketchbook comes up.
The most valuable tool of every kind of artist is his/her sketchbook.
It is a visual representation of the various thoughts and ideas that an
artist comes across on a daily basis. Throughout history, both professionals
and students have used one to carefully and neatly document
their progress with both their projects and styling.
Famous english fashion designer Zandra Rhodes speaks intently
about how the use of a sketchbook allows one to generate pattern
ideas and is a firm believer in the use of one.
Residing in a few of the top designers’sketchbooks of our time such
as Milton Glaser, Michael Bierut, and Stefan Sagmeister lies the
familiar designs and early looking sketches of famous logos, typefaces
and book covers. These designers h to hold on to a sketchbook
allows you to have a firm grasp on the real world and organic linings
as opposed to working virtually.
Sketchbooks are treated like journals by them, and even define the
their personality as it is a representation of their minds on paper.
Stephan Sagmeister, a popular New York based designer, has
opened his sketchbook to the public showing his process from rough
sketches to the final outcome, clearly displaying the creative thought
process of the project at hand. Artists from the past such as Da Vinci,
Picasso and Salvadore Dali have even proven how the process of
working with paper and pencil is a useful one.
Toronto based illustrator and designer Hugh Lankis says in an
interview that the use of a sketchbook allows him to put down all his
thoughts spontaneously without worrying if they were good or bad,
calling it the “anything goes”stage in his process. He also finds it helpful
by going back to old sketchbooks to look for new inspiration. He
goes on to deduce that the rough sketches and drawings that were
once deemed inadequate could mould itself into something stronger
and become a part of a future project.
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Above: A look at Stephan Sagmeister’s process of sketching a project
he worked on. He has been sketching in books to make sense
of everything since he was seventeen. According to him, he finds it
easier to think of an idea once its on paper, giving him the opportunity
to flesh it out well.
Left: A peek into Famous designer Sean
Adams’ sketchbook. He has kept one
since his first day at CalArts in 1982. To
him, maintaining one keeps him disciplined.
It also is a surrealisitc representation of his
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RESEARCH DOCUMENT
Above: Another top designer by the name of Milton Glaser opened
his sketchbook to the public. He is best known for his packaging,
posters and the infamous ‘I heart NY’ logo and has kept a sketchbook
since high school.
Left: Paul Cox is a london based illustrator
who maintains a sketchbook to warm up
his drawing fluency right before he starts
working on larger drawings. To him, it helps
him sharpen his responsibilities and speeds
up his hand-eye coordination.
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SKETCHING
DEVELOPMENTS
As it stands, it is pretty evident that every designer, artist or illustrator
should maintain a sketchbook. As much as I have always maintained
one, I took the views of various artists into account while designing
my campaign, allowing myself the freedom to experiment with various
styles and add weight to multiple ideas at the same time.
The sketchbook I have maintained has allowed me to flesh out storyboards,
character ideas and develop a reference guide and I can look
up at any time during the designing process.
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Right: Early sketches I created for the main
character “Piggs”. As I sketched out this
character, I would write down various ideas
for the character and storyline right next to
the the drawings for better understanding
when going through it in the future.
Left: Sketches made for the secondary
character in the story, Bob the chimpanzee.
The idea originated from exposure to
posters with a lot of space monkeys and
was also inspired by the movie ‘Planet of the
Apes’.
The sketches here show the initial idea
of a highly intelligent, talking chimpanzee
dressing up like a human to try blending in. It
was also inspired by existing console games
like ‘Sly Cooper’ and ‘Ratchet and Clank’.
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As I produced more sketches and came up with ideas for my project,
I experimented with my hand drawn images by scanning them and
either completing them digitally or adding extra elements to it.
The picture on th left has been done to try and understand how I will be
working on the characters, colors and textures in the book.
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The picture below is another example of figuring out the look of
the character at a certain point in the book. Although over here,
I have used a shading technique of coloring
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Below: Detailed drawing of a page from the graphic novel with the use of sketch pens
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Top: The final outcome from combining both traiditional and digital techniques of illustration
Colored up on PhotoShop
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TRADITIONAL
VS DIGITAL
The choice between traditional and modern techniques of illustration
is a rather important one to make today.
As much as digital design and illustrating prevails, the use of traditional
hand-and-paper techniques are coming either coming back or on the
rise again.
The use of digital methods of illustrating is frowned upon by traditional
illustrators. The benefits and shortcuts that follow it are marked as
an unrealistic approach to designing and illustrating as they believe
it is important to experiment and make mistakes to reach the final
outcome.
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Traditional and digital ways of illustrating have divided artists based
on their choice of designing. Amongst them all lie a few artists who
believe the two can go compliment one another.
Famous award winning illustrator Jean-Sebastien Rossbach believes
the two go hand in hand, allowing him to get the desired illustration.
Photoshop is a tool that allows his work to cross boundaries that
lie on working with pen and paper for him. Having experience with
illustrating the other way around as well, he strongly feels that both
traditional and digital tools can complement one another.
With the rising interest to merge the two mediums, well known illustrator
and artist Joanna Henly who is based in London backs it up
with appreciation towards both these styles through her work. She
possesses a strong sense of what is analog and what is traditional,
allowing her to take more chances without any risk involved.
In an interview, she explains how her process involves drawing the
figure on paper as it has more of an impact on a viewer. Everything
else around the image would serve as supporting elements to the picture
which are all designed and illustrated digitally; creating a striking
balance between the two mediums.
Today, screen printed posters that combine these two mediums are
made quite often for bands and movies. Illustrator and printmaker
Miles Tsang created a screen printed poster for the Black Keys tour
concert back in 2013, which successfully integrates both the mediums.
Left: Miles Tsang’s paint work on a Black
Keys’ poster using traditional black ink and
paper.
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Left: The completed poster which is colored
up and and finished on PhotoShop with
added elements.

RESEARCH DOCUMENT
All in all, both mediums bring out numerous possibilities, both having
its advantages and drawbacks. Integration of the two has proved to
be beneficial, allowing an illustrator to not only experiment, but produce
far more than what he/she intended to. The unification of these
two predominant mediums would prove to be advantageous to any
illustrator who is seeking to drive his/her capabilities to the maximum
potential.
With my design process, I have embraced both these design processes.
I learned through heavy experimenting that designing on both
mediums can bring out the best results.
Right and bottom right: Famous illustrator
Jean-Sebastien Rossbach shows the world
a detailed process of how he combines
both traditional and modern styles of designing
to purely benefit his process.
You can see how he starts from drawing
and painting out images to coloring and
tweaking on a computer.
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DIGITAL
DESIGNING
The process of virtual designing requires two essential tools: A pen
tablet and relevant softwares to design on. Adobe’s Photoshop is one
of the most commonly used softwares amongst many others such as
‘Illustrator’, ‘InDesign and many more.
Photoshop is a software that is mainly used to edit and manipulate
images. That being its primary function, it has been branched out and
used for various other purposes in the creative industry and many
other fields like animation, architecture, medicine etc.
Looking at the graphic design industry in specific, it has been used by
designers to carefully build and structure their layouts with the aid of
Adobe’s Illustrator and InDesign.
The digital designers and illustrators of today believe that the process
of illustrating digitally is a faster as compared to working traditionally.
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LOGOS
& BRANDING
A campaign’s driving factor is the logo that represents it. A logo not
only gives a business, company or campaign a face but instills trust
to a viewer.
With a well designed logo, it is highly likely for the potential customer
number to increase as opposed to a logo crafted badly, therefore
leading to the questioning of a company’s values and services.
A well designed logo serves two purposes: visually representing the
entire business through a visual symbol and the name of the company.
The McDonald’s logo is a perfect example. It has become quite
memorable and is a clear representation of the business through the
logo and the text.
A logo can either make or break a business’ success. If approached
and designed the right way, it leads to more returns in multiple ways.
Most top designers including Mash Bonigala, who is a top branding
designer in the UK suggest using the principle “less is more”. The
more simple a logo is, the more chances of it being memorable are in
motion. According to him, a logo doesn’t have to represent the entire
organization or business’goals, but can should possess subliminal
meanings.
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The designing process of a logo is a rather complex one. But
like every other creative process, it starts out with probably rough
sketches of what the logo could possiblly look like. Creative brainstorming
goes hand in hand with this process, to get a sense of
what the logo is and what it should represent.
When a professional company or organization approaches logo
designing, they design their logo with the intention to be different. Its
distinctiveness is what sets their logo apart from the others. Along
with that, knowing what the market looks like an d the audience aids
the designing process. For example, when designing for teenagers,
it is important to keep it a liitle more on the maintstream side, which
is both loud and catchy. The logo for the music application “Spotify”-
clearly captures both those two factors and serves its purpose as it
targets the teenage market in particular.
Logos such as Starbucks have gone through similar design processes.
Like every other project, the designer is gvien a brief about
the brand which he looks into and does extensive research on the
project. Inspiration is drawn from existing designs and visual designs
of potential logos follows this process with the client’s in the picture
too.
Communication betweent the client and the designer is what makes
the designing process a success. The designer designs based on
what the client desires for the brand by showcasing a few potential
designs to choose from and the client gives the designer the freedom
to work without any interruption.
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Above: A fully designed brand by top designer Bonigala for a start up
coffee company situated in France. The approach taken up by this
company towards producing quality cofffee beans is both scientific
and artistic in nature. The coffee company had values around using
natural and organic things and also uses only recycled packaging.
The logo designed for this brand was a custom typeface which
intergrated a design element that spoke volumes of the company
stood for.
Top designer Stuart Crawford designed and branded a smoothie
bar and healthy food restaurant called ‘Juice Baby’ that is situated in
London. The logo that embodies the brand conveys the organic and
natural feel of the company. The logo went through a few iterations
before reaching the final design. The logo shows off leaves in the
middle that represents growth and life. It also is interpreted as a seed
. The typography at the bottom of the logo aids at representing the
brand which is appropriately titled ‘Fun City’.W
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Taking into account the tips given by top designers of the world along
with a careful study of their designing process, I kept a sketchbook
and noted down all that I needed for “Health Grenade”
I explored and did extensive research to draw inspiration and come
up with a lot of designs. I looked at both corporate and maintstream
logos to get a feel of what has already been created and for what
purpose.
The designs I came up with embodied both the natural and organic
feeling of life with the representation of the H with vines and leaves.
The word Grenade and the letter G represented more rockier and
solid substances.
A first attempt at combining both organic
and solid elements by representing them
through the letters
The creation of this logo was inspired by
various silhouette logos such as Apple and
Dreamworks
Top: Created with the intention of putting the name of the campaign as the
logo itself
50
This was made with the intention to make it
look rather corporate as opposed to something
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RESEARCH DOCUMENT
Above: The final logo designed for ‘Health Grenade’. Represented using
the initials H & G along with an ECG line running through the middle and
a grenade imposed into the ‘G’. The typeface used at the bottom is a
hand drawn font made by an anonymous tyographer online.
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FINAL OUTCOMES
Taking into account the tips given by top designers of the world along
with a careful study of their designing process, I kept a sketchbook
and noted down all that I needed for “Health Grenade”
I explored and did extensive research to draw inspiration and come
up with a lot of designs. I looked at both corporate and maintstream
logos to get a feel of what has already been created and for what
purpose.
The designs I came up with embodied both the natural and organic
feeling of life with the representation of the H with vines and leaves.
The word Grenade and the letter G represented more rockier and
solid substances.
Printing Process
52
Left: From sketching to final
outcome pages

RESEARCH DOCUMENT
Top Above: A look at printing out the final outcome
Above: A comparison between initial design and final outcome page.
53

ESSAY
The topic of fast food is a debatable one that has often been
brought up on a regular basis. It is common knowledge that both
adults and children are governed by the fast food industry including
adolescents in recent times. Obesity is on the rise and all of this
points up to the evident rise in volatile statistics and facts that have
been presented over the course of ten years. One cannot overlook
the fact that there has been an increase the desire for junk food
followed by its production resulting in highly negative results.
Child obesity has started to become a growing concern today.
Looking at the existing facts on this growing universal concern,
there has been a rise in obesity amongst children, shooting up to
double the amount in them and quadruple in adolescents. In 2012,
around one-third of the children were deemed overweight and the
percentage of children who were obese in the United States alone
rose from seven to eighteen percent. (Anonymous, April 24 2015)
UK based statistics show that it is the highest rate of child obesity
in Western Europe today. (Briggs, Helen, 13 June 2013). It has also
been addressed recently, linking it with multiple kinds of illnesses
along with other conditions such as diabetes, breathing problems
etc.
A particularly skilled team from the Imperial College of London
analyzed the statistics on the NHS admissions for obesity, focusing
on hospitals in London and Wales primarily. (Briggs, Helen, 13 June
2013) They discovered that there was a steady increase in the
admissions from girls, which also turned out to be higher than boys.
Meanwhile the obesity surgery cases rose marginally from one case
in 2000 to 31 cases in 2009, being mostly girls. From all that has
been looked at, this is a prevailing problem faced by not only in the
UK and US, but also by every country all across the globe.
There are also several reasons as to why children eat the way they
do, some of them being poor food selection, lack of time, which
results in meal skipping, fussy eating amongst toddlers and children
etc. According to the findings posted in the National Nutrition
Survey of 1995, around 40 percent of children ate no fruit, thirty
percent ate no vegetable and seventy five percent ate mashed
potatoes, which were fried and added with fat. To add on, eighty
percent ate pastries, cakes and biscuits, seventy percent drank fruit
juices and only twenty percent of them drank water.
The fast food industry is the only one to be blamed for this
mostly. The existing statistics of 2013 say that in that year the
industry was worth 191 billion dollars in the United States itself.
(Forte, Gregory. (August 2014)) From the analysis of
(Promoting Healthy Eating For Children: A Planning Guide
For
 Practitioners, July 2005)
these statistics, it has been predicted that it will be worth
around 210 billion dollars by 2018. They have used the power
of marketing and advertising wisely, to their advantage to create
a global impact. The most commonly used strategy is the
one, which involves the use of incentivizing children with a toy
if they buy a happy meal. This in turn grooms a kid into coming
regularly to a fast food restaurant to pick up the next toy that
comes out along with the happy meal.
In recent years, celebrities have been getting behind the
camera to promote junk food for various fast food companies.
Recently, the campaign taken up by Michelle Obama, which
aimed at reducing child obesity, created a huge controversy.
The fact that she signed on celebrities like Beyoncé and Shaquille
O’Neill to promote the campaign created a huge stir as
they have endorsed sodas in the past, which are contributors
to the rising obesity epidemic. (Sifferlin, Alexandra, 2013)
Beyoncé endorsing Pepsi back in 2013
Celebrities serve as role models, which clearly results in behavioral
change in kids based on what they endorse. According to
scientists, ads featuring professional athletes get an impressive
number of views and exposure on TV, the radio etc. In 2010, it
was also noticed that children between the ages of twelve and
seventeen saw more food and beverages endorsed by athletes
compared to adults. (Sifferlin, Alexandra, 2013)
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RESEARCH DOCUMENT
According to the statistics put forward by researchers who have
analyzed the fast food industry, 99 percent of the commercials
came from big fast food companies McDonalds and Burger King.
Prior to this, they evaluated whether the advertisements were targeting
adults or children.
Approaching the topic of healthy eating amongst children has been
touched upon from different angles. A simple change in diet through
influential videos, posters, habits and involvement of children in the
cooking process at home brings about an impact on them. Graphic
design as a source of communication works towards

solving different problems today, one of them being obesity. The
designers of today have all addressed this issue a few times with
the use of multiple campaigns, advertisements, designed posters
etc., which are used to promote and produce obesity awareness
amongst people. The task of communicating through such mediums
is what we designers aim to achieve.
The relevance of well structured and planned out campaigns comes
into play here. A correlation exists between the importance of them
today and of healthy eating amongst children. Children in their initial
years are always growing which justifies the need of healthier food
options. Foods like fruits and vegetables lead to proper physical
development, building up of strength, resistance to infections,
minimizes future health risks cancer, dental decay etc., and allows
them to make better food decisions for life. (Anonymous, 2012)
According to the National Diet and Nutrition Survey in the UK, most
children suffer from obesity due to the intake of large amounts of
saturated fats, sugar and salt, whereas one in then of them indulge
in a 4 portions a day of a diet of vegetables and fruits. (Clark and
Powell, 2013) It has also been proven that the use of all kinds of
healthy eating educational campaigns leads to not only better food
choices but improvements in behavior, mental health and well being
and improvements in the way they respond to their education. Inadequate
diets impede a child’s ability to learn too. (Clark and Powell,
2013)
Amongst all of the solutions out there today, the “FitWits” MD program
is the one of many that stands out the most. It was developed
by the Carnegie Mellon University School of Design and UPMC
Saint Margaret Family Health Centers and is used during an annual
check up of a child with a doctor, addressing the problems created
by obesity. (Anonymous, 2015). With the use of tools such as print
and digital, this program allows all the members of a family, educators
and health experts a better understanding on the decisions that
children make on a daily basis. (Fitwits is solving childhood obesity
by using 21st century technology and gaming to inspire the power
of play, 2015)
Being more specific, doctors use tools such as flash cards, which
feature a variety of cartoon characters, recipes, and health related
information such as nutrition, which help a child to understand the
importance of healthy food and the drawbacks of consuming junk
food. (Anonymous 2015) This program is a start up by the university
with five years of market research testing backing it up (Fitwits
is solving childhood obesity by using 21st century technology
and gaming to inspire the power of play, 2015). The university has
invested its time and attention into acquiring knowledge related to
the prevailing practices that teach the youth of today, the concept of
nutrition. (Fitwits is solving childhood obesity by using 21st century
technology and gaming to inspire the power of play, 2015) Using
these findings, the university develops new ways of educating
young minds on nutrition, healthy eating and obesity. It has been
proven that FitWit is an effective program that is used to discuss
these sensitive issues among family, children and educators without
any judgment. (Fitwits is solving childhood obesity by using 21st
century technology and gaming to inspire the power of play, 2015)
The use of FitWit has also made its way into a number of other sectors.
It has been tried and tested in places such as schools, where
health educators seek such effective programs to benefit them and
improve school wellness policies; doctors’ offices, where researches
need well researched and developed strategies to reverse the
effects of obesity; and restaurants, where the management searches
for new ways to educate and improve the knowledge of their
customers to further make healthier decisions. (Fitwits is solving
childhood obesity by using 21st century technology and gaming to
inspire the power of play, 2015).
From what has been seen, the research shows a consistent rise in
more educated children and families, who indulge in more physical
activity and who also make better and healthier food decisions.
It has also shown an improvement in BMIs and physicians who
feel more confident in educating their patients. (Fitwits is solving
childhood obesity by using 21st century technology and gaming
to inspire the power of play, 2015) This program has proven to be
educational and fun, involving everyone in the solution to bring out a
new, healthier change.
Such projects are not only taken up by working designers in the
industry, but by university students as well. Louise Tattershall is
a student who resides in the UK, who created a guide called “A
Healthy Guide To Pack Lunches” for the ALDI Health Pack Lunch
campaign. The campaign aimed at making children eat healthier
by involving them in the cooking process. Children are incentivized
with a sticker prize every time they cook a recipe from the book
and bring it to school for lunch. Tattershall, Louisse, 2013) To add
on, family members can win ALDI discounts, allowing them to cook
such meals at cheaper prices. The guide is filled with a variety of
recipes, ingredients and instructions, which are needed to make
wonderful and delicious lunch meals.
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From the research findings which included lunchtime audits, personal
group talks etc., the AMP noticed that teenagers were very
well aware of their unstable and unhealthy diets and was perceived
as too big of a change to eat more healthier. They came up with a
strategy which involved inspiring them, which involved showing how
making small changes leads to big rewards that they will notice both
immediately and in the future. (AMP Agency, 22 March 2013)
Children’s book cover and stickers designs

It was also important to educate parents and other family members
about the importance of healthy eating for this to work. To do that,
ALDI launched a website which supported the campaign and also
attempts at educating them about it. Adding on to it all, ALDI has
also come up with a number of larger cookbooks and lunch packs
which are specifically designed for adults. (Tattershall, Louisse,
2013)
Graphic design has also found its way into a number of projects
and campaigns as just a supporting factor to boost them. A case
study was conducted by the AMP agency on the project “Change
One Thing” which was for a client called Food Bank For New York
City, which ran for an entire year from July-September 2011 to
July-September 2012. Looking at the bank’s background, they are
one of the United States’ largest food banks that aim at eradicating
hunger by helping feed the poor throughout the city and by also
providing nutrition related educational programs for around 40,000
children and adults. This also includes a number of poor people
that spreads up to 2.6 million people in just New York City itself.
(AMP Agency, 22 March 2013)
To counter this, the AMP Agency came up with a social strategic responsibility
program that focused itself on educating the youth from
low-income households in the states on healthy eating, mainly the
ones from the five boroughs situated in New York city. Their target
was to reach around a 100,000 teenagers all of who met a very
strict criterion as defined by the USDA, who are also the funders of
the campaign. (AMP Agency, 22 March 2013)
To spread the word about the campaign, they used both traditional
and non- traditional methods. One of them was the use of billboards,
some of which showed off handmade adaptations of their
ads, all of which were strategically placed all over the city in transit
stations. Other methods also included spreading the word about
the campaign on radio stations by setting up specialized promotions
and also showed up at various local events along with the branded
materials from the campaign. Amongst all the methods involved in
the process of spreading the news, the use of a customized food
truck, which gave out nutritious, healthy food during the summer
and even featured an interactive game about healthy eating habits,
was also considered. (AMP Agency, 22 March 2013)
Looking at the designing bit of the campaign, a photo shoot was
done with a man named Gary Sloan in his studio, showing many
horrible looking snack foods along with the hero portrayed healthy
foods. This was taken up to counter ads out there, which influenced
children to make bad food choices on a daily basis. A number of
techniques were used to show the fast foods as unappealing in
nature by showing them sweat, melt and drip. The healthier food
images were places strategically next to the unhealthy ones to
emphasize their importance. The ads also used bright colors to add
to make the good foods more prominent to catch people’s attention
along with the use of clean and solid band of colors to bring out the
headlines. (AMP Agency, 22 March 2013) To add on to the design
involved, transit advertising and traditional billboards were used to
advertise the campaign.
The AMP agency also used various other strategies like spreading
the word through radio stations by getting into a partnership with
the stations, and the use of traditional methods like hand painted,
neighborhood mural paintings. The food truck previously mentioned
made its way all over the city to summer camps, teen centers,
etc. Children were allowed to learn and play an interactive, creatively
designed game, which taught them about the benefits and
advantages of healthy food, bringing to light the consequences of
consuming bad foods. The food truck also handed on free samples
of frozen fruit pops, recipe books for teens, sliced apples etc. (AMP
Agency, 22 March 2013)
“Change One Thing” ran for an entire year and proved to be a success
showing a significant change in the behavior of teenagers all
over the city. A ten percent rise in the importance of healthy eating
amongst low-income children was noticed. According to the case
study, “
Children playing an interactive health food game on the food truck
they had changed their eating behaviors while the campaign was in
market.
fifty percent of the respondents stated that
Sixty-eight percent of these respondents report that they are trying
to make
healthier eating decisions and 64 percent report that they are
thinking more
about how what they choose to eat will affect them in the future.”
(AMP Agency,
22 March 2013)
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RESEARCH DOCUMENT
Children playing an interactive health food game on the food truck
Like every other campaign, it faced a few challenges along the way,
the main one being the guidelines put forward by the USDA but
was something that could be taken care of easily.
One of the main roles of a designer is to keep up with modern
trends and things that work for that current year. While doing so, it
can be quite challenging considering the constant change in trends,
fashion styles etc. When it comes to designing for children, a lot
has to be considered, as it is very different from designing for the
general masses and adults, and is a lot more challenging. The style
of communicating through posters, advertising campaigns etc. is a
lot more sensitive and clean as they are more inclined to being influenced
more easily compared to adults. The outcomes developed
for them are more colorful, emphasis placed, interactive and easy to
understand designs.
Amongst all the campaigns and massive projects out there which
aim at reducing the obesity levels in children today, personal projects
and books on designing for children exist, educating adults
on the various ways they can change the way children look at food
around them.
Referencing:
Adolescent and School Health. Available: http://www.cdc.gov/
healthyyouth/obesity/facts.htm. Last accessed 27th April 2015.
Rise in child obesity-related hospital admissions. Available: http://
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22849112. Last accessed 27th April
2015.
Statistics and facts about the Fast Food Industry. Available: http://
www.statista.com/topics/863/fast-food/. Last accessed 27th April
2015.
New Graphic Design Tools Help Doctors Teach Children About
Healthy Eating. Available: http://www.livinguncured.info/New-
Graphic-Design-Tools. Last accessed 29th April 2015.
Anonymous. (2015). Fitwits is solving childhood obesity by using
21st century technology and gaming to inspire the power of play..
Available: http://www.fitwits.org. Last accessed 29th April 2015.
Anonymous. (2012). Healthy eating for young children. Available:
https://www.pre-school.org.uk/parents/support-advice/408/
healthy-eating-for- young-children. Last accessed 3rd May 2015.
AMP Agency. (22nd March 2013). Case Study: Change One Thing
- Championing Healthier Eating Habits In Teens. Available: http://
www.aiga.org/case-study-change-one-thing/. Last accessed 4th
May 2015
 Clark, Malcolm, and Charlie Powell. Children’S Food Campaign’S
Submission To
 The School Food Plan. 1st ed. 2013. Web. 3 May 2015.
 Promoting Healthy Eating For Children: A Planning Guide For
Practitioners. 1st
 ed. Victorian Government Department of Human Services, July
2005. Web. 4
 May 2015.
Sifferlin, Alexandra. (2013). When Good Celebrities Promote Bad
Foods. Available: http://healthland.time.com/2013/10/07/
when-good-celebrities- promote-bad-foods/. Last accessed 4th
May 2015.
Tattershall, Louisse. (2013). Healthy Eating for Children. Available:
https://www.behance.net/gallery/11785019/Healthy-Eating-for-
Children. Last accessed 4th May 2015.
In conclusion, childhood obesity is a growing concern in today’s
world. The demand for unhealthy food has grown, as has the
supply. In fact companies using marketing gimmicks such as
“Happy Meals” and celebrity endorsements are further increasing
this demand. The statistical trends depicting obesity and unhealthy
food habits call for immediate action such as alterations in the
types of advertising for food products as well as implementation of
campaigns to promote a healthy lifestyle. Some of the campaigns
that aim at doing so are the FitWit program, “Change In One Thing”
campaigns, which have been previously mentioned, and many
more.
As has been explored in this paper, these campaigns and projects
have been very effective in achieving their purpose and expanding
and enriching kids all over with the knowledge related to the advantages
of eating healthy and the benefits that come with it along the
way.
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alston.rodrigues@hotmail.com