Image//Editorial//'Doctor, Doctor'.

Documented below is the design development for the Editorial Image brief for the 'Doctor, Doctor' article- a Q&A section in which a resident Doctor answers peoples concerns about healthcare- in this instance, about immunity as we age. Throughout the past week I have been brainstorming and doodling ideas, though found myself over-thinking the designs a little, and was restricted a great deal by the scale of the image which I hadn't considered well enough and accounted for in my concept development (schoolboy/girl error...). The designs below are the ones I went onto develop from my initial idea generation.

I started out working with illustrative type to try and "get the ball rolling" in terms of my concept development when working with software. Although I felt that this design had potential to go further, it was a little flat, uninteresting, and generally quite vague in terms of the specific details in the article, and I knew it could be pushed a great deal further. 

After working with the pills and tablets to make the illustrative type, I began to think about other medical "tools" and paraphernalia associated with health and more immunisation/flu and cold remedy solutions- creating bold vector outcomes for items such as a stethoscope, syringe, eye drops, tablets, and so on.

I added the vector cameo illustration to add a little more interest to the design and make it human-specific, looking a little more personal whilst still in the bold, solid colour being quite crisp and simple- working with the cream and green palette colours to visually represent the green associated with health and vitality (...and first aid boxes), with the cream a softer background than the previously experimented with ice white tone.

After creating a background for the design- a repeat pattern of the medical paraphenalia, as well as creating an "abstract brain" shape from the instruments within the "skull" of the cameo portrait, I went on to experiment with different colour selections. The image directly above (white cameo on black) was my favourite, but I felt that the solid block colours still looked a little flat and uninteresting.

I went on to apply a radial gradient overlay on the background (with the white cameo sent to front) along with a "grunge paper" texture which enhanced the vignette effect well, adding depth and shadow to the image- shown in context of the article both above and below.

Ideally, I would have liked to have spent a lot more time on the design- and have learnt from this that I should embark on a design for the Image brief as soon as it's delivered, and that time in producing the final outcomes is very limited in regards to balancing it with the other briefs at this time on the course. Despite it not being as visually communicative or conceptual as I would like, I am pleased that I have produced a semi- professional looking piece of illustrative design- the style of which I feel is suited to the article and that of the newspaper's existing designs.