The brief for this menu card illustration specified a sophisticated, quality fish restaurant, that was part of a major European chain. Words such as fresh, modern, bright, and contemporary were used and the brief made it clear that the image must be visually appetising and simple enough to potentially be used as a logo.
After reading this brief, I knew I wanted to create a clean image, using a minimalistic style and warm, bright colours. Immediately, I rejected the idea of using a whole fish with eyes (this is not visually appetising in my mind!) so I started to think about using other seafood. Of course, the image needed to be identifiable as fish but it did not necessarily have to have eyes, fins and a tail.
Initially, I thought about using an octopus, or octopus tentacles, and trialled this with spaghetti. I imagined using bright colours and having a circular image with ingredients incorporated in a dish. However, this proved too messy, too complicated and did not look very appetising. I came back to the brief – clean, simple, modern – and started to consider shellfish.
Prawns have a simple shape, and use warm colours, which look appetising. Instead of creating an illustration of a dish, I decided to keep it as straightforward and minimal as possible, surrounding one prawn with simple accompaniments like lemon, chilli, garlic, herbs.
On some thicker paper, I trialled different materials and styles, keeping in mind a simple and minimal style.
I felt that the fine liners looked too harsh, the shapes were jagged and geometric, which did not help the food to look appetising. I quite liked the texture created by the tissue paper, but the range of colours I had did not give enough detail.
Watercolours worked well for the texture and I used a white gel pen and acrylic dotting tool to create more texture (I really liked the effect it achieved; like little bubbles, which made it seem more appropriate for a seafood restaurant). The final illustration looks like it fits with a contemporary, modern, clean, bright atmosphere. The colours are appetising and, after showing it to others, the illustration is simple and clearly identifiable.
Jade's OCA Learning Log 