The Baggage We Carry
Illustration | Mental Health Postcards
BRIEF
Contemporary Illustration Styles: This brief required students to complete a set of six illustrations for six postcards, each in a specific, required, illustration style. The concept of each illustration needed to be centred around the student’s inner world.
CONCEPT
This project is a very personal project for me which required both vulnerability and bravery. I decided to dig deep and create six illustrations based on my mental struggles and my personal experience of mental illness. Five of the illustrations are each a depiction of my experience of a different aspect of my mental illness / challenges, and the final, sixth, illustration is my own depiction of hope.
IDEATION PROCESS
My ideation process included brain dump word association for each of the six postcard subjects, matching the given styles to the subjects I thought they'd be best suited to, and then beginning the illustration process with scamps.
OCD - mechanical realism illustration style
General Anxiety Disorder - granules and gradients illustration style
Depression - shadowed surrealism illustration style
Imposter Syndrome - painterly realism illustration style
Social Anxiety - flat illustration style
Hope - liquid neon illustration style
PACKAGING
REFLECTION
This project provided me with so much growth. I fell ill during this project and had to be in quarantine and on bed rest for a month just after I began with this project, so my mental health was being challenged as well as my physical which is reflected in the illustrations.
I am proud of myself for following through with this project as creating something like this for college definitely takes courage. But it also opens the lines of communication about something very personal with many other people. I think conversations about mental health are very important, so I hope that these illustrations can make some sort of positive impact - no matter how small.
Having to illustrate in specific styles was challenging and at times very frustrating. However, I am very grateful for that aspect of the brief as it introduced me to my new favourite style to illustrate in - mechanical realism.
