Shelley Ink is design by myself, Shelley Roach. The name itself is a play on words, Ink (referring to my style of illustration) instead of Inc., or incorporated. When ‘incorporated’ is used to describe a company it usually indicates that it is made up a number of subdivisions. This is how I describe my area of design, as it covers many fields.

I am in my final year of university majoring in Interactive and Visual Design for a Bachelor of

Fine Arts. My degree has allowed me to explore many different areas of design, and I love them all. No matter how far apart some areas of design are, my aim is to approach each with the same level of creativity, imagination and skill. However, I would note graphic design, illustration and web design as my strongest fields.

My designs are informed by a background in traditional visual arts. This background has helped me develop visual instincts as well as skills that can be used to either enhance my designs or be useful in the production process, such as drawing. However, my most valuable tool is my imagination.

A vivid imagination allows me to visualize concepts and designs in my mind and when I see a design problem and I can form a solution that is creative, ties all elements together, and looks spectacular.

Aside from my imagination, the elements of my personality that I like to incorporate into my design are humour, wit, curiosity, and playfulness.

I find inspiration across all media, such as movies, television, music, advertising, fashion, architecture, and, as you can see, books.

This project represents myself as a designer. In particular, it showcases my personal illustrative style. There is a much wider range to my design capabilities than solely illustration, however it is the process that best suits my personality.

The children’s storybook analogy not only suits my style of illustration, but also portrays the concept of imagination, which is a very important part of my design process. Storybooks contain a sense innocence and curiosity, which I like to believe also relates to my character.

Decisions regarding all elements of this project, such as typography, colour and imagery, have been made to suit a classic children’s storybook. For this reason, text is integrated into the illustration, rather than a grid layout. I have chosen to use images that lean toward the playful and the fantastic (particularly in my self portrait where not all objects are to scale). The illustrations portray a world of my design.

This project was inspired by children’s

storybook illustrations, but particularly

that of Sir John Tenniel and Jillian

Tamaki.

Sir John Tenniel’s illustrations of the first e

dition of

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the

Looking Glass beautifully represent the strange and

imaginative world created by Lewis Carroll. The book

itself is a children’s classic, and because its words and

images are married so well, it is his work that first

comes to mind when I think of storybook illustration.

Tenniel’s creations are rendered in ink, and use line

and cross-hatching to generate detail and depth without

the need for colour. One of my favourite illustrators,

Tenniel has been a great influence on my personal

style of illustration long before this project.

Jillian Tamaki is a Canadian illustrator, who mostly illustrates editorial content in magazines and newspapers, but has also worked on graphic novels and the children’s book Skim. Tamaki uses highly detailed lines, however she combines them with colour for a stunning outcome. Her work in comics integrate hand-drawn typography with image, which inspired my own typography in this project.