Who is my illustration aimed towards?

A target audience is a group of people that a certain product is aimed towards. Discovering the correct target audience during my initial design process is vital. Without knowing my target audience, my illustration will be difficult to create and may not attract the appropriate people to the book when it is finished . This may result in the book not selling.
A target audience can be people of a certain age group, gender, marital status etc. In this case, my target audience is women – whether they be Single / married /co habiting/ divorced / heterosexual / lesbian or bisexual, this does not matter. The age group of these targeted women however is not as easy to predict as their gender and marital status.

These are some of the publishing editors based at virago press - Mostly women of all ages.

Many of the authors published within the book live in the North of England rather than in the South and tend to be of middle age rather than the young upcoming writers that you would expect. Nevertheless, from reading some of the stories myself, I think they will appeal to a variety of age ranges from late teens onwards. Other age ranges may also be interested in the book so I have to ensure my design is diverse enough to cater for these minorities alongside the targeted audience.

Hobbies

My target audience may be involved in various leisure activities. I have decided to list just a few hobbies that they may have in common.

Obviously my target audience will enjoy reading as if they did not then they would not be interested in buying the book inwhich i am creating my illustration for.

The Majority of people i know who like to read books like outdoor activities such as walking, hiking, cycling etc. Books can be seen as a way of relaxing, therefore other activities my target audience may have in common is relaxing in spas and swimming pools etc.

Life And Death

These are a group of visual representations that link together to depict the meaning of 'fish bones'

'Fishbones' Black and white illustration inspiration

I am also looking at creating a black and white illustration for a story within the book 'the nerve' named ‘ Fish bones’ I think researching into the title of the story is a great way to begin my research.

As this is an inside illustration and not the front cover of the book, I’m not sure if fish bones alone will suffice. Within the first few pages of this book there is a reference to alcohol, tattoos and religion (Particularly Christianity). I will therefore begin looking at these three categories in turn and list the work in which I find inspirational.

Alcohol

Tattoos

Religion

(The creation of man)

(Jesus awakening from the dead)

(moses parting the sea)

'The nerve': illustration inspiration

I am looking at creating an illustration for the front cover of an international journal focusing on women's writing up to the end of the nineteenth century. The journal contains various short stories all written by women, for women. Some of the stories preset the usual sensuality that you would expect to find within women’s writing however there are some pieces that present disturbing for example; ‘Bald Eva whose eyebrows and palm-prints were seared off in the fire’.

I think the imagery of this quote is a good place to start my research. I intend to look at fire / flames to represent the dangerous edge that some of the story’s within the book contain.

The ordinary flames can look quite bland and boring. Changing the colours of the flames however, in my opinion, can create a much more interesting, charismatic effect.

The stories within this book are sensual yet disturbing, delightful yet disgusting, tender yet bitter. There is an obvious contrast within this book. It is this contrast that I wish to portray on the illustration.

The opposite of fire is water. I believe using these two opposites within my illustration can help create the contrasting effect I am looking for. When placed together, the two contradictories help portray the good vs evil, the light vs dark, the sensual vs disturbing differentiations that I am looking for.

I think it is important to indicate that the book is written for women, by women. Silhouettes are a simple yet effective way of illustrating this. The silhouettes should however represent various women and not just the stereotypical ‘model’ sized silhouette.

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The below images provide me with ideas of how I could link together both the fire vs. water effect and the silhouettes into one unique and tremendously eye-catching design.