Assignment 2 requires to create a front cover illustration for Varoom magazine.
«Varoom is the globally leading illustration magazine featuring a unique combination of industry insight and critical analysis of the field of illustration.
Published by the AOI and edited by John O’Reilly the magazine comes out twice a year» (https://theaoi.com)
Choice of topic was between Style, Empathy and Obsession.
I chose to do a topic on Korean beauty industry, which can be both Style and Obsession. However, my choice of illustration is leaning closer towards the latter one.
Chemmie Squier (HOW SOUTH KOREA BECAME THE BEAUTY CAPITAL OF THE WORLD, 2016) desribes the korean beauty industry in one of her articles: «K beauty isn’t just consumerism gone mad: beauty and appearance is institutionalised in the Korean culture. Korea is the world’s plastic surgery capital with the highest ratio of cosmetic procedures per head with procedures like double eye lid surgery (a procedure which creates a ‘crease’ in the lid, not typical of Koreans) and jaw shaving which creates a more ‘pointed’ face. It’s a sad but very real truth that a country that is so advanced in terms of it’s beauty products still feeds into a Western ideal of beauty through procedures such as these.»
I have also discovered a thesis online by Yuqing Wang (BEHIND SOUTH KOREAN COSMETIC SURGERY:ITS HISTORICAL CAUSES AND ITS INTERTWINED RELATIONSHIP WITH KOREAN POP CULTURE), which covers even the history of beauty standards, charts, economical and societal values etc. It is incredibly interesting read and I would recommend it to anyone who is also interested in this topic.
I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to do. In my mind I would have a girl that would bare a message, either sitting on a bed or standing facing her back. Upon doing two thumbnails sketches I decided to stick with the latter choice as I felt more comfortable drawing it and it felt it could have more potential. I did a quick sketch on my Adobe Sketch app to see how it would work.
After getting more proper sketch I traced it over in Illustrator and for now I am trying to work magic with it to see what it could do.
That’s it for now!