Kazz Douie is an Illustration student at Camberwell College of Art. Kazz took part in a collaborative project between Science Gallery London and third year Camberwell students, in which the students were briefed to produce a lead image for our forthcoming season MOUTHY. We love Kazz's work and are thrilled to showcase her work in the blog that she has written for us about designing for the MOUTHY brief.

For this project I began by thinking about my own mouth. From actions like chew, bite, spit, chatter, blow, to its contents: canines, tongue, uvula, plaque, to its communicative potential and ability to seduce, lie, scream, and whisper. I asked myself ‘what is the ultimate mouth?’

I started researching animals that have infamous mouths, such as the crocodile, lion, dog, and hippo. I was looking for the most powerful mouths. I learned that a hippo has a mouth big enough to have a four-foot-tall child stand up inside it! I sketched some of these mouths, breaking them down into four tones, thinking I might want to screen print them later.

Some initial sketches

Transfering onto a screen

Rough screen print idea

Some digital versions to experiment with colour

Some completed sketches of Wild Mouths

I decided that this was a good composition, and also preferred the ‘sketchy’ aesthetic over the screen printed one. I began experimenting with colour again, as well as seeing how this image worked with the layouts we were provided with from a previous Science Gallery London season.

Although I was happy with this imagery I was concerned that I had now drifted too far from the initial brief, so I went back and decided to try something different: something closer to the brief, and perhaps with a more relatable mouth image. I decided to make a visual list of objects relating to the mouth, similar to the list I had made previously, but this time consisting of objects. As seen below, these included a retainer, toothpaste, some foods, lipstick, microphones, moustaches and more.

My intention when creating this list was to use the images that came out of it to form the shape of a mouth. What links all of these objects is that they go in, on, or around the mouth, so I thought that the connection would be clear. I deliberately chose objects that had or could have colours relating to a stock image of a mouth that I found online. I then used this image as a ‘blueprint’ of sorts to help me map out where to put all of the pieces to build a recognisable mouth.

This was the final image that I settled on. Using the objects that I painted in my sketchbook and then scanned onto my laptop and manipulated with photoshop, I created a mouth. I then added some scientific labels to the image. I thought this might look interesting as the mouth itself is far from anatomically correct (a mouthguard for a tongue?). Giving it ‘accurate’ labels might help the viewer to further understand what is being portrayed.

Using the image without labels and some more of the mouth objects I createad this gif of the mouth in the form of it yelling or speaking or talking:

I thoroughly enjoyed this project and the challenges it presented to me. I feel I could have continued experimenting with more and more ideas if I was given the time.

Check out Kazz’ website.

May 11, 2016

Finding a visual identity for MOUTHY: Kazz Douie