Museum Artifact Exhibit

I went through a few different iterations for the museum artifact exhibit project before landing on a final cohesive design. At first, I wanted to do something inspired by The Book of Kells/Illuminated manuscripts but decided against it as it was too challenging to re-create the incredibly detailed designs. In a change of direction, I decided to do Greek Pottery instead, specifically black-figure pottery. Greek pottery has always been of interest to me so I felt inspired to research more about the subject. Rather than re-creating an existing piece of pottery, I decided to design my own piece of artwork as a way to better retain and understand what I had researched. Before designing, I did a deep dive into the design behind the pottery. For example, I discovered that white was used for female flesh while black was used for the males portrayed on the vessels. Understanding the mythology of Greece at the time was important for creating an authentic scene. Scenes often depicted on these pieces of pottery included war stories and Greek Mythology. As I decided to portray a war scene, I took time to research the appropriate dress and style for this era. The lion in ancient Greek culture symbolized power which I thought would be a suitable motif for the scene.

As for my design process, I started by researching different items of pottery and designs. Once I finally landed on an idea, I created concept sketches for the layout in Procreate. Then, I went in and drew the greek vase first and then put it into the background I created after. Finally, I used Illustrator for the text.

Overall, the project went smoothly, but I think I would have benefited from planning out more in advance to save time. I also would have spent more time on the background to come up with a more creative composition.

In total, this project took around 6 hours to complete.

The process: