Degree Type
Honors Capstone Project
Date of Submission
Spring 5-1-2010
Capstone Advisor
William Padgett, Chair
Honors Reader
Yvonne Buchanan
Capstone Major
Design
Capstone College
Visual and Performing Arts
Audio/Visual Component
no
Capstone Prize Winner
no
Won Capstone Funding
yes
Honors Categories
Creative
Subject Categories
Art and Design | Graphic Design | Illustration
Abstract
My Honors Capstone project falls under the Creative project category. It is a sixty-four page graphic novel entitled Lost and Found: Stories from London. It is a collection of stories and moments from my semester abroad in London in the spring of 2009, when I was a second semester junior. I kept a series of journals during my time abroad, and the content from those journals eventually became the stories that I transformed into the pages of my book.
In essence, the research for my project was my everyday life. From going on weekend trips to other countries like Ireland, France, and Turkey to trips to and from school on the Underground, I documented my travels. Some days were a fantastic adventure; others were difficult and lonely. My journals quickly filled up with this “research:” the people, places, things—and most importantly, feelings—of the city in which I was learning to live. But it was only after most of my semester abroad—and my “research”—was over that I decided to use the information that I had collected for my Capstone project.
Over the summer between my junior and senior year, I compiled and edited my collection of stories, choosing the ones that I thought were the best reflection of my time abroad. At the beginning of this academic year, I continued the editing process when I made a rough pencil draft of how I wanted each page to look. I met with my Communications Design professor and Capstone advisor Bill Padgett on a weekly basis to discuss my progress, and any changes that needed to be made to layout. He did not change my content—that was solely mine to edit. At the end of fall semester 2009, I had completed the pencil draft, and spent winter break and spring semester 2010 painting and inking each spread. I used watercolor to paint and pens to ink and letter, all by hand. I consciously did not use a computer for any of these steps, because I wanted to maintain a hand-done quality in the final draft.
The painting and inking process took most of spring semester to complete. The idea was to create a book that would not be a one-of-a-kind work, but rather one that would be produced in a larger quantity. The Honors Department put me in contact with an account coordinator at SU Publications, who got me quotes from several different area printers. We settled on Dupli Envelope & Graphics, and I was able to pay them using funds from a Crown Award that I applied for and was granted. Now, I have sixty copies of my Capstone to distribute to the Honors Department, friends and family, and possibly independent comics publishers as well.
My hope for this project is that it will both serve as a reminder of London for those who were able to experience it with me, as well as a look into my time there for those who were not able to be a physical part of my semester abroad. Additionally, I hope that this book can be appreciated by anyone as a piece of art. I feel very personally involved in this project, and I hope that people reading it can find something in it to relate to personally as well.
Recommended Citation
Collins, Brianna, "Lost and Found: Stories from London (A graphic novel)" (2010). Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All. 320.
https://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone/320
Creative Commons License
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