'A Day In The Life' Editorial Illustration

Editorial illustration is a strand of commercial illustration that I have heard of before, but something that I have never really given much attention.
Before this year, I had no clue about anything related to politics and I deliberately avoided any form of 'News'. The world scares me and newspapers, in particular, made me feel disappointed and disgusted by the human race.
I've tried to get into politics and to keep up with current affairs in order to stay up to date and informed, but newspapers are still not something that I would want to read. The fact that this task was centered around 'editorial' illustration immediately made me nervous.
I have very little existing knowledge of this form of illustration and of this context.

My interest lies in children's book illustration. There is a great difference between these context and audiences. Both respond to text but feature different genres and purposes. I tried to embrace the challenge and learn new skills, hoping that this experience would make me more versatile as an illustrator.

I was given an article about Lad Culture. I found this topic very serious and sensitive. I have quite strong opinions on gender and equality, so the fact that this article discussed misogyny brightened my spirits in that I knew I could give some genuine opinions to this task. 

I met with four other people who were given the same article. We had an initial discussion about the topic and our thoughts around it. I found this part of the task quite difficult because we had different views on the article. I didn't want to tell anyone that their point was wrong, but our group did produce some very strong and contrasting perspectives.

This task spurred some questions in my mind:
What if the illustrator doesn't agree with the article they are given by a client? What if they do not condone the argument that they are asked to support? Is it more important to accept work or to be genuine to yourself? Should your art always mimic your own voice?

Responding to the article

I began by reading the article several times and then summarizing it, making sure that I fully understood the extent of the discourse. I then went through and selected areas that I found important (e.g. highlighting key words - misogyny, banter, lad culture).
I noticed that I had also highlighted a lot of analogies and metaphorical phrases 'pack mentality', 'sloppy birds'. This figurative language is what really interested me and sparked visual ideas.

Reading the words and responding, I drew packs of wild dogs and vulnerable, fragile birds.

There are several restrictions for this project, including colour, printing, dimensions and format.

I found that working straight into boxes drawn out to the proposed dimensions really helped me to consider composition and to literally stay within the lines of the brief.