For my current project, which is to design a poster campaign for amnesty international aimed at a young audience, the bulk of the research I have conducted has been internet based, which has lead to me finding a multitude of brilliant websites with loads of innovative, contemporary graphic and illustrative work which I can draw inspiration from. Some of the work I've seen is so accomplished that it has really put into perspective the standard of my own work and reminded me that I am right at the beginning of my development into a professional visual communicator, which is slightly depressing but at the same time motivating as it makes me aspire to improve to a higher standard. Anyway, here are some links to the sites and artist's work I have looked at:
general image sites
www.ffffound.com
www.booooooom.com
www.illustrationmundo.com
www.gigposters.com
http://www.thingsmagazine.net/projects/1960s/index.htm
ad agencies
http://www.walker.ag/index_walker.htm
http://zeitguised.wordpress.com/
artists/designers
www.jenstark.com
www.danelovett.com
http://www.gigposters.com/designer/64103_Michael_Munter.html
Tuesday, 23 December 2008
Tuesday, 9 December 2008
Joint Project
This is my final image for the joint project in conjunction with colleges in Kuwait and the U.S about cultural identity. I didn't want my image to communicate a really celebratory, patriotic view of life in Britain but conversely, I did not want to portray it in a overly negative way as I believe that there are alot of positive and negative aspects of life in Britain.
I therefore chose, for the subject, something quite trivial and small in the 50p piece, which to me personally, strongly symbolises 'Britishness' due to the issues with the preservation of our currency (and the wider issues which are related to this i.e membership of the European union) and the fact it carries the hugely recognisable iconic symbol of Britain- the Queen's head.
I wanted to make the drawing small to reflect the insignificance of the object in terms of size as well as to draw people in to my personal, subjective interpretation of cultural identity.
(the image needs to be clicked on to view full size in order to read the text)
I therefore chose, for the subject, something quite trivial and small in the 50p piece, which to me personally, strongly symbolises 'Britishness' due to the issues with the preservation of our currency (and the wider issues which are related to this i.e membership of the European union) and the fact it carries the hugely recognisable iconic symbol of Britain- the Queen's head.
I wanted to make the drawing small to reflect the insignificance of the object in terms of size as well as to draw people in to my personal, subjective interpretation of cultural identity.
(the image needs to be clicked on to view full size in order to read the text)
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
Spend More Save Less- Day Project
Today we were assigned a day task within our new visual thinking unit. The objective was to produce a poster to encourage people to 'spend more and save less' in order to stimulate Britain's deteriorating economy. This idea is based on a principle devised by economist John Maynard Keynes who believed that instead of following the seemingly natural course of action during tough economic times and saving our money, we should instead spend more. This is based on the idea that buying more products and services keeps demand for these up, preventing the loss of jobs and keeping prices relatively static.
In groups we embarked on the process of generating ideas on how best to achieve the objective of encouraging people to spend more money. Our group brainstormed, toyed with and developed a range of ideas from which two emerged as the stronger, more workable ones; a play on the metaphor 'tighten your belt' meaning to spend less money in which we encouraged the audience to instead 'loosen your belt', with a humourous accompanying image of a pair of trousers round some ankles with an undone belt and an image which equated the economy to a human body, specifically focusing on the circulatory system, using the analogy that oxygen was like money and that the organs were like the different spheres of life which are influenced by the economy (the deprivation of money from the economy and its components is like the deprivation of oxygen from the body and its components). This idea worked to provide the audience with a more holistic view of why they should spend more, but as a consequence was quite difficult to compose and we chose the other idea as it was more attainable within the timespan. I feel the final image worked really well, It is punchy and communicates very effectively- the group seemed to agree with this as it got voted the best in the class at the end of day crit. I found this task really enjoyable and felt that the team worked together in harmony, each bringing something different to the image and coming up with various ideas which were good in their own right.
One of my initial sketches
Final Poster
In groups we embarked on the process of generating ideas on how best to achieve the objective of encouraging people to spend more money. Our group brainstormed, toyed with and developed a range of ideas from which two emerged as the stronger, more workable ones; a play on the metaphor 'tighten your belt' meaning to spend less money in which we encouraged the audience to instead 'loosen your belt', with a humourous accompanying image of a pair of trousers round some ankles with an undone belt and an image which equated the economy to a human body, specifically focusing on the circulatory system, using the analogy that oxygen was like money and that the organs were like the different spheres of life which are influenced by the economy (the deprivation of money from the economy and its components is like the deprivation of oxygen from the body and its components). This idea worked to provide the audience with a more holistic view of why they should spend more, but as a consequence was quite difficult to compose and we chose the other idea as it was more attainable within the timespan. I feel the final image worked really well, It is punchy and communicates very effectively- the group seemed to agree with this as it got voted the best in the class at the end of day crit. I found this task really enjoyable and felt that the team worked together in harmony, each bringing something different to the image and coming up with various ideas which were good in their own right.
One of my initial sketches
Final Poster
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
Text & Image - Visual Thinking
Yesterday was the deadline for the first unit of vis-com- text and image. After completing several mini-projects, the outcomes of these were compiled in a book I designed in quark and made using one of the techniques I learned in the book-binding workshop. I was pleased with the book I made, after some massively frustrating setbacks (tearing the front cover as I was cutting it out with my scalpel, realising my entire layout needed redesigning to avoid the pages being obstructed by the binding a day before the deadline and misplacing my sketchbook on deadline day) whilst putting it together, it eventually looked exactly as I envisaged it would.
Despite finishing this unit there is no time to slow my working pace, We have been given our new brief, to design one poster adorning a double-decker bus and another for a bus shelter to persuade 19-35 year olds to become a member of the charity amnesty international. I like the prospect of this task and think it has the potential to be a really enaging and challenging brief. However, aside from jotting down a few of my initial ideas I'm not going to get stuck into it straight away due to the fact I have two other tasks going on- an essay and a live brief and I'd prefer to get these out of the way so I can really focus on it.
Despite finishing this unit there is no time to slow my working pace, We have been given our new brief, to design one poster adorning a double-decker bus and another for a bus shelter to persuade 19-35 year olds to become a member of the charity amnesty international. I like the prospect of this task and think it has the potential to be a really enaging and challenging brief. However, aside from jotting down a few of my initial ideas I'm not going to get stuck into it straight away due to the fact I have two other tasks going on- an essay and a live brief and I'd prefer to get these out of the way so I can really focus on it.
Tuesday, 4 November 2008
Deadline + Kyle Cooper+Bookbinding
With only two weeks to go before the text and image deadline and 8 days before the crit I have realised that I need to be a bit more productive, however I have not approached this project in a lax way and have completed a reasonable amount of work, leaving me with a managable amount remaining and with the pressure of the impending deadline keeping me motivated I should have no trouble meeting this deadline.
Having attended Kyle Cooper's talk on his plethora of brilliant opening credits for an array of blockbuster films last month I probably should have posted something on here about it sooner. I was reminded of the quality of Cooper's work by his sequence for the film Iron Man which I saw recently. It proved a surprisingly good watch in which the opening, though slighty less memorable due to the seamless transition between it and the rest of the film, worked effectively in setting the mood in dramatic style, captivating me right from the start.
Cooper's repute has evolved more from his title sequences for films with more sinister themes. The bleak apocalyptic beginning of Dawn Of The Dead and visceral, creepy portrayal of Se7en's serial killer are both really effective in creating a profound feeling of discomfort among the audience, especially the Se7en sequence, which actually made me wince in parts of it.
A key component of the sequence which inculcates the sinister atmosphere is the scratchy typeface used for the credits. We understand that this type has a dark feel to it because of the general atmosphere in the piece ( created by the broody music and shadowy imagery of the serial killer shaving his fingertips off with a razorblade) but also because of the raw, harsh aesthetic and the idea that this would have been created through a very physical process with a sharp instrument- an idea which is very befitting of the film.
Yesterday we had a session where we were taught some book binding skills. I really enjoyed the hands on process of doing this and was quite pleased with my results, i'd never previously achieved anything decent with tasks that demanded any degree of precision or neatness. The session also served to kickstart my creative thought process about my own book. The two types of book I made yesterday would not convey what I want to say about my experience of the text and image unit, the japanese stitch I made was quite scrappy and the circle accordion felt too flimsy- whereas I want to create something which looks abit more polished, sturdy and accomplished looking which retains a personal feel to reflect that it is my individual experience. I like the juxtaposition of a precise, neat aesthetic with the idiosyncratic, one off look of the hand-drawn so I am using my handwriting as the front cover typeface. I will have to consider my actual binding technique and the form my book will take.
Having attended Kyle Cooper's talk on his plethora of brilliant opening credits for an array of blockbuster films last month I probably should have posted something on here about it sooner. I was reminded of the quality of Cooper's work by his sequence for the film Iron Man which I saw recently. It proved a surprisingly good watch in which the opening, though slighty less memorable due to the seamless transition between it and the rest of the film, worked effectively in setting the mood in dramatic style, captivating me right from the start.
Cooper's repute has evolved more from his title sequences for films with more sinister themes. The bleak apocalyptic beginning of Dawn Of The Dead and visceral, creepy portrayal of Se7en's serial killer are both really effective in creating a profound feeling of discomfort among the audience, especially the Se7en sequence, which actually made me wince in parts of it.
A key component of the sequence which inculcates the sinister atmosphere is the scratchy typeface used for the credits. We understand that this type has a dark feel to it because of the general atmosphere in the piece ( created by the broody music and shadowy imagery of the serial killer shaving his fingertips off with a razorblade) but also because of the raw, harsh aesthetic and the idea that this would have been created through a very physical process with a sharp instrument- an idea which is very befitting of the film.
Yesterday we had a session where we were taught some book binding skills. I really enjoyed the hands on process of doing this and was quite pleased with my results, i'd never previously achieved anything decent with tasks that demanded any degree of precision or neatness. The session also served to kickstart my creative thought process about my own book. The two types of book I made yesterday would not convey what I want to say about my experience of the text and image unit, the japanese stitch I made was quite scrappy and the circle accordion felt too flimsy- whereas I want to create something which looks abit more polished, sturdy and accomplished looking which retains a personal feel to reflect that it is my individual experience. I like the juxtaposition of a precise, neat aesthetic with the idiosyncratic, one off look of the hand-drawn so I am using my handwriting as the front cover typeface. I will have to consider my actual binding technique and the form my book will take.
Wednesday, 22 October 2008
Type and Tape
We were set the task of designing a typeface made only of tape in groups. We had an array of different of tapes at our disposal in order to fulfil the brief and had to consort with the group on how we could best use these materials. It turned out our group had alot of good ideas and it proved difficult to chose one at the expense of the others so we ended up chosing a typeface consisting of a selection of our ideas, with a different type used for each letter. After considering how this would look, we decided to use white tape to create a joined up outline in order make the typeface look more unified, without it, it may have looked mismatched and chaotic. We named it 'Coalesce' meaning 'to bring together', befitting the concept behind it.
Final typeface
Without white joining line
Me sticking up my letter
Another one of our day tasks was to create an illustration solely out of coloured paper. I decided to work around the theme of creating a sense of place about Poole, so that the piece was relevant to our other task of creating editorial illustrations which visually describe Poole. I used a black background cut, meticulously, in the shape of cranes (which dominate poole quay's skyline) on which I stuck a paper image of the 'boat trips' booth along the seafront as these two images signify the two things which characterise Poole- Tourism and Industry. Given more time I could have easily improved the image, the fiddly cutting of the details of the crane took alot longer than I anticipated and left very little time for the other elements.
Final typeface
Without white joining line
Me sticking up my letter
Another one of our day tasks was to create an illustration solely out of coloured paper. I decided to work around the theme of creating a sense of place about Poole, so that the piece was relevant to our other task of creating editorial illustrations which visually describe Poole. I used a black background cut, meticulously, in the shape of cranes (which dominate poole quay's skyline) on which I stuck a paper image of the 'boat trips' booth along the seafront as these two images signify the two things which characterise Poole- Tourism and Industry. Given more time I could have easily improved the image, the fiddly cutting of the details of the crane took alot longer than I anticipated and left very little time for the other elements.
Crit for Visual Mapping
the feedback from this crit seemed to echo what I had thought about the work myself, there were good elements, but it was not composed very well. The image seems imbalanced I think, so I am going to create another illustration to go in the bottom right as this area is comparatively bare. Then I will probably go down the route of dividing it into a triptych which will make the image less busy and chaotic as well as helping to communicate the differences between each area of London, something which I intended to be one of the main features of the piece.
Monday, 20 October 2008
Hectic
After slogging away for the whole weekend on the visual mapping task (our brief was to visually describe a journey in a new environment) for our Monday morning critique I was optimistic that there might be some respite this week. Instead I was confronted with a reminder of the plethora of tasks which are imminently due. There is a definite air of urgency, even panic among our group over the amount we have going on. It's not solely a case of the workload that seems to be causing this, I think we've coped all with similar amounts before, I definitely have whilst taking my A-levels, it's the different tasks for different tutors which have different deadlines and are within different units requiring different skills and different students hearing (and telling you) different things about these. However, I've learned that spending time moaning, stressing and chatting about it is not conducive to getting any of it done, instead its better to step back, calm down, prioritise each task and simply work. Our upcoming tasks include:
-3 editorial illustrations to convey our experiences of the Poole trip
-A series of photos of typography in the public environment (vernacular typography)
-Letterpress workshops
-Refining and developing my 'drift' task
-Making a a book complete with photo montage centre-fold and a cover design featuring a piece of experimental typography
-Making another book detailing our journey through the course so far
-A 2000 word essay on an image
-An 800 word self evaluation of my progress in the theory unit
-A 500 word evaluation of progress through text and image
-And an 800 word critique of an object from the museum of design in plastics.
-Ongoing general research, reading (general as well as academic) and self-reflection
This week I am going to: refine my drift project, build up some more research for the editorial illustrations, get the vernacular typography task out of the way and begin reading/get some library books out to support my essay, I also need to try and procure the photos of my group's typeface made with tape.
Writing out all my tasks like this definitely has a kind of therapeutic effect, just by compiling the above list I instantly feel more relaxed, they all seem more tangible now, I don't feel like I'm in danger of forgetting any of them.
As I mentioned above, I have been working all weekend on the visual mapping or 'drift project where I had to document a journey through a new environment. I used a group trip to see a talk by influential film-credit designer Kyle Cooper London as my inspiration for the image. What I initially set out to convey was the distinct character of each area of London I walked through. One of the main devices which I intended to achieve this was the use of the black railings which are really prevalent in London- I noticed they changed from area to area, with affluent places like Holborn having very ornamental, decorative railings and areas like Tower Hamlets, which are generally less wealthy having basic, functional designs. The railings were meant to be a constant which signified London, with the slight differences in their appearances portraying the differences in the visual landscape of each area. After a draft copy of my image I realised that the railings idea wasn't very communicative due to the other elements of the montage image which attract more focus and the image of the railings alone was quite crude and didn't convey any of the other aspects of my journey (buildings, people etc) so I chose to make them smaller and overlay a jagged line in order to detract focus from them and amplify the idea of direction and also convey the pace of my journey (it was quite fast and chaotic). I don't think I've successfully conveyed what I wanted to as of yet so I will be refining the image but i'll post the draft up on here anyway.
-3 editorial illustrations to convey our experiences of the Poole trip
-A series of photos of typography in the public environment (vernacular typography)
-Letterpress workshops
-Refining and developing my 'drift' task
-Making a a book complete with photo montage centre-fold and a cover design featuring a piece of experimental typography
-Making another book detailing our journey through the course so far
-A 2000 word essay on an image
-An 800 word self evaluation of my progress in the theory unit
-A 500 word evaluation of progress through text and image
-And an 800 word critique of an object from the museum of design in plastics.
-Ongoing general research, reading (general as well as academic) and self-reflection
This week I am going to: refine my drift project, build up some more research for the editorial illustrations, get the vernacular typography task out of the way and begin reading/get some library books out to support my essay, I also need to try and procure the photos of my group's typeface made with tape.
Writing out all my tasks like this definitely has a kind of therapeutic effect, just by compiling the above list I instantly feel more relaxed, they all seem more tangible now, I don't feel like I'm in danger of forgetting any of them.
As I mentioned above, I have been working all weekend on the visual mapping or 'drift project where I had to document a journey through a new environment. I used a group trip to see a talk by influential film-credit designer Kyle Cooper London as my inspiration for the image. What I initially set out to convey was the distinct character of each area of London I walked through. One of the main devices which I intended to achieve this was the use of the black railings which are really prevalent in London- I noticed they changed from area to area, with affluent places like Holborn having very ornamental, decorative railings and areas like Tower Hamlets, which are generally less wealthy having basic, functional designs. The railings were meant to be a constant which signified London, with the slight differences in their appearances portraying the differences in the visual landscape of each area. After a draft copy of my image I realised that the railings idea wasn't very communicative due to the other elements of the montage image which attract more focus and the image of the railings alone was quite crude and didn't convey any of the other aspects of my journey (buildings, people etc) so I chose to make them smaller and overlay a jagged line in order to detract focus from them and amplify the idea of direction and also convey the pace of my journey (it was quite fast and chaotic). I don't think I've successfully conveyed what I wanted to as of yet so I will be refining the image but i'll post the draft up on here anyway.
Tuesday, 14 October 2008
Letterpress
When trawling google, researching for our upcoming letterpress workshop, I found some good examples of contemporary designers employing the centuries-old craft in their work. Letterpress has undergone a revival in recent years, with design practitioners increasingly turning to a medium which offers a very fine, rich aesthetic and allows the use of bold inks to create work that not only looks more distinctive than that churned out of a laserjet but also has a sense of history, and craft behind it, making it feel unique. Obviously these attributes don't translate completely onto screen, the letterpressed object can only be appreciated to its full extent as a physical object owing to its tactile nature.
The images that really stood out to me were created by Peter Kruty and Lovio George Inc and can be viewed by copying this link into the address bar: http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/2254/letterpressco0.jpg - Kruty's type design competition poster has utilised the way letterpress is an old medium to amplify the traditional feel to the poster created by the heavy, serif typeface and layout reminiscent of a bourbon whiskey bottle or even a wild west 'wanted' poster.
The Lovio George typographic illustration of the Eastern Market is part of a series of postcards depicting landmarks around the American city of Detroit. Letterpress works particularly well in this image as the crisp, sans serif type in black (with the white counters and spaces the two merge to create a steely shade of grey) creates a very constructed image- reflecting Detroit's reputation as a major centre of industry (it houses 3 of the world's biggest automotive companies General Motors, Ford and Chrysler).
http://ohpickles.wordpress.com/2008/02/18/lovio-george-typography-letterpress-wow/
http://www.peterkrutyeditions.com/
The images that really stood out to me were created by Peter Kruty and Lovio George Inc and can be viewed by copying this link into the address bar: http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/2254/letterpressco0.jpg - Kruty's type design competition poster has utilised the way letterpress is an old medium to amplify the traditional feel to the poster created by the heavy, serif typeface and layout reminiscent of a bourbon whiskey bottle or even a wild west 'wanted' poster.
The Lovio George typographic illustration of the Eastern Market is part of a series of postcards depicting landmarks around the American city of Detroit. Letterpress works particularly well in this image as the crisp, sans serif type in black (with the white counters and spaces the two merge to create a steely shade of grey) creates a very constructed image- reflecting Detroit's reputation as a major centre of industry (it houses 3 of the world's biggest automotive companies General Motors, Ford and Chrysler).
http://ohpickles.wordpress.com/2008/02/18/lovio-george-typography-letterpress-wow/
http://www.peterkrutyeditions.com/
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