27 January 2015
Appropriation inspired by The Humument
We created 3 posters for ITV dramas of our choice, using appropriation inspired by The Humument. I printed out some text from Wiki about the programs, and drew a scribbly image over the text with a black fineliner. I opened the scanned image in InDesign and added program information and the ITV logo at 60% opacity. I used the colours of the logo for the banners.
The Humument
We were shown work from The Humument, by Tom Phillips:
"In 1966 artist Tom Phillips set himself a task: to find a second-hand book for threepence and alter every page by painting, collage and cut-up techniques to create an entirely new version. He found his threepenny novel in a junkshop on Peckham Rye, South London. This was an 1892 Victorian obscurity titled A Human Document by W.H Mallock and he titled his altered book A Humument. The first version of all 367 treated pages was published in 1973 since when there have been four revised editions. A Humument is now one of the best known and loved of all 20th Century artist's books and is regarded as a seminal classic of postmodern art".
Appropriation of original work is something that a lot of art journalers do, with many examples published on the internet. Some images from my own journals using this technique are shown below (from 2010-11). I made the journals from recycled paper, scraps and paper carrier bags, and sewed them together with the coptic binding method.
"In 1966 artist Tom Phillips set himself a task: to find a second-hand book for threepence and alter every page by painting, collage and cut-up techniques to create an entirely new version. He found his threepenny novel in a junkshop on Peckham Rye, South London. This was an 1892 Victorian obscurity titled A Human Document by W.H Mallock and he titled his altered book A Humument. The first version of all 367 treated pages was published in 1973 since when there have been four revised editions. A Humument is now one of the best known and loved of all 20th Century artist's books and is regarded as a seminal classic of postmodern art".
Appropriation of original work is something that a lot of art journalers do, with many examples published on the internet. Some images from my own journals using this technique are shown below (from 2010-11). I made the journals from recycled paper, scraps and paper carrier bags, and sewed them together with the coptic binding method.
Re-appropriation
Re-appropriation is the use of an item that was originally created for one purpose, to make something completely different.
We looked at the blog of Austin Kleon who is the author and designer of Newspaper Blackout. I created the example below:
I was rather underwhelmed by his work and mine! However, some of his other books look interesting. Steal Like an Artist quotes "What is originality? Undetected plagarism", and continues to state the case that norhing is original, and everything created is something which came before, but assembled in different ways.
Another design was created, following Kleon's methods less closely.
Objectified - Gary Hustwitt
Objectified is a short film produced by Gary Hustwitt about design. It explains that everything we come into contact with is designed, no matter how basic that object may be. Our assumptions on looking at a piece of design are immediate - in a split second we make a judgement about it.
Various design experts explained their views. The start of mass production, at the time of the industrial revolution, meant that design was standardised. It was explained that good design is created not for the average user, but for the users at the extremes of the spectrum. If it works for those people, it will also work for the average user.
Good design is invisible, almost undesigned. The statement that "form follows function" worked for the analogue age, it is not so relevant for digital products (e.g. the software functionality of a smartphone does not rely on the physical manifestation of the product). Products are not designed for now, they are designed for the future, because we live in an era where new products become obsolete within months of release. Most items are designed for the 10% of the world that already has too much anyway. For the other 90%, who really need good design to lift them out of just subsisting, not enough investment is made because the return would be smaller.
Much of the design we purchase, we do so because it says something about the image we want to project - the film likened a car to our own personal avatar. Most of what we purchase is consigned to landfill, only objects with real meaning are conserved.
The film was really interesting. Much of the commentary was obvious, but so obvious that you take it for granted without thinking about it. Once it is articulated, it brings it into your consciousness and it makes you understand that absolutely everything we will make as designers needs to be considered carefully, and justified. You should question every existing design, and see if you can come up with an alternative solution.
Various design experts explained their views. The start of mass production, at the time of the industrial revolution, meant that design was standardised. It was explained that good design is created not for the average user, but for the users at the extremes of the spectrum. If it works for those people, it will also work for the average user.
Good design is invisible, almost undesigned. The statement that "form follows function" worked for the analogue age, it is not so relevant for digital products (e.g. the software functionality of a smartphone does not rely on the physical manifestation of the product). Products are not designed for now, they are designed for the future, because we live in an era where new products become obsolete within months of release. Most items are designed for the 10% of the world that already has too much anyway. For the other 90%, who really need good design to lift them out of just subsisting, not enough investment is made because the return would be smaller.
Much of the design we purchase, we do so because it says something about the image we want to project - the film likened a car to our own personal avatar. Most of what we purchase is consigned to landfill, only objects with real meaning are conserved.
The film was really interesting. Much of the commentary was obvious, but so obvious that you take it for granted without thinking about it. Once it is articulated, it brings it into your consciousness and it makes you understand that absolutely everything we will make as designers needs to be considered carefully, and justified. You should question every existing design, and see if you can come up with an alternative solution.
20 January 2015
Book cover series
For our digital image techniques class, we needed to create 4 book covers of our choice from a list of 6 authors. I chose Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
19 January 2015
Polygon art
Family portrait
I applied the polygon art technique in Photoshop to a piece of art I created for our lounge... we look like The Brady Bunch.
Dispersion
In the digital image techniques class, we were shown how to do a basic dispersion in Photoshop.
In Photoshop, we used magic wand to select the background, and command-shift-I to invert the selection. Command-X and Command-V were used to copy and paste the skier onto a new layer. The bottom layer was filled back in by selecting the hole, and edit, fill, use content aware. The original was moved back into its original position on the bottom layer. Then select-alt-click to create several copies of the skier on new layers, slightly moving each one. On all layers except the first two, select layer, layer mask and hide all. On the second layer, the layer mask was set to reveal all. On each mask, the opposite colour brush was chosen to reveal areas underneath. Command-I reveals the layer below to help with editing.
In Photoshop, we used magic wand to select the background, and command-shift-I to invert the selection. Command-X and Command-V were used to copy and paste the skier onto a new layer. The bottom layer was filled back in by selecting the hole, and edit, fill, use content aware. The original was moved back into its original position on the bottom layer. Then select-alt-click to create several copies of the skier on new layers, slightly moving each one. On all layers except the first two, select layer, layer mask and hide all. On the second layer, the layer mask was set to reveal all. On each mask, the opposite colour brush was chosen to reveal areas underneath. Command-I reveals the layer below to help with editing.
9 January 2015
Poster 5
Post-modernism - David Carson inspired design
After this week's tutorial, I decided to experiment with the designs we had studied, to see if I could design a poster to replace my fourth one which I was not happy with. My chosen quote is "don't mistake legibility for communication".Inspiration for my work is my poster for Skate Somerset House, from the tutorial, which given the time constraints, I thought was quite successful:
Other illustrations of the quote found on Google images:
I really like the way he uses type as a textured background in Ray Gun:
The red and black of this poster are really stiking, combined with the hand drawn typography, and the multiple layers:
I considered how you could illustrate the quote, and decided that a handprint would work well as it relates to STOP, along with a no entry sign.
I wanted to include some of my hand drawn type, below.
6 January 2015
Breaking the grid
Composition, not grid based graphic design
David Carson's style influenced my poster design for Skate at Somerset House. In Photoshop I cropped the image, desaturated it and added a large amount of noise. I imported the image into InDesign and created a panel of type with negative line spacing to add texture across the centre of the image. I then arranged the fonts across the image. Skate at Somerset House was set in a very graphic style of typeface. My design does not have that same chaotic rawness that is key to Carson's style.
1 January 2015
Hand drawn typography
I have been experimenting with brush lettering for one of my posters. The best brush pen, out of the dozen or so I have bought, is the Pentel Brush Pen.
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