assignment 10

the main goal for this project was to create a design which was fun and did not take itself to seriously as a student paper should be, there are plenty of intense and all to real news sources out there already. I only included a single page number on the left side as i noticed in my design magazines that when an image took over the space where the page number would typically be, as long as the opposit page was numbered this number would be omitted.

These layout designs, from Beautiful Decay and Under Pressure respectively, inspired me to use a stylized font unique to the content of the article. It also led me to use a simple photo to inform as well as fill up space. I also organized my text in a similar way. Simplicity plays a key role in each of these layouts. The article on the left gave me the idea to have imagery through out.

This layout from Swindle magazine led me to use a simple image with a low contrast with the page colour to create a subtle graphic in the background. I think that this activates the negative space on the page to make a more engaging design. I also used a similar way to display my page numbers.

Grime

Grime is a subculture which is still developing and is relatively new, emerging only in the 2000s. The grime subculture primarily stems from hip hop, but also has roots in electric dancehall, drum and bass and dub culture. Emerging from the popularity of the UK Garage scene, grime music also referred to as “dub step”, or “two step” was born in East London. The music has a fast paced, electronic gritty sound. The artists who make it usually rise to popularity by proving their abilities on an underground level which is due to its close connections with traditional hip-hop as well as pirate radio. The Grime scene caught the mainstream’s attention with the release of Dizzee Rascal’s “Boy in da Corner” album, in 2003. More recently Lady Sovereign has broken into North America’s public eye. The style of dress for members of the grime scene is usually very baggy clothing (hoodies and jeans).

assignment 9

for this project we had to use an important or influential architectural structure as a basis to derive a design from. Although what first comes to mind when confronted with this task are famous buildings created on a large scale, i decided to go the completely opposite direction and design a poster for a birdhouse. It is undeniably important as it houses birds and I chose the most basic design of a birdhouse as it has influenced more complex bird houses as well as being immediately recognizable. I began deconstructing the shape and form of the birdhouse, until it's shape could be understood using just two colors. I then deconstructed it further so as to play with 2D and 3D space, although it has a vanishing point like a 3D object would it is very flat and 2 dimensional. The hole in the birdhouse does not seem to have a width as i wanted it to be the most basic display of a hole, a large black dot. I also made one side of the box transparent to further flatten the image as well as integrate into the wallpaper idea. the wallpaper pattern was created using different shades of blue as it serves as a type of sky for the birdhouse to be surrounded by, as birdhouses of this nature usually sit atop a pole or trees where a sky would be their background. As well as this, the sky serves as the environment for the bird. When a bird flys it is in the sky and when it rests it is in a birdhouse, so by creating a sky I cover the two main places the bird inhabits. I used the wood pattern as I believe it compliments the organic print of the wallpaper nicely and deals with the idea of what a birdhouse is made of in it's most basic form. The frame also shares a wood grain pattern as it plays with the idea of how a frame would be constructed and also is something made by man with wood like the birdhouse. I have the frame turning into a branch shape as this reflects where it came from as well as the idea of taking and giving back to nature as a birdhouse would. It is also rather "arts & craftsy" like the birdhouse. Tying into this idea of arts and crafts is the transparency on the bird making it look like thin paper which has been cut and pasted, as well as the blueprints for the design of a birdhouse, and dotted line also have an arts & crafts aesthetic quality. I have the text "first make a box then make a hole" as i wanted to simplify the processes of creating the birdhouse as much as possible much like when I designed the birdhouse image. In the top right hand corner i have the text "birds nest in birdhouses and anyone can make them", again trying to simplify it as much as possible. I wrote it out like this as it gives the sense of a small child saying the phrase, which contains an innocence which lends itself well to the design I believe. It also places the viewer as the possible architect as I don't believe there is one definitive creator of the birdhouse.

Assignment 8-Shepard Fairey Homage

Shepard Fairey

Background
The graphic artist I chose to do my project on was Shepard Fairey. Shepard Fairey attended the Rhode Island School of Design. In 1989 he began his “Andre has a Posse” sticker campaign by distributing the now famous stickers to close friends of his. It then grew into a large phenomenon which caused him to produce the image on shirts and skateboards. This eventually evolved into the OBEY Giant campaign which lead to him producing his most known image, the black, red and white Andre the Giant poster. He most commonly uses wheat paste to put up his posters, which usually contain some propaganda and political imagery. Following this idea, in 2004 he created a series of posters which were anti-Bush and anti-war alongside other artists. He uses lots of pop culture references; most recently he has created a Steve Jones (Sex Pistols) poster as well as a CD case design for hip-hop DJ A-Trak. Shepard Fairey also created the poster for the movie “Walk the Line” about Johnny Cash’s life. Fans of his also paste up his posters, and on his website the classic OBEY poster is made available as a .pdf file. Recently there have been many artists who began as street artists breaking into the mainstream, i.e. Neckface, Banksy, but unlike them Shepard Fairey’s face has not remained hidden.
Recently Shepard Fairy has branched out his empire to include OBEY Clothing which features his artwork and the occasional collaboration with other artists. He has also founded SWINDLE, an art and lifestyle magazine. He has made a few appearances in other people’s art lately as well. This year his OBEY image was the punchline in a “Family Guy” joke, he appeared in Marc Ecko’s video game “Getting Up” as himself and there is now a figurine created in his likeness in a series of contemporary artist figurines.

Why he is an important artist to me

I appreciate the themes that are consistant within Fairey’s work. For example, George Orwell’s “1984” is one of my favorite books, and Big Brother imagery is used throughout his designs. He also either pays tribute to or collaborates with many recording artists that I am a fan of. I am also a large fan of both street art and poster design, in Fairey’s art he combines the two. Aesthetically I like the clean crisp look within his posters.

The creative process

In the creative process of designing my poster I had gone through a few ideas before finally arriving at the one I chose to keep. My initial idea was to take an image of Shepard Fairey and illustrate him in the same fashion that he places celebrities in his own work. I then realized that he has never portrayed himself in any manner within his art and no street artist really should as a general rule, despite that his face has not remained hidden. I then decide to switch to something militaristic. My new idea was to have a soldier aiming a gun ready to shoot, but in place of the gun was a megaphone. I ended up discarding this idea as I thought everyone who sees a megaphone sees a type of gun, it was too obvious. This led me to a new idea though, I went to an early concept I had for a stencil awhile back but never actually created, it contained the text “Picture Me Rollin’”. Shepard Fairey constantly uses pop culture references especially in conjunction with punk and hip-hop culture. With this in mind I included the text “Picture Me Rollin’” as it refers to a famous Tupac song, but where in the song it refers to “rollin” in a car, in the context of the poster it refers to rolling up a picture onto a wall. Shepard Fairy also uses lots of floral, wallpaper prints in his work (sometimes that is the only graphic in his work) which is why I created a tiling paisley inspired graphic, which also integrates itself into the image of the character which I though played with the idea of the soldier pasting himself on a surface. A common saying of his is “Make Art Not War” which is why in place of the soldier’s weapons are art supplies, the art supplies which Fairey himself would most commonly use. The colour scheme which I chose is the most dominant within Fairey’s own poster design. The same font I used is featured on the OBEY Giant posters. Everything was created in Illustrator to make sure all the lines were crisp vector shapes. The OBEY star image on the soldier’s hat was taken from the OBEY website, and is a free image made available as a .pdf for the purpose of creating a stencil. I chose to put in this poster design an OBEY logo as Shepard Fairy uses many of his own branding images in his posters, it is also meant to reference the clothing line he now has.

The creative Process

In this assignment I chose to design a logo for a prospective clothing company. the text for "attack with ink", which would be the brand, was made using a Magnum Sharpie which I then scanned in to Illustrator. The name relates to the old saying "the pen is mightier than the sword", and it suggests or orders (depending on how it's read) that you pick up a utensil for art instead of a weapon. The antagonistic use of the word attack relates to where in graffiti words like "Bombing" "Destroying" are used in the sense of creating something new where there wasn't before. It also relates to the idea of retaliating and the conquestial nature of hip hop and graffiti in particular where the idea of success is only attained when you go "all city", the idea of MC/DJ/B-Boy battles is also incorporated into this idea. It also, very subtly, relates to the most important film in hip hop- "Style Wars". The skull squid was made as squids and octopi are subjects which I frequently incorporate into my art. The skull simply has all the idea which follow a skull, death, poison, pirates, etc. The markers play the role of weapons under a crest or the bones within a skull and crossbones image. the use of greens are meant to be similar to camouflage relating to war and the army as well as the idea of staying out of sight. I originally came up with this idea so I could have a consistant text to go along with the squids I often draw, and as squids literally "attack with ink" it was a perfect fit.

asignment 7

assignment 6

creative process
When creating this exploration in the personality of the typeface "cocaine sans" I was thinking about the drug and street culture associated with coke. Cocaine is often thought as a more glamorous drug as it is constantly paired to celebrities within tabloids and entertainment television (i.e. Kate Moss). A dollar bill not only signifies wealth and what is used to purchase cocaine but also how coke is being used behind closed doors. The roaches are stylized to look decorative but also refer to hallucinations, the street, the unseen, and the depreciation of quality of life drugs may lead to. The background is meant to imply a cities steel and concrete or a mirror someone may be snorting blow off of and the decaying of the body that coke ultimatly leads to.