The word on the street

The task was to produce a short movie containing photos of "found letterforms" - examples of signs, posters etc. The movie was to contain a soundtrack which would echo the theme being created.

Most of the images I have used are examples found on the street - more specifically in rougher, run-down areas of places I have recently been - off Oxford Road in Manchester, near Preston Bus Station, and around Whitmore Reans in Wolverhampton.

The soundtrack chosen is background noise - recorded cheekily whilst people were working in the base room (however my friend found out I was doing this, hence her comments around halfway through). Using background noise was meant to show that these examples of letterforms are found in everyday life, and are looked at as mundane - mundane like the soundtrack. The transitions are also simple for this reason - I wanted the viewer to be aware of the images, and to consider each photograph as the most interesting thing on the screen.

"She kicked and screamed while I held her throat"

Sinister title... Bear with me.

Our latest illustration project is a fantastic one - to design a CD cover (front and back) for music of our choice. The possibilities were endless, and the rules simple: no X-Factor.

I chose a well known band, but a lesser known triptych of songs, referred to by fans, and indeed the band themselves as "The Murder Trilogy". The band? The Killers.

"Leave the Bourbon on the Shelf", "Midnight Show", and "Jenny Was a Friend of Mine" (featuring the line "She couldn't scream while I held her close", but often modified to the above post tiel by the lead singer) tell a chilling story of a jealous boyfriend who discovers his girlfriend is having an affair, and events take a turn for the worse, with him killing her. The details of how he comes to the point of killing her are sketchy (in true Brandon Flowers style the lyrics are mysterious and complex), but what little we can tell can be pulled out from the lyrics, which is where I began in terms of designing the sleeve for the trilogy.

"Bourbon" does what it says on the tin - the soon-to-be murderer discovers the soon-to-be victim's infidelity, and turns to alcohol, working himself into a drunken state.
"Midnight" is the least clear lyrically. Dark and fast-paced, if you weren't aware of its connection with the other tracks you wouldn't be sure of what it was describing, such is the open nature of the lyrics. Once you discover what exactly Flowers is singing about, you realise there's more to the lyric "I took my baby's breath/ Beneath the chandelier/ Of stars and atmosphere" than first thought.
"Jenny" then describes the murderer's interrogation by the police, but doesn't offer much more information on the murder itself. "It has something to do with water... But he didn't drown her" added Flowers helpfully  in an interview.

To keep with the mystery, I didn't want to give anything away on the cover, and my idea was to present a shelf (lifted from the title of "Bourbon") with Bourbon, a happy couple photo, and car keys (reference to "Midnight"'s "Drive faster boy" lyric) on it. On the reverse of the cover the bottle would be empty, the picture face down, and the keys gone. This creates the subtle change, and mystery that the songs portray.

I realise I've gone all fine art on this one, but I feel it will work better than sketching it out - real objects create a real outcome, and the lyrics in the songs chosen feel as though they're screaming for a some sort of real solution.

I'll sign off here, because to be honest I could talk about these songs all day. I'll post the finished artwork when it's done... I can practically hear the baited breath...These shots are by no means finished - text has to be added, and I want to be able to add shadows and texture to the background.

Why? Just felt like it

My girlfriend is very talented in a number of ways, but art isn't really something in her arsenal. I'll stop short of posting the drawing of a house she did for me a few months ago (with a handy label saying "a house" next to it - very useful), but she has asked, several times, for me to post some colouring in her and I did last weekend.

With her not really sharing my passion for design, this isn't something we usually get to do together. When she suggested buying some of those felt-outlined colouring boards whilst out on Salford Quays, I jumped at the opportunity. A cheap night-in doing something arty - me all over. We justified buying them by getting one for her nine-year-old sister too, although it was we who were more excited by the prospect of an evening of colouring pens and felt.

Looks good eh?  She didn't go out of the lines once.

Here's mine, seeing as it's my blog and not Fi's:

Radio Types

I've really enjoyed reading Simon Garfield's "Just My Type" recently. A geeky book for font enthusiasts, it does what you'd expect - tells interesting stories about various typefaces, type designers and the like. It has, however, added an irritating geekiness to my latest project.

The book speaks of little tips for recognising fonts when you see them, comparing not being able to place a font with not being able to name a song that's stuck in your head. So, when completing a task like the one below, I frustrated myself by examining every serif, every counter, every tail, in order to better ascertain which fonts I was dealing with.

Anyway, you must be in suspense by now, so here you go (apologies again for poor images, they were too large to scan and the lighting in my room is poor):

The work consists of sections of different type cut out from the Radio Times, and arranged in sets of three so that they get steadily more complex, and still look as though they belong to one another. We were provided with the titles "The Long Road", "Flight Delays Today" and "Journey to the Moon", and the numerals, along with series of dots. The rest of the text isn't meant to make sense, and the areas of texture and colour are there to represent imagery or photographs.

As tedious as this exercise sounds, I've actually found it enjoyable - far more so than if we were given sensical type to use. It allowed me to be creative with shape and layout, and to explore how type can be used as image.

The titles we were given were set in Futura, and several adverts I cut out from were in Helvetica, Avant Garde and Frutiger, but I admit defeat in identifying the typeface used for the main articles - I'll have to polish up on my serif typefaces.

Not quite Brazilliant

Just a quickie - I told myself when I started my blog I'd post all my work, even work which isn't particularly good, so here we are:

The above is a screen-print created around the theme of "a personal response to events from 1970". It didn't take me long to realise that I wanted to focus on Pele, as many football fans would. I decided to use the two core colours of the Brazil flag to tie in his iconic face with Brazil's iconic colours. I loved planning and designing the above piece, but found my screen-printing skills let me down somewhat. Submitted just before Christmas, the piece got me a C, with comments similar to the ones I've just made.

Making art from mess

I guess my creativity kind of took a rest over Christmas - I busied myself with family, food and work, and didn't find the time I'd hoped to find in order to make some work. Because of this, I returned to Uni eager to create something, and that's what I've sort of done here.

Don't get excited (as if you would!) - they're no masterpieces - just a couple of images I produced whilst I could have been at the pub. I'd done these two sketches before I'd left for Christmas, and had wanted to play around with them as I liked how they looked. Here they are, poorly scanned in from my wannabe Moleskine:

Told you they weren't exciting didn't I? I decided to sketch all the clutter and bits of rubbish I accumulated on my shelves, and it made for enjoyable pencilmanship. I thought it would be a shame to leave it there, and so:

The clutter is emphasised by the busy and frantic black lines, and the contrasts in tone. I like this image - it holds its own due to the iconic nature of the clock in the centre (or not, feel free to tell me if I'm spouting rubbish - I'm used to it). After trying the single tone and angry line method of reproducing mess, I tried a different tack:

A much brighter, blockier approach - this shows a more relaxed response to clutter (albeit on a more organised shelf). I reckon this image captures me quite well, if there's one thing being artistic and messy in equal measure teaches you, it's to make your messes look good. That's what I think's going on here.

There you are, a small insight into my term-time bedroom. Be thankful I didn't draw the view under my bed.

"Make something difficult look easy"

As part of my contextual studies module for last term, we were asked to blog about a site/artist/bunch of bits of work we found inspiring/interesting/fun. I'm not a fan of blogging solely about other people's work, but seeing as my blog contains only my own work, this post should tick a box on my assessment sheet. (A quick hello goes out to my tutor who I know will be reading this at some point, hopefully the previous sentence will be taken in good humour...)

Anyway, I can do the rest of my post without witty or snide remarks (honest) because the site I have decided to focus on is one I love - one I was introduced to a few years back and one I frequently visit to gain fresh ideas, or simply to rest from my own work, and choose to appreciate the simplicity of thinking artistically... Drum-roll, please: http://www.eatock.com/

Daniel Eatock is based in London, and from the evidence on his website he's dabbled in all sorts of areas of art. However, it's not the aesthetics I find most interesting, it's the thought processes. This isn't a biography of Eatock, so I'll show you some of his work in pictures - you can make your own mind up:

Of course, the best way to get a feel for someone's work is to have a flick through for yourself - the website is more than accessible, in fact, the general feel to Eatock's work is that of accessibility. Included on the website are a variety of interactive works, where viewers submit their own responses to his work.

All in all, I find it great resource. Eatock encourages you to think in different ways, and challenges to some extent what we appreciate as art.