Final Post

Everything mounted and finished

Good night!

Adding the art work to letter forms

Started to add the artwork to the letter forms only done one so far but should come out quite nicely

Finished From here to eternity artwork

Here is the finished A3 For the FHTE artwork

Finished Mercy Seat Montage

I have brought together all the elements of the montage for the 'Mercy Seat' art work here is the final piece .

Choice of typefaces

The most widely used typeface on wanted posters and perhaps most recognisable is 'claredon', actually an english typeface developed in 1845.

Claredon has been re-worked by HFJ and renamed Sentinel. Its recommend partners are, Knockout, Ziggurat, Chronicle text, and also Gotham. Knockout is the one that most suits the wanted poster/western design so I will be using that. And for any numbers i will also be using Numbers Delancy, that is a based on hand painted apartment numbering from the apartments in New York and suits the mood really well.

Examples of artwork

Heres some of the examples of artwork they were using at the time and some comparisons of other artwork in the same genres.

Over to the other side

So far most of this blog has focused on the art work for the mercy seat. Well I've been creating the artwork for from her to eternity. I have chosen to do a typographic design. But i decided to go with a computer based design influenced by the art work of the band the time.

Its supposed to have wanted poster/victorian feel. I have started to make a portrait version of the artwork that will be submitted as a piece on its own but for the actual letters the art work will be arranged accordingly.

heres the work in progress...

Listen/Make into and instruction copy

Listen & Make

Have we lost our relationship with music? In the past 40 years the way we listen to and enjoy music has changed dramatically. From huge black 12” LP’s to smaller shiny CD’s through to today with some artist never actually producing a physical product, releasing music in the form of MP3’s and music videos.

Music has a profound affect on many of us, it can influence the way you dress, the company you keep and can influence, compliment and even alter your mood. Surely being able to carry around your entire music collection in your pocket has diluted the need to think about what music you want to listen to at certain times.

This must mean that people are taking less time to think about the way music affects them, and thus how music makes them feel. Listen & Make is an experiment into whether having a physical representation of a song helps us to visualise it better.

Here is the first instalment, LIVE/EVIL featuring two track by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The Mercy Seat & From her to Eternity.

Instructions

1. Most importantly, have the selected song playing in the background

2. Cut out each character using a craft knife (the more time and care you take the better the out come)

3. Score along the inner fold lines

4. Fold the character, you should start to see it take shape now

5. Apply glue to the tabs and stick together the 3D character

6. Display forwards or backwards each side represents a different track.

Enjoy

Photo Montage

Doing an image making project for something else but it should feed quite well into this, i want the cover of the give away pack to look something like this.

More Net Research

Got a pretty interesting takeout box from sainsburys so i filmed taking it apart and photographed the flat net for research.

.

Palindromes

As the letters will be covered both sides one side will be backwards so i came up with the idea of using a palindrome relating to the song

palindrome |ˈpalinˌdrōm|

noun

a word, phrase, or sequence that reads the same backward as forward, e.g., madam or nurses run.

so that which ever art work is preferred they can be displayed in that way.

i have found two so far that seem to fit the weird nature of the songs

"GOD SAW I WAS DOG"

&

"LIVE EVIL"

will look for more

Managed to find more material.

So as it turns out the mercy seat artwork is going to be a big photo montage so i've found some more really great weird twisted artwork to use in the montage.

Weird Black and White Shots, Click here

From Her To Eternity

So far most of the project as centred around the artwork of 'The Mercy Seat', so I thought it was time to start thinking about the artwork for the other track.

My idea is to create a big typographic image using the lyrics. The song is basically about sort of obsessive love. So i thought it would lend its self well to maybe a ransom note style type treatment. I dont really like the cut out and stick letters but abit of letraset might look pretty cool.

I havent decided whether this is going to be hand drawn, computer based or a mixture of both.

Anyway here's the lyrics to give you a slight idea of the feel of the piece....

Ah wanna tell ya 'bout a girl
You kno, she lives in Apt. 29
Why... that's the one right up top a mine
Ah start to cry, Ah start to cry
O ah hear her walkin
Walkin barefoot cross the floor-boards
All thru this lonesome night
And ah hear her crying too.
Hot-tears come splashin on down
Leaking thru the cracks,
Down upon my face, ah catch'em in my mouth!
Walk'n'cry Walk'n'cry-y!!!
From her to eternity!
From her to eternity!
From her to eternity!
Ah read her diary on her sheets
Scrutinizin every lil piece of dirt
Tore out a page'n'stufft it inside my shirt
Fled outa the window,
And shinning it down the vine
Outa her night-mare, and back into mine
Mine! O Mine!
From her to eternity!

From her to eternity!
From her to eternity!
Cry! Cry! CRY!
She's wearing them bloo-stockens, ah bet!
and standin like this with my ear to the ceiling
Listen ah kno it must sound absurd
but ah can hear the most melancholy sound
ah ever heard!
Walk'n'cry! Kneel'n'cry-y!
From her to eternity!
From her to eternity!
O tell me why? Why? Why?
Why the ceiling still shakes?
Why the fixtures turn to serpants snakes?
This desire to possess her is a wound
and its naggin at me like a shrew
but, ah kno, that to possess her
Is, therefore, not to desire her.
O o o then ya kno, that lil girl would just have to go!
Go! Go-o-o! From her to eternity!

As you can see it already is sort of set out to emphasise particular sections

Mary Kelly / Aubrey Beardsley

Visited the Whitworth Gallery yesterday, there was an exhibition of Mary Kellys work alot of her work was in the same vain as some of the stuff i've been looking at. I wasn't allowed to take photos but i'll try and find some and add them later.

There was also so Aubrey Beardsley work there which was excellent.

Aubrey Beardsley (Top)

Mary Kelly (Bottom)

Un chien Andalou

I've also been watching some old old movies to get some more inspiration as well.

Un Chien Andalou was a short surrealist by Salvador Dali and Luis Brunel. Its full of weird scene that are pretty apt for this project.

Watch the full film here

Gunter Brus

Some of the work i've been looking at reminded me of Gunter Brus, who was an austrian painter, graphic and performance artist. He was part of the Viennese Actionist movement.

His work is pretty weird but i thought it would be good to draw influence from. I thinks probably exploring the whole movement abit more awell.

Printing

Had an idea of printing onto some different paper to get different effects. Found some creepy pictures of engravings and other bits, printed them onto graph paper and on layout paper.

The graph paper came out really cool.

Experimenting

Been playing around with different sketch books, pens and pencils. Writing on to masking tape as well. Getting some good results.

3D Letter Full Mock Up

After my first attempt at making the nets for the letters i found that they were slightly to weak, so i will have to use thicker card. I will also have to experiment with which panels i can leave out, as some of the nets cant all be made in one piece. I want them to be as simple as possible to construct. I have also changed the type face from Gotham Bold to Gotham Ultra, this gives me a slightly bigger canvas to work with and also structurally the forms should be more solid.

I mocked it up in illustrator to make sure. I have also found that some of the rounded letters will have to be slightly altered so that they have a flat surface to stand on.

Lyric Annotation

I have been through the lyrics to mercy seat and annotated bits and pieces mostly picking out key phrases, and looking up the bible references

Some Existing Material

For this project i bought a pack of 25 post cards from the Nick Cave website, which consist of some rare photos, but also scans of lyric not books, and some bits of artwork. Going to use some of the effects used to make the artwork to cover the letters.

I think the artwork will probably be a mix of hand written parts of the lyrics some photos crudely printed and taped, and some verses from the bible and maybe capter references. Also may include some scrawled doodles.

Inspiring Idea

Paper mache 3D Alphabet letters

Paper mache 3D Alphabet letters 17.5cm high 5.5cm deep - Letter S: Lainesworld.co.uk

Useful to know

Box Construction

First Words

3D Prototype

May need to be slightly wider but worked pretty well for a first go

Research on nets

As the case for my project will look like a bit like a pizza box, i have been looking at experimental packaging and interesting ways to do it. I found this that is really impressive

http://designtaxi.com/news/33036/A-Green-Design-Alternative-to-Pizza-Boxes/

No time like the present

Decided to jump right in and start to develope the nets for the 3D lets, seeing as the sooner i get this but done the more tim i can spend on the illustrations. Heres my first attempt at a letter A in Gotham bold (First typeface i've tried will probably change). Will be some time before i get this right, will post photos when i get time to print it and put it together.

Hand painted numbers

After being quite inspired by the hoefler + fere jones numbers typeface, i have started to collect photos of hand painted numbers and letters that will be a good reference point for this project. First installment is a collection of numeric decals from above the some doors in my university.

SE7EN

Mercy Seat/Stagger Lee

Decided on the two songs i'm going to do. From Her to Eternity and the Mercy seat. I think both songs have very strong and very different imagery. Mercy Seat being quite biblical and from her to eternity is based on an edgar allan poe poem

Louis Wain

Something else i quite like is when things are unexpectedly dark. There was an artist called Louis Wain who painted pictures of cat in sort of humanised situation. Playing guitar or at a tea party etc. But Wain spent most of his life in a mental institute, and was a manic depressive. There is something about it that makes seemingly boring sugary pictures alot more interesting. The Bad Seeds used a technique like this in there album 'the murder ballads', an album completely about murder, but all the inner artwork was beautiful engraving style pictures that are on there own quite innocent but in context have abit more to them.

Seven Title Sequence

I've always thought the opening credits to the film seven were an amazing example of the kind of diaries i have been thinking about. I love how dark and weird the photos are, and the obsessive tight leading of the hand written text. This will now doubt be something i will look into in a lot more depth.

Strong Imagery

Part of the reason i have chosen NC&TBS is that they have always had quite a strong image. Always seen as quite dark and a bit macabre, with alot of religious imagery thrown in aswell.

I think the illustration on each 3D letter will probably reflect this. Not to sure how much but the things i'm getting influenced by are the latin paintings of christ and things like obsessive diaries.

Experimental Packaging

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds already have abit of history with experimental packing and quite concept driven designs. So i will be posting others bands packaging to bring in some more influences.

This is Spiritualized's album Ladies & Gentlemen we are floating in space. It has been made to look like a tablet pack.

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2008/april/spiritualized-and-farrow-made-for-each-other

Typeface Combinations

I've been playing around with combining typeface that I think capture some of the feel of the Nick Cave songs i'm thinking about using:

Stagger Lee

Mercy Seat

LISTEN/PLAY Project Proposal

I have chosen to undertake the Diesel project brief. The project is to create an illustrative response to 2 songs by any chosen artist. This can take the form of 2D, 3D or a timepiece.

I have chosen to base my project on Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. I have yet to choose which two songs but they will have to be ones that I can draw strong imagery from, I will explain why shortly.

Over recent years the way we listen to and enjoy music has changed dramatically, from 12” records to CD’s to MP3’s. I feel that a lot of people listen to music in such a rapid fashion that we don’t take time to appreciate it fully. Whether it be clicking through songs on shuffle with your MP3 Player, or listening to songs on the move.
Keeping this in mind I wanted to use this project to try and change that. I came up with a title for my project that is ‘Listen/Make’ this may change. But the idea is to create a promotional material to accompany the songs in a pack, as if they were being reissued for sale.

My plan is to make nets of 3D letters that spell out the name of the song; each letter will be decorated with a picture that represents different parts of the song, hence needing strong imagery. The idea being that the listener makes these letters while listening to song, hopefully giving a visual representation of the songs lyrics will mean that the listener absorbs the song on a deeper level, and then also has something to keep to remind them of the song.

I think this will give me a strong project for my portfolio. Showing my passion for type and that I have a good understanding of packaging design. I also think that the project gives me a chance to carry on exploring music-based graphics, which is going to hopefully be an important part of my future career.

D&AD Breif Deisel

Creative Challenge:

Over the past decade the world of music has undergone a revolution. Just as the ways people consume and experience music have been turned upside down, so the role of illustration in the world of music has changed too.

From the decline of the 12” album cover as a ‘creative canvas’, to the rise of downloadable tracks with artwork reduced to the size of a screen based icon. This situation has pushed people creatively to explore new opportunities that include street art, online video, experimental performances and interactive applications.

Your challenge is to choose a band or artist and create an illustrated response inspired by two of their tracks. In doing so, you’ll be facing this issue head on and demonstrating your vision of a brave new world for illustration in music.