Saturday 30 October 2010

Zine Brief

So i really couldnt pinpoint a topic i wanted to base the zine on, i had loads of ideas but not of them seemed decent. i mean they had scope but were trying to hard, and some weren't trying at all. These include the different brands of ketchup and why people like certain brands...........not great, or the stereotypical people found in a pub and their actual professions, but to me this wasn't really that close to heart. I needed something that i can relate to, but not to the point where i partake in it.....much. so i thought why not base the zine on fanboy culture. Im a huge star wars nerd and have been since i was little, and although i dont go to comicon dressed as a stormtrooper, i do think im a bit of a fanboy. but its the hardcore people and fans i want to look at and comment on. so this will be the basis of my zine, oh and er, the whole star wars nerd thing, forget i said that.

Tuesday 26 October 2010

christmas card design....are you mad

so on second thoughts, although i stand by my opinions, there is no way im brave enough to do that idea at all, if its going to offend people, i'd rather do it when i'm not a student and can hire bodyguards. my new idea is a bit safer. create a tick list of how to prepare for christmas, make it a bit witty and a bit of fun and so you can actually tick off what you've done. nice and simple.

christmas card design

so we have to design a christmas card not using the cliche symbols and images you usually see. i want to have a bit of fun with this i think and really do something brave and a bit stupid if you ask me, could get me into some trouble with certain people. basically i thought around peoples perceptions of christmas and then the actual story behind christmas, this being the birth of jesus. in my mind god took a helpless virgin and made her have a kid, my opinion on the story and others will criticise me for that opinion but it is that, an opinion. also god wasn't married to mary? he couldn't be cos she was married to poor bystander joseph surely? so that makes jesus technically a bastard, because he was born outside of a marriage? now this is very controversial and could possibly have the whole church hunting me down, but i think it will make a strong effective and very very different christmas card if i were to use simple type and put "i'm not being funny, but doesn't that make god a rapist and jesus a bastard?"............lord have mercy on my soul.

Wednesday 29 September 2010

Full Zine












Page 8 and 9 - Death


Again i wanted just a simple page to show the mayflies moments before death and the feelings and emotions that come with the death of someone. rather than using symbolic imagery i wanted these strong, powerful, emotive words to do the talking basically and these bold words create some emotion for the viewer, maybe they can empathise with these emotions.


Another very simple typographic page showing the mayfly passing away through use of a simple gradient. The passage is him realising his short time living as an adult may have been wasted and that maybe he could have dont more with his life. This is what i hope people can empathise with the most and the message i want this zine to give. Treasure the time in life you have, because in another life you couldve been a mayfly, and how would you use that 24 hours.

Page 7 - Birth

So the mayflies main purpose has been fulfilled, to reproduce, and the female lays her eggs. But sticking with the idea of this human empathy, i chose to simply show typographically the mayfly becoming a father. The reason i chose a simple grey on white was to, although a tad cliche, get this feeling of a clinical, sanitised surrounding a baby is bought into the world in.

Page 5 and 6 - Lust and Sex


With this page i wanted to really hit home the human nature and emotion this mayfly is going through and its thoughts, as shown earlier, i've used this vibrant pink and peach to back up the physical attraction he has, remembering that i want that human connection between the mayfly and the person viewing it. I also, like the earlier pages on excitement, want this page to be where hes got all this locked up emotion and passion which on the next page is let out. The style still sticking with the block of colour.


This is the sex page. I went crazy with overlaying the pink and peach areas and basically wanted to portray all this passion coming out while they are having sex and although ive used no images of nude bodies, i feel, along with the typography and quite shocking use of words, it clearly portrays the act of sex and the meeting of two bodies physically.

Erotic Art

The reason i want to look at erotic art is to see how colours are used. I want the page where the mayfly is lusting after the female and then has sex with her to be in colour, which will contrast against the rest of the zine. This will hopefully show the emotion and the passion within this section of the zine. Now in these paintings merging of colours is a very important thing, so maybe pushing that further and blurring colours together will get that same effect. Also theres a lot of use of pink and although its a cliche colour for flesh i think it would work quite well and back up the human twist to the zine.




Page 3 and 4 - Excitement


With this page the focus was on trying to portray this building excitement, he wants to just run riot but is holding himself back.


The next page shows this excitement being unleashed. I based the general layout on a rictor scale for earthquakes. Although its not fully clear in what its portraying, i want that mystery, i want it to be difficult to put together, again provoking this engagement with the viewer.

Page 2 - Realisation


So with the 2nd page i wanted to show his realisation that with these wings, he's free to do anything, nothing is now holding the mayfly back, he's escaped the water and he can fly wherever he want to. With the type here i wanted it to show this recurring repeating phrase as if he cant quite get over the fact that the sky is the limit, he has to keep telling himself again and again to reassure himself. Again, the human feelings and emotions i want to be portrayed come through doing this.

Hirst

Everyone has mixed views about his work and to be honest im not the biggest fan, but its the controversial sliced animals i want to take a quick look at. Im not looking at the artwork itself but more the bravery to do it really. Although my zine isnt going to be so shocking your gran has a hernia, but its good to look at bigger things on roughly the same wavelength. The guts to think of an idea and follow it through, even if there are a lot of people against it or its very much against the grain and controversial. I know there will be people in the class who say something because ive used a swear word, but thats what im after, that reaction and that engagement the viewer makes with the artwork.


Page 1 - Getting His Wings

The idea with the first page is that the mayfly has turned into an adult ( grown its wings ) and its realisation that this has happened. The way i've try to give it that human touch is simple how would a human react to suddenly being able to fly. That realisation would come as a shock, aswell as build up a lot of excitment. Now im not swearing just for the sake of it, firstly it adds to the edgyness but mainly, unless you wear tweed, thats something along the lines of what most people would say upon gaining the ability to fly. This page is heavily influenced by Carsons typography with the large unreadable text overlayed on the to. Again i'm sticking to the blocks of image and colour as i have with the front cover.

Edgyness

The thought crossed my mind, how can i make this zine a bit more edgy and daring in its context. Maybe i didn't need to actually say the main protagonist is a mayfly, maybe its up to the audience to make that conscious link. Maybe i could create a zine that seemed to be from the view of a human, but was actually that of a mayfly. This could emote some sort of reaction with the viewer. If they had 24 hours to live, would they do the same? I know a lot of people who if you ask "if you had 24 hours to live what would you do?" their answers would be along the lines of have fun, shag as many people as i can, go mental. But if they could look back and do it differently, these events would surely change because of the guilt and the desire to use that 24 hours a bit better. I wanted to make it so the zine seemed as if the protagonist had human thoughts, human wants, and through this i could make the pages that bit more controversial, more daring.

Front Cover

So the general style i want to use is taking influence from all that ive looked at so far. distorting image but not so they are unrecognisable, using blocks of image or colour aswell as keeping everything in a grid, yet still fairly chaotic, fearless type.

The images i've used as the section are photos i took ages ago for another project of oil in water. They work really nicely with the font, this being futura. Linking back to carson, ive changed the tracking so all words fit within a box snug, so the tracking differs with each word. Again, theres a grid structure, but one that allows me to make the whole image un-symmetrical.

TITLE!

I've messed around with a couple of zine title ideas but most of them were generic and bland, i.e. what would you do in 24 hours or spend it differently. But i want it a tad shocking, a blunt statement that punches you in the face metaphorically. Going back to the 3 stages of its life. Born, Shag, Die. Thats its life, its sole purpose as its adult form is to come of age, fuck misses mayfly and bugger off to mayfly heaven, all within 24 hours. So the title for my zine will be that, Born, Shag, Die. To the point, blunt, outline of the zine.

The Outcome

The theme i've chosen is in itself some kind of a story, so maybe i could portray that story in a series of pieces of artwork or a small zine. Each of the pages would be a significant part within the mayflies life and each page would act as its own piece of artwork aswell. Again the artwork i want to be subjective, suggestive and edgy, something thats quite shocking but not in a "look its a vagina!" kind of way.

David Carson Never Gets Old

So i've looked at his work endless amounts of times but its so influential in my work i have to mention it. Fearlessness, to not be afraid of breaking the rules then giving them the finger as you pass by. His typography sometimes now looks dated, but the core principles of experimental typography are still very useful to take away. The principles? Don't be restrictive, don't play it safe and don't always give the audience an easy time. Good typography engages viewers, whether its legible or not. This is an area i definitely want to explore with my outcomes.



Misery Signals CD Design

So i generally despise the stereotypical design that goes hand in hand with "metal music". I pride myself on being very diverse in my music taste and so come across loads of decent album designs, but ones that strike out to me are ones that dare to be different to the genre they are labeled with in HMV. So i'm browsing the metal section wearing my topman clothes and getting stares of dudes in leather trenchcoats, generally looking for decent cds. Never heard of them before, dont overly like them, but the CD artwork for this band was actually really nice from a design point of view and a big f**k you to stereotyping. No skulls, no blood, no crosses, just nicely designed pieces of artwork, that can be linked back to Andy Denzlers work. The lines of distortion crossing an image are used here, just like the paintings and although i doubt each was based on each other, these links are there and similar ideas have been put into practice, but in completely different formats and for a completely different demographic. This disregard for boundaries is what makes this for me a special piece of design.