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.

The main events in an adult mayflies life.

1. Its born
2. It reproduces
3. It dies

These are the 3 main stages and i'd say most important stages within its 24 hour lifespan. These are the things i want to focus on, but in an edgy way.

Boring Mayfly Shite ( copy and paste )

The common name ‘Mayfly’ is quite misleading because this group of insects can appear throughout the year. In fact, at one point they were called dayflies due to some of the species having an adult life of a single day. The common name comes from the habit of one species,Ephemera danica, which emerge as adults when the Mayflower or Hawthorn is in bloom.


Although some species only live for as single day, or even just a few hours as adults, there are individuals or species that can live a bit longer than that. In fact most of the life of a mayfly is spent out of sight as a nymph.

Mayflies start life as an egg on the bed of the river, before hatching into a nymph. The nymphs feed on algae and other vegetable matter on the bed for up to two years in some species, before emerging from the surface of the water as an adult.

Mayflies are unique as insects in having two winged adult stages. After emerging from the water they fly to the bank where they shelter on the underside of leaves or in the grass. They then moult again, leaving behind their drab ‘dun’ skin to reveal their shiny ‘spinner’ skin. Following this moult they fly back to the water and form mating swarms dancing above the surface.

Mayflies were one of the first winged insects, with fossils dating back over 300 million years – long before the dinosaurs! There are 51 species of mayfly known from the British Isles today and they range in size from less than 5mm to over 20mm.

Mayfly larvae, and the mayfly adults emerging from the water, are a vital source of food for many other freshwater creatures, especially fish such as trout and salmon. Mayflies, and other riverflies, help ensure that our rivers, lakes and streams are home to a rich variety of wildlife.

Populations of mayflies and other riverflies are declining in the UK. As a member of the Riverfly Partnership Buglife is working with other organisations to try and understand the cause of these declines. Once the causes are known action can be taken to reverse the declines and protect beautiful mayflies.

What a load of bull, but in short, i need to know the main events within the life of an adult mayfly.

Idea ( scrapped ) new idea

My original idea for the 24 theme was to create a range of posters based on how many times the heart beats in a minute, but soon decided this was SHIT. Something clicked and i remembered something about an insect that lived for 24 hours, later finding out it was a mayfly. So i thought this would be a pretty nice theme and one i could push and be a bit experimental with. There was 2 roads to go down, infographics or a very arty subjective style and outlook. I wanted to push it at bit and really liked the idea of doing subjective edgy artwork that would provoke a response. This being the case, research into the mayfly itself wasn't really needed, but i did it anyway.

Schwitters

Looking back at early forms of graphic design has always been interesting but ive done it quite a few times now. I always however find myself coming back to looking at the work of Kurt Schwitters, in particular the pieces where he uses photographs. You can see how influential Bauhaus art is upon graphic design today with loads of pieces. The style is robbed, copied, modernised and reproduced all the time in modern design. He also uses a lot of ephemera in his work which gives it a more personal touch. But the main thing i want to look at is the layering of images on top of each other and how all the different components interact to create the end product. Although it looks as if its all been thrown together, careful consideration of composition was used and how different colours interact with each other, something very very important in all design.

Tuve - Photographs

These are gorgeous. Not much more to analyse about them really. Well taken, well composed and very very beautiful photography. 

Why Not Associates - Steel Works

Purely for aesthetic reasons i've looked at these two pages, forgetting about narrative for now and just thinking on the design of the pages. Symmetrical nowadays is boring but it doesn't mean you don't have to use a grid system. These spreads do just that, non-symmetrical yet still adhering to some form of grid. The other thing i personally like is the use of the blocks and how they interact with the text, but the page still has that rugged feel to it. Another thing is how the layout and use of colour compliments the context of the article and book, this being steel works. The blocks of rusty colour are simple, but it does portray this sense of sheets of steel. Simple technique, very effective in backing up the context of the articles and the book.

Mane Attraction - L'AG Magazine

I wanted to broaden my research a bit and not just look at graphic design. Here i wanted to explore the thoughts behind why these photos were taken like this, what they might be trying to portray with the style and how they maybe target a certain audience. These particular photos caught my attention because they aren't exactly advertising a clothing brand or collection. If anything its the models that are being shown in the photos, lack of clothing pretty much backs this up. Loads and loads of mysterious character, thats what these photos give off, and thats the reason they are so successful as pieces of photography. The lack of colour, the light picking up certain shapes of the body and highlighting them against the dark background, these all contribute to the photos creating this mystery and sexiness in a way. I just feel its a breath of fresh air against the boring model against white background thats so overused these days.

Andy Denzler

Andy Denzler is a visual artist based in Zurich. The reason i took an interest to his paintings and the distorted style he uses is that in a way, it does represent time and the weathering time creates. whether thats the idea behind the style, i don't know, but thats what i portray it to be and why i've chosen to look at it. Again the use of distorting an image but keeping its core image intact somehow is what i'm interested in looking at, and a possible technique to use in my outcomes. I particularly like how he's selected strips of the images and used a completely different paint texture to give those sections more character and depth.

DHNN

DHNN ( or Design Has No Name ) http://www.dhnn.com.ar/ are a multi disciplined design company based in argentina, a country up and coming in its graphic design industry. I'd randomly linked my way to their site and their work is very up to date and close to the style which comes out in my work. i particularly like their FOX International Ads campaign. Such a simple technique has created a group of posters which have a lot of character to them. The way the photos are distorted but in a held back way i feel allows them to be edgy but still have a bit of integrity about them and still allow the photo to be itself without losing its context.

24 hour brief

To produce an outcome of our own choice exploring the idea of time and life and to research into design practice and its impact.

College Blog

All college work from this year will be put up here on this blog. any personal work will go on my other blog http://ghostsaintreal.tumblr.com/ and work me and my mate nathan do together will be put on this blog http://theretheresite.tumblr.com/