Principles

This page is where I will be -in blog format- recounting, displaying and writing up work I've done -- typically during my Monday and Tuesday sessions with my tutors . Any additional workshops, Induction sessions or guided instructory sessions I may change this box later but we'll see...

16/09/24 Monday:

These first three entries are dedicated to writing up my progress for week 1 on my University course. It was my first week so It's mainly just introductory stuff I was shown and guided into doing as a way to ease me into the project.

The project itself is all in relation to the Talking Heads' concert/film Stop making sense. I was already familiar with the band, production and recently remastered re-release of said film. While the film(s) itself is still on my watchlist as of this point, I have before listened to the band's discography -album by album- in full. In short, I've a good idea of THs' overall feel and conceptual message -- something which makes me confident going into this project.

Anyway...

Intro done, I best tell you what I've actually made so far.
Starting on Monday; after a detailed presentation to introduce the course and project; my Monday -and module- tutor Cam got me to pull out my lyrics (a set chosen from a song included in Stop making sense, mine being the lyrics from song no:5 -- Slippery People).
I was set to snatch forth a selected phrase to bring into a collaged poster. I chose the phrase "Are the slippery people gonna see you through?" -which is a lot of words to work with but hey, let's get nuts.

I used a grid system to create this poster. A method used to ensure exact alignments and symmetry if desired. To break out of a boring squared grid, I also included an overlapping circular grid into my overlay to have more interesting line combinations to follow. I only really got a couple of progress snaps from this step but I'll slap them below now to show.

First grid placement + Initial poster concept

Later that day I got handed a big lump of clay to turn into what can easily be described as a "wet slab". Said slab was created so I could eventually screenprint my final poster design onto it -- allowing for easy 3D manipulation to create surface texture and warp-idge. I didn't take any photos of the finished wetslab but truthfully you're not missing much... We'll circle back around to this project anyway.

17/09/24 Tuesday

Under the guidance of Hazel -my Tuesday tutor- I was to design a (specifically) grid-less typographic poster/graphic which resembled the word it spells.

I didn't take note of all the word I was able to choose from but they were all single words selected from SMS lyrics. some inclusions I can remember were: sunken, infected and critical mass. The last one I can only recollect because I picked it haha.
So anyway I didn't take any photos of it in development I KNOW I KNOW. I can tell you my process however. I took inspiration from the "caution risk of explosion" sign in relation to critical mass (because critical mass refers to the start of a nuclear explosion duh).

To realise this concept, I traced a circle onto some white backed black paper and hand-scrawled some jagged letters into it -- making sure all lines of action emerged into the centre of the shape to really sell that implosion vibe. from there, I cut them out and cut myself some shrapnel out of the same type of paper to get some nasty shards flying out from my volatile volume. If you've been paying attention, you'll realise that upon flipping my assets black side up, the graphic will have mirrored. Which it did. I took a photo when I finished.

How I had to assemble it vs it flipped via photo editing

What I need to different/to further this piece is to photocopy it with more contrast and blow it up A3. I'd also be interested to see how it would look inverted.

18/09/24 Wednesday

This was my first media context session with Jane. This session was mostly just introductory; to discern what Wednesdays were for. This is the more written side of the course with pre-planned essays lined up for me to write (unironic yay). I'll include more details as an when they become relevant/I'm told them. What I can mostly understand is that I need to look into and research modernist artists that I like or that inspire me to create.

In the afternoon I went back to my Monday poster and to my clay slab! This involved heading down to the screenprinting area and being shown how to do it as part of the facility induction. I first tested printing my poster onto coloured paper which I put to dry and haven't seen since. When I was happy enough with my consistent results and confident enough with the process, I began to print onto my clay.

I think it turned out well. With Cam's instruction to get us thinking, I started to smush various items and extremities into the clay to distort the image; using an old spool, wooden blocks, knuckles and rods. I've added a photo of it below.

(I promise I'll take more developmental photos in the future please don't kill me).

I'm relatively happy with the final outcome. I had intended for the original poster design to somewehat resemble a series of bubbles with the text not really following any set rules, constantly reinventing itself; because what is slippery if not ever-changing and inconsistent.

I will say however that originally sticking my circles down to the edge of the paper did grant way to the side effect visible as cut-off edges post-photocopy. I'll be mindful to leave a margin or to work further in from the edges if I know I'm copying from herein.

I wasn't so comfortable with the actual smushing process either, not wanting to make the very simple design illegible -- although I am told legibility<communication.

I feel like I was more hesitant to make marks on this particular print because of the neatness and simplicity of said design. If it was a busier, more visual and less text-centric poster to begin with, I feel I'd be able to squidge some awesome complimentary texture through the design and into the clay.

If I was to attempt this process again, I would've first needed to have finished a busier design I just happen to think would look good texturized and use it for this process.

Besmushed, beprinted clay tablet

23/09/24 Monday

So. Today, I was to: grab but a single word from my lyrics, make marks using ink and utilise the printers scan feature to create... You guessed it, a poster!

I started by getting a whole load of ink and a glue spatula to scratch, mark and smudge ink over a sheet of thick paper. After, I ripped it all into pieces and laid them out in the scanner bed randomly. During scanning, I wiggled the paper around to get a weird texture. Here that is now.

Marked scraps and following texture

I wasn't too sure what to do other than making slippery feeling motion in the design but making the initial texture did inspire some thought. Making some graphically interesting designs were as simple as photocopying a dual be-verbed printout branded "slippery". Swirling the word around the bed made a nice long side which you'll see I used in my final design. I've added some experimentation with moving the word around while scanning.

Slippery samples

With rippage and stickage (real words I promise), I then compiled a poster design I was happy with and photocopied it to flatten. My only issue was that lack of contrast, which by processing a copy through the scanner with inversion and bumped contrast.
It was at this point, I really started to feel my piece coming together in a way that, I think, reads "slippery" in more ways than just textually.

Finished poster

After progressively increasing this design in contrast with alternating inversions I earned some lovely crisp lines and deep inky pools of black. Eventually I ended up with a couple really solid pieces which convey what I was trying to get accross. I especially feel the final copy with the white-on-black swirly top type looks very Talking Heads.

With my now-contrastful poster up to a standard I deem suitabilily slippery, it was about time for me to print my design -inverted and unverted- onto some bright florescent paper to get some nice bold posters. I think they turned out pretty sweet...
Although grayscale has it's place, I've gotta say it was really refreshing to see my poster paired with just one bright colour. I feel like neons are colours I want to work with more, potentially for my final piece of this project -- a 12" vinyl sleeve cover for my Talking Heads song.

inversions of my poster printed on florescent paper

This is probably my favourite piece I've put together so far and the creation process was just as enjoyable. With it, I've learned how to do on the photocopier techniques I've definitely seen before but just assumed was Photoshop; an example being old punk band posters which I can now determine were just high contrast copies of cut and stick collages
I'm also now very confident and comfortable using the machine itself and enjoy the process-outcome loop it brings.
I really like how the green one looks as well, unsurprisingly I like bright green... They remind me of those old punk band posters; I keep expecting the yellow one in particular to read "Never Mind the Bollocks".

24/09/24 Tuesday

Today was making a new poster with the only limit of no words allowed. I had no idea what to do so I grabbed a stencil thing to mark in some black spots in a pleasing arrangement.

spot making process

After, I turned to flicking through old magazines until I saw something I thought would be fun. I found some image of a pig which I knew I could make look scary so I stretched it out with the scanner. Now I had a long pig to play with. I played at the scanner for a while to mess with inversion, orientation, colour values and size until I got some pretty horrific looking ones. I stuck a couple onto a contrast boosted, inverted photocopy of my spots.

Nasty pig and spots

I then wiped the scanning bed with the image to get a weird distorted version I could stick some cool looking artefacts to. I felt like I wanted some text on the image. I photocopied some text that said "Flame on!" from another magazine and ran it through some processes for the desired contrast. I stuck my letters down (don't ask for any meaning it was all just random) before copying the image again.

Final-ish design with text sample

As an experiment I wondered how It'd look if I put my fingers on the scanner at the same time, peeling back the page slightly. Oh my god?? I think it looked really cool. TO improve it, I dipped my fingertips in ink and dabbed them dry to get some scarier looking phalanges. This was my final product and I've gotta say I love it. Thoughts?

Finished poster

02/09/24 Wednesday

After my context session, Kiran (Tutor who's been showing me how to use various equipment accessable to me) gave a short tutorial on how to use both Illustrator and the laser cutter. While -really- not a master at illustrator, I was more than able and confident enough to do on there what she showed me to do.

After playing around in the software to make a small design of my initials: VKEM, I put it on a flash drive and followed Kiran to the laser cutter to see how it works. It was cool to see and I have used one before long ago but if I wanted to use it, I'd be doing so with assistance regardless. Nice to know the option to use it is there however.

In illustrator vs real life

07/10/24 Monday

This entry will only be short to mention what Monday's session was all about -- assembling an assessment pack. In short, I'll need to present my work for this project to Cam and Hazel so It'd be wise to assemble it all into one place. This website basically, which I was ahead on.
That's all!

08/10/24 Tuesday

Today I was instructed to start thinking about my final product for this project.
This meant thinking in a square format about my given song. My limitations for this final are colours. I'm only able to use CMYK colourways which will definitely make this final design a little more challenging than I originally thought.

With not much idea on where to start, I went back to basics with pencil and paper with some sketches.

I don't really feel like there's much to go from here and I probably won't however I felt like like adding it as a step in the process made sense to show my thought process. If nothing else, this made me realise how this step of the process is useful for the reason of getting me in the mood for creating more than anything -- even if it ultimately doesn't lead to anything actually created.

After, I opened up Photoshop and started searching for images to eff around with.
[Insert deep meaning explaination about why "I've always related to eels" and how they're massively thematically relevant to talking heads and this song.]
So anyway I thought about what was slippery and concluded that eels usually are. So i looked up pictures of eels.

Look! I told you! They're slippery...
A photoshop tactic I've discovered recently is to grab an interestingly textured image like such and run it through some weird filters to get a cool effect, so that's what went down.
I ran it through a combo of Halftone->Graphic pen->Stamp I believe with configured settings on a decently sized square PSD of course.
The image below reflects that.

What I ended up with, what I think, was a pretty cool textural pattern in black and white which I'll probably use... to texturize a later design with a multiply layer or something.

Still clueless, I turned to my older pieces to check see what would be nice cool to include.

I settled on using the photocopy pictured aboveI made for what would eventually become my "Dayglo" piece -- picked for it's simplicity yet clear slippery nature.

After making a 12"x12" PSD, I copied it over as an exclusion layer and, to bring in some colour, covered it with a pure cyan multiply layer and a pure magenta lighter colour layer I'll show off below.

The second and third images show this piece's progression after 1. adding the eel texture at a specific orientation below the slippery layer and adding a black border on the opening edge -- which i stole from the nasty pig poster.

I'm not massively happy with this as a final design but I am a big fan of my resourcefulness for incorporating older poster designs into my final one. It works nicely as a "process piece" more than anything.

Onto the back, I started by again, finding a nice texture from an edge of the nasty pig poster in the same layer style concept before adding another black border, bigger this time for no other reason than for a bit of asymmetry. After, I grabbed some of the more important lyrics from the track and squished them into the space with an edgy font I had installed.
While a tad bland before, I feel like it actually looks like something now with the text. The still-semi-visible motion of the pigposter adds enough of a sense of slipperyness for this to pass I think.

Above is both of the designs put together on a 12" Vinyl slipcase template I found here.

I'm fairly happy with this but I want to try making a mock-up to fully visualize how it'd look in reality. Before that however, I need to make the sticker design for the center of the disc.

For the sticker, I found this image of a tray of milipedes which got ran through a stamp filter and got the same treatment as everything else colourwise. I made sure to get the proportions perfect according to a template I saw online.

I've found a mock-up template from this website which I plan to use to cmine all 3 designs into a real looking product.

Admittedly, I was skeptical of my designs and seeing them in context on the mock-up did surprise me in how good it looked. I am all-in-all happy with my final product, the back more than the front. I am however not as proud of it as I am some of my other completed pieces. I like the amalgamated state it resides in but prefer the parts over the sum honestly.
I would probably've liked it more if I'd created more material specific to it which is a factor I'll be wise to consider in future escapades. While writing this evaluation, I've softly realised my cover's resemblence to the album art for Nine Inch Nails' Pretty Hate Machine by designer Gary Talpas. -- which similarly only uses magenta, cyan and K in it's design with two black lines ripping in from the right. This was done non-consciencously but amused me nontheless when I noticed it. Here's a little side-by-side. I will say theirs' looks a lot more polished though.