Monday 16 May 2011

Magazine Jacket.

This will fold down to be the jacket for my magazine. It is composed from all the images used within the magazine, with the contributor portraits being the only exception. Then, layered at the top is the magazine cover itself cropped, with a "Difference" layer mask giving the piece an interesting and textured aesthetic. Being printed on tracing paper gives another textured dynamic also, making the overall design of the magazine quite diverse.
The mag itself will be added tomorrow...

Sunday 15 May 2011

New Series?

Got bored today so I found myself doodling this guy on some sticker paper. Kinda spawned from the fact that I was compared to Quasimodo (spelling?) so some kinda hunchback thing came up. You need freaks like us, why?
 Perhaps a new silk screen series is in the works....

More research...

So throughout the 15 weeks of this project I've found myself hoarding magazines and culture based ephemera. So, before I print out and stick this crap in my sketchbook I thought I'd montage my favourites. Then as a bi-product of the early hours I just slapped and inverted RPS logo on it. 'cos I could. Oh dear, oh dear.

Monday 4 April 2011

RPS logo experiments.

I wanted to establish a brand identity for my "Rock Paper Scissors" Magazine project. This would then tie in with our end of year show where we have to design an A6 image to go with a little bit of info about ourselves. This was so potential employers could take home a little reminder about us and, hopefully, give us some work.
Firstly I selected a font (Cochin) as I felt it reflected the classic look that I wanted for my logo. Then Josh and myself played around with compositions in Illustrator.
Then I added in an image of a wreath which I neatened up in Illustrator. And combined my favourite compositions. As you can see the top right image and the bottom centre image are the same composition, but the bottom image is the neater of the two designed to create a sense of flowing from the top of the R down to the bottom of the S.
Finally, here we see the logo being used for the background of my card for the our end of year show "Treat Yourself." I'm quite pleased with the logo as I think it captures that vintage style that is accessible at the same time.

Monday 21 March 2011

Editorial work

"Celebrate Difference"
This project was an exercise in the "Editorial Process." We each chose an existing publication and could "edit" them in any way we wanted. In this case I chose "Kingpin" a magazine about skateboarding. I wanted minimal text as I felt that the photography itself should be the focus. I wanted to work with monochrome images with elements of colour added on occasion. I enjoy working in mixed media so I decided to limit myself to 5 materials - black and white acrylic, a scalpel, glue and a black sharpie. I took out all of the ads and focused on the photography as that should be what a skate mag is about - the skating.



Here the image with the stairs folds out to reveal another spread concealed within, which starts the next "article."






The "Monkey Mag"







For this project we chose three items and a letterpress character (I chose a monkey mask, a galvanised nail and a postcard. The character I chose was a D.) We were given an article from "Emigre" to use as the text source for our magazines. As well as these, we had to use a photograph somewhere in our magazines, it didn't matter how as long as it was visible in some format (This is on the last page under the line  drawing of the monkey mask.) I took photographs of the mask for the cover. I intended to cut holes in the eyes but the images didn't quite match up. The page layouts themselves were constructed entirely in my sketchbook then scanned in. Photocopiers and scanners in full effect.

"Skyline"
This next piece was a real pain to scan in to it is shown here somewhat fragmented. 

For this project there were two different boxes with pieces of paper in them, one contained words that determined the content of the magazines, the other determined the theme. I chose "Skyscrapers" and the theme I ended up with was "Functional." It could have been worse. 
I made my magazine a little narrower than A4, but one long continuous page. The image above folds out to be four times as long. On the cover (which takes up one whole side) a type based homage to the Empire State building is made using the font "Jailbird Jenna." This was the "Cover story" 
Above is a rough 'stitch' of the magazine scanned in. The column arrangement is designed to give the impression of a portion of a city skyline, with the images suggesting a collection of clouds above. The way the magazine was set out was to emulate an instruction manual, carrying on the "functional" feel. For the labels/captions I used the font used by the greatest purveyors of instruction manuals IKEA - Futura. There's a hoo-har over them usng Verdana now. I preferred Futura but nevermind. The form emulates the hulking structures that are skyscrapers so the magazine works on different levels.



Thursday 24 February 2011

Tom's Bass skin design.

Just one of the potential designs for Tom's Bassdrum skin. "Its a little on the inside" lol