Liam Fulton

Design & Visual Communication

12453167

Justin M Miller Storm Thorgerson Neville Brody

When beginning to explore different ideas for my work, I started looking at famous and iconic album artworks that had survived the test of time. I was very much looking for simple designs that have in the past created a solid identity for a band or artist and can be instantly recognizable. For this reason, I began by look-ing to create a logo from simple shapes. I first came across a graphic designer named Justin M Maller, who had recently de-signed an album cover for an electronic act named Koan Sound. Already familiar with the band, I had previously loved the look of these covers and found the way they incorporated geometrics incredibly interesting. Dynasty (Maller) was my main influence for exploring different ways simple shapes can be composited together. I began to sketch ideas in my book and continued my research.

From the offset, I knew that I wanted to approach my with a late mod-ernist style; more specifically take influence from work created between the aftermath of World War II and the early years of the 21st century. This is largely down to the incredible use of different textures and col-ours during this period. Work such as La scienza della pigrizia (Frank Stella. 1984) or many pieces by Jackson Pollock greatly stand out to me

as they feature the use of varying textures.

I next found Oscar Reutervard. His use of forced perspective gives his work an extra dimension and provides the viewer with a sense of intrigue. His images create the illusion of an impossible shape that could not exist in 3D space. I felt as if this was perfect for my work, as I wanted to create a simple, clean logo that would be memorable and visually interesting. When looking at his designs, the Penrose Triangle (Reutervard) stood out most to me.

When coming to design the text for my logo, I remembered a lec-ture in which we had looked at the making of the titles from Se7en (Fincher, 1995). Kyle Cooper of R/Greenberg Associates created the title sequence by manipulating reels of film by directly scratch-ing onto them with a needle. I really loved the look this produced and set out to find a font that would follow similar aesthetics. I found Experimento on the popular font website dafont.com. The theme of this text matched the look I was looking for and so I

began to explore ways that I could fit it into my logo, which by this point I had decided would consist of the Penrose triangle.

I next looked at Stanley Donwood, who is most well known for his work with popular English band Radiohead. His use of colour really intrigued me and is ultimate-ly what lead to the use of swirling colours in my logo. When speakin to NME about his process he said to NME about his process he said

They (we) were using this incredi-bly limited palette of black, white and five colours and they looked

great. (Jones)

This would also come in to play when coming to choose the right pallet for my final design. The use of bright primary colours is pleas-ing when juxtaposed with the dark theme of the piece. I wanted this to

STANLEY DONWOODSTANLEY DONWOODSTANLEY DONWOODSTANLEY DONWOOD

Nevile brodys work on various early punk albums as well as names such as Just cant get enough (Depeche Mode) and Micro-Phonies (Cabaret Voltair) inspired me to look into different ways color and texture can be used to compliment each other. This lead me to de-saturate my design and bring in various grunge and wooden textures to compensate for the loss of vibrancy, fitting in very well

with the images theme of decay.

When coming to design my posteWhen coming to design my poster, I wanted to ap-proach it from different angle to my previous work. After looking at the heavily photograph based work of Hip-gnosis, who where responsible for creating artworks for bands such as Pink Floyd and Led Zeplin, I wanted to explore how I could use the manipulation of images to create an interesting effect. Hipgnosiss covers all heavily feature surrealist themes; leading me to think of

ways I could produce the same kind of thing. In a previ-ous experiment, I had looked at a photographer named Irvin Penn, who froze household foods in blocks of ice to photograph them. I had also had a go at this myself in the past and loved the way the light travels through the ice. Placing a colour changing light behind the cubes provided the image with a surreal luminance. When set to cycle through the colours, I could then take the image at a long shutter speed, producing the mix of colours that can be seen in my final poster. I then

brought it into Photoshop and masked around my Pen-rose triangle, to create a heavily extruded texture.

In evaluation of my work, I am very pleased with my out-comes and if given the chance to repeat the process, there is very little I would change. I would, however, love to experiment more with real life textures and canvases, using photography to bring my ideas together rather than relying completely on a computer program to realize the image in my head. This was not however possible with this due to time constraints. I would also love to explore the due to time constraints. I would also love to explore the work of several late modernist artists, as this is the style that stands out to me and serves as a main influence for a

large amount of my ideas.

Dafont.com,. 'Dafont.Com'. Web. 6 Apr. 2015.

Jones, Lucy. 'NME Blogs | Stanley Donwood On The Stories Behind His Radiohead Album Covers'. NME.COM. N.p., 2013. Web. 22 Apr. 2015.

Maller, Justin. M. Dynasty. 2014. Print.

Reutervard, Oscar. Penrose Triangle. 1934. Print.

Se7en. David FincheSe7en. David Fincher, 1995. film.

Stella, Frank. La Scienza Della Pigrizia. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1984. Print.

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