My process was a bit chaotic to begin with. After my first semester of the third year with my mind firmly on Propaganda poster making, it was apparent that I just didnt have the minerals for it. I was desperately trying to find inspiration and It came from watching Sukiyaki Western Django, a japanese retelling of Yojimbo (one of my all time favourite films) and A Fistful Of Dollars. 

After watching A fistful… I came to realise just how great some of the line Clint had were. My my art background mainly concentrated around graffiti, I felt it would be a good time to show my tutors my hand drawn typography skills. I came up with some sheets of quotes as you can see below:

After a few tutorials these sheets developed into individual poster of quotes from his various films (in the line of fire, a fistful of dollars, dirty harry, gran torino)

Heres some of the development for those posters:

I decided to keep the poster black and white as you will see in my next post!

website

melok-logo

*slaps hand*

Not to worry I shall catch up shortly.

What is the future of communicating to the world and how effective do you think it will be?

67% of Americans get all of there information about the presidential election through celebrities.

I personally feel that the use of celebrity to get a campaign into the eyes of the social conscious is trite and superficial as Hugh Hudson says about the Will.I.am campaign video for Barack Obama. It’s obvious that the general publics in the U.S and over here are a little disheartened by politicians because of the contrasting attitudes of the media (newspapers, TV) to the “flesh and blood” i.e. celebrities. The way I see politics and he way it’s portrayed to the masses is very much “lets get a famous person to back us up”

It’s not just movie stars and singers that are used in these latest “ad”campaigns. Obama has got support from some big names in design aswell. One of my favourite designers, Shepard Fairey, famous for his obey prints and “Andre has a posse” has jumped on the bandwagon and regardless of the politics, this print is lush.

Don’s second question was “What is the future of communicating to the world and how effective do you think it will be?”

My honest answer? I’m not sure. The massive growth of Internet pop ups and ad banners are certainly keeping designers in a job but I feel that we may be losing it’s effectiveness. I feel that the communication aspect of design needs to be done in a subtle way. The general publics are like sheep. We’ve heard the saying before but it is a very good comparison. If you shout and scream at sheep they will run away and not listen to your commands, with tactical sheparding (excuse the pun) they will get in the pen.

A question of my own. How many of you actually pay attention to all of the pop ups and ad banners that scream and shout at you on the top or your web page? I’m guessing the answer isn’t many. Sometimes shouting out your message doesn’t always mean that people will listen. I feel that the future of communication is going to increase exponentially but wouldn’t it be nice to just stick to the humble poster? 

Rationale

Our project for this semester was to create a magazine with the theme being “surviving the 21^st century”. Sounds simple enough but I can assure you that trying to get a steady branch to climb wasn’t such an easy task. Although I am happy with my final result it took a few reality checks by tutors and myself to achieve the end result.

My initial thought as soon as I received this project was to go down the illustration route. I’d been drawing throughout the summer and thought that this would be the opportune moment to start using it, however this was not the case. I realised very early on that my illustrations would not be up to par in a real life magazine situation so I quickly scrapped that idea, instead I decided to make a conscious effort to really immerse myself in the magazine culture to get a feel for the task ahead. After looking at countless type of magazines, from the super expensive design magazines to the local DIY punk ‘zines, I feel that I had a pretty good idea of the different possibilities available to me. My next thought was to come up with a theme for the magazine.

Let’s be honest, the title to the project is a colossal one. With the obvious thoughts being war, pollution and zombies, I decided to go for something that has been taking my attention over the past few years. My initial idea was about corporations taking away the rights of the public, this was still a little vague so I narrowed it down and looked at the subject of censorship.

Censorship and political correctness are at an all time high at the moment with governments, especially ours, leading the fight for “human rights”. The fact that I find this way of thinking retarded really put a fire in my belly to march down this path. I wanted my work to show that if we carry on with this way of thinking we are going to become a nation on worriers, afraid of what we can do or say in case it offends people. Watching the film Equilibrium, a film based on the total censorship of anything that arouses the senses e.g. art, music, film etc. This is obviously the most extreme example of what the world could end up like.

I now had an idea for the content and now I need to make a final choice. What kind of magazine do I go for? After thinking about the subject and the fact that it’s very topical I decided to go with a standard magazine with a slightly art- orientated feel to it with a few details added for flair. I though that using such a commercial looking magazine would make give the subject a better presence and also show the ludicrousness of censorship. The story for my article is about a local shop that has been having issues with censorships with their shop display. The fact that I knew the shop owners and the artist personally it was a perfect opportunity to get some insider information for my story. After a long conversation I had enough information and pictures to make my article and I’m happy with the way that I’ve set it out.

I’m really happy with the overall look of my magazine. I’m especially happy with the two logotypes that I created and I think that they wouldn’t look out of place on a shelf in Borders. Going to an external printer not only gave me a finish that I’m happy with but it also lifted a big weight off my shoulders. I’ll be honest and say that I did lose a little faith in the subject but after all parts were close to completion it gave me a boost and I’m happy with the result. I feel that keeping it simple is sometimes the only way to overcome certain challenges.