Personal Evaluation - House Of Cards Brief - Remediated
For this brief we had to firstly create our own interpretation and timeline for the project. My timeline i made an extended way rather than a day to day basis as for me that is more realistic in terms of progress, gives me the freedom to go back and forward exploring my work, while still giving me the deadlines for each step.
One of my mood boards I went with a topic I've worked on in the past and I enjoy exploring as it can bring you to different directions, exploring dark imagery, macabre, apocalyptic, death, some items of steampunk, etc. While researching, I found some information about origins and meaning of the cards and their suits, that shown how they’ve evolved along the centuries, This was quite interesting as i wasn't aware of it.
One of the artists that most inspired me was Emil Melmoth. If i recall correctly i found his work on instagram, and it's just amazing! His sculptures are absolutely stunning! (in some dark macabre way) But the composition of them and the ideas he merges I find it so attractive, even though they will definitely shock a lot of the audience, but that's something I appreciate in art! Also one of my favorites, HR Giger, but for this project I focused more on some mechanical imagery of his.
Started by making some quick thumbnails to generate ideas. This was a good way to start because I got some different and interesting things to explore. So from here I designed each suit.
Being a printmaking course, even though this year we didn't get much access to the college facilities, i didn't want to make my work only in digital format, i wanted to have still the image of a printing technique integrated in my designs, so i decided to go for Lino Printing, as its accessible from home and i enjoy this method a lot.
So, as you can see from the record posts on my tumblr, i design each suit, firstly as a drawing, and then proceed to create the lino cuts, which for the purpose of details i made in A5, as any smaller (normal deck of cards size) in my opinion would love quality in the design.
My other moodboard was focused on colours, contrasts, and a more abstract concept. I did some research on it and found some interesting artists like Sonia Delaunay, who has created her own deck of cards designs, which was quite fun to see. She explores the interactions between depth and movements with colour contrasts, and even though it is not my “cup of tea” i found it very interesting how it works together. Using some of these artists' ideas and inspirations we did a workshop with colours and painting with sponges. Personally this wasn't something very exciting for me, but i ended up using some of it as background and development work further ahead.
After having my Linocuts set up and ready, I made some initial prints, from which I created digitally a first idea towards the finals. I think it worked well but for me it wasn't quite there yet...they needed something more!
Sometimes it is good to step away from something to give you a better view, to look back at it with clearer eyes, so i decided to focus for a while in creating my box design.
For this i played with some mark making, collage, drawings, as i had the idea already in my head to give it a mechanical look for the cover, which i would also use on the back of the cards. After I manipulated that imagery on Photoshop, playing with layers, contrast, twisting the images, stretching them to their potential. I am very pleased as to how these turn out.
Coming back to my suits designs...
i decided to work more with mix media on the prints, see where i could take them, and if I could get closer to the idea i had in my head as to how i wanted them to look. In order to create a frame, I used masking tape before using materials like watercolours, pens, posca pens and textures to add some mask making. I am really happy with how these turned out, felt as they have potential and it was getting closer to a final result.
For my finals, I decided to clean my prints digitally using photoshop, and created some displays of the cards as if they were on a table, and the game being played. I used the suits I designed into the usual format of the deck of cards to make it simple and understandable to the viewer to recognize, while still leaving my own trade on the cards. The font I use resembles as if it was a print itself so I feel it works with the designs. Each of the face cards I used was a different design of the actual suit (On my tumblr i show that with the suit of hearts) all designed by me.
Overall i felt this project was challenging as i never did anything like this, at some point a bit frustrating not sure on where it was heading and due to the current circumstances and working a full time job. But once I got my gears right, I picked up the rhythm and I found my way back to what I was making and I really enjoyed and am pleased and excited with the result! In terms of time management i feel i did and handled quite well. Kept updating my page as i went by also to keep myself straight in covering all the necessary topics of the brief. I’m happy with the topic i choose, as i mention before, it kept me interested and wanting to create a more professional looking prints for my finals. I feel they connect with each other in the concept i choose to take forward with developing.
If I was to develop further, I would probably experiment with different backgrounds on the face of the cards. I would love to actually physically create them to make them possible to play because i really like how they turned out. Possibly would make some changes to the box design. Not so much changes but to make it look less digital, i guess i would try the design with screen printing layers! I think that could turn out to be very interesting.
















