helen robyn bowers

helen bowers : university blog

[helenrobynbowers]

Muse Christmas Background Competition

Every year the band Muse hold a Christmas background competition on their website. Usually the winner gets a free CD or poster or something, but they also get their work shown as the background for the website, which is pretty cool. 

I decided that this year I would base it on a design for their single “Butterflies and Hurricanes” and instead of the clouds looking like butterflies I would make them into reindeer. I also matched the typography at the top of the single so it read Merry Christmas and Happy New Year in the same fonts.

I used Photoshop to create this and I was really pleased with it. Unfortunately it didn't win, but I figured I’ll just give it another go next year and hope for the best.

[helenrobynbowers]

Mattson Creative : Dexter Posters

Recently I decided (probably not at the right time near a few deadlines) to re-watch every season of Dexter. I was a big fan of the show and binge watched it a few years ago before the series ended. I liked it because each season had a story and they were really interesting and shot really well. 

On a completely different tangent, I was scrolling through tumblr and found these posters by Mattson Creative. They were created for Dexter and each one represented a season. I thought this was such a clever way to approach a season poster, or even create something for one of your favourite shows. These posters have been sold by the official Dexter shop, which is amazing, and I really love the way that they have been created.

The one above, for example, was for Season 1 of Dexter. In that season we were introduced to Dexter and the serial killer for that series, the “Ice Truck Killer”. Overall the series was a general introduction to Dexter and how he came to be a serial killer. This poster has lots of different elements that I found to be really well put together that link the entire season together. In a way they are a semiotic link between the series and how a viewer would overview the series.

I also really enjoy the use of colour and simplistic lines. I feel that the colours really represent the themes of the story. The red representing the blood, anger, the black representing death. I think the style of these posters is really striking, and I would love to be able to create something like this myself.

[helenrobynbowers]

Storm Thorgerson: The Raging Storm + Black Holes and Revelations

Last year after I wrote my essay about my favourite designer, Storm Thorgerson, I bought his book “The Raging Storm” because I had unearthed a ridiculous fascination with his work and the way he speaks about it.

The book is the best book I’ve ever bought. I find it so useful to read when I am lacking inspiration or am worried about any work being a bit “off the wall” or “weird”, because all of Thorgersons work is nuts and I love all of it.

One of my favourite pieces in it is the one that Thorgerson designed for Muse (my favourite band) for their cover of the album Black Holes and Revelations. The album was about a lot of stuff really, and covered topics like space, time, politics and aliens. 

The way that Thorgerson talks about how he designed the cover in such depth is really interesting. He used the idea of the four horsemen of the apocalypse but a modern day version that represented: Paranoia, Intolerance, Narcissism and Greed. Each of the men sat at the table in the middle of an alien planet had a different suit on made from a different representation of each of the evils. Paranoia wore a suit of eyes, Intolerance wears a suit of religious symbols, Narcissism wears mirrors, and Greed a suit of gold. I thought this was a really in depth way to create an album cover that relates so well to the stories that are told throughout the album. 

Artists like Storm Thorgerson have really helped me to develop my essay and essay poster due to his work having such a strong semiotic value.

[helenrobynbowers]

November 2014: Liverpool Pt 4 : Walker Art Gallery

The last gallery we went to that day was the Walker Art Gallery. I had been to this gallery before, however it was with college and we only went to see three paintings mainly, so I never had a chance for a proper look. 

This time I really embraced the experience and found quite a few pieces I really loved:

“Phenomena Votive” - Paul Jenkins (1962-3)

The first painting I saw when stepping into this room was this painting by Paul Jenkins. I really loves the use of colour and the bold splatter. I thought it looked like fabric almost and I thought it was really bold and it stood out to me the most. The size of it was also impressive, it was bigger than me, so it was good to be able to get close and see all of the details within it. I also enjoyed how simple it was, and even though I'm not usually a fan of such abstracted pieces I found myself liking this one.

The second piece I really liked was this amazing Bauhaus chair. There was an area in one of the rooms where you could try out a load of different chairs from different art movements. Having been taught a bit about Bauhaus in Spencer’s and Anna’s lectures I found this really interesting. I was also thrilled because the chair is one of my dads favourite pieces, and he always wanted one for his studio when I was younger.

It was really fun to try out all the chairs and below is me and Eleanor having an A+ time.

[helenrobynbowers]

November 2014: Liverpool Pt 3 : FACT

The third gallery that me and Eleanor went to that day was FACT. It reminded me of the Cornerhouse in Manchester, as the way it was presented was very similar. There wasn't a lot on show in this gallery, however the two things they did have were really interesting.

The first piece was an interactive game, in which you controlled the way in which you panned through a city of buildings that had a different video on each and when you stopped in front of it it opened a different video for you to watch. Each video was linked to different types of typography. I really liked this approach to animation and typography, unfortunately I didn't take a picture or video of it because I was enjoying the experience too much.

The second piece to experiment with was a table with lots of different controls on. All of the controls were on a big touchscreen and you could choose two different videos to play simultaneously that ranged from early 1900′s video to present day stuff. It was fun to experiment and see which videos clashed as much as possible.

FACT also had a load of really lovely posters that I took pictures of. I enjoyed the old school vibe they gave off and the striking typography. I’d like to create something like this in one of my studio projects if I get the chance.

[helenrobynbowers]

November 2014: Liverpool Pt. 2 : TATE

After visiting FACT in Liverpool, me and Baines went to the Tate. This is one of my favourite galleries, and I had been before with college for the Alice in Wonderland exhibition which I loved. 

At the Tate there were quite a few different exhibitions on display. The pieces I found myself enjoying the most were:

“Inversions” - Mary Martin (1966)

I really liked this piece of sculpture because of how geometric and striking it was. I found that i was drawn to it, not just because of the huge space it took up in the gallery (it was six feet tall) but because of the way that the different shapes reflected the different colours and tones of the room, making it a nice contrast of the colour of the laminate floor, the metal of the piece itself, the black board on which the metal was mounted and the white and grey structure of the room. I also enjoyed how when you walked around the piece it looked completely different from each angle. I’m not usually a massive fan of sculpture but I really enjoyed this one.

“Untitled No 8 (Shattered Glass)” - Nigel Henderson (1959)

This was one of my favourite pieces in the gallery, similarly to the photographs at FACT, I really enjoyed the contrast between black and white, and the texture that was created in the piece. I liked it also because it reminded me of Jackson Pollock’s work, and I have always liked the way in which abstract art like this flows, even if it is post-modern and I consider myself to be a modernist.

“Summertime: Number 9A” - Jackson Pollock (1948)

I really liked the use of contrast in this piece. I enjoyed the use of primary colours, concentrating on the yellow and blue with pops of red. The size of this piece was really impressive. I’d like to use something like this in my work, even if it’s just taking inspiration from the limited colour palette.

Overall, I felt that this gallery was really interesting and I really enjoyed some of the pieces that were there. I was quite surprised at how many of the abstract pieces I liked, when I don’t usually like things like that.

[helenrobynbowers]

November 2014: Liverpool Pt. 1 : BlueCoat

In November me and Eleanor went to Southport for the weekend and decided to make use of this trip and go to Liverpool on the train whilst we were there as there are loads of things to do and lots of Art Galleries to see. 

The first gallery we went to was BlueCoat. I found the gallery to be really intriguing and quaint. There were a couple of exhibitions that were a bit weird and creepy and I didn't take many pictures of them because they terrified me and one was motion censored to jump and scare you. 

However, there were some lovely photographs by an artist called Bekki Perriman, who's work I really enjoyed. It was a series of photographs that had a strong contrast and were in black and white. I’m not usually a fan of photography, but I really enjoyed the images of reflections and the way that they created patterns and worked well as a series.

The best part about going to BlueCoat was that there was a lovely art fair on outside and we got to have a look at what some of the local artists were selling. My favourite stall was for an artist called Karen Edwards who did a lot of lino cut and letterpress printing, which I am a big fan of. I loved all of her work, and she was really lovely to talk to. She had a little wooden box of badges that you could buy too and I bought two matching ones for me and my boyfriend, as he is Canadian and they reminded me of the Canadian leaf. I loved the detail and foil of the badge, and the fact that they aren't exactly the same but they’re part of the same design.

References for images of Karen Edwards work:

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/127523282/three-flowers-linocut-print?ref=shop_home_active_10

[helenrobynbowers]

Nick Tutorial: Making the Type HUGE ft. Eleanor, Jo, Becky, Andrew and Joe.

In this tutorial with Nick we were told to get into groups and find a way to put our typography together. We decided within our group to pair up and overlay our different styles. I teamed up with Andrew who had made a really lovely typeface where parts of the letters were cut across diagonally and slightly offset. I really loved his type as I felt it was really simple but effective, which I really appreciate.

Andrew cut his typeface out of brown paper and I drew my type over the papers. I really liked this effect as the style of my script was a good contrast to Andrew’s text.

On the last word we mushed all of the typography styles together and this was the end result:

I think this piece is pretty cool and shows a good collaboration between all of us. I have really enjoyed this entire process and think it was a great idea from Nick to get us all to work together to finish our workshops with him for the year.

[helenrobynbowers]

Jay Tutorial: Making the Cereal Box

In this tutorial with Jay we made the actual cereal boxes. We sent them to Jay and he went to print them out on card so that we could photograph them using the photo booth he had set up for us.

I have really enjoyed making the cereal box as I have felt like it’s been a fun thing to do and is a bit quirky and different to some of the other stuff we do. I feel that we could be quite comedic with it and didn't have to take the theme of our cereals too seriously. It was also pointed out to me that my cereal looks like drugs because the fairy’s eyes look mental and because “Fairy Dust” could be read incorrectly. I thought it was pretty funny because that is not how I intended it to be, I was going for the cute factor.

[helenrobynbowers]

Nick Tutorial : Making it bigger

In this tutorial with Nick we were told to make our phrases using an A5 piece of paper for each letter. I did this and added a bit of detail to my original design by adding white dots on each of the thick strokes of the letters (which doesn't show up very well in these photos). I really enjoy the typography workshops with Nick because one of my favourite subjects in Graphic Design is type, and it has also been enjoyable to watch everyone else's approach to the brief.

Here is a few photos of my huge type:

[helenrobynbowers]

Sara Tutorial: Showreel 2015

In this tutorial we created a showreel to compile all of our work from the year into one video. We had to choose some royalty free music for this and compiled them all in After Effects. I decided to focus on the best parts of my work, especially towards the end and I feel that I really enjoyed making it, and that it turned out quite well!

The link for the video is below and the video itself is on the last post:

https://vimeo.com/122735773

[helenrobynbowers]

Sara Tutorial: Showreel 2015

[helenrobynbowers]

After doing Rob's seminar work in the previous week we then chose our own texts relating to our practice. I chose to use Storm Thorgerson's 2011 interview with Rolling Stone magazine. We then proceeded to experiment over the course of the week with how to present and then redact it further. The above images show my work over the course of the week.

[helenrobynbowers]

Rob Seminar

In one of Rob's seminars we went through the process of redaction, in which you eliminate information from a text that isn't deemed necessary. As a first example Rob got us to redact the First Things First manifesto, and pick out the key elements of the text that we wanted to keep.

I quite liked this task as I find a lot of texts like this to be quite lengthy and they're really just repeating themselves quite a lot, and this is a nice way to summarise it all.

[helenrobynbowers]

Jay Workshop: Cereal Packaging Design

For this workshop with Jay we used illustrator to design and create a cereal box using the character we made in the workshop before. I really enjoyed this tutorial as it gave us time to develop our ideas and play with the idea of a cereal package design. I also felt that it allowed my character to come to life and that I really got a chance to do something fun and simple, yet still very effective.

[helenrobynbowers]

[helenrobynbowers]

Jay Workshop: Character Design

In this workshop with Jay we were told to design a character that would be used on a cereal packet. He said he wanted to see the character from different angles and with different facial expressions to get a real feel for the character. Below are my sketches of my fairy character and box cover plans: