Jason's Art Blog

Showing my development for my BTEC Art Course

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Final Evaluation of Project

My original concept for this project consisted of a more minimalist approach, more in line with the Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.2 promotional material for international markets. However, after watching Baz Luhrman's The Get Down and researching spray paint culture and graffiti art, I was more pushed towards a more tactile, real media approach with spray paint and hand-drawn illustrations. Initially, I felt this piece was fairly self-contained and didn't need refining, however after feedback from fellow students, I took a step back and decided to research more contemporary artists and designers such as Hattie Stewart and Peter Bankov. What that did was give me a bigger scope to work with creatively; it opened me up to trying out new ways of blending and incorporating real media with digital, as well as stepping out of my comfort zone by designing a heavily illustrative piece. I felt the original spray paint concept was very iconic, and had a lot of potential for refinement, therefore I took what I had learned from the Hattie Stewart and Peter Bankov investigations and applied it to my piece for a final refinement.

I took the deceptively chaotic, multi-layered style of Bankov's work into inspiration for the "Culture" title, making visual reference to not only Bankov's  work but also to that of punk-culture of the 80s, adding to the youthful and energetic aesthetic I want my work to hold. I took colour swatches from Hattie Stewart's work and applied it to my work so that it had the same brightness and colourful warmth to the piece, helping it appeal to the young and also the cultured.

What didn't work about my original spray paint piece was the lack of information given; whilst visually it portrayed various aspects to Scunthorpe such as fun and energy, it didn't give much information about specific venues or places. From this feedback, I decided to include a layer of lined paper with type illustrating the various places you can visit in Scunthorpe. I feel this works well as it ties in with the trend of handmade artwork that most designers appeal to today.

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LINKS FOR ALL THE UNITS

Unit 42+50:

@jasonwalkermagazine

Unit 1+2: 

@jasonwalkerdwellings

Unit 3+4:

@jasonwalkertraveladvert

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Peter Bankov Style Works

In order to try give my work more of a contemporary feel but also appealing classy and mature, I looked at the works of Peter Bankov, a contemporary graphic designer. What I liked about his work was the integration of real media with digital, and I knew I wanted to emulate that in my work. 

I created gradients much like the work of Bankov, and printed them on paper to work over in ink. These were the base illustrations combining digital media with real media. 

From these, I incorporated typography and more imagery. 

Whilst the first concept using orange and yellow has a really nice set of colours, I felt the incorporation of imagery in that piece lacked the finesse of Bankov’s work because it is obvious of using collage; I felt I could include imagery in a much subtler way, therefore I progressed onto the concept using blue and green. I incorporated imagery digitally this time, using my primary source photography with an overlay blend mode. This made some of the colours quite vivid and psychedelic, while also looking seamlessly integrated into the piece as oppose to being brash or out of place. 

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Hattie Stewart Style Concept

These are the initial concept sketches for a poster advertising Scunthorpe using the visual language of Hattie Stewart. After researching her artwork and other contemporary works, it made sense to try incorporate what is current and innovative in terms of design into my work. 

I originally started with primary source photographs of Arcade Fire from the concert in Scunthorpe; I chose these photos as not only did they reflect an energy and youthfulness that Hattie Stewarts work has, but it also presents Scunthorpe as an A-List location where big concerts take place.

I placed sheets of transparent paper onto the photographs and design to add layers of visual interest in the style of Stewart, drawing doodle-esque effects from the lights as well as blocking out the audience with a solid colour in one concept. I was very keen on keeping the colours bright and bold with thick black outlines to try add my own twist to it; I was very attached to the Sharpie style doodles of my previous research, therefore I tried to incorporate the thick bold lined aspect to it. 

From these two sketches, it came to refining the piece. 

I used the original transparent sheet and traced over the shapes in Photoshop, whilst overlaying the shapes onto the digital photography. I feel the use of Photoshop for this really makes the piece bright and bold whilst retaining a sleekness to the crisp and clean contrast between the colours. 

I also altered the text for this final refinement. I chose to go for a more subtler title while still fitting in with the retro, bright aesthetic, so I chose a bold, round 80s font in hot pink as tonally it suits the piece, as well as providing a good contrast with the blue of the crowd. 

However, whilst this piece does help sell the area to a youthful audience, I feel there needs to be a bit more edge to it; a more mature but also handmade look to the advert, therefore I will do further research to influence my ideas. 

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Here are examples of contemporary works of design found from various sources spanning the past 5 years or so. What is clear throughout is a key focus on the bespoke; an embrace of the handmade. There are clear influences and callbacks to influential designers and movements; the “Museum” piece experiments with type and legibility as well as layers in a Carson and Bankov style fashion. 

Baby Driver poster: This is a movie poster for Edgar Wright’s “Baby Driver”. Because Edgar Wright is such a visual director, using imagery and visuals to help create comedy in his own unique style, it’s fitting the poster uses imagery to sell the movie. There are three main aspects to the piece in terms of imagery; the gun, the soundwaves, and the car. The gun is used to present the action element of the movie, providing cohesion with the trailers and publicity material, whilst the soundwaves represent the music the lead character has on him at all time, whilst also looking like trails from the car. Lastly the car represents the theme of the movie which is driving. Through simple visuals, a lot is presented about the movie. In terms of style, it utilises a handmade, screen-printed aesthetic of the 1950s, using a tan/off-white colour for the highlights along with subtle grainy textures. There’s also an element of 70s movie posters to it; there are visual references to Starsky and Hutch in terms of the pale pinky-red hues, adding more semantic meaning to the piece. 

The Beaux Strategem: This piece has a much more cobbled-together look than other bespoke looking pieces, such as the “Love Your Stuff” print for example. There are clippings of multiple photographs arranged in a style that isn’t so clean or seamless; this is effective as it creates not only bold imagery with the sharp lines of where the image cuts off, as well as the idea of multiple people being morphed together using collage, but it also presents an idea of this piece being assembled by somebody, giving it that slightly more personal edge. The type is also produced in a rough, brush stroke style fashion, very reminiscent of 80s typography; I could perhaps adopt this approach when it comes to the type for my final poster. 

PUNK: The focus of this piece is primarily the typography. It has the same rough, clipping style collage as the Beaux Stratagem piece, however it is much more edgy, using clippings from newspapers and hand-written notes, taking it to a low-fi, garage-band aesthetic. The colours are very muted, using mostly black and white, therefore drawing the viewer’s attention to the highlights where the type is laid out. The handwritten notes follow the convention of today which is a heavy focus on the hand-made; for example, Ed Sheehan’s “Divide” LP art focuses primarily on a hand-written, chalk style typeface to suggest a youthful, trendy representation of the album. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Homecoming uses handwritten type in the logo to hark back to teenage, John Hughes-esque High School doodles. It’s this convention in design at the moment that really makes handwritten and handmade pieces current and trendy. It also makes visual reference to the famous Sex Pistols LP artwork, providing more levels of meaning; it presents itself as careless and grungy. 

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Peter Bankov

Peter Bankov is a commercial graphic designer who mixes real media with digital media to produce works of illustration, design and typography. 

What I find visually interesting about Bankov’s work is the blend of real media with digital media; you have these kaleidoscopic type gradients that flow and looks very fluid-like with sharp lines forming shapes that contrast with the fluidity of the gradients. Then on-top of this there are layers of brush strokes and hand-painted type, which add another level of visual contrast. 

The piece on “D’Amelie” feels very Carson-like in the way the typography is split; Bankov experiments with legibility in an original way, contrasting with Hattie Stewart’s work which is very clean in terms of understanding the type and seeing your subject photograph. 

What I could take from this is the legibility experimentation; although I have to make the advert readable to reach a mass audience, I could experiment with layering perhaps and have some pieces of type more prominent than others with the less prominent pieces of type be where I experiment. Like Hattie Stewart’s work, both of these artists experiment with layering, therefore I can work on more layers on top of my work to really add the tactile, bespoke feel. 

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Hattie Stewart

Hattie Stewart is a London-based Illustrator, who uses doodles to add life to professional photography through illustration. Her work stretches from fashion design to contemporary graphic design. What I feel is interesting about her work is the way there is a juxtaposition between professional photography and what looks in the manner of thumbnail doodles; it’s like she’s drawn over the magazine in a spare moment when she’s on the phone or bored, which is something we’ve all done before, which I feel adds a relatable touch to her work. 

The use of colour in her work is very trendy; using bright, highly saturated colours accented by the complimentary colours of the photography makes her work have a larger-than-life feel; it feels much like Andy Warhol’s work to me but with a more youthful and playful edge. 

What I could take from this is the illustrative yet clean, almost vector style of illustration and apply this to my final piece; what I felt went wrong with many of my rough mockups was the messy, rough aspect to the production of the pieces. In theory, it could have had so much potential, however in practise, this style was not something I could replicate, and so I feel using a vector style in the computer would play to my advantage. 

I can also take the use of colour; whilst I tried to apply high-contrast, saturated colours into my work with the rough concepts, I felt that my previous use of colour lacked a class and sophistication, therefore I think experimenting with the same colour palettes used in Hattie’s work would possibly help make my work look more professional whilst retaining the youthful edge I want to keep. 

In contrast to Peter Bankov, another artist I’ve researched, this style of bespoke design has more of a psychedelic, trippy look to the colours and shaping; there are illustrations of characters which presents a dichotomy of schizophrenia v.s playfulness; the pieces could be interpreted as the subject or viewer seeing things that aren’t in this plane of reality, or also the piece could be seen as purely a playful take on photography and illustration. Bankov’s work loses out on the cleanliness to the illustration; Bankov experiments with brush strokes and gradients, possibly blending real media with digital, as oppose to what seems to be purely digital with Hattie’s work. 

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Further Research Needed

Now that I have been able to crystallise my ideas and truly come to terms with what I want to achieve in how it looks and feels, I need to step back and research further into the realm of contemporary works of design and art so that my mind is still fairly open to taking creative influence from modern works. I also need to see what is current and try align my work within what has become conventional for advertising in the current day. 

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Mock Up Ideas for Concept

After researching Spray Paint culture, doodle art and taking into account the target audience I want to advertise for, I have created 3 mock-up designs for how my final outcome could look. They have been produced in various methods, as I wanted to see how many ways I could produce the advert to expand my skill set. 

First Image: 

This piece was made using spray paint and Sharpies for the base layer, however, I then decided to work onto the piece using pre-made text in Photoshop by taping it onto the base. I feel this is particularly effective as it gives the piece a bespoke and handmade look; contemporary works I’ve researched are often trying to make visual reference to handmade artworks and designs, therefore I feel this matches that aesthetic (see research post “Contemporary Works”). I then took logos of venues and places in Scunthorpe and stuck them down in the same fashion, and added anecdotes and note paper to really chime in that handmade look. However, the piece felt rather dull and lifeless in person, therefore I took photos of the piece, and added high pass filters in Photoshop to bring out the highlights and add saturation. This made the piece look more vibrant and exciting, making it more suitable for my target audience. From this, I wanted the piece to have a more personal and “lived in” feel, therefore I added a Polaroid photo of Arcade Fire from the mentioned gig, and the Pin was a stock image to add to the cobbled-together look.  

However, I feel that specific information about what there is to do in Scunthorpe is missing; all the viewer really learns from this is that occasionally big names play gigs there and that there is “music, movies and magic”. Therefore, I have learned from this to influence my next mock-up.

The idea behind this was to produce this advert purely using the Sharpie/Doodle art aesthetic, however, in practise, using Sharpies to produce type by hand was problematic and really did not look professional, therefore I incorporated printed type and shape into this piece. However, I wanted to retain the handmade and scribbled look, therefore I wrote notes about the area like as if the poster was a plan of what I could do on a day out in Scunthorpe. I feel this aspect worked particularly well as it has that youthful, reckless look to the lettering but also looks trendy. The piece went under many iterations to begin with; originally, there was a pair of theatre masks behind the word “Culture”, however this looked rather dull and “desktop-published”, and taking in feedback from other students, I felt it was necessary to replace that with something more interesting and realistic, therefore I placed a cassette in the composition to add to the semantics of culture. 

From this, a third mock-idea came in the fashion of purely using the note-form, Sharpie aesthetic. 

This was made in Photoshop with no real elements. The typeface is “Teabeer”, which is designed to replicate a hand-drawn, scribble style handwriting. I feel from a concept perspective of using this type-style to present the attractions had potential to look really interesting and quite personal; like as if someone had made a list of where-to-go with little anecdotes and notes about what they enjoyed. However, in practise, the piece looks too artificial; the typeface feels a lot like Comic Sans, which is not the type of thing I should be hoping to achieve when it comes to professional advertising. I feel this concept would have had to have been made in physical media in order for it to have a true bespoke feel that I was hoping for. 

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Spray Doodle and Doodle concept mockups

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Doodle/Spray Paint art research

After choosing to go down a spray paint/doodle route for my concept, I thought it would be beneficial to find some examples of works using this style. After watching Baz Luhrman’s “The Get Down”, I was particularly inspired to look at spray-paint art of the Bronx in the 70s and 80s. The works on the subway trains not only helped make graffiti art more recognised as an art-form but it also took inspiration from pop-art and made it into its own unique art-style; I feel this is particularly important to reflect in my concept as like the town I’m advertising, it’s somewhat familiar and often overlooked. 

In addition to this, I looked at the various cassette mixtapes I own and I thought researching the retro “Sharpie-esque” lettering I had tried to emulate would also help influence my creative decisions for this project. It has a bespoke and handmade feel to the lettering which not only touches upon a youthful and energetic, quick-note style but also is very popular in the current trends of design. 

From this research I’ve decided I have three potential ways of producing the poster;

1) I could experiment primarily with Sharpies and ink pens

2) I could use spray paints and graffiti lettering

3) I could experiment with a combination of the two, with layers of mixed media for more visual interest

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Choosing my Concept: 

Concept A: “Visit Cinema”

This concept involves taking still high-contrast black and white photography of key places of attraction to the art/culture crowd. The chosen aesthetic was to make this look fairly retro and much like a polaroid photograph, however in practise, I feel the concept is not as original as I originally hoped, and has a slight corporate look to it, which in terms of attracting a younger audience, this would not be the best route to go down. I feel it needs a more youthful look to it. 

Concept B: This concept is based on doodle and spray paint art of the 70s and has a much more vibrant and youthful look to it. There’s a bespoke and handmade feel to it which I think makes the piece stand out and really helps sell the area. It plays on the culture of spray painting; I drew inspiration from the works in the Bronx from the 1970s and 80s on Subway trains, and I feel this vibrant, more pop-art esque concept would not only help attract the audience much more effectively but it will also help me expand upon using different media such as spray paint and illustrations. 

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CONCEPT B MOCK UP 

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More Concept A Experimentation 

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CONCEPT A MOCKUP

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Choosing concepts to pursue

After taking into account feedback from other students and peers, whilst also considering the nature of the brief and my target audience, I have refined two concepts into potential routes to pursue. 

Concept A is a series of posters which should aim to advertise the more cultural and arty aspects to our local area. I will aim to use my own photography for this piece, selecting key places of culture and art for the photoshoot. Such places could include cinemas, cafes and venues for music, as well as art galleries. The chosen aesthetic for this poster will utilise elements of my research into unique designs, such as the use of Gradient Maps and framing of the Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.2 poster, but in addition to this, I will draw from the Moonlight poster for the high contrast photography and use of detail. The aim is to not only look sophisticated and classy but also fresh and exciting enough to attract a new audience as well as retain the pre-existing audience that are already familiar with the area. 

Concept B takes a more pop-art and doodle-art-esque aesthetic. I hope to incorporate more iconography of the area in this piece to help make our area stand out and become more known within the wider world. Whilst primary photography will be needed for reference, the outcome will be hand-drawn in a Sharpie-style, doodle fashion. I may also consider incorporating typography and lettering into the piece. I feel this art style has a fresh and youthful energy to it that not only will attract “culture vultures” but also a younger demographic; it’s important that the youth of today embrace their area and know more about it, even if it’s as dull as Scunthorpe.