#gdes 400

[alicepackarddesign]

System Design Project 1

System Design Project 1

September 8, 2016

So the Antiques Bar Show idea was crap. No—I’m retracting that statement. It was... not the right fit for this project. Here’s the alternative that I’m rolling with:

Poster Series: A queer punk rock concert series at the 9:30 club in May 2017 featuring Downtown Boys, PWR BTTM, and Chelsea On Fire. Commonalities between these bands include: LGBTQAI+ band members who are out, and progressive political beliefs that come out in lyrics or are proudly held by band members, clothing/appearance during performances ignores the gender binary.

Directions: 1) A standard punk-rock poster: gritty and highly textured illustrative poster with very high contrast shown through explicit shading bright color palette. The typography is big, in your face, and echos the sound or lyrics of each band. Each poster shows a small part of a room, the bands’ names are displayed in some fashion on the back wall, and objects that relate to or special to each band populate the rest of the space.

2) A very “light” and minimal illustrative poster series. The type is still big, but the texture and feel of the entire poster is smooth and slick. Sans serif fonts, pastel palettes with very low contrast in the colors (darker shades are only a touch darker than the primary colors to denote shadow). Poster elements still include punk rock icons and images, but they are presented in a way that is softer and less aggressive than what you’d expect from a punk rock poster. I picked this style because... well, just because you have a bunch of queer folk screaming in to microphones and giving off very “aggressive” vibes in their music, that doesn’t mean they are like that all the time. Gay people aren’t always angry, and punk bands don’t always have to have flaming skulls and dark color palettes. I want these posters to say “don’t judge a band by its genre.”

We have our second critique today, and after a late night in Katzen with some other students it seems like it’s a 50/50 split with one half of us being very nervous about our current ideas and directions, and the other half is showing up with the attitude of “this is my best and that’s all I can give, and that’s that!” I’d like to think I’m in the latter camp, but I must admit I am a bit nervous. What was difficult for me was the nagging thought of “if [professor] Chemi doesn’t think this is a strong idea then I might have to start from square one. I don’t want to put in too much effort in to this if that’s the case, but I also really need to sell him on this.” It’s a fine line to walk.

[alicepackarddesign]

System Design Project 1

September 3, 2016

I’m having a really hard time brainstorming different visual directions. I figured that writing about the project and what I’m doing with it might be helpful (also if any real life people read this and have ideas or suggestions I’m all about that please message me):

Deliverables: A series of 3 posters.

Poster Content: My poster series will be advertisement for a DC-based event titled “Antiques Bar Show.” Take the concept of Antiques Road Show (where people bring in heirlooms and knick knacks to get appraised) in the setting of 3 different Adams Morgan bars on various dates. Bar-goers who bring in antiques can grab a seat at the bar and get their items appraised not for a monetary value but for a discount on a drink. The bar takes the items to re-sell, recycle, or donate them. The 3 bars hosting will be Smoke & Barrel, Roofers’ Union, and Duplex Diner.

Notes and critique: My first set of drafts didn’t go so hot. I had various antique-ee items that spanned across 3 different posters (so that way if someone had all 3 next to each other they’d puzzle-piece various things together like lamps and coo-coo clocks). My professor suggested I make the visual focus less on the antiques and more on the social aspect of the event.

More on the event: What can we expect from this kind of event? People are going to want to bring in stuff they can carry. Things they can easily bring up to the bar for a quick 5 minute appraisal. Small lamps, ugly jewerly, toy cars, old metal signs...etc. things that they can carry in their hands AND, importantly, things that don’t have that much sentimental value—this stuff will most likely be junk—these people are only really getting a few dollars value out of them at this event after all. It’s more about the potential for conversation. Suppose someone brings an ancient pencil sharpener their grandfather used to have... like old metal, meant to be screwed in to a wall, something you’d see in an old school house kind of sharpener. There’s so many things you could talk about with that! Where did your grandpa get it? Did you ever use it? Why did you keep it this long? There are a lot of interesting answers you can get from those questions. And of course you can get boring one’s too: “I don’t know. No. I found it the other day cleaning... first time I’ve seen it.”

So maybe that’s where I need to shift the emphasis, maybe it’s less about the items being “antiques” that you can trade for a drink and it’s more about bringing in something and telling a story about it.

And maybe that’s not a strong enough concept for a successful project... I think I need to sleep on this one.