#macyamamoto

[mitchforsyth]

can you zoom and enhance?

enhance that

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[mitchforsyth]

MACROOM2

[mitchforsyththinks]

MAC YAMAMOTO COMES TOGETHER

The composing of the document was a joint process. We first filtered down all of the visuals we had built up into the different chapters, based on colour and content and theme. I put together a kind of overhead plan of how I thought the images might pair and flow, it was then edited down by the both of us in a series of long and trawling afternoon sessions into what became the eventual document. A lot of Stevie’s visual input ended up being these huge photographic abstractions, landscapes in twisted neons and wavy jungles. They seemed to counterpoint my more intimate drawings and smaller scale environments really well. She also did a beautiful job of superimposing my single covers onto a blank record sleeve to give them just an added weight and physicality on the page. The devil was in the details and we had managed to wrangle the devil. 

A nice wrapping up of the whole project, Stevie put together these inner covers for the book that merged both my original inked ferns with her sprawling jungle-scapes. 

It was important, from a ‘remember to the brief’ point of view, to try and incorporate the little input our writer had given us where we could. It seemed fitting to use small extracts from his writings, scans from his notebooks, as a kind of inner monologue of our faceless protagonist. A kind of journal for Mr Yamamoto, again just another thread binding this project more coherently together. 

[mitchforsyththinks]

At this point, me and Stevie regrouped and reflected. We realised we had both individually build up a pretty sizeable body of work in just a month, and there wasn’t a lot we wanted to cut back. 

We were to put all of the work together in a kind of archival document; a massive catalogue of mysterious ephemera and visuals of intrigue with a kind of loose narrative thread running throughout. 

Stevie went to work looking over the visual I had made, and collectively we started breaking down the chapters into distinctive and defining colour sets. With no words, every bit of image and colour counted. She started to arrange some mock up pages including my album art, whilst harking back to our initial findings in the textless Nat Geo Library. 

With the colour scheme, chapters, content, and format established, it was time to start building the book. 

[mitchforsyththinks]

MAC YAMAMOTO’S RECORD COLLECTION

PART II

The second half of the single covers. By the time I had finished putting them together, I realised I had made 8 sleeves for 8 chapters. We agreed they would act as a good opener to each of the chapters, each giving enough of an allusion to the soundtrack that would direct the images proceeding it. 

[mitchforsyththinks]

MAC YAMAMOTO’S RECORD COLLECTION 

PART I

The single sleeves, back and front, for the Yamamoto Record Company. All of the track names were either derived from Stevie’s playlist or snippets from our writer. A lot of the image elements used were collaged from my scourings across the Flickr public domain archives. The text and colour on the sleeves was heavily informed by both the singles we came across in the Y.S.E (Yamamoto Shopping Experience) as well as the original visuals accompanying the tracks I picked for my own Mac Mixtape.

[mitchforsyththinks]

HOTEL ROOM PAINTINGS

Returned to Stevie’s initial collages. I put my mind to maybe making some paintings informed by the colours and compositions, but ultimately I didn’t think them very successful.

Later I revisited, and translated one of the paintings in a digital piece. It was noted by my co-illustrator that the original painting felt like the sort of thing you’d find upon the wall of a run down motel room, so I tried to play off that idea and translated the colour scheme into something a little cooler, a little more midnight.  

[mitchforsyththinks]

MAC YAMAMOTO: CHAPTERS

We had still yet to receive a thing from our writer. Me and Stevie powered ahead. The narrative was decided, as determined by an refined manifesto:

“FINDING HIMSELF UNLUCKY IN LOVE, MAC YAMAMOTO FLEES JAPAN. HE HITS THE STATES AND HITS THE ROAD. FOR AN ENTIRE DAY AND NIGHT HE DRIVES. WILL HE FIND HIMSELF BEFORE THE SUN RISES OVER THE HORIZON, OR WILL THE UNFORGIVING DESERT NIGHT CONSUME HIM FOREVER?”

Again taking initiative from the earlier mixtape, we decided to start gathering a producing images to fit within an 8 chapter frame, with nought but the tracks and Chapter Titles to direct us:

i. OSAKA

ii. LICENSE TO DRIVE

iii. AFTERNOON DELIGHTS

iv. DUSK

v. LAYBY

vi. MOTEL REGRET

vii. NIGHT VOID

viii. TOMORROW

The plot would follow a light to dark to light transition. Now, there was to pour out images.