A couple of continuing experiments with this project. In the second one I was really taking to heart the idea of remixing existing work and making new things out of it that differ from the intention of the parts.
Working on some graphics this week with Mr Kirk Beyer for the fleet of FITE vans.
Akzidenz, baby! is going in the NZ Best awards! I’m really interested to see what the judges make of it - it’s a strange piece, but probably my favourite project from design school. We took some better photos at work (thanks Ying), have a look.
Just finished the artwork for LJ’s CD last week. She’s moved over to Oz to study music at hillsong for a year.
I’ll take some photos of the actual package when it’s light.
Starting to sus out my visual style for the project. Really into the retro/oldskool letterpress type aesthetic at the moment.
Entropy
I did some thinking a while ago about using entropy as a design feature. Really playing up the temporary and transient nature of music and sound. After reading the article in the last post, I’m thinking that perhaps the gig poster is a great medium to explore. It’s on the street, exposed to the elements, worn down over time, especially in a savage climate like Wellington. The bollard and the wall is an ongoing public conversation.
Ok here we go! I’ve decided that i really need to be writing more. It’s all very well to have the ideas going around in my head but need to get them down on the page in order to understand what i’m actually doing. Coz i’m confused at the moment, i’m damn scared - and i’ve never been more excited about a semester.
Changes to the direction
First up, where I left off last semester leaves a lot to be desired. My research, and in particular reading this article have re-shaped my thinking about the role of a cultural object. My inital idea was to create an enduring cultural object. What Steven Heller suggests is that music-related objects are both throw-away and enduring. He shows that gig posters became objects of desire, archived and celebrated for their rarity and moment-ness. So the covetous nature of fan-dom elevates the mundane, what begins as perfunctory information design becomes something much more.
Because of the temporality of the physical object, it’s a great idea to save it in cyberspace for eternity, see GigPosters.com. My realisation is that the cultural record takes care of itself - the things people deem worth remembering are collected and displayed and available online all the time for everyone to consume, on-demand.
Therefore, I think I need to look at music stories as making /staging a series of memorable events that can be documented and transmitted - prompting conversation and connection, rather than locking things up in a tome or book or atlas. Maybe it’s about using real spaces as the sites for action that generate the elements which become the memory - photos, tshirts, communal activity, sweat or ringing ears….
Project about 6 days of my life. Since it’s about personal data, i decided to make it “me” sized, 1790 x 420mm.
Click for full view.
CD sleeve design exploring the performance of the packaging object.
