Geraldine Georges style art

I decided to use more colour and more paintbrush styles and colour then in the instructional video. I also made my own paintbrush using the lyrics of a Dylan Saunders song. The picture is also of Dylan Saunders.

Miles Donovan Vector example

Miles Donovan is accomplished at creating vector designs that look the most effective when they are simple. His music-inspired artwork links to our song of the summer cover project as this style of art could be used as an effective cover for a CD.

I made my own example:

I tried to make it look iconic by adding extra effects. I found that this style of work wasn't as simple as it looked as it required using the pen tool, which I found easier to use in photoshop and required great delicacy. As I found it hard to control, it didn't turn out as neatly as I hoped, however I am pleased for my first try.

The steps I took to make my vector was to first choose an image. I chose Joey Richter from StarKid as it links to my song of the summer theme. I took the image into Photoshop and posterised the image so that the colours made up the image. After this I took the new image into Illustrator, I created new layers based on the colours of the pictures: yellow, black, red, white and blue. I first went around the red area with the pen tool and as red was the largest area of colour, I placed this layer at the bottom. As I went around each colour, I locked the other the layers and only kept the layer I working on unlocked. When I finished with outlining each layer, I coloured the layers, deciding to change the colour scheme. I chose the red colour scheme as I looked at my spiky outline and thought it looked demonic. It is reference to StarKid fans who remember Joey in one of his early plays 'The Last Days of Judas Iscariot' when he was acting the part of Satan. His goatie and cheeky smile fit well, so I kept is that way. As and extra part of graphic, I coloured in parts of his hair with the paint-fill pen tool then I added the vector symbol spray and the vector paintbrush tool to boost the image, like in Miles Donovan's piece.

Textiles and stitching effect on Photoshop

Using my own materials that I had previously scanned in, I made a clipping mask over the figures I drew over using the pen tool, which makes the picture more personal to me. After that I made a sequin shape a paintbrush and painted it in to the shape of a text, and I used the lens flare effect to make them shiny like sequins. I created the effect of the stitch lines simply by using the line tool. 

Book of Lost Things Analysis

This is the book cover for 'The Book of Lost Things' by John Connolly created by paper cutting designer, Rob Ryan. This intricate piece suits the title well as the carvings are so small, it is hard to find all the details and the key pattern fits that theme of finding hidden things and looking. Looking at the title and the cover makes me think that the book is a mystery/fantasy story as the figures look secretive and fairy-like. The leaves and thorn bushes could link to an outdoor setting and the mass of thorns represent a journey hardships and possibly danger as indicated by the daggers. The thorns may indicate a complicated relationship as heart it is help up by a string, as if to tantalize someone.   

Album Cover Analysis

The Gallows- Belly of the Shark

My first reaction to the band name and the cover was that they should be a metal band as they link with death and destruction. The genre of music is actually hardcore punk, a sub-genre of rock and metal, which means that the band could have certain violent views about politics and life. This aggression comes across on the album cover which as far I can see in the denotation, is a leviathan zombie shark destroying and eating a fishing boat, which gives a sense of irony. The style is almost reminiscent of the famous painting 'The Great Wave off Kanagawa' as each brush stroke has detail and both piece convey enormous odds and lack of hope for the figures facing the danger. The mouth of the mountainous shark is open wide and the pattern of the strokes make the insides look like the flames Hell, the spray of water and blood and the loss of hope and here we see the inside of the belly. Even the sea and the body of the shark look like flames and its blank, mad eyes are dead and pale like the moon, the scariest time of the day. The album cover design was created by Dan Mumford, who was given free reign by the band to create "the ultimate version of sea-based carnage". I think the band name 'The Gallows' fits well with the nautical theme as the gallows were used to hang sea criminals. 

Primus- Pork Soda

This odd cover contains many links to the songs in the track list, most that are to do with pork. The band name Primus includes the use of typography in a bold font with use of serif which is created with the effect of looking like carved, smoothed down wood and leaves, which gives the connotations of nature but also of a man made element, which comes from the unnaturally smooth wood. This also links to the album title 'Pork Soda', as pigs are part of nature but pork is extracted from them by man and soda is a unhealthy drink popular with children (who represent innocence and unknowing) and is made by man. The band name Primus itself was based on the name of the Primus stove, used for cooking. Now the facial image of the pig on the cover is figure made out of plasticine clay (also something man made) and it also sounds like gelatin, which is a sweet (link to soda) made from pork. The figure is contorted and grotesque, with a look of fear on it's face, which could indicate that as it is only has a head, it is being decapitated so that it can be used for pork. The idea of pork could be to do with naked flesh, which maybe used as a sickening sexual desire and also the idea of the pig dying could indicate the sort of genre this band plays. Primus use genres from Metal, Funk and Country, so the result is weird. Everything from it's album title is weird and Primus strive to make no musical sense. This music is for a niche audience of fans, and the language, imagery and genres used show that the main audience would be adult male metal fans.

Album Cover Analysis

Our first reaction to the album artwork was that we associated it to hippy music because of the links to the landscape in the picture: it's free, there's nature and it is colourful and bright. We instantly connected it to an indie band, the sort of band that is played at Glastonbury Festival. The style of of artwork is a kind of avant-garde doodle, which makes it dreamlike, as in doodled in half-sleep. It was designed on a notepad which has connotations of a student or teenage audience. The cover was designed by Jessie LeDoux from Sub Pop Records. There is use of simple typography in bold sans-serif. The cover booklet seems to be telling a story with pictures, which connects to our childhood and the inside is a pop-out dye-cut which making it more 3D and visual. I thought the Album title, 'Chutes too Narrow' could be making a statement about trying to be free as chutes symbolise sliding down swimming pools as a child, but we can't as now we are adults who are too big, not fitting and there are other things oppressing us from being free. We think the general margin of people who would buy this CD would consider themselves as 'hipsters'.

I thought that Beck was an indie/rock band. The Pop-art stickers can also build up the image of the band being free and surreal. The concept of this cover is that the fans can make their own cover, so it stands out from other CDs and gives the fans freedom. This gives more people an incentive to buy it so it was not allowed to be on the album chart in the UK. The plain album cover is Graph paper, which is a way of relaying information. This theme links in with the Album title 'The Information'. The Graph paper also indicates the target audience is students and teenagers in education and as the market for stickers is children.

We thought the genre of music the Chemical Brothers create is Dance, Big Beats and Electronic. We also thought that the style of art was reminiscent of Communist Soviet propaganda posters, which link to thirst for power and poverty due to the aftermath of the War. The image of the fist conveys a sense of power, violence, aggression and dictatorship. The fingers could also link to the album title 'Push the Button', which means to be in charge of the system, a wide range of information, which is shown by the head and the fist made to look like the brain, which store information. We also connected that this is simple calligraphy, which is neat, eye-catching and ordered, like a brain. 

Our first impression was that the blocks were supposed to represent a box of dynamite and that the blue was supposed to represent a clear and peaceful world that would be destroyed by the actions of the acidic coloured dynamite that could also represent the human race. However, we found out it is actually an Alphabetic 'Baudot Code' and that the whole album has a hidden political meaning, which shows Coldplay as being an activist band. The Baudot Code works on a graph system with the Alphabet, which links to the album name 'X&Y', which are the two dimensions of a 2D graph. The code on the cover was revealed to mean 'X&Y' and the message inside the booklet was worked out to mean 'Make Trade Fair'. If it is trying to convey an important message that affects many people, it makes little sense to cover it up in code, however it could be used to create a buzz and excite fans, however we thought it was too confusing. The genre of music is Alternative Rock, however the bright colour scheme could link to techno or use of synth. The Target Audience would be for all ages as Coldplay is not controversial and is simple and plain. Tappin Gofton is the Graphics design duo who created this album art and also the Chemical Brothers album cover for 'Push the Button (see above) and 'We are the Night'. 

Rob Ryan inspired album cover

This piece was inspired by Rob Ryan's paper cutting work. He often makes cards or book covers, which advertises his work. I found it difficult to carve at his level of detail as cutting fine lines makes it easier to break the card. To improve the standard I could have painted and covered up the pencil marks or flipped the card over. I chose to recreate the 'AVPM' cover from StarKid as Rob Ryan tends to create pieces that tell a fantasy or fairy story and 'Harry Potter' is a good example. On top of that, he likes to create romantic scenes in his picture, so I created the two figures in the middle of the Golden Snitch, one being Harry and the other one Ginny holding hands while riding broomsticks, to create the magical love element. I chose to have the background colour yellow, even though Rob Ryan usually keeps the card red and the background colour white to symbolize passion, as it fits with the colours of the stars and also because of the summer theme of the project. I kept the StarKid logo the same but I chose my own typographical design for the 'AVPM'. This cover is completely different to the official cover as they chose to use cartoons and caricatures of the characters which suits the musical and the songs well as they are humorous and the musical is a parody of 'Harry Potter'.

Here is the official album cover:

Billie Jean 'Retrobasket' Analysis

This image was drawn by Billie Jean as part of a marketing campaign for Nike which was celebrating 30 years of Nike Basketball by releasing a new range of trainers that were made in the 'retro' style that was popular in 1985 and the 'high-top' is coming back into style. There were 30 different posters because of the theme of 30 years. 

The target audience of this piece would be teenagers, young adults and those interested in Sport, mainly basketball, and it would fit well in the Urban environment. This audience is reflected in the name of the trainer: 'Vandal', which has connotations to an Urban setting and youths who also used Graffiti, which was also used in the 80's. If we look closely, we can see that piece is a doodle, drawn in Biro pen. It is an American stylised illustration which have been simplified and is dreamlike and surreal. It suits Nike as Nike is an American company. The doodle is on a piece of paper that looks like the inside of a school Math book, which fits the target audience. Drawing in a school book in lesson is also considered vandalizing school property. 

In the picture I can see various links to 1985 and basketball; the pattern of the laces becomes loops and hoops that the figures of player (one with an 85 on their back) are trying to get a ball through, the Space Invaders image which was popular in the 80's with kids and the finger sign associated to peace, which shows Sport bringing people closer and a bonding experience. The sign contrasts to the negative image of the 'Vandal' type and is importance as is also symbolic and iconic. There is also the image of dog which represents mascots and basketballs and circle prints that surround the page. These circular prints could be the prints from the bottom of the shoe, linked to the circular ball theme.

This piece is full of iconic images from the history of basketball. The portrayal of the figure on the bottom in the middle: hands held up with the ball and point of view which shows the figure towering above represents victory and power, which could be shown as U.S.P for this trainer. This builds up the image of Nike being a excelling and winning company and the trainers are of good quality. Like the trainer, this is drawn with hyper-realism, which makes it iconic. This image could possibly be Michael Jordan, one of the most influential and successful basketball players of the 1980's, who is really an icon. It certainly has good likeness to this picture: 

Brian Holden Stylised Sketch on PhotoShop

Stylised Sketch of Brian Holden using PhotoShop. Following the tutorial on the VA blog, I had difficulty at first as I had to first put his image on a white background. Some steps, such as the face colour was hard to include as the steps on the video weren't as clear as they could be, however I did the best I could. I don't know if the dot pattern is too big, but I followed the instructions on the video as closely as I could.

After I finished the sketch, I cut out the outline of his profile and transfered it to my sketchbook using green ink and sponge. The effect of the spirals was created using the half tone pattern I also used to create the background effect in the sketch.

Singer Typography Poster and Logo

The image I chose was Joe Walker from 'A Very Potter Musical', singing 'To Dance Again'. I used the lyrics in the image to highlight his profile. The part I had trouble with was blending the text to his profile. 

I enjoy this image more as the black background makes the letters stand out vividly.

This is the Logo I made from the image by using the clipping mask tool in Adobe Illustrator. I used the same font that  used in the image: Cooper Black. To make the letter stand out I added the drop shadow effect afterwards. I found it hard to fit his profile into the J.

Drawings of Instruments

Line Drawing of Guitar and Observational Drawing of Congas

Blind Drawing using Graphite of Keyboard, Sketch of Guitar and Line Drawing of Maraca 

AS-A2 Project

This task was to look at all the artists who inspire me and their type of art I would like to employ in my own future pieces. Here I analyse their style of work and talk about what aspects of it I like.