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FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION CITY IN FLUX EARTH ARTIFACT ARTIST TYPEFACE
CONTENTS ISSUE 1 - FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION
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content
4 Introduction to Earth Artifact A quick introduction into the project and the brief
10 E.A Finished Piece #2 Second finished piece of the Earth Artefact Project
16 Introduction to City in Flux A quick introduction to the project and the brief
24 C.I.F Post Project Review A post project review of the City in Flux final pieces
6 Early Idea Development Initial idea development decisions and technique selection
12 E.A Finished Piece #3 Third finished piece of the Earth Artefact Project
18 C.I.F Finished pieces All 4 of the final pieces for the City in Flux project
26 Artist Typeface Inspiration A look at the inspiration behind my artist typeface
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8 E.A Finished Piece #1 First finished piece of the Earth Artefact Project
14 E.A Post Project Review A final review of the project and any after thoughts
22 C.I.F Final Layouts The final layout of the City in Flux pieces as they would appear in a book
28 Artist Typeface Final Final outcome of my Artist Typeface project
EARTH A R T I FA C T REIMAGINING THE VOYAGER GOLDEN RECORD
alessio albi
earth artifact
ALESSIO ALBI
In 1977 two robotic probes named physical quantities, the Solar System Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 where and its planets, DNA, and human anatlaunched into space in order to study omy and reproduction. The second set the outer solar system. They have since included pictures which where to depict visited Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune humanity, these included food, archiand a series of moons. Travelling at tecture and humans in candid as well 17km per second, Voyager 1 has now of portrait states. It also included lots travelled into interstellar space and Voy- of images of animals, insects and enviager 2 is expected to reach there within ronments, to truly portray the diversity in the next few years. The relevance of of humanity. A lot of the images where this to my project is that onboard these accompanied with images to give phys02,05,1987 probes was something called the Gold- ical reference to their size which the en Records, which are phonographic committee believed would be consistent records which where supposed to porthroughout the universe. Thegraphic record also Italian photographer and tray the diversity of life of Earth. contain a variety of sounds, including The purpose of this was to include a natural sounds such as water breaking, large amount of information about our wind, thunder and aniaml calls, made planet and launch it out into space in by birds, whales and mammals. In adthe hope that at some point in the future, dition to the natural sounds, there was as unliekly as it is, an advanced alien a varied music sections, featuring works civilisation will find and decipher the in- by Guan Pinghu, Blind Willie Johnson, formation and subsequently learn about Chuck Berry, Kesarbai Kerkar, Valya our planet and out lifestyle. Balkanaska, Bach, Mozart, Stravinsky The contents of the record was and Beethoven. picked by a committee ran by professor The cover of the record (image 2), of the Cornell University, Carl Sagan. was designed to inform the extra terresThey selected a total of 116 images trial life of how to play this information. including photographs and diagrams. The circle in the top left has binary codThe first set of images was purely sci- ing which defines the proper speed at entific, containing mathematical and which the record should be turned (3.6
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per roation), expressed as 0.70x10-9 seconds, which is the time period associated with the fundamental transition of the hydrogen atom. It also had an image of a stylus, which was accompanied with the aircraft. It had an image of the location of our sun and the 14 pulsars of the known directions from it. The general appearance of the wave form of video signals and an image of how the first image should appear if they are to set it up properly. The purpose of this project was for us to redesign the contents of the designer Golden Record. We could go any direction we wanted this, whether that meant to simply recreate it with more modern and applicable information, or whether we went a complete different direction entirely. This part of the magazine explores this concept and exhibits my response to this brief.
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P R O PA G A N D A POSTERS 6
earth artifact
My final idea for this project was to working on the principle that this Golden Record would not be found for at least 100,000 years and by which humanity will almost certainly have eradicated itself. Inspired by a previous idea to create a guide outlining how to rebuild a planet, I decided to create a series of propraganda poster to encourage the Aliens to do so in the first place. The idea was to create a series of posters which where pastiches of the original WW2 posters, buth would feature the best of humanity in the place of the classic characters.
In order to decide who would replace the key figure in each posters I asked a series of my friends (and family, to broaden the demographic) who they thought would be ideal. The criteria was that this person had to be iconic and universally loved. Someone who nobody who you ask could possibly say they dislike. The most popular celebrities to use where as follows: -Bill Murray -Will Smith -Woody Harrelson -Marilyn Monroe -Judi Dench -Jennifer Lawrence.
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From the shortlist, I chose Bill Murray and Judi Dench for the two final piece. Next I picked the most iconic posters: Uncle Sam and Rosie the Riveter. I then draw up some rough sketches and set to deciding which style would best suit the end result. Above are the three styles I tried: Minimalism, Vector and Digital Painting. Of the three, I felt that the Digitally Painted one was the best of the three and decided that that is how I would create my other pieces.
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FINAL PIECE No.1 FIRST OF MY 3 FINAL PIECES
After experimenting with three different potential style for the final pieces, this is the style I opted to go with as I believe it serves it purpose the best. I initially created this image solely as an experimentational piece, to put my idea into practice and see what I thought of it, but after several hours of working on it, I grew very fond of it and decided that I wanted to not only finish it to experimentational levels, but to polish it off and complete it to the extent that I will use it as a final piece. Designed to replicate the old fashioned, World War 2 ‘Uncle Sam’ propaganda poster, I replaced the image of Uncle Sam with my own, hand drawn (with a tablet) image of Bill Murray, a man I determined to be, arguably, the most universally loved man on earth. After I had drawn him in a pose similar to the original poster, I replicated the font used using a slightly modified
version of Impact (reduced height and kerning) with a small red/ black stroke. The text was based entirely off the original and well known quote (‘I want you for US Army’), but modified to apply to the subject at hand. Finally, I added a reduced opacity static layer and overlaid a crumpled paper effect, to make it look even more like the posters of old. Overall, I am happy with how this particular piece has worked out. It looks exactly how I envisioned it would look when I thought up the concept for this outcome and fulfills the message I was aiming for it to portray. If I was to change anything about this image, it would likely be the hair. No matter how many times I practice, I can never seem to master drawing hair, but apart from that, I am very happy with this as a piece and am more comfortable with my actual idea now that I has been actualised.
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Now that I had conclusively picked a design style for my work, I was able to move onto the next piece, knowing it was going to be of Judi Dench, with confidence that I would know what I was doing.
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FINAL PIECE No.2 second of my 3 final pieces
Now that I had decided that I was going to persue the propaganda posters idea and decided the style I was going to do it in (digital painting), I was able to set about completing my second piece. Based off of the WW2 propaganda character ‘Rosie the Riveter’s’ ‘You Can Do It!’ poster, I am going to replicate the basic image and replace Rosie with a popular figure. After some research into who people believe is the most universally loved female public figure, past or present, I concluded that the best person to do the image of would be Judi Dench. I sketched out a quick basic image of how she would look, trying to replicate a lot of the original dimensions of the original image, changing only her wasitline. Later on in the image, I am going
to have to make some adjustments to her arm, so as to make her look substantially older. I am fairly happy with how this image ended up. I am not particularly experienced with drawing older people, so accurately replicating the wrinkles was a challange for me, but I am happy that you can still make out who she is without too much strain. If I was to change anything about this image, I would go back and redraw some of the detail on her face so as to make her look more convincingly old. At this moment, while she is still recogniseable, she looks slightly plastic as she does not have enough wrinkles or minute details as she should.
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Now that I had two final pieces I was happy with, I decided that I would create a third and final piece, but was not sure which image would lend itself to another propaganda image with a different character without the message becoming old or stale. To solve this, I looked at a series of other propaganda images to see if there was any I could Pastiche.
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FINAL PIECE No.3 third of my 3 final pieces
Knowing that I needed to create at least one more piece for my final pieces for this project, but also knowing that creating a third of the same nature as the last two would run the risk of the idea becoming stale and futile, I looked into a series of other posters to see if any of them would lend themselves to different spin on the same idea. After extensive research into the dozens of posters used during the war, but several nationalities involved, I concluded that a perfect piece would be one which emphasises unity between the two species. The perfect image for this was the ‘Together We Can Do It’ poster,
which encouraged people to enrol in the knowledge that their team work would save their country. The image features 2 hands side by side, rolling up their sleeve to represent unity in labour. I decided a good pastiche of this image would be to replace on of the two people’s hands with that of an Alien, so as to represent the fact that together we can save the earth. As we cannot know how the Aliens will know, and this entire approach to the project has a somewhat lighthearted and jovial feel, I decided I would portray the alien in the most cliche was possible, which was to have long, slen-
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der limbs with only 3 fingers. I originally tried making the Alien’s arm look grey, but it gave the image a very dull look, so recreated it in green. I am very happy with this image as I believe it actually portrays the message I was trying to with this approach to the brief the best. I also used a slightly different method with my digitial painting, but the results are better than I expected, which I am also very happy with. This concludes my three final pieces for the brief which I will analyse slightly more on the next page.
earth artifact
These are my three final pieces for this project, which would be printed out in A3 and placed in the Voyager’s Golden Record Capsule. I am very happy with how all three images turned out as I believe they look exactly how I intended them to and as a result I feel that they have achieved the brief in the exact way I planned to. I am also very happy with this project as a whole. It allowed me to explore the aspect of graphic design I enjoy the most (digital painting) and so I found myself working harder than I had worked on a project before in order to try and ensure I got the best result.
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If I where to do this brief again, I would likely go a completely different direction with it as I feel that I have explored this direction to the best of my abilities. In my research document I explored a few alternate methods of carrying out the brief and developed them to a point wherein I was happy with their outcome and believe I could have done that instead, but in regards to this approach, there is little I would change about the end results.
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POST PROJECT REVIEW 15
‘Major cities are in a continuous state of flux caused by the building and rebuilding activities and flows of artifacts, goods, commodities and people, which dissolve and recreate different areas as sites of activity and use. Cities are charactterised by tensions betwee nthis distruction and reconstruction of spaces, the coexistence of heterogeneous groups and the different claims upon spaces, which they advance and contest. The fusion between the physical form of the city and it’s social composition promises to help us understand how the question of the the city;s identity and differences can become a topic of interest for the groups of persons who inhabit its spaces and who calculate ways and means of practically dealing with these changes’ -Extract from Culture of Cities Project The ‘City in Flux’ can take many forms in it’s simplest and most literal for, City in Flux is little more than the layout of the town and the associated direction signage. Howeverm when we apply a more cultural interpretation, then ‘City in Flux’ is more than this alone. It is an
integral, multi sensory landscape that is realised when many factors interrelate. The way in which the space is interpreted and perceived. For this project we were required to create a body of work which reflected the nature of a city which was in Flux. We could tackle this project however we wanted and could present the work in whatever manner we wanted. Born and raised in Liverpool, I am quite patriotic of the city and am proud of it’s character and culture. Inspired by this, I decided to persue a project which would exhibit how regardless of the developments of the buildings and appearance of the city, it was the people who create and express the character and culture of the city. How without them, the city is just an empty husk. I explored a series of different methods through which I could express this and through my research I discovered a series of different artists who’s work I felt was particularly applicable. These artists where: Brandon Stanton (HoNY), Anthony Burrill and Jasper James. HoNY (Humans of New York) is a se-
ries of photographs accompanied with quotes which tell the story of how every person in New York has their own story to tell and how they each have their own character, rather than becoming drones. Anthony Burrill’s work revolved around using large, powerful text to convey a message with more meaning than was explicitly visible, and Jasper James is a photographer who specialises in exhibiting the connection between a city and it’s people through double exposure photography featuring both. I attempted to combine all three of these aspects by taking a photo of a Liverpool resident, a photo of a particular location and a short quote regarding their feelings on the city. I then Used Jasper James’ double exposure to overlay the two images within the bounds of the quote, which was laid out in a way inspired by Anthony Burrill. These images where then laid out within another inDesign document, besides their quote, so as to create a small A5 booklet. The results of the images and the layout of the booklet etc. is all shown on the next few pages.
CITY IN FLUX AN EXPLORATION OF A CITY IN FLUX
city in flux
Aware that the quotes on the image’s themselves where not particularly clear in some places, the purpose of the booklet was to outline more clearly what was said and what message the subject in question was trying to convey.
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city in flux
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POST PROJECT REVIEW 24
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Unlike the Earth Artefact project, I was a lot less happy with my performance and final outcome in this project. I am not particularly happy with the outcome of the images as while they look similar to how I wanted them to, they do not have the same impact and the meaning behind the pictures is not as clear. If I was to do this again, I would have gone a complete different direction which avoids photography as it is far from my strongest aspect. In regards to my performance on this project overall, I am once again somewhat disappointed. I feel that as this was my first project after coming to university, I was unprepared for how vague the brief would be and struggled
to come up with appropriate or impressed idea’s for the outcome, nevermind actually putting them into practice. I was also, at that time, unaccustomed with the technology used to layout my research (inDesign), and so was not able to compose or record my research anywhere near as cleanly or usefully as I would have liked to have. If I was to redo this project, I believe I would go a complete different direction and would be able to organise my research in a far more useful way, which would result in a far better outcome.
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typeface earth artifact
ORIGINAL T Y P E FA C E CREATING AN ORIGINAL TYPEFACE FROM ARTIST REFERENCES
Inspired by Joseph Muller-Brockmann’s work and his constant incorporation of circles and the fragmentation of circles, I tried to create a font which was made entirely from 26 circles with with intersecting or perpedicular straight lines to distinguish them from eachother and to create the appearance of an alphabet. I was happy with the first draft of this, as I believe that with them all in order, they could be identified as the individual letters, however, it was
brought to my attention that if they where viewed individually without the reference of the previos and next letter beside them, some where extremely dificult to identify. Because of this, I decided to refine them more explicitly by removing large portions of the circle, rather than just using intersecting lines and believe that I was able to create a far more elegable and practical typeface. Overall, I am very happy with the final result as I believe it could actually be used as a decorative, if
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not body, typeface which would be useful for titles, but I do feel that it is perhaps not similar enough to Muller-Brockmann’s work to justify it being directly influenced by it.
typeface
typeface
This was my first font which consisted of 26 circles with lines intersecting at specific positions to give the appearance of a typeface. This font would have almost no applicable or practical uses, but I did feel I was happy I was able to make an entire alphabet using only circles and lines.
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typeface
While I liked the original typeface, I was aware that some letters, when isolated, where difficult to identify. To combat this, I tried to simplify the font down by removing large portions of the circles, while still trying to remain within the self inflicted constraints of only being allowed to work with the circle.
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