D&AD Emma Price OUGD303 Diesel Brief Collaboration with Ian Prentice
The Diesel brief asks for an illustration for 2 tracks from an artist or band of our choice. However myself and Ian see this as an opportunity for a much larger range of deliverables. Here we have begun to start thinking about what kind of deliverables could exist if we were to treat the ‘music experience’ as an actual event. With the illustrations becoming more of a device to set the tone of the room rather than the only outcome. The artist we have chosen to use is Apparat. One of his most well known songs is named ‘Circles’ and so as a nod to that we have been thinking about how the structure in which the events exists could be circular.
We thought about different data we could use for information graphics but unless compared with other songs it doesn’t seem to work that well. So instead we’re thinking of breaking the song down into sounds and interpreting those visually.
To help with the illustration and seperate out the song I produced this timeline. It maps all the different sounds that I can distinguish within the song, when they start and finish. This way I can see visually which sounds are overlapping eachother making it easier to produce the imagery.
Idea’s for the ‘glock’ sound. The sound is quite delicate/ quirky and distinctive. It seems quite solid but round. Here I’ve looked at this sort of wave shape and used circles to show the melody.
Glock - Vector
Ideas for the ‘fat drums’. It needs to be something quite chunky/imposing/distinctive. It’s a much more almost primal sound than the other electrical bitty sounds but then when layered on top of other sounds it looks too different as though it doesn’t fit with the song. I used a circle because I thought that was quite a strong, confident shape and used in different sizes could be quite interesting. The solid shape
seems to work best but to be honest I think the hand drawn circles represent hte soound better than the vector shapes.
Thinking about patterns and shapes for the drums. Working out the rhythm and the different sounds. The colour indicates the next count. The size and orientation represent different variations in sound. The top illustration is more rigid and perhaps more in keeping with the idea of keeping beat whereas the second although is still the same rhythm appears much more experimental which fits with the tone of th artists music.
Designs for the bass. This sound continues through the majority of the song. The top design probably represents the sound better but when actually combined with other parts of the design the bottom design seems to work much better. It’smuch more dynamic and adds variety to the image.
Designs for the ‘bitty’ sound. This is a very digital and segmented sound. I’ve tried to use the idea of pixels and broken squares to represent this. But maintaining an overall pattern to the sound, moving upwards and downwards. The squares need to be quite dispersed for it to make sense.
Trying it out with different variations and also layering it with the other sounds. Although on it’s own the broken squares are quite interesting they get almost lost when other shapes are introduced and so it might be better to use full squares.
The chords within the song are very long and run throughout the song. Although I don’t actually know the notes played I’ve just taken a structure of a chord and used colours to separate the two different tones present.
The snare only appears once or twice throughout the whole song and it sounds like an initial sound which disperses. So this is what I’ve tried to convery by using these small squares which break away from the larger one.
The undertone is a sound that probably doesn’t really exist but instead the impression of an undertone is given by the bass. Still, whether is it there or not - I can hear it. So this is something delicate/not imposing/almost transparent?
(Left) Designs for the guitar. (Above) Summary of all the different sounds and visuals for the song. Looking at potential combinations. Myself and Ian went through these and selected visuals which seemed to work best. Although originally we’d thought about using a timeline as an illustration we thought that it would cause a lot of work unnecessarily. So instead we’re thinking of just using sections of the song and representing them. That way as well we can emphasise certain sounds or use different structures, so the whole thing isn’t too samey.
Been trying to layer the sounds on top of one another, and I really like don’t like any of the designs yet. I think the representations of the sound work but when combined they look bad. Maybe a re-think of some of the shapes or the addition of colour will help.
I think the solid squares and the diaganol lines are working better than the others. It seems to be more dynamic and the diagonal lines attempt to keep all the shapes as one image.
(Above) Testing the different ‘‘bitty’ symbols and combining them with the visual for the ‘fat drums’. I don’t think that the images really sit that well together, although the grey tones work a bit better. The reversed out images are slightly better because they add some sort of context to the shapes but still not great.
(Below) Drum patterns, repeated, just trying to add a bit more interest rather than everything being too linear. (Right) Different time sections, the use of colour helps to make the image look more considered, especially using a lighter colour and a vibrant contrasting one.