Street Graphics

street graphics Jayne KAy

STATEMENT OF INTENT

During this project I am required to research into the graphic language of the street, how imagery and artifacts of all kinds deliver visual messages. Firstly I will pick a suitable subject message for translation into graphic experiments. I will demonstrate a multiple range of ideas and employ a range of media and methods appropriate for the demand of this project. I will explore ideas and concepts of other artists who influence the graphic language on the street.

For the second part of my project I will have to stage an exhibition of street graphics. The exhibition is aimed at design students, designers and professional people to highlight and improve the importance of visual language in towns and cities. I will have to submit design proposals for a micro site, invite and poster to promote the exhibition.

To stage my exhibition I will be using my research and design development to show the work up to the final design exhibition.

Communication is my top agenda, I believe for this project the biggest part of street art is what it means and what it is saying to the people of the city.

These are scans of my first ideas for the project. I chose a few subjects to expand on. I then went into more detail with each.

ideas

ideas

Focusing on people is one of my best ideas, I thought about people first because without people the city has no character.

I have thought about how people effect the city, how they are keeping it alive, by people like business men, shoppers and street performance. Every human who walks around in a city is contributing to the character of the city. We are all a part of it and I think I could find a way of showing this through street graphic design for my final exhibition in December. This is an example of street performance in Covert Garden, London. I really enjoyed watching it as well as it’s effect on the people watching.

ideas

I think a lot of the reason people visit the city is for the shopping.

Therefore to chose this subject matter I think I can do a lot of work with this, there are a lot of routes I could go down; sales, shop windows, mannequins, salesmen, shop status and people shopping.

I think one of the main ideas that would come under shopping is the sales, because they can emotionally effect you as a shopper, because you are drawn in by the signs in the windows, but I could also look at the comparison between the two types of sales; shop sales and sales men. They are both trying to sell something, but the majority of people never want to talk to salesmen about the usually discounted product they are selling. I think this issue alone is something I could look more deeply into.

ideas Buildings are one of the first things I think about when I think of the city. They are tall and overpowering and the size of the city depends on the size of the buildings. while I was in London, I saw lots of very different buildings, with beautifully different architecture. For this project I could look at the different shapes and colours of buildings.

primary imagery mcr, ldn, hud

louis vuitton

This was a design I saw in the shop window of louis vuitton on new bond street. Japanese avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama wearing a bright red wig, works at her studio in Tokyo. Kusama’s signature splash of dots has now arrived in the realm of fashion in a new collection for Louis Vuitton bags, sunglasses, shoes and coats. The latest Kusama collection is showcased at its boutiques around the world, including New York, Paris, Tokyo, london and Singapore, sometimes with replica dolls of Kusama, this shop in london being one of them.

louis vuitton These alien like flower sculptures were also in the shop window of Louis vuitton, the vivid polka dots have a strange overwhelming power. I like how louis vuitton have chosen to use sculptures to represent the shop rather than the items they sell; bags, sunglasses, shoes. It shows the exclusiveness of the collection, by having this quirky object draw people in. I looked more into these flower designs because I like them so much.

I think these sculptures can become useful to me with my designs because one of my ideas is to look at shop window art, I think that the art in shop windows play a big part in attracting into the shop and the reason people spend their money. They effect people emotionally, this is a powerful design that causes interest and curiosity.

I want to create something for my exhibition that will drag people over by curiosity, not something obvious but intriguing, this would show how street art effects us and spending money.

Louis vuitton - new bond street - London

Yayoi Kusama flowers that bloom at midnight I have fallen in love with these dotted flower designs by yayoi kusama. This is a series of sculptures, each with its own vibrant colour scheme, on which Kusama has been working since 2009. they are measure from four to sixteen feet in height, are cast in highly durable fibreglass reinforced plastic, then hand-painted in urethane to jazzy perfection. Arranged in the gallery like an artificial garden.

pedro paricio This is an exhibition I found on new bond street. I was first attracted to this painting in the window, I love how it shows two men walking down a set of stairs, doing something totally normal, when in fact these two men are completely the opposite, being represented in this jazzy urban grafiti-like design. His style of work is very much like pop art, but a more modern, funky version.

Mr Brainwash Mr. Brainwash is the moniker of Los Angeles-based filmmaker and Pop artist Thierry Guetta. He has spent the better part of the last decade attempting to make the ultimate street art documentary. Meanwhile, inspired by his subjects, he started hitting the streets, from Los Angeles to Paris, with spray painted stencils and posters of his pop art inspired images.

In 2009 Madonna asked him to design the cover of her CD album, following this he then created 15 different covers for the accompanying vinyls, singles and DVD releases.

I like how he has chosen to work with other artist’s designs, like andy warhol and banksy, His work is still individual, even though he uses other artist’s work. I also like how he has chosen to take the design he did for the cover of madona and used it to change the identity, using men and women faces that are not her, it’s very much like the Marilyn Monroe piece by andy warhol. Pop art on the streets is a very attractive way of attracting the attention of people walking by.

I want my art to become something that could be recognised for being my own work, rather than being off the back of other artists. I also want to work with type as well as characters and icons.

Pixel Pancho Pixel Pancho street art style stands out of the crowd and often includes robotic like characters. I particularly liked This slightly different take on street art, because it’s not on the street, it is on the side of a caravan.

I was attracted to this piece on the caravan because of the setting, and the unusually of the place he has chosen to create his artwork. The artwork it’s self is very interesting, and I thought for my project in my designs I could take the idea of these robot characters and apply them to my idea of the subject of people.

I can show how shops and work effect people; businessmen wondering around cities, queuing for their starbucks and carrying their briefcases etc, look like robots; and shopper’s, how they are dragged in by the shop sales signs and overpowered by the idea of discounted items, how they are transformed into robots in a shop.

d*Face

I really like some of these pieces by D*Face, and they have given me some really good ideas for this project. Aside the characters that are featured on walls I love the inside art they did in a really funky looking exhibition. Above are some of the designs I have really taken I liking to..

These designs use different features of characters to create a totally different ones, I love how different identities have come apart and created something new.

This is a design I did myself, in the style of d*Face, although instead of using comic art drawings and cartoons, I used photographs and the crown of andy warhol’s pop art picture of the queen. I used pictures I found online as well as my own. I defaced the face of Yayoi Kusama which I took in London last week. I like this design because Kusama’s facial expression originally was very hard, not showing much emotion, which is why it mocks her with the smile of simon cowell. I also chose the crown on the queen because she is the queen of louis vuitton at the moment with her new collection.

identity After looking at some of the indoor designs by d*Face it triggered my idea to focus on people and identity even more. I looked at a couple of my vogue magazines and ripped out all the faces I could find that were being used to represent perfection, I mixed up the different features, which created ugly, odd portraits. What I wanted to establish in this experiment is that when mixed up, identity is lost, And through the streets of cities are all sorts of people with different characters, personalities and ways of seeing, therefore in this project I’d like to mock the stereotypical people, e.g; businessmen with briefcases- you would think they are boring because of their uniform, but take their uniform away and you could reveal anything... This is the way I want to take my street ideas.

experiments

aflecks palace Aflecks palace is a place to shop in Manchester, for quirky, unusual things. IT has won a manchester tourism award and best newcomer award for vintage twists, so it is a good place to show case good design on the building. In replacement of the bottom windows there is a series of mosaic designs, they frequently change. The designs done by MArk Kennedy, a manchester artist.

Mosaic is a unique way of showcasing street art, and a very original idea. I thing because it is in a window, to use mosaic is better than to use spray paint, which is what is typically used to create street art.

MArk Kennedy These mosaics were designed by mark kennedy, with designs representing cultural icons from Manchester’s musical past including Factory Records, The Stone Roses and Peter Saville’s artwork from Joy Division’s debut album, Unknown Pleasures. The designs are of well known manchester faces and icons, they were designed to announce afleck’s 30th anniversary.

He has also designed this mosaic cow, which was featured in the window on selfridges as well as outside the Manchester town hall. This is an interesting design because unlike most of his work he has worked in 3D. Up until now I hadn’t thought of bringing 3D objects into this project but now I am willing to look into this idea further.

EXPERIMENTS These are a few experiments I had following the idea of identity. I took three well known people and removed their faces. I used different designs to fill the faces, for example, bob marley, I used a question mark to represent ‘lost identity’. With the picture of Einstein I replaced his face with a smaller drawing of his face which I thought was quite hypnotic, which made me think of the idea of using hypnotism as a part of my street art campaign.

ideas I thought hypnotic designs could be a good, unique way of capturing the attention of people in the city, I can look at funky patterns and tie die designs. I think this can be an original unique idea of creating street art which will really stand out. I like some of Pablo Abad’s work, the two designs featuring triangles, circles and what looks like eyes, they challenge the eye because there is so much going on, and so much to look in, I notice something new every time I revisit these images.

Kaleidoscope A kaleidoscope is a cylinder with mirrors containing loose, coloured objects such as beads or pebbles and bits of glass. As the viewer looks into one end, light entering the other creates a colourful pattern, due to the reflection off of the mirrors.

After being introduced by the work of mark titchner it reminded me of a childhood toy I used to have, His work is quite hypnotic and I’d like to experiment with this idea further. I think by looking at the patterns of kaleidoscopes I could create some strong experimental work and come up with some unique designs that could really stand out around cities.

These are some designs I made by using an old school snowflake technique; folding paper and cutting out shapes, then unfolding. I wanted to create some illusionist looking designs which could really catch the eye if featured in shop windows etc.

design development This was my favourite outcome of my snowflake techniques. I think it’s very illusional looking and that was my aim. To now take this further I want to add some type to this, so I took this design into illustrator and traced the pattern.

I ADDED A SIMPLE FONT, CALLED BEBAS NEUE. I CHOSE this font because it is simple and easy to read, It also matches the pattern which is sharp cut and bold. I chose four simple statements to make; buy me, want me, take me and need me.

I chose these four statements after going back to one of my first ideas to look into why people are so effected by sale signs in shops. This is my way of digging deep into they way these signs hypnotise you into wanting to go in to the shops and buy things because there is a sale sign. People are persuaded by the simplest sign, which isn’t creative, attractive, yet it attracts people.

These are in a way, a re-design for shop sale signs, I chose the illusion patterns to trap people, drag there eyes towards the design and into the shops.

mark titchner MArk Titchner is an english artist who lives and works in london. His work is very appealing to me towards this project, because his designs are illusional.

I particularly like this layered design, it makes the design deeper, and have more involvement with it’s audience, this is something I’d like to try and put together myself, working with layered kaledascope patterns.

design development I thought for my exhibition it would be nice to display some of the development of my final IDEA. I WANT TO CREATE MY OWN COLOURFUL kaleidoscope patterns to show where my idea for my final piece came from. . This will also add some colour into my exhibition because my final large design will be black and white. These are some designs I came up with by usig some of my primary imagery from london.

When I had done these designs I thought they were appropriate for the idea of emptiness being filled by illusion; the city is a big powerful place where you can sometimes feel lonely, I wanted to take these designs forward to fill the space of emptiness around the city.

design development I have decided on a name for my exhibition, i want to call it ‘illusion DISGUISED emptiness’. I chose this name because I want to show that the city can be a very big place, it is buzzing, vibrant and full of entertainment. However if there’s something missing it can be replaced by illusion; the imagination that creates illusion.

This design is for an idea I had about illusion filling an empty space; the heart, which is why i chose to colourise the design red. It was a quick idea I had that i wanted to create.

an empty heart; this is a design I came up with after thinking of things that could be empty, the heart is the centre of a person and if that is empty this design is there to replace the emptiness. This is why the design is located over the heart, However I don’t think I’ll take this idea any further forward because it is slightly going off the track of the brief.

I will use the red kaleidoscope pattern to develop for my final 11/12 designs, I need to just add some more colour to this before I submit it as a final design.

shepard fairey This is the style I picture my final outcomes to look like. I want them to be all one colour and where the white space is between the colour I want to be cut out. SO when it goes on the window it will let the light through.

for my final designs i want to create something similar but in my own style. This design is obviously similar to what i have already been doing, using patterns in a circular style to make them look illusional.

I love the detail in this design and I want to make my designs about illusion and emptiness. Therefore I will collect some pictures around the city of places which look abandoned and quiet, with no sign of people, showing the city that without people the city has no character. I will then pull out bits of the city to create a design that will replace the emptiness.

After a week feel I have come to a bit of a halt, a dead end and do not think this work is at my best ability, After taking a look at all my ideas and development I have decided to focus on the kaleidoscopes of the city. I think it is a unique idea, my designs are colourful and different to the usual street graffiti you see in the city. It’s a clean idea and I think it’s my strongest idea to us for my final exhibition.

design development This is some more development into the idea of having these patterns cut out of black vinyl to stick on a window for the exhibition. I tried out one of the designs by printing it off, cutting out the shapes and then sticking it onto a piece of acetate. I did this so I could see whast the design would look when held up infron of different parts of the city. I think it would be an unusual way of looking at the city through the patterns I have created.

design development

This drawing is a pattern I designed at random, incorporating some of the shapes of buildings around the city. The other two designs where my original designs, I used them as a stencil, I drew around, rotated and drew again, this created an illusional circular motion with the patterns which I found quite unusual.

I took this bigger design into illustrator and traced it using the pen tool.

This design could be used to feature in the window of my exhibition.

However I was looking at having a rectangle design, because it would fit better in the window than this square design. For my final design I want to manipulate this design into a rectangle shape.

promotion

Exhibition Ticket Design: The idea of this design is that to find out what it says, you must rotate the two patterns until they meet. I cut out the writing using a scalpel. To fix them together I used a butterfly pin so it allows movement between the two designs. My final design came out well and I am happy that it is an innovative eye catching design that has some form of interaction with the receiver of the ticket.

ticket design

poster design Exhibition poster design: I wanted to follow the same theme as my ticket, having some form of interaction by having to rotate the pattern to get the information. These are my final designs, I did two, one landscape and one portrait because although most posters are portrait I wanted an alternate design for a better fit in some places; a billboard for example, the design would have to be landscape.

For this project I will use the portrait design to promote my exhibition, I like the depth and layers in this design, It is showing both the city and a sample of what will be in the exhibition.

micro site

final designs

final designs

exhibition development

This is my idea for the exhibition, my kaleidoscope patterns will feature in one of the windows in the creative arts building. I like how because they are printed on to acetate they show huddersfield town through the patterns.

this is the start of putting my exhibition together. this is my area, I will be using the window space as well as the pilar. My plan is to put together a kaleidoscope design to cover the pillar, this way it will stand out as well as feature some of my kaleidoscope designs on it. I will have to design to a large scale and come up with something

exhibition development This is the band for the bottom of my giant kaleidoscope. It will be wrapped around the bottom of the pillar. I wanted to incorporate some of the street into this design because is focusing on the city and city graphics. I was influenced by the colours on my kaleidoscope.

I really like the design on this kaleidoscope which is why i wanted to incorporate some of it into my own giant version. However it includes photography as well as these colourful illustrations.

I have moved areas for the third time but this is the area is a good space and i think appropriate for my designs, therefore i will not be making a giant kaleidoscope using the pillar.

I had to clean the window before i could stick anything on it. I spent the morning in the studio getting rid of the left over glue from the last exhibition using bubblegum remover spray.

I ran into a problem when I stayed late at uni. My kaleidoscopes designs on acetate looked dull because of the darkness outside. My designs are bright and very colourful and this doesn’t show them to their full potential. My solution is to use the 6 acetate designs I have already printed for during the day, and have the other 6 designs printed into Matt paper for the exhibition at night. Therefore in both day and night my exhibition will work for all light. So my final window design will be a combination of acetate and paper. I put this piece of paper behind the design to show the difference in colour.

exhibition development

final exhibibition

evaluation Throughout this project I have had a number of different ideas but the idea I took the furthest was the strongest visually. The idea of these kaleidoscope patterns actually came from drawing Einstein in an experiment with the idea of identity. The drawing I did looked quite illusional which made me think of taking this project down a totally different route. I thought about how people are hypnotised by what they see on the street and how illusion disguises the feeling of emptiness in a big city. The mind alone creates illusion when feeling empty or lonely, I think the mind is a powerful thing and I wanted to highlight that by creating some illusional patterns for the street.

I found an artist called mark titchner who had a big influence on my work and final designs, he too had designed patterns that looked like kaleidoscopes which I found powerful to look at. This gave me inspiration to create something similar but without type, I wanted my designs to leave works to the imagination.

I am happy with my final collection of kaleidoscope patterns, I think they communicate with the mind and it’s illusion influences and can be quite mesmerising to look at. I am also proud of my final exhibition work, it is colourful and eye catching which I think is the main criteria to create good street art. During the exhibition because it was late at night and there was no light behind the designs from outside the designs looked slightly dulled, however on my plaque card by the side of my work I wrote “to experience these designs at their best, look at them from outside.” Because my designs from outside had the light from inside working behind them, they lite up and really stood out on the creative arts building, which I am proud of because lots of people walk and drive past the university so It was a good opportunity for my work to be seen by lots of people.

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