module file _ 2
TA
by Jordan Betley
Everything About One Thing
To start with I was torn between doing my project on peoples essential items and tattooing. I found finding out about what peoples essential items were and why really interesting, whether people know it or not, everyone has essential items that they carry around with them. I got this idea by searching through my wallet for change when I found a piece of a jigsaw puzzle that I got given when I was in Berlin.
I was interested in doing the project on tattoos too. Around the time we were given the project it was my 21st birthday and I was in the process of booking a tattoo to celebrate it. I’ve been fascinated by tattooing and the tattoo community for a while now and thought that this project brief would be the perfect chance to explore the subject some more.
I did a bit of research on both of the subjects so I could see which had the most potential for exploration and see which one would give me the best possible final piece.
essentials _ After doing some research on peoples essentials I found that a magazine/website about streetwear called Hypebeast had done a similar campaign to what I wanted to do. They got people to lay out what they would class to be their essential items and got them to photograph it and upload it to a social media site such as Instagram and Twitter with the hashtag #hypebeastessentials. I really like the concept behind it and think that people would really find it interesting learning about why such items have meaning and why they’ve chose it as an essential item.
I thought that it would be a nice idea to include all different types of people from different backgrounds, different ages, different communitys, different ethnicitys so I’d get a varied amount of results so I could have some good comparisons. I think Hypebeasts campaign works particulary well because being a big company they have many contacts who can get famous people and brands to produce their essentials which people find much more interesting. Personally I’d find learning about other peoples essentials much more interesting as these have stories behind them and are much more raw in comparison to famous people/brands essentials.
Heinekens Essentials
I really liked the whole idea of finding out why people have chosen their essentials but I dont think there was enough flexibility within the subject matter to produce a whole publication on it. After looking through some of the hashtags on Instagram I saw that quite a few of the essentials were very similar and after a while it got quite boring.
I think that it would make a really nice little project but wouldn’t work for a project of this caliber.
The next idea I wanted to explore was tattooing. I’ve had a fascination of tattooing for a while now and saw this as an opportunity to learn and understand more about them and the history behind tattooing.
tattoos _ As I touched on earlier I was looking into getting a tattoo for my 21st birthday which was around when we were given the project. So at the time I was already researching tattoo artists and designs to find one that suited me the most.
I had a quick google search of tattooes and found the history to be a lot more interesting than I intially thought so I decided to do some more research on it to see if it would be an appropriate chocie.
After researching it some more I decided to draw up a spider diagram to see which strands of tattooing I could research and include in my publication.
Tattoo Book Research _ After deciding that I wanted my publication to be on tattoos I decided to have a look to see what other books about tattooing were on the market to see how to approach the subject. Once I found a few books I realised that most people approach tattoos regarding tattoos head first. Straight away you’re hit with an overly obvious tattoo style caligraphy font and accompanied by a high contrasting photograph.
I’m really not a fan of these type of style books. In my opinion they’re really tacky and fake, this is what I want to avoid when designing my book.
A substantial amount of my publication is going to be based on tattoos that my family and friends have. Most tattoos people have are subtle and you would never know that they have them - this is what I want focus my design on. I want the design to be quite subtle and not very obvious just like somebody who has a tattoo.
The design must be quite neutral because it has to cater for quite a lot of people so it needs to be quite formal and smart.
I did however, find a book on tattooing that I really liked. The book is part of a series of 3 which is soley based on Russian prison tattoos. The book itself is designed very formally and is quite subtly in the way it goes about displaying information and images.
The book contains black and white photographs of Russian prisoners displaying their tattoos which is then followed by an illustration of the tattoo and the meaning. I think that it’s an important factor to explain to the reader what the tattoo actually means.
I don’t think that including illustrations in my publication will suit the style and feel that I’m going for. I want my publication to have more of a magazine type feel to it rather than feel like a novel.
This is an image that is included in the book. I love the raw feel it has to it and how it shows the character of the prisoner. My publication is going to be very similar to this book in the way that quite a lot of the information is image based. Quite a few pages in this book are full page images which I think works really well, that way the reader can see every tattoo in a larger size.
Designs I like _ This is a brochure designed for a Belgium concept store called ‘Upside. I really like the simplistic, neutral design and I think something similar would work well with my subject matter. I think designing it like a magazine will work better than a book. I want it to be a modern design that feels thoughtfully spacious and has considered white space.
Pictured right is the poster that goes with the brochure for the shop ‘Upside’. I really like the poster, its simple yet informative. Although it’s a poster I think the same sort of style would still work as a front cover for a publication.
The imagery works really nicely and is eye-catching and modern. I think the 3 column grid sets the text and headings out nicely and feels structured and strong.
Pictured left is a page from the magazine ‘Nom de Strip’. This page contains 4 different fonts and sizes which is normally quite a lot for one page, however, it flows really nicely. The fonts suit each other really well and balance the page out nicely. However, I think a 3 comulm text box is too much.
I think a simple design like this would work really well for my publication. The design is universal, it can be used for many different subjects because it hasn’t commited to a specific style.
Pictured below is a design done by FaceDesign which was included in Folio Vol. 8. Unfortunately this design has now been taken down from the website and this is the best quality image I’ve got. I really like the grid layout and how the text placement and imagery has been really considered. I think that overlaying the text boxes on top of the image has worked well and is still easy for the reader to follow.
Pictured right and on the following pages is a publication from a project called ‘Sonicisual’ by Valerie Ng. I love the use of simplistic typography and how all of the imagery is placed in different places throughout the pages. I think this would work well in my publication, I want the reader to be looking for the images as if they were looking for someones tattoo. I don’t want the imagery in the same place page after page because the reader will get used to it and expect it.
Below is a publication designed by the Hachetresele Studio in Argentina. The publication is based on contemporary architecture in Argentina.
I’m in two minds about this publication, I think that the imagery is amazing, I really like how some images bleed off the page and how some images are strongly held in place by the grid system. However, I’m really not keen on the typography, in my opinion it stands out too much and draws the attention away from what’s the important bit of the book, the images of architecture.
As you can see from the photographs, the numbers are way too big and are almost the same size as the imagery! It’s important to display information cleary and legibly but you don’t want it to override the content in the publication.
I’m going to include page numbers on my publication too purely for the functionality for the reader, however I want mine to be really subtle and shy. I want the reader to know that it’s there but I don’t want it to draw attention from what’s important.
This publication is called ‘László Moholy-Nagy’ and is designed by a Kazakhstan designer called Slava Kirilenko.
This publication has an amazing grid layout and out of all the publications and projects that I’ve studied and researched this is the one I’ve taken most influence from.
Content _ My first step of gathering content was to make a spider diagram of everything that I knew I had to include in the publication so I could get a rough idea of where to start and what primary research I needed to gather.
As I said earlier, I’d already been in contact with a few tattoo artists and had brief knowledge of what sort of styles and techniques were on offer so I had a good starting base for my research.
I decided to start with the history of tattooing first because I thought it would be a good introduction into the industry and art of tattooing. I had a flick through The Tattoo History Source Book so I could get a rough understanding of how it all began and who discovered tattooing first and how it’s evolved from then.
This book was actually really helpful for me, it went into great detail about the history of tattooing and gave me a helping hand with writing about it.
I felt that it was important to include a detailed section about the history of tattooing because of the vast amount of countries that practiced it and the interesting stories behind them. I also wanted to explain to the reader about how tattooing has changed dramitically over the years, mostly through the instruments used, but it still uses the same concept it did all those years ago.
After reading and writing about the history of graphic design I discovered a mothod of tattooing called scarification. I really wanted to photograph someone getting scarred first hand but it’s quite rare in this country and many tattoo artists are offended by it so it’s virtually impossible to find someone willing to have it photographed and interviewed.
However, I still really wanted to include this method of tattooing in my publication as it’s so unusual and crazy, so I had to use imagery that was found on the internet as a last resort.
I also wanted to include how tattooing is different within different subcultures. For example, sailors, skinheads, prisoners etc.
This book is written by the author Nick Knight and is not specifically about tattooing, but it includes a lot of information about the movements of the culture and gave me valuable information that would help me write about how tattoos effected skinhead life.
aswell as being a good source of information, the book contains really nice photography taken in the heart of skinhead culture.
The photograph above has been scanned from the book. As you can see the image is very raw and untouched. I really like this style, it looks as if the photograph hasn’t been taken by a professional which suits the content of the book.
I think this type of photographic style would really suit my publication because I want it to be quite personal. I would quite like to take all my photographs on a film camera but I’m not sure if I’ll go down this path because the costs are quite high.
Photography _ A substantial amount of my publication is going to be image based so I decided to do some research on some photographers to get some ideas about how to approach it.
The first photographer I looked at was Theo Cottle. Theo is a photographer that lives in Bristol. His photography style is kind of like street documentry but many photographs he’s taken include portraits of people.
These collection of photographs taken by Theo Cottle come from an article called ‘Bristol is a Paradice’.
I really like how natural the photographs are, although the model/subject may be intimidating or unsavoury Theo has managed to photograph them in a way that makes the audience feel like the model/subject is opening up to them.
After meeting Theo I had a quick conversation with him about the series of photographs. He explained to me that he never intended on meeting any of these people and none of the photographs were set up, he met all these people on random occasions walking through Bristol.
When I spoke to Theo about this series of photographs he explained that every photograph included was taken using 35mm film camera.
I love how photographs from film come out once developed. In my publication I think I’m going to use a digital camera to take the photographs due to practicalities and cost, and then edit them so they have a film sort of feel to them.
The next photographer I researched and studied was Viktor Authier, an American photographer who has done work for big fashion/streetwear labels in America and Europe.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get in contact with Viktor, but I still studied his photographic style to try and gain as much as possible.
Like Theo, Viktor uses film cameras for most of his work.
Most of Viktors work is based around fashion photography and female portraiture. In my opinion Viktors work is very similar to Theos in the way that his shots look as if the model has been caught in the moment and doesn’t look staged. This is the kind of feel I want my photography to have.
The photographs that I think work best are the ones where the models look relaxed and at ease. My personal opinion is that it shows more character and gives a more genuine photograph which is what I want in my publication.
I think that photographing the model in their own surroundings works really well because it shows what type of person they are and gives the reader a more understandable photograph.
My Photographs _ After looking at these photographers I found it much easier to photograph my friends and family. I didn’t want the photos to be artificial or staged so I asked them to act naturally and I only used natural lighting. Below and on the following pages are some thumbnails of the un-edited photographs that I took.
As you can see from the un-edited photograph it doesn’t have the same feel as a photograph taken with a film camera. With film you don’t have as much control over the way the camera takes the photograph whereas with using a DSLR the contrast, tones and colours are much more realistic.
The photo above is the edited version for the publication. I changed the photos contrast, tones and exposure to give it a faded/film feel.
I chose to edit the photos so they’re faded because that’s what happens to tattoos after several years.