City In Flux Jon Lawrence Semester One
The Hacienda
Jon Lawrence - City in Flux
One of my starting points for this project was with The Hacienda nightclub which was active in Manchester between the years of 1982 and 1997. My reason for delving into this particular subculture was the strong recent musical history that Manchester possesses. During the late 80s and early-mid 90s, Manchester was the leading city in terms of musical talent emerging (Oasis, The Smiths, Happy Mondays and Stone Roses to name a few). The Hacienda’s existence coincided with this period (which later became known as ‘Madchester’). This is perhaps the reason why The Hacienda became so famous throughout the era and why it has left behind a legacy of memories and musical talent, the likes of which may never be repeated. It is this legacy which The Hacienda left behind when its doors closed in 1997, that I want to portray in my project. I aim to take inspiration from the graphical identity which Peter Saville and Ben Kelly gave the club, and turn it into a series of posters advertising the opening of a new nightclub which would try to replicate the level of success and recognition which The Hacienda had in its heyday.
Sketchbook Work At the start of the project I put my research work into a small sketchbook in order to take notes and collect various ephemera from Manchester easily. What I found whilst in Manchester was that there is still a thriving music scene and a lot of music and club related advertisement about especially within the city’s Northern Quarter. One of which can be seen here.
Jon Lawrence - City in Flux
Sketchbook Work The book was good for me to document my thoughts and ideas on what direction I was going to take my project. The bottom page here shows my main idea of reopening or opening a new nightclub in Manchester’s youthful Northern Quarter. It also shows my research into Alexsi Hautamaki’s Character project, which has been a massive source of inspiration for the direction I wanted to take my project in. The top image is of a couple of posters I collected whilst in Manchester. The one on the left particularly reminded me of the graphic identity of The Hacienda with the black stripes paired with a bright block colour. This perhaps shows and proves that The Hacienda’s legacy has lived on in Manchester and gives me confidence in taking my idea forward .
Jon Lawrence - City in Flux
Sketchbook Work
The three ideas I had for the project after I had chosen a rough direction I wanted to go in and a certain subculture I wanted to focus on: 1. The Reopening idea is the one I eventually went with. To open a new nightclub in Manchester’s youthful Northern Quarter based on the musical and clubbing history of the city, in particular the 1990s acid house era. 2. Dress Code - the idea with this was to produce a mix n match book on nightclub fashion now and then. So the reader could mix and match clothes from the 90s with nowadays rave fashion. 3. Map Infographic - The rough idea for this was to create a guide to the Northern Quarter and give directions on how to get to the venue from anywhere in the area.
Jon Lawrence - City in Flux
Recycling Typefaces Inspired by Aleksi Hautamaki’s Character work, I decided to experiment with ‘recycling’ my own typefaces. From all of the ephemera I have collected from Manchester and cut letters out of them to form ‘mcr’ (the proposed name of my nightclub and abbreviation of Manchester). From this I may implement this form of typography into my development. It gives an authentic hand finished feel, which could be nice to try on my poster, and would go with the hand finished photocopying/scanning effect.
Jon Lawrence - City in Flux
Aleksi Hautamaki Aleksi Hautamaki is a designer from Helsinki. The work of his that interests me most is pictured below. The work itself is from Hautamaki’s Character project - A project in which he collects out unwanted neon signage and fits new bulbs in and takes the characters out into the cityscape to photograph (as below). Companies move, update their logos and cease to exist, their fascia signs are taken down and demolished. Why? Character takes the dismantled signs, which have been part of the cityscape for years, even decades, and gives them a new life. “We choose the letters that have character, take them, replace the old neon tubes with LED’s, check that they are ok and put them on our website”, says Aleksi Hautamäki. He is one of the founders of the Finnish company called Character, which recycles the signs to be used as individual letters. “These pieces of typography are all unique design objects, why should they be demolished?”. The aspect of this which most interests me is the placement of work in an environment, for example it has prompted me to, when my posters are finished, take them to Manchester to post up on walls as if they were a live poster. I will then photograph them and present them alongside my posters.
Jon Lawrence - City in Flux
https://www.behance.net/gallery/1041231/Character
Initial Experimentation Jon Lawrence - City in Flux
After finalising what direction and idea I want to take forward, I started to piece together pieces of text and imagery I had accumulated over the past couple of years and began to layer them up and photocopy/scan them in to achieve differing effects. The Fresh Hair image in the top right is going to be the basis for further experimentation with techniques and compositions. I will use aspects of the other three also on this.
Fresh Hair Experiments Progresing on from the previous experiments, I have taken ‘Fresh Hair’ and digitally edited some of them from the photocopies and scans I produced earlier on.
Jon Lawrence - City in Flux
Experimentations Jon Lawrence - City in Flux
Experimentations Jon Lawrence - City in Flux
Experimentations Progressing forward from my earlier experimentations I have begun to look at forming some designs that would relate to my project rather than found materials. I took inspiration from Alexsi Hautamaki’s ‘Character’ project in which recycled neon letters were placed throughout the city. Following this theme I have chosen to use the letter ‘M’ for Manchester and ‘mcr14’ (the proposed name of my ‘club’. The background image is a photograph I took whilst visiting the Northern Quarter. The building is one I thought of as a potential venue/location for the nightclub and so would give a hint as to what the posters mean without explicitly stating it. The introduction of the slogan ‘less acid more house’ is a satirical play on words. The ‘acid house’ era of the 1990s in which The Hacienda club really thrived, is something I wanted to refer to, but not advertise. For example the hard drug scene which existed back then has long since vanished, therefore ‘less acid’. The contemporary nightclub music scene is now dominated by the ‘house’ genre, therefore ‘more house’ and so the slogan is born. The composition of the pieces is something I like and will develop, however, I think more depth needs to be added meaning new background images and a different font to be used.
Jon Lawrence - City in Flux
Experimentations Following on from the ‘M’ designs, I decided to introduce two more letters in addition to the M so to spell out the abbreviation ‘mcr’. I used images from my earlier experiments as the background images here to add a sense of depth to see what it would look like behind the bright block colour and large type. I think the contrast works well and aim to replicate a similar effect with images that are relevant to the target audience for my pieces. For the time being I am using Helvetica Neue as the font for the lettering as it is a contemporary font, this is key for me to be able to keep the project in sync with the current audience. The hashtag at the base of the design was added after deciding that to fully get the audience engaged I need to have something they can relate to, and so in this digital age I decided that I should add a digital element to it. This means that they can follow the hashtag and get more info on what the posters are about and updates on what is happening at the club.
Jon Lawrence - City in Flux
Neasden Control Centre Looking at the work of Neasden Control Centre gave me inspiration for my experimentations and development, in that the processes and style of work suited the direction I was heading in. The hand finished effect of their work mirrors mine so far. The bight colours and contrasting black lines in the pieces below gave me the idea to up the threshold level on my own work to give a greater black and white contrast as opposed to a photographic texture.
Jon Lawrence - City in Flux
www.debutart.com
The Hacienda Inspired Designs This set of designs are heavily influenced by Peter Saville’s designs for The Hacienda. The colour scheme, font and use of thick black stripes are all trademarks of his work with the Factory Records owned club. The designs themselves, I think are effective in colour choice and composition, however I want to put more of my own mark on them and perhaps remove the address to make the posters more obscure and guerilla-like. The images behind all relate to Manchester and the ‘Madchester’ club scene ad subculture which is of course the area in which I am exploring in my project. The high threshold effects used on the background images of the top two really give a high contrast and slight distortion which I will carry forward onto developed designs.
Jon Lawrence - City in Flux
Background Image Development
The images here are of various stages of the development stage for my background images. These three images are built up of layers, the bottom layers being a printed image, which is then fed back through a photocopier to achieve the layering effect seen on the bottom two images. I could have done this digitally of course, but i wanted the look to be ‘deeper’ and slightly more grainy to add a sense of period correctness, but also a more authentic feel. These came as a direct response to my earlier experimentations using found imagery. I felt like my earlier experiments were successful so I wanted to keep the process as similar as possible.
Jon Lawrence - City in Flux
mcr. (tricolour) The idea for this set of three posters is to directly relate to the name of the proposed new nightclub that my posters would be promoting - ‘mcr.14’ or ‘mcr.’ for short. As with the ‘less acid more house’ designs, the posters would be displayed in different places and act as obscured promotions, and by following the scan at the bottom would all link up their meaning as a whole become clear. I want whichever set of designs I go ahead with to be interactive and not immediately readable thus to encourage the target audience to engage with them and s a result make the experience more memorable. Unlike some of my other designs I have opted to use Helvetica Neue as the main font in order to ensure that the designs appear more contemporary as opposed to ‘remakes’ of old material from the 90s.
Jon Lawrence - City in Flux
Less Acid More House This set of designs use the slogan ‘less acid more house’ but in a less obvious way. As the posters will be placed in different places around the Northern Quarter, they wont immediately make sense as a standalone piece, but would hopefully prompt the target audience/viewer to do their own ‘research’ in order to find the other posters or follow the hashtag on Twitter/instagram to find out what the posters are saying and promoting. The image that has been distorted in the background is one of The Hacienda club during the ‘acid house’ era of the 1990s, and the stripes on the right of the image provide a subtle link from the subculture of then to the modern day nightclub subculture that my project is aimed at. As previously stated the font and block colour scheme is a nice mix of 90s era and contemporary, the link to the past is with the font - Futura which was used by Peter Saville for The Hacienda’s graphic and advertisements 20 years previous.
Jon Lawrence - City in Flux
Less Acid More House
Continuing my development process on the series of guerilla styled ad posters for a newly opened nightclub in Manchester’s youthful Northern Quarter, I have used my slogan of ‘less acid more house’ as the main focal type in this series. The slogan itself is a satirical reference to Factory Records’ Hacienda club from the 90s era in which the music genre ‘acid house’ was huge. With my whole project being influenced by this era’s nightclub subculture within Manchester, I felt that this slogan could bring that era into the contemporary whilst retaining the standards and legality of today’s youth. The designs themselves again, are influenced in colour and style to The Hacienda’s graphic identity in that the font (Futura) was used on a lot of their advertising content at the time, and the bold black, white and block colour pallets which were also features. To bring the posters and project into the 21st century I have added a digi-scan and hashtag to the designs. This would in theory prompt the target audience to do their own research into what the posters are about, and in doing so would find out about the new ‘mcr.14’ nightclub situated in the Northern Quarter. This clearly shows the age of my target audience which is 18-25 (or typical nightclub goers).
Jon Lawrence - City in Flux
Less Acid More House Final Outcomes After much deliberation and refining, I have arrived at my final designs for my project. I have stuck with my 4-colour scheme which I have been using throughout my experiment and development stages, however I have decided to go with differing background images. This is not only to make the type stand out more and be easily legible, but also to show three different scenes which all relate back to the ‘Madchester’ era. The hashtag ‘LAMH’ stands for ‘less acid more house’ and as previously described, is there to provide a contemporary link to today’s nightclub going subculture. The same is also true for the mobile scan a the bottom of each piece. Both digital elements enable the viewers to make sense of what could be described as an obscure message. This is the effect I set out to achieve when I started this project - a guerilla advertising styled series - One with a clear message, but obscure as to what it is attached to. The font used, is also linked to the ‘acid house’ era - Futura. It is the same font used by Peter Saville on a lot of The Hacienda’s graphic content, i.e. posters, flyers and ads. I think it is a nice balance of period correct (90s era) and contemporary as it does not look dated in any way so still performs well amongst modern fonts and digital platforms.
Jon Lawrence - City in Flux
On Location in Manchester
Jon Lawrence - City in Flux After getting my posters printed out on A1 semigloss/satin paper, I took them into Manchester’s Northern Quarter and put them up as if they were actually advertising a nightclub and event for real. I put them in areas they would get seen,but not necessarily ‘in your face’, so for example down a couple of side streets linking major parts of the Northern Quarter. Overall I am pleased with the outcome of the series as I think that they were successful in portraying the message and design idea I had at the start of the project. I think I was able to create a series of designs which would appeal to a contemporary audience within the Manchester nightclub going subculture, but also having remnants of a bygone yet celebrated era of the 1990s and the ‘acid house’ movement alongside The Hacienda club - which was ultimately the inspiration for my project.