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Brief 03_ Absolutely Fabulous, Collaboration (Emily Ball) The Brief

Absolutely Fabulous Context

Absolutely Fabulous, also known as Ab Fab, is a BBC television sitcom created by Jennifer Saunders, based on an original idea by her and Dawn French, and written

by Saunders, who plays the leading character. The series features Saunders as Edina Monsoon, a heavy-drinking, drug-abusing PR agent who spends her time chasing bizarre fads in a desperate attempt to stay young and “hip”. Edina is joined in her quest by magazine editor Patsy Stone, her best friend and enabler, whose drug abuse, alcohol consumption, and promiscuity far eclipse Edina’s comparatively mild self-destructive behavior.

The Brief

Design two screen-printed posters in celebration of popular British comedy sitcom Absolutely Fabulous (1992 – 2012) staring Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley as there is currently talk of a feature film in production. The designs should aim to capture the essence and the comedic value of the show and the two protagonists Patsy Stone and Edina Monsoon; outrageous, hilarious, fashion fads, alcohol abuse, mid-life crisis, friendship, London, middle class, exaggerated, unconventional (yet relatable) characters.

Preparation/Research suggestions

Funny/recognisable quotes from the shows two characters. Images/stills from the show. Colour schemes from the credits (logo) Screen printing preparation.

Brief 03_ Absolutely Fabulous, Collaboration (Emily Ball)

Research / concept

Research

The idea of the brief was to try and capture the essence of the show through the design. This meant considering imagery, the appropriate type and colour along with composition. As a starting point Emily and I listed various words that came to mind when thinking of the show and how these could come across through the design.

Key Words

Outrageous, hilarious, fashion fads, alcohol abuse, mid-life crisis, friendship, London, middle class, exaggerated, unconventional (yet relatable) The main element of research was gathering a bank of images that suited the type of style we wanted to portray in the design, this along with suitable and humorous quotes would make up the prints.

Key Quotes

‘Darling, if you want to talk bollocks and discover the meaning of life you’re better off just downing a bottle of whisky. At least that way you’re unconscious by the time you start to take yourself seriously!’

‘Liquid lunch for me darling.’

‘Come on! Stoli, babe!’

‘When somebody deliberately over-educates themselves out of the possibility of useful employment, I take issue.’

‘I’m sorry if that sounds selfish, sweetie, but it’s me! Me! Me! Me!’

Imagery

When collecting the images we wanted a specific aesthetic, firstly our preference was to have stills or images from an earlier series as this was really when the show was at the height of its popularity. Whilst searching for the images we kept in mind the key words we had listed as this is what we wanted from a single image. It was also important that the image depicted the individual characters.

Brief 03_ Absolutely Fabulous, Collaboration (Emily Ball) Design development/ Screen print prep

Preparing images for screen print

Once we had gathered the images we narrowed it down to two that we thought worked well, both taken from earlier series and what we think captures the show quite well. Whilst looking through images online we came across a lot of posed, promotional shots that pictured the two main characters photographed on a staged set. We chose this one in particular because this is a still from one of the episodes and we thought it would work well with type. The second image features just Patsy, the reason for this image is because we thought this summed up the character and the show perfectly and would work well with text and with the process of screen printing. When looking for images we also had to consider the quality as they would be scaled to A3.

Most of the colour experimentation would be done whilst screen printing, however we did try various colours digitally after changing the imsge to halftone to get a basic idea for possible colour schemes.

Typeface

Bodoni Medium Italic We tried various typefaces and different sizes, weights and cases before finding one that we thought worked well. We decided on Bodoni as we felt it was well suited to the imagery and that it signified a high end fashion font, in keeping with the show.

Colour Palette Although we had discussed experimenting a little more with colour when actually going through the process of screen printing we tested out various imagery and type using the four main colours from te shows logo. This was good in terms of keeping the design recognisable to the show, however we felt the colours didn’t actually suit the images or the design we wanted to create.

Quotes We decided to go for a really obvious and well known quote for the image with both of them as this is instantly recognisable, even if your’e not that familiar with the show. The second quote sums up the image of Patsy perfectly, which is why we decided to go with that one.

‘Sweetie Darling.’

‘Liquid lunch for me darling.’

Brief 03_ Absolutely Fabulous, Collaboration (Emily Ball)

The process/Screen printing

Screen Printing Overcoming problems/testing

After exposing our screens we noticed some of the emulsion had been taken off after the image was left stuck on the screen from a previous incident on the exposing machine. At first this seemed as though it could be quite problematic as the areas that had suffered were quite central to the overall image and we couldn’t tell whether this was going to effect the print too much. We decided to do a test print run and see what the damage was. Whilst testing we found that the problems weren’t as noticeable as we first thought and that actually the small imperfections added something to the design. We wanted to use this brief as a way of being able to explore and experiment with printing techniques and colour so these little imperfections and individual blemishes on the screens added to the final outcome.

The process/Experimentation

We started off with light colours for the photographs as we felt this would work better when the text was overlayed on the second screen, as we planned for the type to be quite dark colours. When first planning we had decided to try and take the colours from the logo, however when we were in the process of screen printing it was a lot more beneficial for the overall design to just experiment with the colours as the outcomes tended to be more interesting and we also had the option of fluorescent paints which we thought would work really well and in keeping with the show. After becoming more confident with the technique we decided to add more colours and create streaks and marbling effects from mixing various colours and overlaying prints.

Outcomes

After we had explored with different colours and trying gradients and various colours we looked at how we could explore with type and composition. We placed the text in different places and in some cases over layered images and text multiple times. The final prints were better then expected as we were able to experiment with colour which led to some interesting and colourful designs, portraying the show and characters successfully.

Brief 03_ Absolutely Fabulous, Collaboration (Emily Ball)

Variations/experimentations

Screen printing experimentation It was a really interesting process experimenting with the printing tecniques as we got some effects we would of never been able to produce through digital design. Over laying images, experimenting and marbling with colours and playing with composition and text were main elements of the experimentation, which was something we wanted to explore in this brief.

Brief 03_ Absolutely Fabulous, Collaboration (Emily Ball)

Final Prints