MILLI LEVETT RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT BOOK YEAR 3 M00388913 FASHION COMMUNICATION & STYLING
After having so much control in what I chose for my last project, I wanted to choose three random unrelated companies that are completely different and not something that would usuall be interpreted in such an abstract way. For instance, The Royal Mail, The British Musuem and The British Army, playing up on the general ideas of what they are and what they do in my own way through creating my print designs. I don’t no myself yet how these will turn out or I will interpret them so this will be something different for me to explore.
I began looking into the history of the royal mail and where it all started, my family has a lot of historical memorabilia so this was the first thing to have a look at, stamps from 1950’s and even before this! Ration books from the army which used to be taken to the post office in order to acquire food, all this a lot different from what we no today. I created a collage of all the stamps and stamp books I came across in my dads collection. I then photographed all the individual components that I found that to me are reminiscent of the royal mail. I wanted to juxtapose these with new, modern items that now best describe the royal mail and the post office, in order to show how much it has changed over time as I think that historical content can work well in showing what the company/brand are about. Obviously the Royal Mail has gone through alot of extremely unpopular changes, for instance its privitisation and I would like to capture this somehow but in a more humourous light rather than in a serious context. For a campaign this wouldnt work.
This is just a quick collage of the things I collected that for me where reminiscent of the Royal Mail, I juxtaposed the new with the old, I am going to look into using this as some sort of background design for a print or at least a starting point as I think it would be interesting to create some layers using this and some other items that perhaps arent related in the usual context, for instant using something for its red colour rather than for its meaning. I think this would work well keeping to my surreal style of working while creating something more interesting than simply layered designs of Royal Mail related objects.
This selection of images I came across while going through several papers from 1951, the time of “The Festival Of Britain” where Britian was celebrating the end of the war, all of a sudden design took center stage in Britain and things were being made for the purpose of just they’re looks instead of just for their “usefulness”. These adverts really caught my attention because we look at them now and they are almost laughable yet in the time of the 1950’s they were normal adverts doing their job of selling items such as cigarettes, however smoking is now seen in a completely different light and they are no longer even allowed to be displayed on shelves in a supermarket without being covered by a screen, not only this but durex selling celotape. Something that I didnt no ever happend. It seemed in this time Britain was obsessed with the feeling of “Newness”, something which is still very prominent. It is now ‘innovation’ something new and exciting that hasn’t been done before.
I then decided to do something a bit ‘different’ and create my own version of the Royal Mail in an abstract image, the red for their obvious stand out logo and branding and then the bank notes are to signify the Queens head that is on stamps and also promoting the fact it is the “Royal Mail’. also to signify the privitisation of the company as now everything seems to cost twice the price that it used to and this has created uproar throughout most communities, as people complain about card and letter sending now being an exspensive way to do things. I then decided to use this image in a print design for what I think stands for “The Royal Mail” to me, naturally this can be read slightly negatively as the connotations of the bra woth the money can be read entirely wrong but infact I think thats what makes it interesting and I think it would be interesting how different people react to my perception of “The Royal Mail” reading it how they seen it , instead of how I have perceived it. Not at all intending to create any negative feelings.
‘BE THE BEST’
After exploring the idea of “heel concept” creating ‘mustard heel’ my thoughts turned back to my printer concepts where I had used the printer in such a way that it looked as if the printer had just printed wax strips, I wanted to try and capture this using other objects seeing if I could succesfully create other images like my first printer concept.
I was happy with my toilet roll window image so i decided to add the same principle to the printer, I think it has worked quite well I am really happy with how the image has turned out. I think the image on the previous page demonstrates this idea better as you can see more of what the object is as the angle shows the dimensions.
As I was pleased with my last printer concept image I decided to carry on exploring this idea adding things that I thought would work with the same principle. In my last project underwear featured quite highly and I think it all worked quite well so here I have brought the idea bag and again Im pleased with this image.