Over Your Head
Comm Studio 2 Process Book Rachel Bender
Over Your Head Comm Studio 2 Process Book Rachel Bender
Contents Foreword
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Week 1:
Initial Iterations
8-9
Week 2:
I Think I Forgot What a Metaphor Is
10 -13
Week 3:
Penny Lane Sucks
14-17
Week 4:
Bigger Isn’t Always Better
18 -21
Week 5:
2 Many Chainz and Not Enough Thorns
22, 23
Week 6: Briar Rose Week 7: Final Poster Final Thoughts
24, 25 26 27
Foreword Hello, Welcome to the inside of my mind for a seven-week project, it was a pretty exciting period. During this time, I turned twenty-one, won a significant advertising campaign competition, rarely slept more than five hours a night, and managed to keep up with six other classes while completing sixty-two iterations in this one to reach one final image. A final image I would still probably tweak at least fifteen different ways because I have high standards for myself, and I like continual challenges After spending the previous semester constantly feeling frustrated and unhappy with my Comm Studio work, I made a list of restrictions for myself for the duration of this project: 1) I will not spend more than $10 on materials for any of the iterations during this process, printing exempt. I have to use what I already own; I can only buy items that I cannot produce at a high quality myself. 2) I will not work more than 5 hours a week outside of class on this project. While this may seem lazy or counterintuitive to producing quality work, it will save me from nitpicking endlessly over items that I will mostly disregard as I keep working towards a singular final image. Also, this is more in line with the expectations outlined in the class policies of being responsible for “an average of 3 hours of homework each week�. 3) I will mix new and familiar mediums whenever possible to find different strengths and weaknesses in my skill set. 4) I will not fall behind on this project. These guidelines pushed my work in a different direction than last semester; I felt slightly less exhausted when I was in class and had more energy to contribute to group critiques. I noticed a quicker progression in my work as I continued to push through the image making process and avoided becoming too precious about any specific idea. Also, I embraced the belief that not everything has to be A+ amazing; making a few things that are honestly just awful isn’t detrimental to the overall process. Being less rigid without losing sight of the final goal gave me some room to be less frazzled and have more fun. Please enjoy the complete journey of what it takes to make a poster! Xoxo, Rachel
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Week 1: Initial Iterations Source Material Overview: Another Planet Clyde Casey: Artist, Security Guard The true story of Clyde Casey, a street performer who used surrealism and abstract art to fight crime in Los Angeles’ Skid Row in the 1980s, and the creator of a place called Another Planet. Personal Summary: Another Planet is the story of Casey Clyde, a street performer turned security guard at the Wallenboyd Theatre in DTLA during the 1980s. Due to his unthreatening physical build and lack of traditional security training, Casey used his art and performance skills to help combat crime as the “Avant Guardian” of the neighborhood. He also took it upon himself to create Another Planet, a free refuge for the homeless at an abandoned gas station in Skid Row that acted as cultural hubs for arts and music, made by people from all different walks of life. Casey had to leave Another Planet in the hands of somebody else while he was traveling for several months and when he returned he found the venue was changed and stripped of much of its original character. Shortly after, it was burned down in an act of arson by a mentally ill man. Another Planet never reopened, and Casey has since relocated to New Orleans. The first round of visual metaphors based off of this story were rough and uninspired. I tried to walk the fine line between making the visuals too obvious or too difficult to understand them in the first few moments, but it was a lot harder than I imagined it would be. The world is full of terrible clichés, and some of them made it into this part of the project. I realized this week there was a LOT of white space in my compositions and that I needed to refine my metaphors and make them clearer before I continued making more images. Metaphor: Overcoming the odds
Everyone liked the pennies
I like the complexity of the tangled string in this image
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Based on the idea that most people reject what fortune tellers say to them if they don’t like the results
Hidden roses in a briar patch
I was trying to convey someone fighting against the surrounding darkness, did not succeed
Week 1
Metaphor: Use what you have to create new solutions
Trying to show how the brain is already so powerful
Even damaged hearts can still love
This one feels a little too “life hack� like
This is what happens when you have broken sunglasses and an old toothbrush
Used to show how powerful one idea or person can be
Metaphor: Going beyond the basic neccessities for a healthy life
Shelter needs more than just foul walls and a roof
Meant to show that something (art) is missing
Commentary on rethinking what a clean environment really means
Art supplies as a medical cross
Art supplies as a stethoscope
This idea is perhaps a little too gross when I think about it for more than a second 9
Week 2: I Think I Forgot What a Metaphor Is After last week’s critique, I worked on rewriting my metaphors as simple sentences rather than fragmented statements. It didn’t really have the desired effect on giving me a clearer idea of where I was going to go with this project, but it gave me the opportunity to try out a brand new metaphor that fit better with my story. I did visual research to contextualize the history, culture, and themes behind my source work. “Another Planet” takes place in the 1980s in Skid Row, so I found most of my images in Los Angeles history books. I was surprised how few of them even mentioned Skid Row by name; I worked off of my geographic knowledge of the area to make sure the images were related. I also found pictures in the LA Times Photo Archive, where they were more likely to post if a picture was of Skid Row or not. I found a couple of photos of the story’s hero Casey Clyde and his magical oneman band bicycle he uses today when he rides around New Orleans to perform. I also use some images that were inspired by the new theme, “it’s important to have a place of respite.”
Clyde Casey in 2012
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Week 2
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Week 2
While I felt the metaphors themselves were much more concrete, coming up with 21 new approaches wasn’t any easier this week. Everything still seemed unoriginal or way too obscure; there were a few no one was understanding. My attempts at expanding some of the ideas did not match up with what I had envisioned. Some of the inspiration for the images was just too personal, so while I knew what it was supposed to convey, no one else caught on. I knew I was going to be ditching 18 ideas, so I was ok with the still rather high number of duds. After group critique, I decided to go forward working with metaphors that involved pennies, thorn bushes, and chains with unusually repaired links. I abandoned the new theme I had created to work with for this round to focus on images created for my previously established ideas. I was worried about how reiterating these three metaphors five different ways would go, but I figured it might lead to some more innovative solutions.
Metaphor: Fighting against the odds can lead to great reward
I don’t even remember what I was trying to say here
Tried to contextualize the symbol, didn’t make the message any clearer 12
Week 2
Metaphor: You can use what you already have to create new solutions
Inspired by the true story of using a shoe to hit open a bottle of wine
More images inspired by “life hacks”
Simple, clear, and effective
Makes the source material seem too light hearted
Metaphor: It’s important to have a place of respite
Based on Swedish tradition to place greens in the doorway to indicate home
Symbol on the fence is hobo code for “safe place”
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Week 3: Penny Lane Sucks I tried sketching out a few ideas before I started the image making process for this week, but it slowed me down. I was too caught up in the tiny details, and I didn’t end up using any of the work. I was unsure of how to do iterations for the same idea without everything looking the same, so I pushed in the opposite direction and made them all too different. I was also worried that the metaphors I’d decided to go forward with were going to be too difficult to work with in a variety of ways, particularly ones involving the penny. I felt very tapped for ideas after two iterations. Also, it was incredibly hard to experiment with a physical chain because it does not lay flat and creates a lot of weird shadows no matter which way I placed it in my makeshift photo studio.
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Week 3
This week I really built up a hatred for the penny metaphor. Both weeks prior, I received the most positive feedback for the compositions involving the coins in some form, while I personally knew it was not my best effort. I tried to come up with a variety of iterations, but it was kind of soul crushing and in the end almost completely unrelated to my metaphor. I was relieved to give it up.
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Week 3
I stayed on assignment with these compositions the most. I introduced no different ideas and just played with the mediums and compositions of each iteration. I decided to go forward with the image above because I liked the geometric, reductive nature of the thorns.
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Week 3
Made out of old wire hangers
I struggled to come up with different iterations mainly because chains are rather unphotogenic, as demonstrated in every composition. I experiemented with making my chain out of another material, lost the metaphor in the process, but ended up with a very cool compositional strategy. I held onto the placement on the place, but reintroduce the chain and unusual link in the next round.
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Week 4: Bigger Isn’t Always Better
The next round of iterations was the first time I tried to incorporate type. I started off with simple pencil sketches trying different strategies for combining words and image, but I was working on them when I was super tired and hungry and if affected my output. I took a few days off from working on the project and started sketching again far away from my computer. I named the event title “Avant Guardian” inspired by Casey’s nickname he was given on Skid Row 18
Week 4
I came up with the idea for a super geometric lettering piece after sitting in Union Station for awhile. The various triangles and rectangles in the Art Deco design made me want to make something that felt super controlled. I’ve had issues doing lettering in the past where it’s unclear what I’m trying to spell because I take out too many of the features that make letters look like letters. I was worried this was already happening with the ‘G’ in the sketches in the upper left. I wanted to play into the novelty of using the chains as part of the letterforms, but was still unsure at this point how tacky it would look. Not wanting to make an entire crazy triangluar type poster, I experimented with the lettering contrasting my own handwriting for body copy.
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Week 4
Blowing my poster up to 12x18 inches made me realize that all of the elements felt way too big and cluttered on the page. There was no clear hierarchy or flows, the relationship between the pieces was non-existent. I asked myself, “was this a good idea to use such an awkward object as the subject of my entire composition?� The whole thing just felt gross and unconsidered. I still have no idea what I was thinking of with the type, it just looks weird now. At the time I thought since I had drawn it myself it would look more handmade, but it just looks like a bad free font.
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Week 4
I felt better about this poster on a larger scale; it felt like it had more life. I fell victim to the trap of “I-don’t-know-where-to-put-my-text-so-I’ll-put-it-in-the-bottomright-corner” unfortunately, but the rest of the type felt like it was on the right track. There was way too much black overall, though, and my rose wasn’t coming across as the first significant element when hidden behind the text. Everything was too squished on the bottom of the page; I wanted to create a flow trickling down in the next round.
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Week 5: 2 Many Chainz and Not Enough Thorns
Working with my chains on a larger composition made them seem less clunky. The type improved in some areas, but overall it still felt messy. I wasn’t interested in pursuing new solutions to make it better. Last week I had the sense this would be the poster I would end up ditching before moving on to my final composition, so I was surprised when some of my classmates said they preferred this one.
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Week 5
However, I didn’t listen to them. I had a stronger idea of what this poster could look like in the end. At this point in the process, though, I had lost the plant elements that made the black spots look like thorns instead of vaguely geometric shapes. The type lock up for the title felt awkward, and the large paragraph of body copy was hard to read when set with the “Area Type” tool. The composition overall lacked necessary depth and complexity.
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Week 6: Briar Rose
With my engineer print hung on the wall, I cut out physical pieces of black paper to glue onto my composition. The very hands-on approach brought a more organic feeling back to the piece so it felt more like briars than reductive shapes. I also loved the swirling vortex effect, I could see where the type should sit. I also scaled up the rose significantly, clearly evident as the yellowish blob in the image on the right above. Seeing my poster and how it would exist in a real space made me realize that I needed to experiment more with different sizes and styles of type. I decided at this point I wanted to use my own lettering and handwriting as much as possible without causing my carpal tunnel to flare up. I found a more successful text lockup for the title on the opposite page, but I was still uncertain about the yellow. My teacher suggested I try it in a material similar to the rose itself, so I decided to experiment with some gold foil for the final iteration. I also realized that I would have to break my system of having all the body copy inside the black shapes; it made the large paragraph too hard to read.
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Week 6
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Week 7: Final Poster
Another Planet is the story of Clyde Casey, a street performer turned security guard at the Wallenboyd Theatre in Downtown LA during the 1980s. Due to his unthreatening physical build and lack of traditional defense training, Casey used his art and performance skills to help combat crime as the “Avant Guardian� of the Skid Row. He also took it upon himself to create Another Planet, a free refuge for the homeless at an abandoned gas station in the neighborhood that acted as a cultural hub for arts and music made by people from all different walks of life.
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Final Thoughts After rewriting all the subheaders in my handwriting and creating the poster title in gold foil, I felt really good about the type. I was much happier with the thorns and their relation to the rose. There well still a few things I wasn’t satisfied with, like the consideration of some of the edges of the page, the quality of the image of the rose, and the lockup of the title. Overall, though, everything felt pretty complete, and I was thrilled I wouldn’t have to think metaphorically for a while. This project was a lot more challenging than I anticipated it being, but that is the Otis way. It’s a typical reaction for the general public to make fun of artists for making seemingly unrelated or obnoxiously complicated connections visuals that support their initial project concepts; like a lone sock nailed to a canvas to represent illegal child labor. Usually, I’m a part of that crowd snickering, but now I have a lot more respect for people who can make those connections, however they get there. Coming up with metaphors is not for the faint of heart. When thinking about my initial guidelines for this project, I feel I did a pretty good job sticking to them. I only spent $2 on supplies for a chain from Home Depot. I might’ve worked for a few extra hours during the week before the poster was due, but overall I was pretty strict with myself about time management. I experimented with some items I would have never considered incorporating into my images before the start of this project. And I’m proud to say I didn’t fall behind, with this process book being turned in on time as the ultimate piece of evidence to that effect. Usually at this point, I thank my mom for talking to me on the phone and helping me work through my ideas, but I didn’t call her as much about this project as I did about the ones last semester. I suppose that’s a sign of some personal growth. Cheers to the end of this assignment and the beginning of the next period of sleep deprivation!
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