RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT x TOM DAVIDSON
I started to draw out an interpretation of Tyler and work into it in Illustrator. The drawing is based on the jump he does when he wins the award and I’ve tried to get across his personality in facial expression, etc. The illustration is going to be a slightly different style than I have done before, rather than a vector from a photograph I’m going to replicate this drawing and make the lines really defined and obvious.
As one of the potential outcomes for the competition brief is a typographic solution, we were directed to this interesting typography artwork. The work belongs to a publishing company called Unit Editions – a London based design studio which focuses on producing books on graphic design and visual culture. I visited their Tumblr and picked out some of their works that I found inspiring. One thing to note is that if I am going to produce a typographic response to the brief, it would have to be done in a manner that is as dynamic as this – that way it would stand out from the crowd. I love the way the pieces are abstract and vivid in colour – you can tell the artists have been really experimental with the work here. Something to aspire to!
Some more typographic inspiration for the competition brief. I think it would be interesting to experiment with different type solutions to represent the achievement. These book covers are from an independent Book store and gallery based in Leeds. They specialise on self published titles from both local and international artists. I love how clean the design of these book covers are – some of the designs could be transcribed into poster design. The type is quite experimental on some of the covers as well. I will soon create some sketches of ideas for my response to the brief; these will be a mixture of typographic and illustrative solutions.
After creating an Illustration on Tyler, The Creator, I experimented with a few texture and colour filters. The illustration is supposed to represent the jump Tyler did as he won the award. Although I quite like the illustration I don’t think it’s the route I’m choosing to take with the competition. I am more tempted to go down a typographic route.
After creating a few variations of illustrations of Tyler, The Creator, I decided to look at the brief from a more typographic aspect. I looked into the video of his acceptance speech a bit more and wrote down his words, which I will choose to portray typographically: “Yo. I’m excited as f**k right now, yo. I’ve wanted this s**t….since I was nine. I’m ‘bout to cry. Uhhh…this is for my lil brother Earl, he’s not here right now. Um…I can’t…I really can’t believe I’m here right now. I didn’t write a thank you speech…but…uhh…I don’t know…to all the kids watchin, to all the kids that’s watchin, you can do this s**t yourself, be yourself, f**k the system, Golf Wang. Thank you.” I did a few sketches to try and gain an idea of the sort of thing I would like to create.
Then I started to mock up these ideas as photoshop experiments. They are first experiments so will be developed further. For these I used quite a crude font because of Tyler’s childish and edgy character. I experimented with various textures to use for the background, using imagery associated with Tyler or Odd Future, an American hip-hop collective that Tyler is a part of. For one of the quotes I used a tie dye texture and experimented with different layering techniques, because Tyler wore a tie dye t-shirt to the 2011 VMA’s. For one I used a wolf fur texture because of the ‘Wolf Gang’ idea which is heavily induced by Tyler, the full name of Odd Future being OFWGKTA (Odd Future Wolf Gang, Kill Them All) and for another I used donut sprinkles because that is part of the imagery that is used in the Odd Future logo quite a lot. I included the XL recordings logo and the MTV VMA logo at the bottom of each design. This imagery stems from my initial research.
Having previously done a illustrative response and a typographical response, I began to expand on my typographical outcome. I did some experiments to see what would work. For this experiment I used the same font as my typographical response. I used an image of the VMA award that Tyler won and placed the quote over the top to try and form the shape of the award. I thought this looked visually interesting until I removed the photo layer – then I realised it didn’t look good at all. Even when rotated, and I messed around with the colour a bit, it failed to look like the image I wanted, so I discarded this idea straight away.
I then started to use different fonts to see if I could get a better look from them. I also used a different quote. I was still not convinced that the designs were good enough, so I tried something different.
Using one of the sketches I did to create my original illustration idea of Tyler, I stylised it in photoshop to make it look more illustrative. I liked the appearance of it and thought it related to some of the imagery associated with Tyler – like the drawings they use on their clothing brands and album covers. I experimented with different typography and layering techniques until I came up with a poster which I was quite happy with the outcome.
However, I realised the concept was not as strong as my previous typographical designs, for which I got a better response for. So I am going to develop this one further for my final outcome – by experimenting and creating an array of layouts.
I took some photographs of my housemates tie dye collection to try and incorporate some different patterns in my next designs. Tyler not only wears a lot of tie dye but was wearing it on the night of the VMA’s so seems appropriate to represent the event.
Using the tie dye photos, I experimented with a vast number of different layout and layering techniques to see which would look the best. I also was more experimental with the typography – putting emphasis on certain words, using a separate text box for each word so I could adjust the kerning and leading, and rotation of each word, accordingly. I am much happier with the results. I will continue to do experimentation of this nature for my other designs, I plan on doing 2 or 3 more using different quotes and visuals.
Here I set up a small photoshoot to generate the imagery for my second poster. The idea stems from the Odd Future logo which uses a donut with pink icing and sprinkles to make up the lettering. Since Tyler mentions Earl Sweatshirt (his younger brother and fellow member of Odd Future) in the quote I’m going to use in the design, I thought it would be appropriate. Using cake sprinkles and a pink background I took these shots. These will be used to enhance the quote I use in my next design.
Here I did a similar thing to these designs as I did with my first poster, tried different layering techniques and looked at which ones were most eye catching and visually interesting.
For the third quote I decided to use photos I took of my cousin’s cat. The reason for this is the image of a cat’s face is used a lot in Odd Futures clothing and artwork, and was featured on the t-shirt Tyler was wearing at the VMA’s.