Monday, February 21, 2011

Analog Circus Icons. Sets 1 and 2.

Initial studies using 7 different icon properties. 









Moving past these initial studies I chose to work with two properties, fill and fragmentation, for the next set. The blocky childlike fill set fits in with my circus culture while the fragmentation set makes the viewer fill in the dots.






Thursday, February 17, 2011

Pictogram Readings.

The first article over the pictogram contained great information on the history and workings of pictograms.  It covered the levels in which a pictogram is understood. This seems highly important in creating useful and successful pictograms.  The approach of this article was intellectual and throughly explained.  The video over the olympic pictograms goes over the olympic pictograms through history and highlights the exceptional and derides the faulty.  While doing this critique the video explains exactly what does and what doesn't work for the pictograms. The reading by Lupton explained the creation and use of isotype.  In the text she starts to use the isotype instead of words and it becomes the readers responsibility to learn them.  They are easily learned and their advantage quickly becomes apparent.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Howlin' Wolf Poster

After the critique of the first iteration I addressed some points that were brought up. The lines that symbolize Wolf's howl have been mangled slightly to give them the raspy characteristic of Mr. Wolf's voice. They also no longer touch the fret marker which acts as the moon. The new picture was taken under new lighting conditions also. In the first iteration the photo was taken in daylight which made the poster too cheery. The new lighting is now darker and more directed towards the building.  The last change was to the building.  The building's features were too flat before and have been replaced with the front of an actual building. 


Setup:


Thursday, February 10, 2011

Howlin' Wolf Poster First Iteration


Index- Harmonica, Guitar fretboard, Moon

Symbol- Howlin' Wolf's voice sounds like a gnarled howl when he sings. The sounds lines coming from the club represent this.

Quote- "I was just a county boy, glad to get some sounds on wax."

Typography Quote Letterpress

With the compositions for this project I decided to have the difference between fails and succeeds. After picking my typeface from the school's collection I created digital versions so I could plan for the letterpress adventure. Setting up the chase was challenging yet rewarding after completely securing all the pieces kinda of like a oily, dirty puzzle. The acrylic ink was very finicky in how it applied to the letters. The spacing of my card that emphasized success needs tightening between the two parts.








Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Spectacle! final artifact














While researching circus I found that they visual rely on the extravagant to get the viewers attention.  This ties with the actual show as they are also exciting, quirky, and fun. All of the artifacts found fit into these values.  The clowns, bears, elephants, trains and tents are all weird and fun, while the trapeze, tightrope, and animal tamers are exciting and get the blood pumping.  The circus seems to use every bright color they can to grab the attention of viewers but most rely heavily on red, yellow, and blue as a constant.