Back In Bidness
What’s it been? Only 2 months of absence? Could have sworn I was capable of more. :p
Summer strikes and I am compelled to offset my rollicking school year with a season full of apathy and lethargy. (It’s wonderful.) What have I been doing? Not a whole lot. Hanging out with the new D-ness, messing about with the guys, putting up with female nonsense, being jobless and broke (if it weren’t for my beloved father I’d be shivering beneath a bridge) and welcoming the newest addition to the home- John’s new Husky-pup: Zeno. (Or as I like to call him, Fuckin’ Serious!) Pictures soon to come!
I have done a couple things in the meantime though. After giving everyone a good break from the usual rigor, I put up the first Design Matters’ “SummerTask.” A little optional / motivational what-have-you to keep sharp over the summer. Being so into poster art (you don’t say!), I decided to challenge everyone to make a “gig poster”— you know, those posters you see on concert walls or in bars that advertising upcoming shows and performances. As time goes on, the design of these posters has flourished from just advertisement to true art. Many iconic gig posters have become pop art spotlights! So, wanting to cut myself a piece of that pie, I figured— let’s do that. Here’s my result. (All of the entries can be seen at http://www.designmattersaasu.blogspot.com).
Bit of an indie dream-show for me right now; very much into all three bands at the moment. Well, when I’m not falling back onto my classic music craze— Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Earth Wind & Fire, Boston, Foreigner, The Temptations, The Chi-Lites, Journey and the like. ( Some of my friends think I’m crazy for being so all over the place when it comes to musicality. I look at them with similar disdain.)
Oh yeah, SPEAKING of posters!
I never put up my trio of posters from my Typography final project. I was a little iffy on them right after class was done, but looking back on them, I have a renewed fondness for them. if you have checked out Chris’ blog at all, you know that the poster theme was to showcase a typeface. Making it into a movie poster was an optional challenge. Here are my results:
I opted to make movie posters, but I also wanted to honor one of my favorite poster artists of all time (as well as one of my several art idols)— Saul Bass. The layperson with a few years on their back will recognize that I have SHAMELESSLY ripped off a few classic poster designs (but it’s okay because I’m honoring the greatness of the man… right?); namely those of the posters made for the movies Vertigo, Man With A Golden Arm, and Anatomy of a Murder. One of which is the Hitchcock classic, and the other two are classics directed by Otto Preminger.
Others know that he was also famous for doing opening and end credits for some of the biggest movies of his era, later working with Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese— if you’ve ever heard of those guys. I think they only get their movies released in art houses, and limited release. Oh, and you know… he did some logo work here and there. The AT&T globe (that was just redesigned for Web2.0 style), Girl Scouts of America, and Quaker Oats logos… if you are familiar with either of those small-beans companies. Are they even trading publicly yet? [/under_rock]
Anyways.
I wanted to pay homage to Saul Bass… well, because. He’s fucking awesome, and he was one of the first (and arguably still one of the best) movie poster designers, giving each poster a life of it’s own, and still having it be decidedly his style. Lot of organic cut out paper-shapes and off-kilter typography made for visually tense layouts that mirrored the intensity and fear that the movies of Hitchcock and Preminger often had.
I started by replicating the poster as exactly as possible, then moving away from it to create something somewhat original, varying to different degrees with each poster. The Golden Arm / Arms poster is very close to the original (I thought this was best because the color scheme and layout don’t afford a great deal of change before becoming unrecognizable as to where the influence came from). The Anatomy of a Murder / Font poster is midway changed, and the Vertigo / Typo poster is radically changed from the original. I guess I just wanted to show a progression / evolution of some sort. (shrug) At the least I wanted to show I wasn’t just ripping off existing designs to easy-breezy the final keystone project.
Anyways, enough talking for now. Hope you enjoyed my humble artworks, there will be more updates and artwork to come soon! (I promise!)
~LX is loving Seattle, perhaps too much! I miss my friends and my cats!
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