Initial idea for imagery and visual systems for me to use within my exhibition have been inspired by looking over the internet at some design work that already exists in order to get a gauge for how the different aspects of my exhibition could possibly look like,
Some of the more influential sources are below:
Looking at the artworks above I seemed to be noticing a theme of a large portion of the work that attracted my attention very often used colour like: Red, Black and Grey. A lot of them are very heavily text orientated, containing more so geometric shapes rather than full on imagery, while this would be very much fitting for my style of work, I feel as though emotional imagery would be too needed in an exhibition for me to create artworks that contained only typography, although it is very possible to convey emotion through type, I wonder if for this particular project, imagery based works may create a more powerful response from the viewer.
Moving on from looking at others work, I now need to begin experimenting with my own techniques and seeing how effective they respond to the brief.
My first experimentation draws inspiration from Russian art movements at the time of the Chernobyl disaster occurring, using large block letter-forms to create a short message, the type used is an altered from of the impact font, I have simply extended certain parts of the letter-forms to allow the “E” to overlap over the “A”, this then allows for additional text to be placed along the height of the letter-form a well as providing a larger amount of dark space to fill up the page, while still providing a purpose. I think this accurately echos Russian art while still providing enough innovation and change in order for the work to look fresh and interesting. I think this example would work well as a border for some kind of title, Possibly placing the title along the “E”, or perhaps expanding the work to create some kind of box for titles and sub titles to be placed within. Although this is still very early in the development changes, I like the finish of the piece and feel as though it has enough potential to warrant creating further experimentation to see how the concept ends up as a more polished piece of work.
Moving on from my initial experimentation, I have created a more advanced and complex version of the previous work, successfully reflecting on the potential improvements mentioned. I have decided to extend the artwork, I did this because I wanted more space to allow me to explore more ideas and see much more clearly how the concept in my head played out once placed onto a digital screen I think the colours are very appropriate for digital and print, the slightly faint red would be easily achieved on printed paper, I think this work is the start of my potential colour scheme, although I will soon experiment with colour schemes, it seems that red and black are very much a potential choice for my project. I also like the bilingual type that have used, it makes the work not only much more authentic, but then also allows my work to become legible by a greater number of people, potentially broadening my target audience. Finally I do think the typeface may need to be changed, although the thicker letter-forms accurately represent Russian art movements, I do not think the same about the smaller, lighter text. I feel this needs to be readjusted if I am to take this any further. However one final point to note about the text is the potential that including a slightly ill fitting text alongside something like the heavier text seen here that fits so appropriately, it may work to still give off the desired feel overall, with the lighter text simply working to give the whole work a more innovative and fresh look to an already created art movement that may have had the vast majority of the aesthetics explored.
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Moving forward with my experimentation, I thought back on the 1980s, a time with much less technology potential, and so to begin my next experimentation I decided to use a more physical procedure to create a less polished and more erratic and unpredictable outcome. I felt this was appropriate due to the nature of my topic begin the Chernobyl disaster. An event caused by such unpredictability I attempted to capture some of this within the title.
To create this, i began by blowing small amounts of ink across multiple pages, I did this in the hope to create some fading, unpredictable patterns that looked aesthetically pleasing when combined with text. Since the ink was black it would be easy to move on to the next step which was editing and combining everything inside of Photoshop. While it would have been advantageous to create this in illustrator, the programme lacked the required photo editing performance i required. By simply editing out the background and darkening the ink I then could edit certain parts to make them fit into the text in front. Using a medium weight sans serif font for legibility i then combined the edited ink spots with the letter-forms to make them look as though they were an extension of the letter-form themselves, I like the finish it gives off and I was considering taking this further however I think the ink effect on its own has enough impact and adding more effects would simply dilute the work. I did experiment further with removing small sections of the first few letter-forms as a way of conveying the effect of radiation, however I feel as though the ink does this enough on its own.
Rather than adding more effects to the text, I thought a way to avoid over dilution of the work could be to simply include more colour to make it more interesting. Taking a strong red and faint grey to offer some greater contrast, as I found the previous experimentation looked slightly flat, although I did prefer the black alternative as it gave off a darker feeling, whereas this experimentation seems to colourful and light. Although I do not like this experimentation, the shift in colour has given me valuable insight into what my colour scheme is going to be.
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