Deadline Day

Well, sticking with tradition... I reckon there will be a few of us frantically trying to print stuff off tomorrow (myself included) in order to have something to stick up for marking...

should i blow some cash and print A2? ;)

It's been a weird brief this one, not only due to the initial confusion but things have come together and panned out a little too easily in my opinion. I've been sat here thinking there should be more to go wrong... well... i finally got my answer last Saturday...

this happened...

(not the most flattering, but possibly the most comical due to my expression/reaction to the camera flash)

which kinda threw the next few days out of sync, I was meant to prep some screens on Monday in order to print on Tues... but this never happened, which pushed it back to Weds... but we were all in Manchester visiting the gallery (and shopping) which meant I had to do it today... but I've been at work... so... I have my screens coated at home ready for use.. and no facilities or time in which to actually use them right now.. (the weather is causing problems with our outdoor hosepipe so I cant wash out my screens :( dammit)... they're currently sat in a darkened room taunting me.

I've actually had the basic design finalised since last week, but I've tested a few different things in order to tweak it into a stronger working image, although now its done, I no longer feel anything for it and want to start again! :/



The most difficult part of this was actually settling on 'characters' to represent the new theme of Birth & Death... I was torn between simplifying them too much and over stylising them in order to just show off... I'm still not quite happy with them as the Baby/Life/Birth seems too cartoony in my opinion and the Skull/Death reminds me of Gama-Go :)

Considering I have all my stuff primed ready for some screen printing, i WILL finally print something next week even though we'll be starting on a new project but I'm determined to print more this year... the only thing is I need to cut my deadlines a week short, in order to allow for time to prep and print!

The above poster is an example of how I want to execute my design with the my own red layer being overprinted on top of the black maze design (I can't for the life of me remember who made this poster but I think I have a link to it somewhere.. i'll add it when i find it)

As mentioned in a previous post, I wanted to have a child like scribble in my work but nothing really worked.. until I noticed I was being too controlled with my line making... I started almost over thinking the scribble, planning where I want it to go and how much space it should cover and how it should divide up...

e.g/

but when I loosed up a bit and found the work of Gary Kuehn, I started scribbling in thick pencil to give the lines a bit more texture and a more analog feel to them...

Some of Kuehn's work...

With this now in mind, I took my favourite few scribbles and mocked up how they would look on the computer... I then settled on my favourite of the bunch and I'm planning to print and screen print that one...



I still feel like i need to justify how my design relates to the theme of resistance though... or do i? either way... its meant to be a shout out to all those who take life too seriously, who worry about everything and they should take time out to enjoy life... do something different, something you wouldn't normally do.. anything that makes you excited, that makes your heart race... just do something that makes you SMILE :)

I also came across the work of Oliver Munday and his illustration for an article in TIME magazine... looking at the struggles of health care. Cleverly using the maze to represent difficulty whilst still retaining a sense of humour and light hearted play... the visual nature of a maze must be why it's so appealing to designers and illustrators alike...