what was this project?

This was my second project at DV8, we had to create posters in a chosen art style, for example surrealism, or Bauhaus whilst learning and using graphic design techniques.

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what did you choose to make for this project and why?

i chose two different art styles for this project, i did one poster based on surrealism and the other based on pop art, i chose surrealism because there is almost no creative barriers with this art style so i thought it would work best for who i was designing and i chose pop art because of the satirical humour and colour involved in certain pop artists work and i knew i could make a strong poster to cancel out the unfortunate dreadful one i ended up with for the band.

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what techniques & software did you choose to use and why?

For my Surrealist poster the techniques i chose to use were: collage, typography, exquisite corpse (cadavre exquis.) The software i used was auto-desk sketchbook for my illustrations and Photoshop for my collage and overall poster. 

For my Pop Art poster i used collage, typography and photo manipulation techniques and the software i used was Photoshop.

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how did you create these posters and what is the story behind them?

For this project we had to do artist research to find inspiration and influence from artists who's art were part of these movements. 

for the surrealist poster i was designing for a band (music students from DV8) who made everything really difficult and ultimately decided to break up just as i had finished the design. the first step was to get information about what they wanted the poster to advertise, if they needed a logo, what the band name was etc, only one of them was cooperative with this, so i went ahead with his idea. we first played the surrealist game exquisite corpse, (which is quite like the game consequences) to come up with the character for their logo, I then digitally drew this creation and colourised it, we then agreed on a font and created the logo. the next step was to create an album cover as this is what they wanted to advertise, so this is where i drew inspiration from one of my artist and used the digital collage technique, and finally it was time to put together the poster, they gave me absolutely no criteria other then it should link to one of their songs about going back in time, so it was really difficult to work out what they wanted and it turned into a poster with a time machine as its main focus point. it looked more like a very weird and bad comic book cover than a album advertisement, it is 100% the only piece of my whole portfolio i would happily never see again, i hate it. the only thing i like is the character me and one of the boys created.

 

Because the surrealist poster went down the drain and was dreadful i decided to do another poster based on the Pop Art movement, satire humour is one of my favourite types of humour and i found this amazing pop artist that re-designed sugary cereals as advertisements for health conditions, some people would find his work offensive but because it is so eye-catching i think it does raise awareness of these conditions in a different way. i decided to go down this route and re-design household products and foods as an advertisement for medications and the danger around prescription medication addiction. firstly i came up with the 4 medications i wanted to use as well as the 4 brands, i then found the original images and logos and the images i needed of the medications, the next step was coming up with new taglines that applied to the medications not the original product. my final step was to put it all into Photoshop and create the posters. 

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what was the relevance of the medications in your posters and did you have any worries about the content these are about?

I did worry a little bit that people might find these posters offensive so i tried to be careful, and not go too far, i checked with 4 people (including an industry professional) if they found them offensive and they actually found them clever and funny in a satire way. I also think if art doesn't make you think, you could be missing the point of the piece.

I have also been on 2 of the medications i used and had a problem with addiction, so i felt it was a way of raising more awareness around the good and bad sides of prescription medication, especially for those who enjoy satire humour, pop art and even art that isn't always what it seems, you could walk past a couple of these on a bus stop and not realise they are different from the original posters.

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was there anything else included in this project you haven't spoken about?

All of our projects are broken down into different criteria, which are a mix of sketchbook and research work and practical work. In this project we had to:

1. Research - research and learn about different art movements

2. Artist Research - focus in on a artist from your chosen art movement

3. Technique experiments - choose 4 suitable techniques to use in your posters, practice them and explain why you've have chosen them.

4. Five ideas - come up with 5 ideas ready to show an industry professional, who will help you choose which ones to create.

5. Meet the industry professional - meet the industry professional, talk through your work and choose your final ideas to create

6. Create your poster - using your chosen ideas and techniques, create your final posters.

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what was your favourite part of this project?

I really enjoyed creating my pop art posters, playing around with the slogans and logos added a different sort of depth to my work, and i learnt a lot of new skills. this project was around christmas time and we had a concert at the college so i also got to design a poster to advertise this.