Friday 2/17/12 CRIT with Ben Critton

Friday was my thesis group critique with Ben Critton and it went pretty well. It was good to have a fresh pair of eyes looking at my work and giving feedback. I actually think he offered a lot to everyone for the critique. He basically said, in regard to my thesis project (on hand typography), that even though it has been done a bunch before, and has been really popular in the past ten years, I need to find something that makes my exploration and thesis outcome fresh. He said maybe working on a larger scale or finding one thing to focus my hand lettering around. I've been working on a few series of hand lettering, and  before the crit on Friday I was thinking  about picking one or a few particular studies from my thesis work thus far and making them on a much larger scale to hang in the gallery, with a book of all my process and work accompanying it, somewhere. 


What I've mostly been working on with hand lettering is writing out phrases, thoughts and some letter compositions. But  I think it's coming time to find one part that I want to start focusing in on for my large-scale  finished pieces. Right now I'm leaning most toward a composition of letters, because if I have a phrase or words it's giving the viewer something specific to think about, but if it is only letters the viewer can just focus on the forms, detail and composition, not what the work specifically is saying. 


During the thesis critique I was given some artists to reference too.  I've been looking at Tauba Auerbach, Ed Ruscha, and Kate Bingaman since the critique. 

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Seth Clark is another designer's work Im looking at.

http://sethsclark.com/work/index.php?/projects/hire-me-pittsburgh/

http://www.humanempire.com/#2553866/B-Gibbard-lp

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Designers I've been looking at who draw their letters/words. I intend my thesis to involve my doing that in some way. My main ideas as of right now involve drawing my own typography, and somehow making it into a book. Or using my own type to make "public service announcements" that are positive messages, as a pick me up for  anyone who reads it. I came across KARIN RÖNMARK.

Yesterday I was recommended to look at Mike Perry: I really like the combination of pattern, drawing and hand lettering. Perhaps if I  combined a bunch of things like this into a book, I could blow one particularly good part up and display it above where my book is placed in the gallery. And I especially like the flip through book be made on his website, which is really relevant to my idea. 

http://issuu.com/untitled-a-magazine.com/docs/summer_zine_2011/13

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  My last group critique (11/18)  got me thinking about graphic design, and its comparison to painting, drawing, sculpture or really  any fine art.  This is the work I presented. The line drawings are results of my looking at interesting topographic maps. The wood panel is a study of the letter A, trying to make it unrecognizable as a character, but still using it's forms. Also, I showed my repetition of the letter P in pen on a a 4 1/2 X 7 1/2 in piece of paper. I made this one with the intention to see how it would look to have one letter repeated over and over, drawn closely next to each other, or overlapping. I really like the outcome, but when I've attempted it using other letters I think it is most successful when  I use lower-case cursive letters.  And the last work I presented was my Cocker Spaniel collage. It's the result of two pages from an old Time Magazine, and a Cocker spaniel stencil I made. 

So I hung these things on the wall, and the most questions resulted from the spaniel collage  and were something like, "what does the content mean?" "Why  are the pages cut out in the shape of a dog? of a cocker spaniel?" When I made it I wasn't thinking about any of those things. I wasn't thinking about how a viewer would perceive it, or what they might think when they read the text inside the dog- that inside the bottom cocker spaniel it said, "J.V. ALLEN & SON, INC. YEARLY SALES (THOUSANDS)". It is something from my sketchbook that I did in my spare time. I included it because I thought it was quirky and interesting to look it, but I didn't read into it like my peers and the grad student leading the class did. As a designer I think you do have to  evaluate many aspects of a work you're producing, because it is intended to be viewed by a large population (hopefully). But creating something to persuade people to buy something, or a package design, or editorial design is different that creating something that is intended to be in  a gallery or museum. The grad student said it was "kitschy".   While Kitschy isn't necessarily what most fine artists gravitate toward,  I don't consider myself a fine artist. So, as a graphic designer, is kitsch really that bad today?

From this critique I've realized that I guess I have to  put thought into everything I do? How it will be viewed, what people will think about when they see it, if it has connotations I want. But do I really? Since I have to do so much thinking when I'm making something a design project, I don't want to think when I'm doing recreational art.  Not everything has to be read into so thoroughly. 

Editions Artists' Book Fair 2011

On Saturday I went to the Editions Artists' Book fair in Chelsea. The show mostly consisted of books made by artists, paper constructions and printmaking. In my design IIA class we are starting on the Event Book project, so I saw a lot of possibilities and sizes for artists books.  It was a relatively small show though, but that allowed me to see everything there. Every table had a stack of business cards, for the printmaker, artist, or representing company, and some were interestingly designed. So I collected a few. Here are the fronts of some of the ones I liked.

I also purchased a pamphlet/book by John Cage because the typography and design was nice. Here in the cover and pages from the interior. 

I saw the work of the Purgatory Pie Press (PPP) and was really impressed. 

http://www.purgatorypiepress.com/  SO, i've been inspired to make some small booklets. Hopefully by the end of the week I'll have at least one done!  I'm thinking that making a small un-foldable book could actually work for thesis and in the gallery because it could be un-folded and placed on the wall.  ideas ideas ideas.

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This is something from my sketch book, water color and felt-tipped pen, making some patterns.

I'm really stuck with ideas for thesis, still. BUT I have been looking at a lot of work by other artists & designers, hoping for some good inspiration. I'm finding it really hard as a graphic design major to  come up with a significant thesis for a gallery setting. In my design class we are doing work with processing code, and it's really interesting, and the outcomes can be awesome, but it's so complicated to figure out. I'm hoping to  learn it well and perhaps have in interactive thesis or some type of animated information..

I really like publication designing, and  have been looking at magazine covers, articles, etc. I remembered that in Seminar in Design we read an article about Fabien Baron, and I revisited his work. It's so clean and simple but  has a strong presence. It's attractive work.  I like that he deals with letters and text with the photos, specifically his work for Harpers Bazaar. 

I think I'm going to start just taking articles I find  and redesigning them myself, or take short stories or thing's i've written and design them.