PROJECT 4: COLOUR, COMPOSITION & VISUAL NARRATIVE
COLOUR THEORY
LP COVERS
STEVE REICH: MUSIC FOR 18 MUSICIANS
- Written between 1974-1976
- The piece is based on a cycle of eleven chords. A small piece of music is based on each chord, and the piece returns to the original cycle at the end
- Human voices hold a key part in the composition, with the length of some notes being determined solely on how long the individual musicians can hold it for
PLANNING AND VISUALS
THUMBNAILS
This was an idea I had; of making spontaneous scribbles to the sounds of the individual instruments as they built up in the composition of the music. Initially I started with continuous strings of shapes representing the way I thought the music felt as I listened to it, and then evolved into the overlaying of the beats to mimic the way Reich uses overlapping layers of sound to form one composition.
Ultimately I wasn’t happy with the formatting of the tests following this, so while I liked the idea, I chose to go a different way with the final composition.
DEVELOPMENT
- I chose this composition for the pastel colours limitation.
FINAL OUTCOME
I chose this as I felt it best fit the brief of pastel colours, and I like how the building layers of warm colour mimics the way the music builds throughout.
JOHN COLTRANE: IMPRESSIONS
- Released in July 1963
- Comprised of both live and studio recordings
- Represents Coltrane’s evolving musical range, exploring jazz modality with influences from the music of India, blues and Swedish folk
PLANNING AND VISUALS
THUMBNAILS
I wanted to experiment with abstract instrument shapes and layering.
DEVELOPMENT
- I chose to use complimentary colours for this composition.
I used a mix of inks and alcohol markers for the base design, as I wanted it to be as vibrant as possible, as well as keeping a relatively smooth texture.
Some colour and typography experiments on Illustrator, using the scan of the above artwork:
FINAL OUTCOMES
I feel this colour palette and placement worked best out of them all, although I like the way that both of these title fonts work within the composition.
JONI MITCHELL: HISSING OF THE SUMMER LAWNS
- Released in November 1975
- Heavily jazz influenced, but also experimented with sythesizers
- The lyrics focus on women’s experiences with patriarchal norms, male dominance and suburban life
PLANNING AND VISUALS
- Researching similar folk-jazz albums, there was a common theme of yellows, greens and browns, so this seemed the best choice for the harmonious colour palette
- Many were also hand painted with a water colour-esque texture
The psychedelic, watery texture of these prints were of particular inspiration
THUMBNAILS
DEVELOPMENT
I used water colour paints to get the texture that I was looking for, which also allowed me to blur the joining between the harmonious colours easily
Some typographical experiments on Illustrator, using a scan of the above artwork:
The colour has also been somewhat distorted through digitisation and become more saturated, although to an extent this adds to the psychedelic atmosphere I was going for.
FINAL OUTCOMES
Of the typography choices, I think that these worked the best, particularly the second one as while a script font, the title matches quite well with the nature of the base piece as an ink texture.
TYPE EXPERIMENTS
BRIEF
Solve the problems of:
- Feminine,
- Masculine,
- Playful,
- Pattern,
- Scale,
- Power
With font restrictions of:
- Helvetica,
- Bodoni,
- Rockwell,
- Clarendon,
- Myriad Pro,
- Calibri
- Rockwell
- Bodoni
- Myriad Pro
- Clarendon
- Myriad Pro
- Helvetica
- Rockwell
- Bodoni
- Myriad Pro
- Clarendon
- Bodoni
- Helvetica
- Clarendon
- Helvetica
- Rockwell
- Helvetica
- Clarendon
COMPOSITION (A5 BOOK JACKETS)
Create a book jacket with the title ‘The Castle of Dreams’ for the genres of:
- Children’s book
- Science Fiction
- Psychological horror
And in the style of (one each):
- Brad Holland
- Charles Keeping
- Anne Yvonne Gilbert
BRAD HOLLAND
- Dry brushed acrylic paint which allow the colours to bleed into one another
- Heavily influenced by Austrian expressionist Alfred Kubin
- Bizarre and often exaggerated compositions and focuses
STYLE EXPERIMENTS
INTIAL THUMBNAILS
I went with the Sci-Fi theme for Holland.
DEVELOPMENT
FINAL OUTCOME
CHARLES KEEPING
- Illustrator and lithographer – largely of childrens’ books; both his own and others
- Multimedia – predominant use of inks, washes and wax cut-throughs
- Enormously colourful in his own work however worked mostly in black inks for commercial productions
STYLE EXPERIMENTS
INTIAL THUMBNAILS
I felt Keeping’s style best suited the psychological horror theme.
DEVELOPMENT
FINAL OUTCOME
ANNE YVONNE GILBERT
- Career largely focused on illustrating the covers and interiors of popular books, Gilbert has also designed series of stamps depicting Arthurian mythology
- Fantasy/fairytale focus – particularly in children’s books
- Coloured pencils
STYLE EXPERIMENTS
INITIAL THUMBNAILS
I felt the children’s book theme best suited Gilbert’s style
DEVELOPMENT
FINAL OUTCOME
ILLUSTRATED BOOK
BRIEF
Given the option of six songs to illustrate an 8 page book to, incorporating the full lyrics, I chose The Bright Light by Tanya Donelley. I chose to interpret this with the song’s conventional meaning about aliens, and wanted to explore how the emotion of the song builds over its course through the inclusion of colour.
THUMBNAILS
DEVELOPMENT
I sketched out each page and then worked into them in ink with a mixture of wet and dry brush techniques.
I wanted to add a sense of texture as well as colour as the book moved forward, so began using white acrylic paint to add a layer of depth in places.
COVERS
DIGITAL ADDITIONS & FORMATTING
- Added text and text bubbles in places where necessary to bring it forward
- Cleaned up lines between panels
- Formatted panels so that they would be distinguishable on double page spreads
AFTER FEEDBACK
- Would benefit from a serif font
- The black of the font is too harsh in places, playing with font colours would help
