Design Practice: OUGD603: DS

broken items / misshaped / haphazard / faulty / putting parts together / constructing new visuals

I want to communicate my ideas, opinions and thoughts around the topic Disposable Society using hand painted calligraphy, an art form lost or 'disposed of' due to the surge of new technologies that make digital work easier and more accessible to appropriate in graphic design work.

Some initial ideas I sketched out below show interest in abstract calligraphy forms and compositions, which I would intend to fulfil with writings or words associated to the topic, further relating the piece to our theme and communicating ideas of a disposable culture.

One sub-topic I am particularly interested in involving humans disposing as a society is the amount of unnecessary waste we produce, be it food, old clothes, possessions, money as well as considering more abstract concepts such as time, relationships, etc - (in my opinion, through the use of social media/ tablets/ phones, that distract us from day to day living and being present in the real world).

The canvas sizes I've used in the thumbnail sketches vary as I plan to work on found materials, so the size of my final pieces are determined on what I source over the next few weeks.

A big element of waste I disagree with is the consumers urge to constantly update their tangible possessions due to fashion and style changes, something that is renewed year after year by large corporations which rely on mindless shoppers to give them their money time and time again for a product that is a little bit better than their current one. "Keeping up with the Jones's" is a similar concept that has inspired these thoughts, one that I disagree with.

Research

art of writing
calligraffiti
developed an interest in abstract strokes and marks, taken from letter forms. Particualrly blackletter styles, with a modern touch.

Knowing I want to use the medium of hand paint and to produce primarily typographic/calligraphic paintings, I began researching into this art form and found many interesting visuals that play with the use of colour, composition, layout, and style which serves quite an extensive range of inspiration for me to look at and take ideas from. I paid particular attention to the size of strokes, colours, detail and background layers.

My response: Experiments with abstract calligraphy forms, working in pen and paint.

My initial experiments involve working on background textures and styles, developing different styles and just testing overall through trial and error which ones work, and how they can layer up.

( close up images of smaller cardboard paintings and pen drawings)

(image 1)

This image in comparison to later experiments, including that of Image 2 (below), involves a raw and brutalist aesthetic rather than the gentle curvature of the strokes in image 2. Creating direct and definite marks of opposing spacial values is /// the consumerist and throwaway culture. This is my opinion of the subject, of course, and I feel the aesthetic in image 1 communicates the urgency and directness that we are involved with the issue of a disposable culture.

present / immediate / action / expression / urgency

compared with

pretty / delicate / "beautiful"

Layering the letterforms to produce an illegible/disjointed image further reinforces the concept of buying more and more stuff over what one already possesses, looking at adding extras and blurring/covering what's underneath.

mix with constructivist compositions

Using a bold constructivist style graphic for the layout of text on the paintings, it envelops the new era style of art from this period which shocked many and came with a new way of living, a change in visual media representative of the social change occurring in the early 20th century.

I'm working on backgrounds at the moment, using various mediums to achieve different textured results that add to the layers I'll be building up on each piece.

dried paintbrush strokes... thick glyphs, diff size brushes, tighter patterns, looser patterns, throwing paint at paper.

I then worked on top of these backgrounds, varying the tools and tones of the shapes I was making. referred back to inspiration of modern calligraphy and composition.