FMP WEEK 8 (WC: 18/01/2021)

Ensuring that I am continuously creating content throughout this national lockdown as well as updating my Pinterest mood board has helped me stay productive and inspired to make FMP work. I created a series of photographic edits using various different techniques learnt from Adobe Photoshop and various photo editing applications and software. Experimenting with photo editing is something I have hardly ventured into or even given much thought. Taking a series of complimentary images and being able to create an effective editorial layout or new poster design using them is a very effective skills which would be very useful moving forward in the production of visual content for my final major project. Which is why I was pleased with the success of these collages, this is something I will definitely be doing in my future practice.

Shown below is an update of the images I have collected as visual research for my FMP to improve my design skills and stay immersed in my project.

What this mood board does, is it brings forward repeated visuals that I am clearly engaging well with at this current moment and I draw out small elements from each of these images that I find appropriate for my work and start to implement different techniques to create more interesting content and work that is relevant for my specialism. In this particular instance, I have noticed that I have been saved a lot of quote posters; designed in a futuristic yet clean style, very refine and a lot of blurred shapes, simple lines and fonts complimented with a phrase, quote or word that is generally though provoking if not uplifting. This reminds me of the posters I created which I had shown in a previous blog post of uplifting quotes in different colourways which uplifted people’s moods in the end. This is something I would aim to invoke further within my professional practice and in particular through my magazine, as I wanted to create thought provoking and very highly conceptual based work which fits around the same theme. There is also a big influence from 90s rave culture that I could tie in with the style of my magazine. The graphic design of rave posters from the 1990s has always been so inspiring to me as they evoke such a dynamic mood through a poster and really embody the atmospheric energy of being in a crowd of people; they way people translate that unique feeling onto a design will forever be inspirational to me an something I would love to achieve effectively.

That being said, I could explore the way sound makes me feel and showcase this in my work somehow, Being able to produce my own sounds for small video curation or experiment with evoking certain moods through the sounds objects make or using a basic sound editing software could enhance the sensory design of my magazine. During this pandemic it is important for me to think about different sensory ways my audience can stay intrigued with the work that I am producing online.

Moving this mood board into an analogue format is something which appeals to me as a tactile way of production is something that has always worked effectively for me and would be an appropriate way to keep my ideas close to me, on my bedroom wall, and be able to constantly update information if I were to see a piece of visually interesting content from a magazine or a particular article that compliments my research, just as a few possible examples.

 

Shown below is a select few of the collages I have created, the rest will be in my sketchbook.

 

As a collective, I find these images to work well together and compliment each other’s layout, this is due to the consistency of the designs, all the images have grain, there’s elements of repetition in each image, bold backgrounds are another element seen consistent throughout the designs too. All these allow each image to flourish as an individual, yet each design follows suit and links back to the previous one. A motion is seen within each of the visuals through the liquified backgrounds, repeated foreground interest, or elongated images for example. The motion created fabricates an energy in the images, making them appear youthful and dynamic; complimenting well with the psychedelic backgrounds ensuring the images stay in motion and don’t become static. As I did these fairly quickly, there are several small editing mistakes and parts that I could have corrected earlier on/ taken a different approach to, yet I find that these imperfections add to the style of my collages in a similar way I discussed before with the tactile collages showing textures of ripped pages but in this case the extra textures come from my choppy editing style which was highly influenced by magazine editorial spreads from the 1990s-2000s, especially younger female orientated fashion magazines.

Image number one exudes a stance of confidence and security, this is highlighted in the poses of the models; the model who is placed in front of the other two has her own third of the image which she is occupying without being too centred and unbalanced in the image. Her pose is self-assured; she has her head back and hands on her hips as if she is secure in herself. This also translates into the two girls in the background and other two thirds of the frame; the girl on the left seems secure holding onto the other girls leg; her stance also makes her seem stable and confident like the previous girl due to her pose as well. With her leg coming towards the foreground it shows she is not taking herself back, she’s projecting herself forward.

This brings us to the second image which I find to be positioned fairly well for a few different reasons; where the background has a strip of colour centred directly in the middle of the page, it highlights the foreground interest as the bold colours contrast with the block colours of blue for the jeans which makes them stand out more, the repeated picture from a slightly different angle which has been enlarged really brings a focal point to this imagery which is the jeans. They become subtly enhanced as the image on the left gets repeated but not too overwhelming as they don’t take up too much of the page, there’s negative space left for the background and they only take up two thirds of an image, any more would become off balanced most likely.