State of the Nation: Part 2

 

My last post on this subject got a great amount of coverage and success and I liked the idea very much. Having never read 1984 by George Orwell, I love the idea of the dystopian future ruled by the goverment, the thought of seeing these propoganda around us in the vintage 30's style would be amazing. However, in that situation I would be incapable of free thought and I would not be able to enjoy them as musch as I do know. The idea of these REALLY existing is laughable.Hope you like them. I do also enjoy controversial design hence some of the language I have used here is of that ilk. 

Half Music, Half Design

Inspiration is the fuel of design and without it ones would be impossible. Nothing is ever created from scratch. I watched an interesting online documentary called "Everything is a Remix" which helps explains this theory better than I ever could.

So on this basis I will show you where I get my inspiration. I run a tumblr blog which works as inspiration source; featuring various images hosted by other people on said website which I effectively display on my site. http://jareay.tumblr.com/

Pinterest as been a website of interest (see what I did there). it is a site where I can pin images from a other peoples virtual pin boards and post them on my own person virtual pin board where these images remain for permanent reference. This is a good source as it helps with colour schemes and layouts. http://uk.pinterest.com/jareay/

On another note here is a confusing bit of typography for y'all

Life Begins at the Hop but Charity begins at Home

"My Brother was diagnosed with Arthritis a number of years ago and at the time he did not get the right support and was lead down a number of wrong paths which only caused him more distress. This charity has been set up to help parents and children through the diagnosis and treatment of Arthritis. They have got my support because I don't want anyone to feel like him and my parents did." - me

I was given a design job to design a banner/car sticker for a charity that was set up to put Arthritis in children on the map because people think that is only a disease that effects the elderly. Within weeks of communications and tweaks a final design was set up and ready for action. It was sent into the final in the design competition but with no overall winner they are yet to be printed. I hope that one day they will be and the promotion of the cause will be raised. It means a lot to be that people don't suffer like my brother did. 


http://www.nras.org.uk/ is the parent website to the organization

All My Colours

 

Tumblr is a great source of images of the things that you love and when I stumbled across two images of one of my heroes, that were really very good; too good in fact not to do something with. The photos were of Ian McCulloch, the lead singer of one of my favourite bands, Echo and the Bunnymen. I chose to screen over some of the lyrics from one of the gloomiest songs due to the atmosphere in the pictures.

the Bad, the Font and the change of opinion

 Bauhaus 93, I hate you. You are considered a cool and very fun and original font. I have seen you used on clubs and bars and posters. The general public uses you all the time but you have no redeeming features. You look nothing like any that was ever used by the Bauhaus school. the school that is one of the most important designs schools on the planet. ever. The Nazi's didn't like them but I do.

So I decided to take a stand and try and improve the reputation of the font as a mission. By making these typographic illustrations. The redeeming features of the font is that it bold and strong shapes to it thus making it easy to create images using the letter forms. This self initiated project is reminiscent of a type project that I did at uni and for the first week I did the project completely wrong. I was simply meant to make a pattern out of type and not an image.

Text is Motion

 

Text is a marvelous. Text is diverse. Text is fun. Text can demonstrate motion. That's what the above is all about. Words that normally just state what they mean, I have tried to demonstrate what these words mean. I chose a grey scale tone as not to distract from the message that I am trying to portray. Legibility in some of these are harder than others but hopefully all are still readable.

(Click the images for a closer inspection)

Do you even brand?

Logos are the most important thing for any brand or shop. Its the identity that everyone will recognize them for. So it is an important one. Traditionally night club logos have really naff logos but this may be due to the terrible names that they have. I do like designing logos because the challenge of branding is a difficult.

Recently I discovered too that I use a lot of the same colour schemes so I have chosen to re-evalualted these for the logos above and tried some different ones. souring inspiration from my pinterest boards. I have also recently garnered an obsession with the typeface twentieth century.

If you are a bar/club and like the above, please get in touch.

Opposites Will Happen

 Opposites have always played a big part of design. and in the way of the world it is said that opposites attract. One of my favourite words is associated with opposites; Juxtaposition.

"the fact of two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting effect."

I have applied this here in these posters to promote being proud of who you are. Placing the positive element on what is considered to be a negative aspect as well as reinforcing this by placing a bland colour onto what would be considered the prefered characteristic. 

We don't have to follow what is considered to be a good thing. we can be whoever we want to be. This message is all shown in my favourite new font "Ostrich sans".

Back to Front, Front to Back

"Inspiaration have I none" is something that I have never said apart from when singing alng to David Bowie (wuzza Wuzz). My inspiration here was Tumblr; the website full of Hip, cool and young people, sharing images of funny animals, Fandoms and Mozza. I use it for mainly design and music.

Perspective, its all about it in these images. I have created a set of shapes that are all made of the same composite shapes but arranged in such away different images are made. If you look carefully; 2 repeats can be seen.

These Fallish Things

The Fall. MES. Mark. Edward. Smith. singer. Lyricist. Poet. National Treasure. Legend. 

This is what I made to show off him as a writer and as an awesome front man. It is a rough and ready fanzine using a one font and the style of Russian constructivism. A band with politically motivated intentions would I feel would not be offended by this. If you are a fall fan; please comment the songs that you discover on each page and we will have a competition.

http://issuu.com/jamesalexanderreay/docs/the_fall

Scot Scot (a Man called Scot from scotland)

Scotland, I fear will leave the UK. Mr fish (Salmond) won the last debate and is currently neck and neck in the polls with Darling (Alistair). As a resident of England, I don't want them to go. I love certain parts of that place north of the border. They have great record stores, nice towns and the parliment building is beautiful. I don't want to need a passport to go there.

However, I would like them to go just to see the chaos that it would cause down in west minister. they refuse to make a Plan B if they do leave. They need to think of money, trident and powers. it'll be hilarious to see them all running around like headless chicken.

Scotland; a study of the people can be seen below. I made these this morning, in a satirical way to show what the Scots may be thinking right now.

State of the Nation

Satire is one of the things that I do enjoy a lot. so instead of doing some music related design, I did a piece of design based on this concept. These posters are based on the idea of a dystopian state run
future, very similar to the world that George Orwell imagined in 1984 and David bowie used as the concept for Diamond Dogs. The original design style harks back to the 1930's style of newspaper ads. I chose this style because it is the one that is used in Fallout; the video game about a nuclear future.

Elvis is King

The other Elvis. Not Presley. Costello. The man who wrote one of the best Debut albums of all time with lyrics that will ring true with every generation of love, lust and "Dancing". In this image I have tried to capture the the essence of said album. The colours are the same as the album, the checkerboard design is one that is from the border of said album and the image is of a similar stance to the album.

A Present Suprise

 

Presents come in all shapes and sizes. Some are thin, some are small, some are big, some are 3D. These presents are from my illustrator friend, Sophie. It illustrates the miss adventures that we got up to last year at uni making forts and sticking things...onto...my face. Simply done on a blue post it note with a marker pen, Fine Liner and Typex. I think that these are great and received the great news that more are to be done.

All The Madmen

 The legends of modern rock can not be under estimated. Without the Glam Rock and David Bowie; You wouldn't of had punk. Without Pete Townsend you wouldn't have some of the best albums of the mod and Rock genre. Johnny Rotten was the man who inspired the British punk movement with his band the Sex Pistols. Psychedelia was never gonna be the same again once Syd Barret Got his hands on it.