Month: December 2023

This is my first cover page poster advertisement for the book “The Singularity”. I have kept to the typographical standards with hand drawn typography, and have followed the standardised colour scheme from the rest of my project.  I used hand drawn typography for the slogan “calling all robots” “your time is now”, because if the book were real, it’s narrative would show compassion for the sentient AI, as the book is an exploration of ethics pertaining to the advancement of Artificial Intelligence, and the event in which AI would become so advanced that it became aware of its existence, called “The Singularity”. I wanted to draw upon that compassion by addressing the viewer as the AI or robot. I also thought that it was a fun, and punchy heading which would draw attention from passers by, with the bold font. I also incorporated the metal sketch book binders that came through with the picture, and placed that at the top, as I feel it gives the poster a hand drawn/created effect, and mimics that of drawing in a sketchbook.  Also by using greys and black in the background, I feel it draws attention to the book cover, as the cover does have some colour to it, and so it stands out against the tonal colours surrounding it; the author’s name is at the bottom of the poster, and also shown on the book, so the author is well credited, and a feature on the poster itself.  The second poster I created is for the Hikikomori book cover, and I wanted to create a feeling of being trapped behind bars, using lines coming down from the top of the poster. I also wanted to give the viewer the feeling of being watched, or of being the spider hanging off the ceiling, watching the narrative unravel.  A lot of the assets on this poster are from the importing process of uploading hand drawn typography and drawings, as the ‘convert image’ process. I used leftover speckles from the process and put them in the background of the poster to create a splatter effect, as though someone has walked all over the page in muddy boots. Furthermore, as in the first poster, The author’s name does appear twice, like a mirroring, and I feel this draws attention to the author and lets the viewers know who has written this book, so they can go and google the name and find out about the book, and other works also.  I wanted the general vibe of this poster to be misery, since that’s part of the abject topic of the book, the misery of being confined for too long, and so i think all these accents, such as the mud splatters, and bars, show repression and perhaps even self-oppression, and a touch of misanthropy, allowing the boots to treat mud all over the poster, all over one’s self, and i wanted this to encompass the main characters feelings of being left behind, or walked all over, by an unforgiving society.  I have followed the typographical standards colour scheme again, of black, white, and greys, and I think this is eye-catching, and is recognisable as the brand I have created; both posters also contain the Ventricle logo so that the viewers know that the book is associated with the awards given out by Ventricle, as i feel this credits the author as having written a good horror book.  Overall I am very pleased with these cover posters, as I think they do their job at being eye-catching, following typographical standards, asserting a recognisable colour scheme, and brand, as well as a consistent conceptual message that aligns with my project topic of choice.

Older Layout I Chose not to use. I decided to do two awards for my ‘books’, one for lesser awards ‘innovation at the typewriter’, and another one for a major award ‘carotid artery’. I named the major award carotid artery because it is the artery that carries blood to the brain, and it fell in line with the conceptual theme of my project, which is to celebrate the symbiosis of art, specifically abject horror in books.  My editorial pages evolved two different styles, but they are both standardised and have corresponding colour schemes of black and white; the first is for the innovation at the typewriter awards, which has plain black banners at the top and bottom of the page, and other standardised accents such as logo placements and slogan typography “ventricle”.  The second style of page follows the same colour scheme, and use of logo and slogan typography, however I used to casted shadows that came along with my hand drawn typography. I separated the typography from these shadows once they were vectorised, and used these as the banners because I think that it had some really awesome looking shapes, and added texture to the carotid artery page, and also to the transgressions in art explanations.  Prior to these pages, I had attempted to create a layout for the innovation at the typewriter book awards, but I disliked the look of having a block colour in the background, it made it look like  a bad website/blog from the early 2000’s, and so I had to start again from scratch. I am proud of what I came up with, and also changed the aspect ratio from A4 to a website canvas, which looked more professional.  The blog has three pages for innovation at the typewriter, and one major award page, ‘carotid artery’, followed by two informative pages which explain my motive, concept, and the definition of what i have chosen as my topic ‘abject art’ as a propellant for human social-development. However, I think that because wordpress only allows embedded images to go a certain size, it could be a little hard to read the text on my editorial pages, which is a worry. In addition to this, I chose a medium quality to export these pages so they would fit on the wordpress site, and I worry this has degraded the quality of text also. I feel the pages would be more appropriate as an actual website so that the text and layout can be seen and read in the way it was intended. Overall I am very pleased with my work, and I think it has a clear and concise colour scheme (black, white, and grey),, as well as standardised features that prevail throughout, (the logo, and typography standards). The typography works well together, and, if not on wordpress, would be much more easy to read in a website setting. I would like to resolve this issue in future so that my work is more legible on wordpress. In addition, I also think that the transgressions in art pages are very informative, and have quotes and references from interesting artists who align with my project values. All Harvard references can be found on this page.  Harvard References Burgess,A. (2000) A Clockwork Orange, London: Penguin Books Ltd. Küster, U. (2011) Louise Bourgeois, Ulf Küster, Ostfildern,Hatje Cantz Verlag. Lesso,R. (2023) The Collector, Why Did Tracy Emin’s Bed Cause Such A Sensation? [Blog Post] 3 January, Available Online: https://www.thecollector.com/why-did-tracey-emins-bed-cause-such-a-sensation/ [Accessed 19/12/2023] Murakami,R. (2006) In The Miso Soup, London, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

My conceptual logo for this assignment is for a “book review/award” website, that promotes and reviews books which explore dark and abject concepts, from social politics, to feminism, mental health, and the environment.  The concept behind the logo was born from the word “Ventricle”, which are components of the heart which pump blood around the body; I wanted it to be a metaphor for the way in which art plays out in society, and its relationship to us.  We work to earn a living and to keep occupied, but when we get home, we unwind with art, tv shows, films, comics, books, paintings, music. Art is something that makes us human, and we are the only species on Earth which partake in  ‘the bardic function’ through media.  “ Fiske and Hartley (2005) argued television “functions as a social ritual” because we all gather around the screen to reinforce our beliefs and practices. They compared this custom to the way medieval audiences gathered around the talented bards to hear their stories and songs about heroic deeds, courtly romances, and mythological tales. That is why they coined the term “bardic function” to describe television’s role in the transmission of language and culture.”  (Fiske, J. & Hartley, J. (2003 [1978])) I liken this ability to tell stories from the past and create stories of the future, as our lifeblood; If we only went to work, and came home to do more work, we would be extremely unhappy, and our mental health would suffer greatly. So from this I created this conceptual logo which represents  the relativity of work with art and literature as  “yin yang”.  The logo has a black and white shaded contrast with the ying yang shape incorporated into the shape of a human heart to convey these ideas. As i am creating a blog which reviews books of an abject nature, i also wanted to use this heart to show that the exploration of transgressions in art is fundamental to the development of the human race; to the development of socio-politics, feminism, animal treatment, mental health and the human condition,  the environment, and anything else which might be considered taboo and regarded as “non normative’ discussion topics.  In this way, art can be seen as something that keeps us going, and keeps us alive, as well as vital in exploring our nature and condition as people, as the heart is an organ which keeps us alive. Therefore I designed a logo which incorporates the heart, and yin and yang, as a homage and metaphor to our dependency on art for our intellectual development.  The design process of my logo was to hand draw a simplified version of a human heart, and to clean up the lines. I then took a photograph and pasted it into Adobe Illustrator; then I used trace image 3 colours, and recoloured the heart, before drawing the typography and repeating the same steps, or trace image, and using create outlines, to make a vector logo. I did decide to keep some of the natural shadow gradients that went through with tracing the image, as I felt it gave the logo some texture, and a dark grungy kind of style which is what I wanted for my website as it pertains to horror and abjection.  Sketches and Notes Harvard References Fiske, J. & Hartley, J. (2003 [1978]): “Reading Television”. [Blog Post] ]Media Studies. Available Online:https://media-studies.com/bardic-function/ [Accessed 11/12/2023]

Here are my typographical standards for my Development Blog for Ventricle.  In the first box I have included some hand drawn alphabets, lowercase and uppercase, in my own font that I use when I am drawing. I decided that it would be perfect for this assignment because it is quite a sharp and gritty looking font, which is the aesthetic which I wanted for my horror book blog. I drew them in pencil, and took a photograph of the alphabets, which I uploaded in illustrator and used trace image, and create outlines, to make them vectors. I then recoloured the lower case alphabet to make it a bit more uniform, but left upper case as I liked the different shades on the letters, and the texture it creates.  The typography I chose is Bernard MT Condensed at 36 pt for subheadings, because it stands out and is very bold, and therefore when paired with my other typographical choices, it creates hierarchy on my website, and can be used to draw attention to certain topics, for example the type of award category for the books i am using, or the winning book titles.  For body copy I chose Myriad Variable Concept at 18-21 pt. I decided to give a size range on this one as sometimes if there is a lot of text on the web page, the body copy will need to be 18pt rather than 21pt, as it needs to fit on the page and still be readable. I also felt that this font looks nice against Bernard MT Condensed and Century Schoolbook, but it is still distinguishable, and adds to the hierarchy/importance of information in my blog.  Finally, for subtext, i chose Century Schoolbook at 14pt, and i chose a serif font because it looks a little more formal than the other two fonts, and therefore can be used for this such as subtext, and notes underneath pictures to show who “wrote” the books winning the awards, and also for things such as added information on a topic, or at the bottom of the page, underneath body copy, and this, again, adds to the trickle of information in levels of importance. I also think that it looks nice with the other font choices and is easy to read even though it is being used at 14pt. Finally the last section of my typographical standards includes my colour theme swatches, which are black, white, and light grey. I chose these colours because they represent the colour themes of yin and yang, which aligns with the conceptual theme of my logo and blog. I allowed for the grey because it is used in the shading of my logo and could be used for things such as typography colour for quotes, and maybe banners and icons, if the standards were to be used long term. The black and white together is an obvious choice, and a classic colour combination that looks really clean together, and also allows for typography to be readable; the tonal colours are also appropriate as the blog is for horror book reviews, and i think if i had used lots of bright colours, it would not have fit with the conceptual theme of my work.  Overall I think that these typographical standards work well, and when used together with one another, should create a brand and style which stays standardised, the typography, logo, and corresponding colour swatches, all pertain to my blog and “Ventricle” brand.  I found the process of finding typography to compliment each other quite tedious and difficult, as most of the fonts look deeply unattractive when put next to one another, so the fonts and pt sizes are the fonts and sizes i think look good together along side my hand drawn font. It took me a couple of times to redo this typography box till I got some fonts that I felt looked good together.