2D Project

Initial Alphabets

For the first part of this project we were asked to create alphabets usuing found objects. The first objects I decided to use were tea lights and toy soldiers. I really liked how the tea lights looked when photographed lit and in a dark room, then upped contrast in black and white on photoshop, although I did think they looked a little too clean and didn't have as much personality to them. I liked the idea of usuing the soldiers as I thought it was a unique idea, I played around with burning and melting the soldiers to try and get them to resemble the letterforms, some worked more than others. On the session in the studio I brought in a collection of coins from around the world and a dollar. I also used the keys, the string of 'pearls' and sunglasses in the studio. As the brief asked I put them into black and white and created this set of posters. I wanted them all to be quite clean and easy to see that they are all a set, I also gave them all names after films to add a bit of character.

Posters

We were then asked to take our alphabets that we had created and digitise them and make two posters for them. One had to be a creative presentation of the alphabet and the other a presentation of the process of making the poster. Below are some rough thumbnail type drawings of initial ideas in my notebook. I decided to go with my full metal jacket font as I felt that had the most imagery to explore e,g: vietnam.

These are some examples of some of the photos I took. I wanted to give the impression of a battlefield in these ones and also show my process of burning and cutting up the toy soldiers.

Screenshot Thumbnails

I struggled for a bit with coming up with a way to present the full metal jacket font. I decided instead to have a go at doing a poster for the aviator font and come back to full metal jacket. I started layering parts of my letter forms over each other to create and abstract, Jackson Pollock looking piece. I really liked how this looked so made it a large piece of my poster. I then used a picture of some sunglasses from the internet and added my abstract pattern to the lenses.

After making my aviator posters, I decided to come back to my full metal jacket posters. I took inspiration from one of my favourite designers, Annie Atkins. She is a graphic designer for tv and film and has worked on The Grand Budapest Hotel and Bridge of Spies. I love reading her book and seeing the level of accuracy she has when creating era specific props.

After looking at Annie Atkins work I had an idea to create a fake draft letter like the ones that were sent out for the Vietnam War. I actually have a surprising bit of knowledge about the Vietnam War after studying it at school and taking interest in it. I have always liked the aesthetic of the FBI and CIA, so looked at redacted documents specifically ones from the Watergate scandal and the Hoover files. I constructed a fake draft letter and redacted all of the type apart from the tag line for the film Full Metal Jacket. I tried my best to make it accurate to a real draft letter adding the secret service logo and Lyndon B Johnsons signature. I added some inky looking fingerprints and some grit to it to make it look as though it had been quickly photocopied. I'm quite happy with how this poster came out. I also used one of my photos of a dismembered soldier for my other poster as i thought it looked quite striking.

Photocopying and zines

In the studio, we used the posters we had created and played with the photocopier to come up with new outcomes. I really liked playing with it as it came up with little things I would have never thought of doing on photoshop and added extra grit and personality to the work.