Art Portfolio: Project Introduction & Ideas generation

In our session two Art Portfolio session. We were introduced about the incoming projects that we are required to do for our second term. I read the Project Brief from the Learning Zone and I am aware that I need to create something that related to the themes and my work should be 6 work of 2D and 1 final 3D work. The themes given are Primitivism, Pop Art and Industrial.

For this first thoughts on this project, I am considering to create something that related to the theme of Pop Art since my progression route is graphic design. I personally think that Pop Art is one of the only theme that closest to my progression route. I did my plan on a sheet of paper.

For the first thoughts of Pop Art theme, I am thinking of designing an Pop Art style album cover or magazine cover. I can insert a subtle Hip Hop kind of style into my design as long as it is still in the area of the theme. The cultural theme that I am thinking about is a celebrity culture. As in the picture above, I am thinking of Billie Eillish, Cillian Murphy, Ryan Gosling, Ariana Grande, Scarlett Johansson and Adam Levine. The celebrity target doesn't need to be specifically singer as I can create a new kind of design for actor celebrity. So, I need to make 6 pieces of 2D album cover design and 1 final 3D design. For the 3D, I have an idea of making it as a printing materials. I want to make as a vinyl or CD cover as a frontpage of the content. Also, shelf album cover as in hang on the wall or maybe on the shelf. The colour palette that I am going to approach here is dark colour palette like black, gray, dark purple and dark blue. The software that I will be using is Adobe Photoshop. I will add many elements like text, glowing effect and grain/noise effects.

Then, I am making a brainstorm of Ideas Generation of how I am going to design my Pop Art cover. The Ideas Generation stand in 8 design that created in a short term of time. Here is the design:

For the first generation of idea, I am initially thinking of making a album cover that really suit for a Instagram post that is 1:1 ratio. I am thinking of putting the celebrity in the middle with his name behind him/her and with effects like grain. Then, the top is like a title or a catch phrase. Second design, I did by magnifying the face of the chosen celebrity and make it like half of the cover design. The half face cover will make it look very iconic. The left of the design again is his/her name and the bottom should be like a title of the album. Then, the middle space I will add like a text of facts or some information but in a subtle way. Third, I am transition from album cover to magazine cover. This magazine cover, I am depicting the image of a celebrity with full body like a vogue kind of style. My design will not be exactly as the vogue cover design, I will make more like a Pop Art style instead of clean clear design. The top of the design should be the title of the cover, the side by side of the cover, I am considering putting the name of the celebrity. Ofcourse, grain/noise effect will be apply. Fourth, I keep the magazine kind of style but change the poses of how the celebrity should be represent. This one, I make it half of the fact, on top of it is the name of the celebrity. The right side, I will crop the picture of the celebrity face point and put it like in a box. Then I am thinking of adding text that related to the album or maybe the identity of the celebrity. Fifth, this one I thought about how the male celebrity should look like with the outfit. I am thinking of going old style like the drama series of Peaky Blinder. As well as in the sixth, the outfit are like old vintage style kind of outfit. Seventh, I am brainstorming some design of my logo to put on my album or magazine cover. Initial thought, I am combining the name of myself with the word "aesthetic". It become as "Syaes". First logo design, just a simple decorative type of font in a box, or just a simple serif font. Then, I am thinking of making the logo in a circle style that spell out the brand of my design around it. Also, the combination of the circle logo with text logo. Last logo, I am thinking of making it vertical for some circumstances in designing the cover. Eighth, the type face that I should use to represent the logo of my brand as type face is very crucial to present my brand to other people. A simple and minimalistic decorative font, sans serif font which do not have any tail, serif font which have tail and I think serif is not the best type face to use for my brand as serif is very classical. Then, I am thinking of decorative style like making it half cut name with space in the middle to show some aesthetic. 

then, after generate some ideas with the crazy eights, I am now focusing on one concept and trying to develop the ideas throughout the process. I took one of the crazy eights example that I did that put it in the new paper. For the new ideas generation, I am focusing on album kind of design which represent celebrity and pop art. This is all my initial sketches:

For the first design, I just basically took it from the first crazy eights. Nothing much going on right just just a copy. Second design, I try to change the character into woman character which is Scarlett Johansson. I tried to make it look vintage album with her name on the left with the location on the bottom. I also the year of the album randomly in the album and the capture of Scarlett Johansson eyes also in the album. Third design. I still stick with Scarlett Johansson figure but I tried to change the perspective into move upper body part. I put my planning brand name which is SYAES stand for Syafiq Aesthethic. I really think the bottom space is unnecessary, so I just add like an abstract shape to fill it in. Fourth, I am trying to make like a iconic side profile album cover which are very minimal with very simple design. Behind the figure of the album, should be like a triangle prism shape for a iconic purpose. After all that 4 design, I just realize that I am actually digress from the Pop Art theme. So, in the next design, I tried to got back on track where my design should be themed by Pop Art. Fifth, I chose Billie Eillish as the main figure of my album cover. It just simply her with a onomatopoeia saying "Coool!" behind her. All this pop art design, then, got the brand name of my design under the cover for recognition. Sixth, I used Ariana Grande as the figure and I put her on the right side. I slide the Pop Art style onomatopoeia saying "POW" on the left. After that, got my brand name design under it with the same purpose as fifth but with different font. Seventh, this one I used Ryan Gosling as the figure with his name under it. I think the under name is actually unnecessary. Then, I insert the Pop Art style by inserting onomatopoeia word scattering around him. Last one, Adam Levine as the main figure. The box space under it was totally unnecessary, but I put his name "ADAM LEVINE" behind him in onomatopoeia style. That are all of my crazy eights design that stick to one concept.

After I did all the crazy eights design, I had a discussion with my tutor Naomi. She told me that this celebrity kind of design is not really the best as I already did celebrity design before in Term 1. She gave me some artist to look at and design that I should considering. Also, they want to see some design like collage or font type design. This is one of the example of Peter Blake design: 

"WHO" (2019) by Peter Blake
Source: Waddington Custot

"Disney (Red Nose Day)" 2019 by Peter Blake
Source: Artsy

I can see that Peter Blake really keen into making an collage design that slide a pop art vintage artist with some kinds of abstract design and combine it into collage. After looking through his design, and also considering Naomi ideas making collage or typeface design. I have an ideas of combining collage design and typeface design. This is my sketch: 

First design, I obey Naomi advice choosing of the crazy eights that I did and develop it through the design. So, I chose my favourite which is the Billie Eilish design. Second, I just planning to use bold typeface font which is B that is the initial of the name of the celebrity. Third, I think that designing a border around it would be so much better and tidy. Also, I insert the brand design of mine under it for recognition. Fourth, I looked into the first design of my chosen design and I tried to look for iconic icon that I can put extract to. I realize that glasses is one of the recognizable icon. So the fourth is just basically the glasses. Fifth, again the same process, I saw Billie wearing beanie and I think that could be iconic. Sixth, this one is kind of random, but I looked through Billie Eillish picture and I realize that her hair is very shaped. So I made her hair as an icon. Seventh, I took Billie Eillish lips and made it into icon. The last design, I merge all of it into one design in a frame. I put all the four icon design and making it into a collage design which is what Naomi said that I should be doing. Then, for the typeface, I put this initial alphabet B on top of the collage design with my brand name under it. This is my second brainstorm crazy eights after considering what Naomi told me.