Typography in Scott Pilgrim!

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World! There are SO many movies out there that attempt to take a classic comic book and translate it into a theatrical work of art. Many of them succeed! For instance, pretty much any superhero movie has its roots in the vintage comic book scene. And there is such a successful market in that genre of film. However, I think rarely do we come across a film that truly embodies the classic aesthetic of comic books. This film is one of those. It's a comic book come to life. 

The use of typography in Scott Pilgrim is what really impressed me. Before seeing this film (which, by the way, I had never read the comics before seeing it) I had never heard of the term "Kinetic Typography." When I decided to do some research on the use of type, I kept coming across this term! It's the technical name for the use of "moving text," the animation technique that was so wildly embraced in Scott Pilgrim. Every action or sound was coupled with a comic book-style exclamation. This is what made the movie work for me!

The Female Image in Advertising

1. Examine Bayer's "Great Ideas" advertisement (page 347, Meggs). Compare Bayer's association of the female image with excess and corruption with contemporary treatments of women in ads. Do we still see this same association? If so, how has it changed? Is it now seen as a good thing or a bad thing? Use at least two contemporary ads.

In this advertisement, called "Great Ideas," the campaign designer is trying to communicate a message of warning, heeding the public to take care against falling into the trap of unwise lifestyle choices. The collage of objects used to represent this dangerous lifestyle portrays symbols of gambling, alcohol, excessiveness, indulgence, and greed. The figure of the woman is used to embody this wild lifestyle, as she herself becomes an object, just like the dice or fruits or alcohol.

The use of female figures as an object has been a long-standing tradition in advertisement design. In today's society, women are often portrayed in a negative light, used simply for sex appeal in order to sell objects to men. The most obvious culprits are the products that have an high percentage male target audience, specifically cars, food, and alcoholic beverages that are geared toward men. Scantily-clad women are often portrayed as little but another object of desire, subliminally promising men that the purchase of whatever product is being advertised will heighten their potential for achieving the coveted lifestyle that is depicted. The examples are endless, so much so that we have grown accustomed to seeing many of the images of women in advertisements as highly perfected symbols of sexuality and excessive living. Here are some contemporary examples:

Skyy Vodka Ads

Budweiser

Dolce & Gabbana Campaign

Ludacris Album Cover

Car Advertisement

Mens Accessory Line Ad

 Esquire's iconic Muhammad Ali cover (page 398, Meggs) makes a visual comparison between a contemporary controversial figure and a famous image from the history of art. Describe how this approach affects the viewer by conveying a powerful philosophical statement without the use of words. Offer one contemporary example of a similar image and do a quick compare/contrast between it and the Esquire cover. (Campaign 2008 is a good stop).

The use of recognizable art imagery is a powerful tool in any form of propaganda. Images such as paintings by the masters of the renaissance have become so widely recognizable that their emotional content can be applied to many various forms of expression and still read with the same message. The philosophical content is carried through. In the example provided, an image of Muhammad Ali is intended to mimic the classical painting of St. Augustine being martyred. The Esquire cover borrows the emotion and connection of the painting, displaying Ali as a martyr, one to be sympathized with. Even taken out of context, despite not knowing much about the controversy that surrounded Muhammad Ali's  career, I instantly understood the message that was intended in this cover.

In the same way, any highly famous and recognizable painting can be recycled to communicate a message. In researching, I found a plethora of satires of paintings by the Renaissance masters, specifically da Vinci. I found it interesting that so many satires had been made of works such as Mona Lisa and the Last Supper. For example, I found a trend that many television shows have followed: creating their own version of the Last Supper using characters from each show. By depicting the various characters in the positions of Christ and the twelve apostles, these images, without any verbal explanation, give a lot of depth to the cast. Without having seen a single episode of many of these shows, I feel that I know a lot about each character's specific role and how they are meant to be perceived by the viewer. Here are just a few of the examples I found:

Original, The Last Supper by da Vinci

House

Looney Tunes

Lost

The Sopranos

The Simpsons

Eggleston at the Frist!

I. Love. William. Eggleston.

When I first researched Eggleston before going to see an exhibit of his work at the Frist, I was confused to say the least. His pictures are just snapshots of junk! They are so boring. Not just boring, they are depressingly unspecial. But that's when it hit me. The normalcy of these images is what makes them. Eggleston truly is finding something worth looking at in that which is typically overlooked. His images are ironic. They seem completely unplanned and unposed, yet their subjects read as entirely intentional. Eggleston succeeded in capturing the normalcy of everyday life in Memphis. To say the least, he is the ultimate hipster.

Coming from the perspective of a hopeful photographer, I look at photography with an extremely critical eye. I have spent the past several years in a photography class, being asked to shoot my surroundings and create visual interest out of the things I pass by on a regular basis. After a couple rolls of shooting the same old cliché shots of the fountain and the statues and the belltower, I realized my dilemma; the dilemma every photographer faces: how do I take a picture of something ordinary and make it interesting? How do I capture the essence of the overlooked? How do I give life to things and make people pay attention to something they might not have noticed on their own? This is my goal as a photographer. And I think very few accomplish this goal as thoroughly as Eggleston has.

Rebuild Alabama! Lester Beall Style!

I created a poster that embodies the mission of 1940s designer Lester Beall: I used minimalism and the emotional connection of solid blocks of national colors to stir in the viewer a sense of connectedness, encouraging one to take part in helping the relief efforts following the tragic tornado disasters that occurred in Tuscaloosa recently. 

Something that I particularly love about Lester Beall's images are the lighthearted emotional quality he incorporates into his work. Despite his very serious subject matter,  Lester uses images that invoke an optimistic sense of volunteerism. While many designers tend to approach grave subjects in the opposite manner, taking care to communicate a tone of seriousness in their work, Lester Beall seems to take the opposite approach. Rather than warning or subduing his audience, he aims to inspire and provoke good. In a sense, I feel like his work is a visual pep talk. I tried to emulate this by incorporating images that would draw the viewer in, sparking interest and creating an optimistic approach to the problem.

Like Lester, I used the national colors, red, white, and blue, to invoke a sense of national pride and responsibility. Lester's work feels very authentic and classically "American." He uses bold blocks of color to communicate a very bold message. Essentially I feel that the contemporary American public would respond to posters in Lester Beall's style in the same way that his work was received in its day. I feel that a promotion of national pride and a sense of community and volunteerism are held high today just as they have been in our nation's history. I hope to achieve the same reaction as Lester Beall's poster's achieved.

I posted my work on several sites to elicit a reaction. Here are some of the links!

Tumblr!

Flickr!

Twitpic!

Twitter!

Blogger!

Pinterest!

Poster Project

I chose to create a poster illustrating one of my favorite albums: For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver. This is what the album looks like:

More importantly, this is what the album sounds like:

Bon Iver - For Emma, For Ever Ago - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Here's some explanation of how my work characterizes many of the important components of the Arts and Crafts Movement as well as the Art Nouveau style.

1. The Arts and Crafts Movement was characterized in part by a desire to elevate the fields of print and design to "their rightful place beside painting and sculpture," essentially applying the importance of the "fine arts" to all forms of visual and creative expression. Therefore, this poster, which symbolizes many of the themes of Bon Iver's album For Emma, Forever Ago, embodies the idea that visual work created for the purpose of communication is just as valuable as work created for expression's sake.

2. The Arts and Crafts Movement sparked a growing interest in the areas of typography, graphic design, and printmaking. The growth in book design led to a renaissance in typography and revival of the printed arts. The typeface that I used for the album title is called De Roos. This font is a mimicry of the work of Dutch type designer Sjoerd H. De Roos, who is known for his careful attention to detail in symmetrical layout, margin proportion, leading and kerning (space between lines and letters in a document). His dedication to pristine typography led to a new standard for typefaces that were practical, aesthetically pleasing, and easily legible.

3. One of the most recognizable names of the Arts and Crafts Movement is William Morris, a craftsman and type designer known for his philosophy that design was the vehicle that could unite art and industry, bringing art to the working class. His accomplishments in the design of beautiful typefaces, as well as ornate, lavish book decorations, set his books apart and blurred the line between printing and artmaking. The floral border is taken from Morris' trademark design for the Kelmscott Press, and the background design is another example of Morris' exquisite attention to detail. 

4. The rise of the Art Nouveau style is led by a drastic shift away from the busy, detailed ornamentation of the Victorian era toward the simplicity of modernism. This is seen especially in graphic works that used bold shapes and blocks of color to communicate various forms. I incorporated an illustration of a flower in a vase by American designer Will Bradley because it is a good example of the rising minimalist illustration methods that became recognizable characteristics of the Art Nouveau movement.

5. After looking through quite a few examples of work that represents the Art Nouveau style, I noticed a specific recurring color palette and tried to incorporate these colors into my design to accomplish a successful mimicry of the emotional quality of Art Nouveau work. Many of the posters mentioned in our readings and in class use very bold, brightly contrasting colors, usually reds and yellows outlined by stark black shapes and linear designs. 

6. A popular artist from the Art Nouveau period was Alphonse Mucha, who became famous for his elegant illustrations, characterized by their organic, plantlike linear forms and exploration of the stylized, romanticized feminine form as a subject matter. I used one of Mucha's famous illustrations as the main subject of my collage because I think the style and tone of this piece truly captures many of the most important aesthetic qualities of the Art Nouveau movement. 

7. Some of the recognizable characteristics of Mucha's work, along with similar artists of the time, are the busy aesthetic and the seeming desire to cover every available space with intricate, interactive designs. This is represented in my use of overlapping pattern and intricate design. I tried to create a style that reflected this aesthetic, hence the asymmetricality and heavily ornamented style.

8. Another wildly popular Art Nouveau artist was Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, a French artist and designer known for ushering in the style of modernism. By combining drawings with typography, his posters unified art and functionality, which is one of the identifiable characteristics of art nouveau design, from graphic design to architecture to object design, etc. In a sense, the collage I created does just that, because it is a visually expressive piece that aims to communicate the themes of a body of musical work to the viewer. I chose to incorporate Toulouse-Lautrec's iconic image of the creepy man in the bright red scarf, because I think it represents Justin Vernon's self portrayal in his album For Emma, Forever Ago. (I'll explain this later).

9. Toulouse-Lautrec's style, as well as that of fellow artists Aubrey Beardsley and Theophile Alexandre Steinlen, has been defined as a major influence in the shift from Victorian to Art Nouveau. These artists emphasized stylized, flat forms of color, along with "simplified symbolic shapes" and "dynamic spatial relationships." These bold forms drew interest toward the trend of invented lines and designs that seem like glorified doodles, which became the precursors to abstract art. The flat shapes that create the man in the red scarf and the funky red flower, as well as the abstract design behind the woman in the Mucha piece, all illustrate these aspects of the Art Nouveau movement.

10. Many of the philosophical ideas of the time came through in the art of the Art Nouveau period. Artists used their work to express their philosophies, and many of the famous pieces from the time carried a heavier symbolic meaning than had been associated with visual art in the past. The Art Nouveau movement is characterized by rapid growth in the close collaborations between visual artists and writers, and so the art that comes from this time is seen as a more personal expression of cultural ideals than ever before. The reason I chose to illustrate For Emma, Forever Ago was because I think this album incorporates many themes that relate not only to my personal life this year, but also to the way I have come to view my society and the process of living life as an American college student. The album itself is the frontman Justin Vernon's account of a time he spent isolated in a cabin in the woods of Wisconsin, escaping from the world to spend time dealing with and growing from a few harsh blows that life had dealt him. Some of the themes that I personally appreciate and identify with are broken relationships, dealing with change and uncertainty, realization of one's weakness, and the process of growing and changing. The basic idea of my poster is that the two individuals represent people that have experienced life together and are learning to grow apart and learn from their mistakes. I think the concept of incorporating these personal and even spiritual themes is an important component of the Art Nouveau movement.

Here's a closer look at the individual works I drew from, as well as some information about each piece:

Ambassadeurs

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

1892

Victor Bicycles

Will Bradley

1899

Kelmscott Press Logo

William Morris

1890

Zodiac

Alphonse Mucha

1896

Clover detail

William Morris

1890's

De Roos-inspired typography

William Morris-inspired letter form

Lessons from the Week!

This week I really enjoyed getting into the advent of photography. Obviously I'm interested in photography and I thought the specifics that we learned were really interesting! I loved the examples shown in class that featured human subjects. There was such an obvious difference in how portraiture was perceived then in contrast to how it is now. The heavy influence of the painted portrait made for a much more intentional style of portraiture. I love it. The images didn't look stiff, but rather elegant and filled with character. I'd like to use these images to inspire a project of my own!