For studio brief 3 we were each given a Bruce Willis film and asked to design a 2 colour poster for it. Die Hard was the poster that I was given. I looked online at existing alternative posters for Die Hard and found a huge array. Below are some of my favourite. Although this was good research and gave me some inspiration a lot of the posters were very similar to my initial ideas. This was irritating as I wanted to do something original and the huge amount of Die Hard posters already out there made this more difficult.
I wanted to do some more research into effective viral campaigns. I looked online and found this article in Forbes magazine. The article talks about how and why campaigns go viral. The article is concluded with 'three top tips' and these sum up the main points of the article.
1) Focus on psychology, not technology. Think about WHY people talk and share
2) Remember that social is more than social media. Don’t forget offline word of mouth
3) Follow the Six key STEPPS: Social Currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical Value, and Stories
Another member of my group told me about a TED talk which also looks at the reasons that videos go viral. Kevin Alloca, an employee at youtube gives the talk and he has some interesting ideas. He says that for something to go viral there are 3 things needed. The first is a trend setter, this is someone with a large following such as a celebrity of some sorts. They are needed to endorse and promote the video. The next is Participation. When the audience can get involved with something it makes it much more memorable. The third is unexpectedness. Only by surprising the audience can you get your message across effectively and make them want to share it.
One of the campaigns I looked at straight away was 'The Whole Picture' campaign for the Guardian Newspaper. The campaign was designed by BBH London and as well as the poster campaign they produced a video that went viral. I decided to look at this as it was encouraging people to read newspapers, essentially the same objective as our campaign. Although the campaign is really strong it didn't really give me any ideas for the campaign.
I looked online at a few different blogs that had compiled some of the most effective viral campaigns but again none of these inspired me for our particular subject matter
As our group had decided in the first session together that we wanted to focus on News and current affairs I thought that it would be interesting to do something with interviews with the public as News channels often interview the public within their coverage of a story. This reminded me of a video I had seen previously. It is part of a series of videos that runs on an American TV show. The videos are called 'Jimmy Kimmel Lie Witness News.' Essentially the videos are made to show how ignorant the public can be by asking them false questions and showing how they answer.
I thought that this was definitely an avenue we could go down with the video for our campaign.
Stanley Donwood is an English artist best know for the work he does for Radiohead. He has created their entire visual identity, producing all their album and poster art himself since 1994. He is close friends with Thom Yorke, the Radiohead frontman and has worked cpllaborated on other projects with him.
These pieces I have shown are Lino Prints. I really like his style of illustration within these pieces and the high contrast effect that is achieved with the Lino. The intricacy in the design adds to this effect.
I took inspiration from Donwood's work for the secret7 brief and developed one of my thumbnail sketches into a design in a similar style to these pieces.
I came across this work by Robert Del Naja in Exit Magazine. Robert Del Naja is an artist from Bristol, he works in many different mediums but originally gained notoriety as a member of the graffiti crew 'The Wild Bunch.'
Del Naja has been involved with Massive Attack for a long time, producing a vast body of work for them. The image shown above is the graphic that Del Naja designed for the single 'KarmaComa' which is interesting to see as this is the track I will be designing for in the secret 7 competition.
His work has a lo-fi feel lo it which I really like, the designs aren't clean or minimal in anyway but use different mediums together to create some really interesting graphics. I ike Del Naja's use of texture and the layering that he utilises in his work. It is interesting to see this work and I have taken inspiration from it but at the same time I want to ensure that my designs aren't too similar to this. I want to do something unique and different to the majority of Massive Attacks artwork.
I looked online at some existing editorial design for inspiration for my layout designs. I looked at the recent re-design of Surf magazine and I feel that this is one of the projects that inspired me the most. The use of minimal graphics, a limited colour palette and the way the body text is laid out creates a clean, simple aesthetic which works really well. It is readable and eye catching at the same time which I would like my layout designs to be.
Another one of the editorial design projects that I looked at was Countrywide, a property publication. This was another design that really stood out to me and that I took inspiration from. I especially liked the use of lines to divide up the page and I also took inspiration from the use of infographics
This editorial work by Sara Pellegrino was something I came across on Behance. I was looking at editorial photography trying to get some inspiration and this was one of the projects I looked at. The way the photographer has incorporated the obvious brush strokes into the clean imagery works really well. It gives the photos more texture and balances the images. The use of colour is really effective, the colours of the backgrounds and the brush strokes compliment one another and the clothing that the model is wearing.
This project started off some thought processes which allowed me to develop my idea further.
I looked at a famous photographer called David Bailey. There are many things I like about his work, I feel he captures the personality of the people he takes portraits of incredibly well. The images are always well composed and balanced but the thing that I like most about his work is the use of black and white. He uses high contrast black and white imagery which I feel is really effective and I would like to use within my work.
