Leeds Contemporary Book Fair

26.02.10 - So little time!
Stitching is something I have never looked into... In my brief I have put forward an idea of using stitching for the Contemporary Book Fair. I am hoping to use stitching in my 20 hot-dog books but knowing nothing I really need to research some artists so I don't produce something utterly pathetic! After looking into Rosie James and Marloes Duyker I am even more keen on producing something stitched. I feel that if I have any chance of selling any of my books at the Fair, they need to be interesting and different. I know stitching isn't really classed as contemporary but it is definitely being explored by recent artists in a new way, bringing it back up to date and relevant to design today.


The books had to be related to the pictures I took previously in Visual Language of either light-switches or red objects in the environment. I have decided upon red outdoor summer things. My initial idea was to have every book consisting purely of cross stitch, every inch covered by cotton. This would be really nice, however I had no idea on how much time stitching takes!

I started with cross stitching which produces a really nice effect, however, it is SO time consuming and I simply do not have enough hours to stitch every page (the top right apple took around 30mins!) - bear in mind each sample of fabric shown below is A6! I think my books would just get laughed at if I simplified stitching to the minimal and used the top left example, as this could really easily be pulled and ruined. Somewhere in the middle seemed a good choice, shown on the bottom sample, and I think these designs look really cute. I thought about time again... it worked out that I would need 100 hours to do 6x 3x3cm cross stitching samples in each book (180 samples!) There is no way I could do that.

My time calculations left me a bit shocked and panicking over what I could actually do before Friday. I have decided to simplify my ideas and instead of including 6x cross stitching samples in each book, I will create 6, but them scan/photograph them and use them printed in each book. This will still take a while, but will be a more effective use of my time. 

04.03.10 - Sore fingers...!

I have been stitching pretty much none stop all week. It has been kind of relaxing. I also think I have managed my time quite well. I just need to put the finishing touches to the stitching and then scan in and lay them out in InDesign. 

Today, I had to stitch all the text (the images took 3 days!). I wanted to use a style which was similar to that of the images, so I did a few different ideas. I decided on the red outline and have also used this around my images too.

Finally, all my stitching was complete! I will have a look into the layout tonight and do a mock-up, then tomorrow morning I can re-visit it and look at any issues before I press print! 

05.03.10 - Summer Stitch

I tried a few different versions for the layout and chose one with the most interest, I have also printed double sided and used the back of my stitching on this.


IMAGE OF FRONT
IMAGE OF BACK


I used a sugar paper as it had a really nice organic and natural feel to it. I wanted my stock to reflect the content and as stitching is quite personal and obviously hand made, I didn't want a stock which had a manufactured feel to it.


I am really happy with my books and fingers crossed I can sell a few!

12.03.10 - This is it

I didn't really know what to expect from the book fair, but I was really impressed with alot of the stalls. I bought books from My Eye Is On Fire and Ghost Publications. Also, I ended up seelling 2 books, which I was quite pleased with, to say how many other amazing books were there. 

Don't Panic: Vogue

22.02.10 - My 21st!
Don't Panic send out envelopes aimed at students filled with information packs and each issue includes a poster. Each poster is a competition and designers have to create one based on a word. For this live brief, the word was 'vogue' and I had to design 3 posters based on the word 'vogue' and 30 design treatments. I would then pick the best of the posters and upload them onto the Don't Panic website and the general public would vote.

Envelope design for Don't Panic by Dave the Chimp.

I thought about the definitions of vogue; the prevailing fashion or style at a particular time, general acceptance or favour, popularity, fashionable. I also jotted down 30 or so words I associated with 'vogue' and created 30 visuals to reflect these.

30 VISUALS

I am no way an illustrator and find image really difficult to work with, because of this, out of my 30 visual variations I think the ones which work the best are the type based ones. As a starting point, I chose to develop my poster based on magazine, size zero, serifs, outrageous and consumerism. Initially, I did not want the 'Vogue' magazine affect my design, however I thought it would be good to research as it is an inevitable association.

25.02.10 - Why did I leave it so late?
Research started on the Don't Panic website, looking through some previous winners. It seemed that illustration was a more popular choice over type. Due to this, I changed my direction and decided to give it a go! I knew this would be more difficult for me, but I was willing to try out something new. Many of the winners also had quite simple idea which was very effective, many of them also did not include the subject word.

I moved onto researching posters, and with my new information on the type of imagery that had been chosen before I could narrow my research down. I was looking for image based posters which had a clear style and message, but character and personality and originality. I found Eye Saw and Niki De Saint Phalle very interesting. I think my posters will be pretty simple with one main factor (hopefully representing vogue!).
Vogue magazine was easy to research due to the sheer amount of archived journals the Art College has! I chose 3 different magazines (November 1985, February 1991 and September 2009) to give me a broad overview of fashion at different times. I scanned in the most outrageous fashions I could find. I am thinking about using a technique such as photomontage (much in a similar style to Ice Cream For Free) to create the most hideous outfit. I don't understand fashion and how when something begins growing in popularity, it has a snowball effect.

Sketching was the best form of quickly jotting down ideas on this brief and I churned out quite a few ideas...

Sketches.

I liked the idea of a model striking a pose but wearing something pretty horrendous, however, I could not draw it! Due to my lack of illustrative skills I decided to simplify my drawing to the very basics (much like Niki De Saint Phalle (but even more so!). The addition of words aided my design and I liked the structure of using them to create the image/pictogram. To develop upon this, I needed to make it represent vogue more... I went back to thinking of the snowball effect and popularity in fashion. 

26.02.10 - Phew!
My designs have turned out pretty feminine and this was reflected by the comments I received in the final crit. I decided to hand render the text, for the illustration purpose, however I digitalised a very basic version of a woman symbol and used a pink background to reflect this. I am pretty happy with what I have produced by using hand draw text, and would like to develop this further.