Dada Poster Final and Story Board

This is my final poster design and story board.  I enjoyed working on this project but ran out of time.  I like the poster but am kinda unsure about the color.  I would have liked to make it even more abstract and bizarre in accordance with dadaism.  But as mentioned earlier I decided to make it more simple by just making all the type horizontal and focusing mainly on mixing typefaces and changing the scale of different characters and words.  The story board is pretty rough but it gets the idea across.  This project has given me a lot of ideas about type and motion which I am eager to explore via after effects and flash.  This was a fun assignment but a little rushed.  Happy Summer! :)

Dada Poster Process

Process of poster development shown below.  I went back and forth and really wrested with the usage of the background texture, placement of text and color.  Eventually I decided to really simplify my approach by making the type strictly horizontal and desaturating the background texture.  Although I initially wanted to make some of the type diagonal and running up and down the page it became clear that I was making it too complex.  I used a combination of the different varieties of Cholla, Futura bold, and Century italics in an attempt to mimic dada typography style that uses a variety of typeface mixed and at different scales.  

Mo' Dada process

Here is a random page of thoughts I jotted down regarding this project and some cool textures I found that are from a painterly table I spotted in Nueberger hall.  I love the typeface Cholla and am using it as the foundation for my poster.  I like how it has different versions, seriffed, sans, slab and so forth, it seems fitting to mix and match style for this project and also use another typeface or two, a heavy bold face and possibly another seriffed face.  These were some of my initial ideas regarding type usage.  Also to place with scale shifts to play into the chaotic dada style I'm drawing influence from.

Dada Research and initial process

For my Dada poem, I'm targeting the style of Dada itself, as it is very intriguing to me.  The style, the period the politics behind it and so forth.  I love the ambiguousness of dada, the infulence it had on other movements and that it existed as a sort of anti-art movement, critiquing art, design and culture itself.  I found a grip of Dada work at sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/dada/index.html some of which I posted below.  I have visited this site numerous times to get ideas and inspirations.  Also show below is the initial construction of the dada poem.  I grabbed an article called the Negative Effects of Internet Usage which is a pretty informal article that was available though an associated content site, cut it up, threw it in a bag and shook it out, following the guidelines of creating this poem.  I dig the result but have edited it some and selected certain sentences to use in the poster/ story board. Dada life!   

Book Series Final Designs

These are the final versions of my book cover series.  As I mentioned earlier I really enjoyed this project and I'm pretty happy with the final results.  

Book Series Process

Documented below is the process of my book series designs.  I really enjoyed this project, it flowed with ease with was nice for a change.  I began with a focus on the typography and the idea of using a distressed typeface.  Initially using a placeholder typeface from dafont.com, but it was too live traced looking, so I decided to generate my own distressed look via the copy machine.  I dig working with the copy machine in this way, it's fun, tactile and pretty immediate.  Franklin Gothic was the typeface I abused with the copy machine, and after many copies I found the textured, distressed look I was going for.  Then I moved on to develop my background textures, in accordance with the subject matter and distressed type.  I altered a photograph of smoke for the Confessions cover, and used a bag for the Junky cover and foil for the Subterraneans cover.  The series quickly came together, and it actually took me a lot longer to get the finer details dialed in, I wrestled with the body copy for awhile and eventually resoled the designs, the finals are shown in the above post.   

Book Cover Beginnings

Shortly after choosing the book series redesign project and choosing the set of books labeled drugs, I immediately began to think of using a distressed typeface.  To explore this idea I found a distressed font in my library called Hand Cancelled by Hoefler Type Foundary.  Although I like this typeface it has a live traced look.  I plan on making my own distressed type via photocopying, unless for some reason I decide not to go with the distressed look, too cliche perhaps?  Naw, I like the distressed look and it seems fitting to the subject matter.  So Below are some mock ups. I wanted to explore using distressed type and some textural imagery.  The imagery is strong but I am going to work on it some more and see where it goes.  I aim to focus more on the type in order to make the type stronger/more dominant.  I had fun making these and am liking where this project is headed so far.  As of now I am making the covers 9.5  x 6.25 in.  So this is where I'm at, so far. I gotta start thinking about the spine and back too.