Bowie Album cover- Psychadelic

Album back

Album cover

  

This is an album back and cover to a Bowie vinyl, Diamond Dogs. I added the back of the slip because I think the dog legs are an interesting part of this piece. It certainly stuck in my mind enough to include it as part of the picture. The art style is strange, looking at David Bowie it looks very close to a photograph but when you look at the two in the back it is a more painted style.

The function of this cover is to provide interesting visuals while listening to David Bowie's music.

Though the graphic style isn't obvious in this design it seems to be psychedelic with the strange images and colors. 

Star Trek T-shirt- Contemporary Retro

Hopefully the 'U.S.S. Enterprise' on this T-Shirt will spark some familiarity in most people. If you're really lost in the reference you can simply look to the bottom left to see 'Star Trek', a famous Sci-fi classic.
Though it is not a retro throw back of the style used in the years of Star Trek, (post-modernism), it is a throw back to the design of the ship. The style of this shirt is contemporary art. Though it puts a graph in the background to suggest that the designer is considering precision and scale in schematics, it is purely for the looks. As Star Trek is based loosely around actual scientific ideas so this shirt is gesturing towards the genre.
With how famous Star Trek is in today's retro saturated designs the function is to look awesome. For wanting to wear something awesome they get your money and possibly other people's money if they happen to like Star Trek.
As a fan of classic science fiction and current cinema I had to get this T-Shirt when I saw it on a run to the store. It turned out to be as comfy as it was attractive and it is probably one of my favorite shirts.

Movie Review: Natural Born Killers

The beginning of the movie starts the viewer off with an example of the main characters many killing sprees. It seems like they’ve just been sitting in the diner, bored until the main female protagonist fires off from being insulted by a man who starts provocatively dancing at her. In due time she starts beating the man to a pulp and soon her boyfriend joins in by fighting with the man’s friend. They could have stopped there but then they decide to kill everyone in the bar minus one guy whom they chose by ‘eenie meenie miney moe”. It’s interesting to notice how she started the provocative dancing without realizing the consequences of what could happen when dancing in front of a group of men. This scene shows the viewer the severity of how insane the anti-heros are. Mickey and Mallory didn’t have a plan for this killing, neither do they, in most cases, for the rest of the movie. They do as they please without suffering consequences, for a while.

Black and white film is used interchangeably with color. A pattern seems to form of the black and white being used for when they are doing a crime and color being used for the high they get off of their life wasting explorations.

In the beginning credits the cinematography is very wild, as the camera attempts to capture the strange life that Mickey and Mallory live.The lighting has a crazy amount of colors and it’s hard to focus on just one thing. Sometimes animation is used to get across a spiritual feel to how Mickey and Mallory feel for each other.

The movies signals are contradictory. Warning signals go off in my head as certain inappropriate situations come up, inappropriate situations that happened in Mickey’s past, but the movie treats it as if it’s an everyday occurrence and even uses canned laughter as I personally am in horror. It’s very expressional to do this, the brain makes connections and you understand why, but it’s very unusual and almost uncanny.
The idea of making connections through expressive motifs of past media is how it is connected to the graphic style of the era, Post-modernism. Just like in Post-modernism, it embraces effects used in the past (canned laughter) and uses them to their advantage to get across an idea or feeling. For example, canned laughter was used in old 1950s sit-coms to cue laughter from the audience, but in Natural Born Killers it was used to press an idea of how much abuse Mickey was receiving on a daily basis in her home life. Post-modernism took people's knowledge of past references to make people understand and make connections in their head on the tone to the story.

Knowing how the two characters connected through their hardships makes one understand the reason why they adorn violence. Violence is how they took care of Mallory’s molestive father and neglective mother. The tragic past lead the viewer to connect, on some level with the anti-heros. Had Mallory not had as terrible background she would not have committed such despicable crimes in the future. Honestly they’re a very broken couple, trying their best to get thrills from murder to mask the terrible feelings of their past.

This movie reveals the disgusting nature of humans. I find the irony in their quote “tonight’s movie will be Escape From the Planet of the Apes’, during the prison, hilarious as the entire movie makes the entire planet sound like a jungle.

Spring Casemate Publishers Magazine- Swiss Style

This is a Casemate Publishers magazine that I got in the mail. Its function is to provide different books on military history, science and defense studies. The artwork of the title is simplistic and uniform with the color scheme being very minimalistic. The red sun is precisely set in the upper middle part of the picture, with black waves and ship just slightly asymmetrical. It is very obvious that the cover for casemate publishers is Swiss Style. Ignoring the ‘Casemate’ brand, most of the font is even in that of Typographic style.

What attracted me to this piece were the reasons that made it Swiss Style. It is simplistic and bold in its flat silhouettes. Red with gray scale is naturally an eye catching scheme so it really stood out to me. There is detail in the rippling waves’ silhouette and the ship's’ edge that makes this a complex piece.

Parkland Brochure-Contemporary

This is a brochure cover that advertises the Parkland 2016-17 Theater. It’s function is to get across the feeling of acting and performance immediately. Just throwing a glance in the direction of this colorful brochure should entice one to pick it up because of how dynamic the shots are.The typography matches the white dividing lines between each picture and even has a simple little jester to the left, also in white. I got this on the first day when walking to my art classes. Most brochures are made for each year so, needless to say, this is a piece of contemporary art design with no real references to the past.
I can relate that simple cartoon jester to the old Jump Start PC Games back in 2009. It is very similar in it's pose and star at the top and as soon as I figured it out it sort of blew my mind. You won't be able to find an image of the little figure I'm referencing, so I took a screen shot of it.

See how similar? Even though it seems so long ago it is still contemporary graphic design, with some possible references to Late modernism with it's simple shapes and single representing the horizon line.

Anime Central Lanyard-Contemporary

This is a free lanyard that came with my Anime Central ID card. It's function is to keep the ID out and visible without having to worry about it slipping away or getting lost. I found it quite considerate of the corporate system to provide a free lanyard while making it look so visually appealing.
The spacing and relatively same sized objects allow for a pattern to be formed by a wide variety of little pictures. The little pictures are caricatures of items associated with subjects that Anime Central may delve deeply into or simply gesture towards. For example, an illustration of a gaming controller can be seen at the very left. Since there are multiple panels involved in gaming this makes a lot of sense to include the picture, for gamers to associate with. Something to be less associated with would be the rocket, but, hey, it looks cute doesn't it?
The artistic function of this lanyard is to give cute cartoonist images for the wearer to associate with. I personally like to keep it as a souvenir, just in case I ever need a lanyard.
This is a piece of contemporary design, as it was more currently made.

Suicide Squad Movie Poster-Contemporary

This is a movie poster I received on the first day of taking a field trip to the very class that I write this for. The movie 'Suicide Squad' is just as colorful as the poster, though the choice of making the theme cereal escapes me. They could have been going for the idea of the movie being 'overdone' or in the cereal's case 'too sugary' as there are apparently only marshmallows and no nutritious food to consume. The movie is all about the villains, there are a lot, and they all have backstories. The movie puts a lot of emphasis in each of their reactions to the scenarios they are put into while maintaining suggestions to the plot. It is this way in which the movie could be seen as 'sugary sweet' or 'overdone'.
The purpose of this poster is to show the 'nothing but naughty fun' movie now in theaters. With an amalgam of bright colors it's an easy attention drawer. The main characters in the movie and their special weapons are represented as marshmallows.

Alred Hitchcock Movie Poster- Swiss Style

Having to make a cameo and show his face in every other movie or movie poster that he produces, this is obviously an Alfred Hitchcock movie poster. The movie that the poster is for specifically is Strangers On a Train and from the word play that Hitchcock suggests in placement of the ‘L’ between the ‘g’ and ‘e’ in ‘Strangers’ and the intimidating leather gloves it should be quite apparent what these strangers are about. The typography of the movie title is organized in a narrow slanting pattern like that of a train. Other suggestions towards trains can be seen in the steel blue rectangle at the bottom and even train shaped typography at the top because it is italicized and slanted like the front of most trains.

The purpose of this poster is to get people interested in Strangers on a Train. Alfred Hitchcock was a cinematographic genius, famous for his cameos and suspenseful thrillers, so the public had good reason for wanting to see his face and they didn’t have to be too imaginative to understand what the art on this poster meant.

The three actors in bold print at the bottom were mostly likely something to get excited about as well, since Ruth Roman and Robert Walker were in many dramas at the time and Farley Granger was in many good movies.
  This is a piece of Swiss graphic Design with it's bold colors. Angles convey atmospheric perspective and space, which was a motif to this type of design.

Bunny Business Card-Contemporary

I picked up this little business card this past summer while perusing the art section at Anime central. The function, like any business card, is to give important contact information and provide ways for a consumer to get in touch with the artist and purchase their art. I took many business cards from the art tables on my trip and this one seemed to stand out to me because of the adorable bunny shaped cut. Not to mention it has the galaxy on its back and I personally have an attraction to the stars. The galaxy is embellished by the plain white on the bunny which works better than if it, say, was a black bunny.
The creature this business card is cut into the shape of is generally thought of as a sweet and innocent animal. The artist generally draws very cute things and it can be seen on this business card choice.

Word War II Poster Book Cover- Early Modern

This is a Russian poster converted to a book cover for a World War II poster book. It is a propaganda poster book and is very evident that the style is Early Modern. It depicts a determined soldier rushing over his recently defeated enemies further into the fight. In the distance, yet, alongside him, are his allies ready to back up. Though it appears as if he had already overcome some enemy soldiers he seems prepared for even more bloodshed. He is boldly fighting for his country.

In the original poster where the author's name is there are Russian words that translate in English to “Over the enemy land to victory!” Most likely, you did not need these words to figure out the meaning of the poster.

This caught my eye because I’ve personally always enjoyed the color schemes of pink to blue and good illustration. As it turns out there is more meaning to this color scheme than meets the eye. The Russian Army is illustrated in the vibrant Red as they were known as ‘The Red Army’. As the red illustrations of the Russian army are above the dead and darkened figures of the German soldiers they are showing supremacy, namely their victory at the Battle of Kursk in July 1943.

As a book cover it’s function and purpose is to show off a prodigious example of the amazing posters that came out of WW II. It’s function is to entice you to look inside and check out the other posters. As a poster back in 1943 it’s purpose was to remind the Soviet Union of their previous victory and encourage faith in their army.

As stated in the last post this is once again a gracious gift from my father from his collection of WW II books company.

Cold War Propaganda Poster-Early Modern

This is a Soviet Union propaganda poster of the cold war from We Demand Peace! Soviet Posters of The Cold War collection. There is obvious opposition for either sides of the poster, on the left a disheveled but talented young man out in the streets of what looks like some city in America and on the right, a more prosperous twin of the young man, playing in a symphony of a grand music hall. In the Russian writing above and below the poorer of the two it says “In capitalist countries: the way of the gifted’ and for the man to the right in bold red it says “In socialist countries: the gifted go all the way!”

The message, or purpose, of the poster is to get across the idea that those in socialist economies have a better chance at succeeding in their dreams because they aren’t required to know anyone of higher class, or have connections with the right people. The man to the left is shut out of the musical system because he happens to be born of a lower class in a Capitalist country and the man to the right, though born in the same class, has more access to society because he is in a Socialist country.

The darker tones of either picture indicate the quality of the hard times. One being devoid of all color inflict a depressed and joyless tone to the poorer man’s predicament whereas the fortuitous man’s coloring are quite golden.

This poster was a gift from my father’s collection of propaganda posters that he sells alongside his World War II books in his business.
The graphic style of this poster is Early Modern.

Pink Floyd Album Cover- Swiss style

I found this classical 1975 album cover in my mother’s old collection of covers from vinyls (albums) long since discarded. It be more specific, it is a Pink Floyd album cover for ‘Wish You Were Here’ and its function is to protect the album while attracting the eye and letting people know what they're listening to.

It's quality of design is decent in the proper positioning of the camera, capturing symmetry from the buildings in the background. What really attracts the eye is the burning man shaking hands with another man in an otherwise normal predicament. Another interesting detail is that the Flames of the men are catching on to the side of the picture border, reflecting the burning theme.
It is simple, though it is a picture its is geometric with the alignment of the houses. This is a Swiss Design cover.

Artbox Bag- Contemporary Design

This is a bag that I got from my sister from an Artbox store. Most would find it strange that I receive simply a bag from an obviously creative and prosperous store, instead of a gift, but I’m perfectly happy with this arrangement. After all I would not have known they were so affluent if they had not designed so boisterous a bag as this. I’ve never been to the store and I want to go, just by looking at this bag.

No doubt the function of this bag is to hold supplies from the art store while subtly (or in my case, not so subtly) pull artists towards the owner and start asking those pesky questions as to where they purchased such quality items in such a fun plastic bag.

What makes this bag so attractive to artists especially is the unconstrained bouncy cartoon figures all across the page. Overall it gives a sense of whimsical improve that can’t be experienced in the tight, orderly struggle in everyday life. This bag is saying ‘we are breaking loose and letting our kooky behavior run a muck and we are happy about it’. It sells you on the idea that that store will provide you items or purchases to allow you to do your own bidding. It’s your world, so do as you please.

I’ve never used this eccentric yet trendy bag but I’m still going to hang onto it of course.

So this is obviously a good example of graphic design. They sell me with a thin sheet of plastic. One look and I’m sold.