Collage work

Brief

Using the imagery that you have collected, create 5 different coat of arms designs which in some way represents your chosen micro-genre. Use the 7-inch template on E-Studio Blog all outcomes TODAY You should experiment with… 

- Extreme crops 

- Complex overlays 

- Different color combinations 

- Different overlay patterns / Bitmap variations 

- Using a variety of grids 

- Simple / Extreme compositions 

That was the brief. Initially, I did not have an idea, so I took made something with paint and water to have a starting point. This picture started the build-up of the design, two layers of the photo in two different colors, red and purple. The color choices have to do with the overarching idea that I had to have the colors of the album use red white and blue like the Norwegian flag. The color purple was chosen to create a depth within the photo, and blue was already used with the other picture. The other photos are both under creative commons from flickr.com. The idea for this was to create a complex design this would represent the gritty nature of rap culture. To use parts of the earlier work I incorporated the split effect from the typographic work on Monday.  The use of a sans serif typeface with such an intricate picture create an interesting juxtaposition to the design. with the intention of keeping the artists slightly anonymous on A-teams style, Brian Coe research has been put in play, as all the names are cut in half in one way or another. This is to show the drastic change that rap has taken from the 80s. 

    

This design is based on the previous idea, but cropped quite extremely, as the whole design shows more of a story, this one just shows colors and a clean design. The choice of gray instead of white is so that it would look like it could have been found on the street. 

The idea was based on the vibrant part of Grynerløkka, Blå, in Oslo, there is a lot of graffiti and street art there. Graffiti is part of the reason as to why many older people do not appreciate the culture, but this part of town separated the different parts of our culture, every Sunday there is a marked here that sell art, music, and food from different cultures. It is not a huge place but that was how the rap culture started. The contrast from the industrial architecture to the liquefied picture developed after looking at some fisheye pictures of skaters. The black and white version reminds me of oil, which is fairly fitting as may of Norwegian rappers raps about how dependent many people are on the oil money and how the government chooses to distribute the money.  

The technique that we learned today about layering up layers of different colors to create depth and created an interesting visual language that would translate to the chosen genre. as it is untamed and brakes the rules as there is no real pattern to the picture. With this there was a focus on keeping the typography simple, as the picture is so demanding, so for the message to go through to the audience it has to be kept simple and straight to the point like rap lyrics is. there is no sugarcoating to the design. The placement of the text is based on creating a balance because if there was to be a large dark spot in the design all focus would be drawn to that point. Through some experimentation with purples and greens, I came to the conclusion that blue would work better with the pattern, as it looked too much like drawings and black looks too much like oil. 

Playing with complementary colors would be neater, but using green which is the contrast-color would showcase the divide that the culture created in the nineties.  As the older generation did not approve of anything that was released, taht is also partly the reason as to it being so popular. 

As an experiment, I wanted to play with pictures of people and create dimensions to them. using the photos as more of a pattern. With one of the layers I place the pattern from the previous task and used that as a color in the picture, this was to be kept in a simple minimalistic style that Scandinavia is known for. 

From the last one I played around a lot more, the idea behind this one was to create repetition to the design with duplicating the same picture. It was difficult to find good pictures of Tommy Tee as the quality was lacking in the 90s. None the less I found some that worked because I could not just have a picture of Hkeem on the cover. The first attempt were made using the one picture, but when the design began to be interesting I found one of both Hkeem and Temur. In the cover I used the previous pattern as more of a texture, as it creates a newspaper effect in this case to the whole picture, it creates order to the offset pictures. 

Using the previous map design and the pattern combined to create a design with negative space. The idea to only have open space in the area as to represent the restrictions that people put on themselves to stay in their lane. but in the "final" version the lines are blurred as to represent the idea that may Norwegian rappers rap about that you do not have to be defined to how you grow up and everyone says that that is the way that the world works. 

This one is based on a blunt chop design. This pattern is the lyrics of Fy faen horizontal and vertical it is Takin ova, but it is liquefied as to create change and interest. the design is based on the repetition in both songs. but it draws an inspiration of modern Scandinavian design and a book series from  Counter-print called "from Scandinavia", "from Japan" and "from eastern Europe". They are designed with the pattern on one side and the text mostly on the blank side. the use of negative space gives the design life. 

To interpret hand-drawn pictures, I painted this scribble to pay homage to graffiti culture.  My paint/writing is not like that at all, but it workes for the idea part. The typographic work needs a bit more space so taking so using the idea of a torn paper piece, but in this case, it already looks fairly cluttered, so to create some contrast I used sharp edges.