A Level Photography

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During my coursework for A Level Photography, I focused on the topic of contemporary architecture. For this project, I was inspired by photographer Ted VanCleave. His photographs are clean, crisp and contemporary.

The first image is my initial photoshoot in response to his work. I used my DSLR camera to take high quality, crisp photographs. I used PhotoShop to edit them, using the tools; levels, curves, saturation and brightness.

The second image is of my development photoshoot. I wanted to communicate the crispness, and cleanliness of the contemporary architecture even more. To do this, I cropped down the images to focus on a small area - this allowed for the images to become abstract as the viewers were unsure of what they were seeing.

'Final' Poster Designs

These three poster designs are perhaps my favourite of all the designs I have created. The opaque backgrounds are really successful in highlighting and making the important information stand out. I used the same type throughout all three designs as it looks more developed, however, they are all placed in different compositions. The first two posters feature all of their main text centrally, which is a common thing for posters. However, the last poster design (right) features their main text aligned to the right, including the festival title. This is an unusual compositional layout for a poster, and so, links successfully to the values and personalities of Nozstock's customers.

These three 'final' poster designs are still in progress as my project does not conclude until February.

Poster And Wristband Development

For my poster developments I experimented with the composition of the type 'Nozstock Festival' and the other important information. I also experimented with colour by adding another colour to the typography to add energy and vibrance.

For my wristband designs I took inspiration from two existing wristbands from festivals 'Green Man 2016' and 'Nozstock 2017'. The two existing wristbands are very energetic in their designs with their uses of colourful geometric shapes and naturalistic, organic shapes.

For the wristband designs, I focused on creating a colourful atmosphere and an energetic rhythm. I decided to use the same background patterns as the posters as I wanted to have continuity, to link together in my final designs.

Typography And Logo Development

I researched three typography artists, Helen Dardik, Alan Kitching and Carolyn Gavin, before producing my own responses to their work.

The ides for these three artist responses was to create an energetic feel with a loose and lively rhythm. This was done by changing the sizing and spacing of the letters and alternating between lowercase and uppercase.

Experimental Work - Marbling And Logo Design

In the first photograph is a collection of marbling prints I created using spray foam, ink and a ruler. This very messy technique produced beautiful, unique and individual designs that are positively bursting with colour and rhythm.

I later used these patterns in my logo designs (seen in the second photograph). For my logo design I first had to research the type of logos that were already being used. This research made me realise that many music companies or festivals use bold colours and textures in their design work, so, I decided to incorporate my foam patterns into my sketches.

Development Work - Paper Cutting And Collaging

I really enjoyed creating these paper cuts and collages. I wanted to create designs/objects that linked to festivals and used a range of texture and colour and was visually rhythmic.

From just using flat, plain colour in my previous work, I wanted to experiment with texture to add more depth to my designs.

Experimental Work - Printing

These two photographs below show two different printing techniques. The first is a technique that is very experimental: using the printer at my college to scan, copy and overlay textures and patterns. The second technique is mono-printing.

The printer technique is really enjoyable as you can create so many unusual and unique patterns. I firstly drew out some of my own patterns that can be seen in the bottom left hand corner of the first image. I then photocopied those designs and overlapped them on top of each other. I did this process over 100 times on top of different papers and printing with different colours and hues. The results left me with one-of-a-kind designs that link perfectly to my rebranding project.

The mono-printing technique left me with beautiful, crisp prints from unusual materials such as bubble wrap, cardboard and textured paper. 

Development Work - Colour Variations

These photographs below are my colour variations from my experimental work of my initial artist research. I decided to create these colour variations to experiment with the colours and how they would best link to my project.

Inspirational Work From My Initial Artist Research

These two photographs below are from my experimental work based on my inspirations from my initial artist research. As previously said, I wanted to focus on creating fun, exciting and lively designs, and these clearly show this.

The designs were created by layering different materials, for example, tissue paper, coloured card, brown craft paper and printing different textures to the paper. I then printed a series of lino-cut prints on top of the layers to give energetic movements and fast, lively rhythms.

These designs link perfectly to my project of rebranding Nozstock Festival as festivals are all about different people coming together to enjoy a common interest: music. The different textures in these designs connotes two things, the differences in all the individual people at festivals, and the energy and rhythm of the music.

Lisa Congdon Research - Contextual

In my contextual research of artist Lisa Congdon I analyse her own work and the features that strike me most. From analysing her work, I noticed how similarly it linked to another piece of artwork by a different artist; Wassily Kandinsky. Both images in the written contextual portray a fast, lively rhythm and the same levels of abstraction.

From this written contextual piece, I was inspired to produce exciting and energetic artwork that's alive with colour and abstraction.

Initial Research - Lisa Congdon

My project for A Level Graphic Design is to rebrand the festival Nozstock: The Hidden Valley. This festival is known for being very intimate, friendly and energetic, and I wanted to incorporate those feelings into my design work.

I used Pinterest, an image searching website, to find artists that would link to my project and I came across Lisa Congdon. Her work inspires me greatly, especially for this project. Her bold, energetic patterns link perfectly to the feelings, and the atmosphere of a festival.

My responses to her work are seen in the second image, I used two different techniques for the designs; the top two images were created using watercolour inks and a black pen to outline, the bottom two images were created using bold, block coloured pens which left the shapes looking flat.

These patterns I created seem alive and bursting with energy, much like the work created by Congdon.