Real Life Oxymoron

Remember my list of oxymorons? Well here's friendly rivalry.



Starting filming an abstract piece tomorrow, this will run alongside my Life Instructions. It was suggested to me that I concentrate on beauty rather than the literal but I live in Blackburn so that could be tricky...

Sigh

For the past four days I've pretty much constantly felt like I was going to vomit, this hasn't been helpful when I'm trying to create masses of work but anyway. Been working on producing something visual from my "Oxy, Moron" list. This piece is incredibly simplistic but that's what I was going for. I don't want to dress this up too fancy. Looking to letterpress this.


Second image is what I actually did first. Original idea was to split the list up and just print them individually but looking at this now, I'm not sure it works as well. Perhaps if they were in a series it'd make more sense?

Also been working on a brief given to me by Mr Marston, which is to come up with short stories consisting of 20 words, each word 4 letters long. Yes, it's a huge challenge and my brain is breaking but I love conquering things. If all goes well, one will be selected and displayed at our degree show across the printroom windows, 20 windows = 20 words. Here's what I've got so far:

Down fell Burt, deep into debt. Done with, they said. Want cash, mate? Sell your used gold, ease your pain.

Karl died last year, mind, body, even soul, worn with hate. Nazi jinx, they said, very just. Hell took Karl.

So this is how I'm spending my Saturday nights, thinking of 20 word stories. Rock Star Prescott is what they call me. I'm forgoing the Blackburn V Burnley game tomorrow to hand feed penguins and giraffes. I hope it's worth it.

(apologies if my writing seems more odd than usual, I blame this stupid, pissing virus that won't leave me alone. Now I'm going to look at some pictures of Tim Roth to make me feel better)

Embossy

I somehow managed to drag my sorry corpse into uni today despite having another IBS attack this morning. Wanted to proof the first few lines of my tHINGs piece, more than anything I just wanted to get myself familiar with the method. Obviously unfinished but wanted to get some visuals before they lock up the printroom for Easter break.





Hard to get a really good image of them because the font size is rather small.

Oxy, Moron.

ImperfectPerfection
PersonallyImpersonal
AdorablyDisgusting
CreativeBullshit
VirginMary
StrangelyHandsome
StupidlyIntelligent
ModestShowoff
ProfessionalFoul
AnonymousDonor
FreeLove
CanNot
SweetMisery
ConstructiveCriticism
GoodNews
VegetarianSausages
VirtualReality
FriendlyRivalry
MindLess
OpinionatedBullshit
BlackHumour
LivingDead

Something I thought up on the bus. God knows where it came from. Looking to add to this. Visualising this as a series of prints.

Splodge

I think my brain's about to fall out. Splodge! I don't know if it's because of today's IBS flare up (rejoice!) or too many thoughts/things to process but wah, my head hurts. I'm trying to write my way out of these stomach and head related issues.

In other, less moany news, I decided to emboss the "tHINGS" piece instead of simply digitally printing. This makes me feel better because I prefer using an actual physical process instead of Apple+P. Yes I know it's more complicated than that, pipe down. Only problem with embossing is the sheer amount of time it takes, especially when you're doing large bits of copy as I am. I would've got more done today but I had some very adorable whippets to contend with this morning. Hopefully I'll have something visual to post tomorrow.

In the mean time, have a picture of the gang of geese that ran a very cute tirade of terror over our road in January.



Sigh. I'll be back on point tomorrow, promise.

B.I.B.L.E. (basic instructions before leaving Earth)

Basically this is just a list of how I think people should try to live. Not in an order of importance, just as they came to me. Parts of this may mean different things to different people, hopefully that's the beauty of it. Personal impersonality I guess.

Thinking about using black vinyl and putting this on a white wall somewhere.

Very similar to my list of hates. I think I love listing things a bit too much.

Gamble
Be a snob
Don't follow fashion
Do what you like
Keep old photos
Work very hard
Minimise fast-food eating
Run
Adopt an animal
Don't try to please everyone, you'll only fail
Be kind but not over-kind
Be generous but not over-generous
Read a newspaper everyday
Watch the news everyday
Write
Cry if needs be
Sleep
Keep a diary but don't let anyone read it
One day of the week, don't shower
Be opinionated
Don't describe yourself as "random", everybody does this so it's really not that random
Don't pretend you don't care what people think, everybody does it's only human
Keep in touch
Invent your own language
Take the piss
Be sarcastic but don't be an asshole
Turn off the lights
Don't ignore politics
Listen
Fuck Morrisons (not literally)
Second isn't good enough
Let the phone ring
Don't be afraid of hurting people's feelings
Don't be ignorant
Don't leave the house without perfume/aftershave
Get your eyes tested
Draw, even if you're shit
Sing in the shower
Sing in the car
Don't drive like a knobhead
Indicate
You can have your cake and eat it
Don't say yes to things you have no intention of doing
Vote
Use correct grammar
Sometimes you have to lie
Don't put your life on Facebook, nobody cares
Regret things
Mourn
Don't ever work in an office
Show off in small amounts
Don't kill things
Dream
Listen to music with substance
Get plastered once in a while
Try not to wallow
Give a shit about things
Embrace change
Don't run from pain, go towards it
Get angry
Don't believe everything you read/hear
Expand your mind
Be interested
Speak
Don't take shit from anybody, no matter who they (think they) are
Reminisce
Don't like something just because everyone else does (Fight Club is shit)
Don't wear make-up everyday
Boys, never wear make-up
Complain
Leave something to imagination
Don't be a slag, nobody will respect you
Take yourself seriously but not too seriously
Enjoy
Take your time
Don't try to be different, all humans are different by definition anyway
Ask questions
Demand answers
Don't wait
Give tough love, it works
Being over-sensitive will get you nowhere

More tHINGS

Something a bit more visual created from the writing I did earlier. The idea is the background colour represents skin which refers to the first line. I wanted the text to appear hidden as that's the whole feeling of the piece. Things are hidden from sight and you need to dig to find them.

Think I need to make the type a tad darker because at the moment you can barely see it. Hmm.

tHINGS

I have admittedly been stuck in a bit of a rut for the past few days, however someone kindly threw me a rope and helped pull me out (hello Mick). We decided that I need to be concentrating more on my writing, first and foremost because it's what I do best and furthermore, because it's what I enjoy most.

Here we go.

People hide Things, between layers of skin and bone is where they lie. Some Things want to be found while others strive to remain camouflaged. Public perception is a powerful Thing. It is the main reason why people bury Things: Things we don't talk about, Things we want to forget, Things that happened and Things that didn't. Things can be miniature or they can be magnificent, this is irrelevant, all that matters is where they stay and for how long. Sometimes people drag these Things out of us, other times we free them. Sometimes this helps, sometimes it just makes Things worse.

I hide Things. You hide Things. We hide Things. They hide Things. She hides Things and so does he.

These Things are mine and I don't like sharing.

Rothgasm

Again experimenting with redesign. Here I took an online article and redesigned it to turn it into something that resembles a more commercial outcome (magazine, publication etc). Also, Tim Roth is amazing.

Graphic Design, Piss Easy?

"Look, no matter what you do, how hard you work, who you work for or how good you are, you will always be associated with doing a piss easy degree."

Believe it or not, this man was actually coming to my defense. Let me paint the picture. Glen is a successful stock market businessman (I'm sure they have a technical name I just don't know it) who works from home, he is also on my pub quiz team. When I found out what he did for a living, it opened the door for me to take the piss a bit, I'm sorry but it's what I do by instinct, if not anything else, it's a sign that I like you. Now Glen isn't exactly in my usual demographic for what I call a friend; he's a 52 year old, Bitter drinking Yorkshireman with a passion for stocks. What could we possibly have in common? Well, we are both regularly berated for our choice of lifestyle. He works from home so that means he must watch cricket all day, right? I'm doing a Graphic Design degree so I must just colour things in, correct?

My point is, how do we as graphic designers, illustrators, artists etc defend ourselves? Can we defend ourselves? I think it's fair to say that most people who don't study or work in the design industry don't really understand how much time, effort and commitment goes into it. I'm pretty sure most people think that we just say, "No it'd look better in green, change the font to Comic Sans" and have done with it. Can we prove ourselves to be hardworking without coming across as pretentious assholes? Why should we have to? Maybe it's just me. Maybe I care too much about public perception.

Perhaps being able to defend what you do comes with age and experience. Discuss.

Hard Graft

I can't believe this took me all of two days. I forgot how time consuming screenprinting is. Anyway I finally got them done, going to nip in tomorrow to get them cut down to size.

Excuse the terrible quality but I went and forgot my camera, doh!

Hi Thar Mr Plagiarism

I was just casually looking at some illustration before bedtime and came across this. Erm, plagiarism much?!


First image from Non-Format whom I'm pretty sure didn't design this Drake album artwork...

XLA

So it's the time of year for dissertations, (apparently) however, my lovely course tutors decided that we didn't have to do one as such. Rejoice! Instead we get to nuzzle on the tasty tidbit that is the "extended learning agreement", or XLA as the cool kids are calling it. Us graphic designers are expected to produce some sort of design which will contain said XLA. I want to produce something huge that will look quite snazzy in my degree show. I had the idea of creating a double sided 1000x700mm document-come-poster in the style of a newspaper. Ideally I want to combine digital print and screenprint as my techniques because throughout all three years, these have been my main means of production. However this could come down to how busy the printroom will be when it comes to screenprinting. Hmm.

At the moment I'm still working on layout as I am yet to rework the XLA essay I submitted before Christmas. Here are the initial visuals.



Screenprinting going relatively well. Hopefully I'll have images to post tomorrow :-)

Screenprinting, Thou Shalt Not Defeat Me!

So I'm screenprinting again tomorrow. Hopefully everything won't go wrong like it did last time. Hopefully I can blag a little time silkscreening too. I want the yellow text to be all shiny an' shiz. Going to send this out to prospective employers. Scary, scary.

Again experimenting with layout. I'm just trying to up my InDesign game.




Hmm. Ich liebe yellow, jah jah.

I Hate Everything

Hate is good. It is healthy. It's the soap we lather ourselves with in order to rid our brains of all the worldly bullshit that is oh so evident. We can't be afraid to hate, people. Let it in; stop smiling and start getting angry. People complain about how bad this world has become, (I know as I am one of them) yet most people are unwilling to actually react. Get angry, get pissed off and shout about it. Ram your opinion down other people's throats until they have no option but to listen or argue back. For anybody that thinks I'm just a miserable git with too much time on my hands to rant and rave (I probably am), I have tried Positivism, it doesn't work and now I hate that too.

Rawr! This little rant came about with me actually listening to myself speak. I seem to moan a lot so I decided to write down a comprehensive list of everything I hate. It is embarrassingly long; five pages to give you an idea. My initial idea was to make a small book based around the idea of hate. However I underestimated the amount of content I would need for such a project so I therefore looked at producing a series of images instead of a whole book.

Initial imagery for book contents. The huge "03" is just the page number, a bit on the large side huh? I call it my ode to Bauhaus.

Initial two page spread. Idea behind this was to juxtapose a visually "happy" image with the text, "I Hate Everything". I really like this, somehow. Very simple but affective.

Another potential two page spread. Not overly keen on this one.

Re:Design

This is still sort of unfinished. I tend to get annoyed by how much paper is wasted on crap that clogs up our letterbox and how many "cool" flyers are thrust into my hands as I walk through the town centre. My idea was to simply give these somewhat offensive objects a more modernistic twist and redesign them to suit my stylistic preferences. I'm not suggesting my design is at all better, I'm sure this ugly bugger does it's job, I'm just making it prettier...hopefully.

Heroism

Response to a Martin Firrell (http://www.completehero.com/) exhibition I traveled the length of the country to see. Worth it.

Heroism is unselfish.
Heroism is modest.
Heroism is nonjudgmental.
Heroism is sacrificial.
Heroism is humanitarian.
Heroism is quiet.
Heroism is unknown.
Heroism is non-existent.

Again taken my written words into something visual. Looking back over all of my work has made me realise that this is how I work. Words and then visual outcome, yessum.

Added a few more lines to the initial response.



Took the digital image and screenprinted onto a variety of different stocks. In all honesty screenprinting this, however simple it looked, turned out to be an absolute pain in the arsenal. Screenprinting something different on Monday, determined not to let it beat me!

Word Vomit

This word vomit was something I scribbled down when I was going through a rough patch in my second year.

I worry about change.
I worry about money.
I worry about life.
I worry about death.
I worry about my health.
I worry about the future.
I worry about the past.
I worry about losing.
I worry about failure.
I worry about looking stupid.
I worry about awkward silences.
I worry about not fitting in.
I worry about keeping everything hidden.
I worry about hurting people.
I worry I’m not doing the right thing.
I worry what people think.
I worry I talk shit.
I worry that everyone looks the same.
I worry why it doesn't feel right.
I worry about being lost.
I worry about being found.
I worry that I'll never succeed.
I worry about my career.
I worry why I haven't got it sussed yet.
I worry that everybody else has.

Can you say emo? Why yes I think you can.

This represents a certain period of time that despite being very unpleasant, will always be dear to me. This scribble is my baby and I shall cling to him. I brought this forward to create something visual.



Someday I'll go back and screenprint this on something resembling newsprint.

Layout Fiddler

Trying to teach myself how to better use InDesign. Fiddling with layout. These are a few months old, just trying to whack as much on here as possible :-)

100 Words

This comes from a second year seminar where we were asked to create a story using only 100 words. As a part-time writer I loved this small challenge. I wasn't expecting to create anything particular visual but through communication with others it was decided it would lend itself to a typographical outcome.

Chocolate Man
Bob wasn't your average man, he had an extraordinary skill that nobody else on Earth possessed. It was a freak Cadburys accident that had left him with the ability to turn anything into chocolate with the slightest touch of his left index finger.

However, this wasn't an enjoyable skill to have. Try explaining why you can't do that high five or ironing with one hand. This was becoming rather problematic, the NHS refused to help so he literally took matters into his own hands. He touched his chest and waited. When the transformation was complete he ate himself and his problem was solved.

So, here it is. (Excuse the shoddy photography!)




Screenprinted onto 120gsm cartridge. Type arranged this way to represent the usual story format; beginning, middle and end.

More hundred word stories:

Confirmation
The office was riddled with an almost complete silence; the only sound came from the lonely buzz of the emergency lighting. The silence was smashed by a loud screech of a lone telephone, it's unanswered scream echoing into the air.

From where she sat, she could see the lonely city, the fluorescent glow made her squint uneasily. She was waiting for confirmation, the shrill noise was an indication. It was done. It was over.

The Sock Drawer
The sock drawer was always a dangerous place for Steve to venture. He didn't belong there, all those lost beings, searching in never ending vain to find their missing partners while the more fortunate smugly watched on, praying they would never have to endure such anguish. Steve truly did not belong here. He felt their eyes on him, jealous of his importance and strength. This was a mistake of the grandest kind.

World Decisions
His job was mediocre yes, however, he never failed to do it efficiently. He believed the world would implode if his job wasn't completed to the highest degree of accuracy, perhaps it would.

He oozed confidence, his success rate was off the charts. He bubbled on the inside as he began the mundane process over again, he was reassured in knowing that countless world decisions couldn't have been made without him.

He believed in actual fact, that everybody needed coffee.

And this is how my mind works. Strange, I know.

I Used to Love H.E.R.

Well I better post some work instead of just ranting, eh? This is from second year when I was stuck in a particular rut. I just wanted to create something so I opened Illustrator and this is what happened.



Lyrics from Common - I Used to Love H.E.R. Perhaps the greatest rap song (yes they exist) that was ever wrote. I tend to always get inspired by music and this song always, always sticks with me.

(H.E.R. = Hip-Hop in it's Essence and Real)

http://www.metrolyrics.com/i-used-to-love-h-e-r-lyrics-common.html

Embrace the Martian

So here I am. Hello. My name is Amy Prescott and contrary to popular belief, I am not a farmer.

I guess I should begin with some honesty; how I got to where I am right now. This time last year, I hated where I was, I hated what I was doing and to be honest, I just wanted to sleep. I was frustratingly uninspired. I finished my second year just wanting to graduate. I can tell you from experience it's a horrid place to be. I couldn't understand it. Picking up a pencil was always what I had done by instinct, now I wanted to snap the bastard in half and stamp on it.

So summer came and went. To put it bluntly, it was awful. The worst of my life for various reasons that if you ask, I may tell but most likely won't. You could always try though. September comes knocking at my door and I don't want to answer. I wasn't prepared and the work I produced from September to December probably reflected this. "Things" where still happening and admittedly, it was incredibly hard to focus on pretty colours so on and so forth.

Then something switched. I have no idea what it was; perhaps my own foot went up my own arse or perhaps my brain finally kicked into gear and told me to stop feeling so fucking sorry for myself. It's only now that I have eight weeks left that I am truly starting to have a bit of a larf. I love what I'm doing and I'm seeing the lifestyle that I want. I don't want to be an office monkey. I would quite literally rather pour corrosive liquids into my eyes while eating guacamole and having my toenails nibbled off by AIDs infected kittens. So in short, whatever happened, it worked. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger an' all that bollocks.

So here I am. Hello. My name is Amy Prescott and after a brief separation I have reconciled with Graphic Design and I never want to leave him again.