The Footloose Program

The final piece of the footloose puzzle, the program. This meant unrequited love stories with printers, musical directors and photographic subjects. In keeping with the theme I've been using from the start of this project, the work is completely based around an industrial town to reflect the storyline.

This was only possible with the help of producer Sarah Doherty and photographer Ryan Ponsford. Sarah, between all the dramatic episodes involved in producing a show with 25 teens and a co director in quarantine, always had time to speak to me and crack a cynical joke or two. And she was more than prompt in supplying the content for the program. Also, she was kind enough to meet at my house before I told her I was about an hour away, she came anyway. Overall, a pleasure to work with.

I was extremely lucky to have Ryan on board, I literally called him while he was involved in a professional shoot for 'Freedom' furniture. He donated more time than was necessary for the final piece and if it weren't for his ingenious gift of photography, the program would not have had half the impact that it does. His eye for colour, pattern and composition is astounding and I see him going a very long way with his passion.

So here are some of the the spreads that stood out to me.


The front and back cover, I love the greens and it basically sets the tone for the show; rusty, electric, grungy.


This is my favorite spread, the tree mixed with the chicken wire, newspaper and factories; it encapsulates the whole teenage love story thing perfectly. Also happy with my type setting here :)

One of the main reasons why I took on this job was to gain experience in type heavy pieces such as this. Each page had a 4 column grid so the spacing was even and clean, which some extra room for Ryan's photos.



Not as text heavy but still a bit to deal with. Again, the photography just gives it so much depth. All the images have this human presence via absence vibe going on; it's evident that people have been there, but it still looks slightly eerie.

The type and general page setting was inspired by skating mag Monster Children and Blanket Magazine, check them out, they're beautiful.

If there's one thing I learnt from this job, it's that the final product, although imperative, is secondary. The most important thing is to be easy to communicate with throughout the entire process and always keep the client up to date.

Make friends basically.

Inspiration

Hey guys, as part of one of my units at uni (DIS2105), we're required to upload things that inspire us on a weekly basis. I feel it's a great idea, so let's begin:


This is a photo I took on the train to Flinders St Station, the light shining onto the window made it look like two wheelchair people intertwined. They a symbol that could look like something from an other worldly alphabet.

This is the work of amazing illustrator, Kevin Dart. His line work is so jazzy and I love his use of shadow to create atmosphere, check out his website.


At the moment, I'm loving Iron and Wine's music. The cover of this album is beautiful, the use of colour is delicious, the pinks and yellows give the image so much warmth and bite. This is the work of Samuel Beam, also the lead singer of Iron and Wine.

Kick off your Sunday shoes

Footloose! A musical from the 80's, can you think of anything better? I've been given the pleasure of working with the Monash Univeristy Musical Company (MUMco) on the artwork for their current production of this groovy show. Currently, we have posters and postcards going up all over the place, it's so exciting. Here is the poster:


The idea was to 'un-dag' Footloose. The show is often perceived as a hollow "let's dance and sing!" show and as accurate as that may be, there's a lot more to it. I chose to focus on the element of young rebellion, the excitement of being naughty in a normally stilted life. The imagery is reflective of the American 80's industrial town which is where the story is based, so the colour palette is limited and the font is quite straightforward. I combined the grunge and anger of 'Billy Elliot' and the glam of 'So You Think You Can Dance'.

This is the front and rear of the postcard, which is along the same lines:










The front has the Who and What whereas the back has When, Where and Why. In my opinion, this is pretty successful. With postcards, you have about one second to persuade the viewer to pick the card up. Hence, the front is very red and bold with minimal info while the back has the details for those who want to know about the show.

At the moment, the producer and I are working on the program, desperately collaborating content to go in. Namely the biographies of the performers, but I think we're going well. Tomorrow we have the head shots so hopefully by the end of next week we should have a program ready to print.

Nobel Prize Layerrrrs

The Brief:

Create an A2 poster that illustrates the evolution of any aspect of history (music, politics etc.) between the year of your birth (1988) and a year randomly chosen for you (1903).

I originally chose music but it seemed too obvious. Then it was barber shops, I was so sure that this would be a great idea so I started with that. It was a short journey because it really didn't give enough scope. For the poster, I wanted something more abstract and psychedelic, something I'd want in my room.



So I chose something I knew very little about, the Nobel prize winners of physics in 1903 (Antoine Henri Becquerel) and 1988 (Jack Steinberger). Both were involved in the research of phosphorescence, which is basically how crystals create brilliant colours when light is shun upon them. The things you learn :)

I was looking at the line work of American cartoonist Charles Burns and Taiwanese artist Feric and thought I'd experiment with that. The idea of layering, I felt, was an efficient way of portraying time in a still image.



I created the work on nine pieces of tracing paper. On each layer, I drew stunningly complex physics equtions in which have more meaning than I'll ever know. I was originally going to scan each layer one by one but realised how beautifully tracing paper interacts and fades. Therefore, I scanned all nine pieces together.


Finishing touches involved layering a few colours to refer back to, what's that word we learnt again? Phosphorescence! yay.