Brief 6 : 'Top Hits'

Ideas for covers...
Below are scans from my sketchbook for Brief 6, they show some sketches I have done as ideas for the record covers and designs for the leaflet that would come inside.

Firstly there's the front cover I have previously designed using the pin-hole images I took earlier in the project. You can see I have added an 'xx' to the front in a very simple way. The 'xx' would be cut-out of the page. I didn't want the front of the record to look crowded or busy so I kept it very muted.
Next to the front cover is an idea for the back of the leaflet that goes inside the record case. It would be the side of the leaflet that is facing up once you open the CD case. It might be quite hard to work out, but I have put the word 'Islands' (one of their song names' in big letters across the front, slightly hidden by an invisible 'X'. I have doubts about this design as it's quite difficult to read.



Next are my designs for the inside spread of the leaflet. On the first page would be a description of the band; who they are, what music the play, their influences etc. I wanted to carry the 'X' theme throughout the whole record, so I made the lettering of the description to form a big 'X' on the page. On the opposite side are the lyrics to the song, keeping it very simple it would be written in black on a white background and a simple font would be used. I really like these two designs and will seriously cnosider using them in my final product.




Below are some more ideas for the inside of the leaflet. As you can see, this is more focused on 'cutting-out' the 'xx' to make the visual message more obvious. I don't particularly like this design much.




I think this logo (below) works really well, it is made up to two X's, but at first glance looks like one big X. It's a very simple design in monochrome and looks, delicate, yet harsh.

Brief 5 : 'First Lines'

This short clip shows the opening to a film I am creating.

Brief 5 : 'First Lines'

I have been compiling a list of my favourite opening sequences from films as research for my project, here are a few...


The famous crane shot from Orson Welles' 1958 film, 'Touch of Evil.'



Stunning opening sequence, so cleverly done.


Apocalypse Now opening along with The Doors "The End" playing.



Spine tinglingly creepy opening of The Shining



Ed Wood, the sequence is a pastiche of the opening titles for real Ed Wood films including Bride of the Monster (1955) and the infamous Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959).

Brief 6 : 'Top Hits'

Record Covers

My research into famous album covers including, The Velvet Underground - Andy Warhol Banana Print, The Libertines, Iron Maiden, Joy Division, The Clash and Nirvana.

Brief 5 : 'First Lines'

Andrei Rublev (The passion according to Andrei) - Andrei Tarkovsky

This is a beautiful opening sequence, the imagery is stunning, we are taken on a journey with this character.

Izzie Klingels

I have been so incredibly busy recently doing my other projects as the deadlines are looming, but I haven't forgotten about you!! I'm back now and will desperately try to update you every night with immensely interesting posts!



This afternoon Ms. Klingels came to Uni to give a talk on her work and life so far. I had been really excited about Izzie coming in to talk to us I had been a previous fan of her work and was intrigued to find out the thought process to specific pieces.

I'll tell you a bit about her shall I??

After graduating Chelsea school of Art, Izzie founded a company called 'Lazy Eye' working with film and video, creating and designing live shows and directing promos for bands including Death In Vegas and Beth Orton.

Izzie has and still is a main player in producing videos for TOPSHOP/TOPMAN nad Calvin Klein. Below is a film she made for TOPMAN called 'MAGIC BOX'. The film was made in place for a Catwalk show, as TOPMAN felt a catwalk show was too feminine. They created an environment to show the film in which you would stand in a room where the walls were made of screens and the film would be shown on the screens therefore surrounding you.




"Norman Mclaren was a great inspiration for this project" Izzie told us. You can tell by watching the film that Mclaren was an inspiration, specifically because of the stop-motion imagery used.



Another interesting Show Izzie created for long-term client TOPMAN was an Ice themed catwalk show. Along the edge of the runway was real ice and as a backdrop Izzie used a short film of a particuarly saturated sunrise. The inspiration behind this show was that of Len Lye (A Colour Box)...



and Work by Stan Brakhage...



(I particuarly enjoyed looking into Len Lye and Stan Brakhage's work as my Imaging work is based around their films! you know what they say....two birds!)


In 2001, Izzie co-founded a club called 'Hey Ladies' which was a club created for and by females. It was at this time that Izzie started to get into Illustration, she would Illustrate the fanzine they used to promote 'Hey Ladies'.
Behind the whole venture was an image, this image was Olympia by Manet in the 1860s. This was the first modern portrayal of a woman and at the time, people were appalled by it, they thought it was too sexual and confrontational. Nude women were usually either a kind of goddess or a representation of fertility or something of the sort, but this woman was obviously a prostitute.
What the founders of 'Hey Ladies' liked most about this image was the confidence the woman exudes. She stares straight at you like she has no shame or embarrassment. An interesting fact about this painting is that the model in the painting was a painter in her own right.



The great thing about creating a fanzine as a promotional tool is that people are able to read it easily, they can read it on the bus, at lunch or at any moment the have free. Izzie told us that 'Hey Ladies' shaped her style of illustration, made her choose to work with pen & ink, embracing colour, collage and digital media as her commercial commissions grew, and set her on her course. This played a big part in making her the illustrator she is today.
'Hey Ladies' ended when everyone who ran it became busy with other projects, but ran a workshop at the V&A as a final goodbye to the company.

After discovering her new found love for illustration, Izzie started focusing her attention on it more.
Here are some of her wonderful illustrations...

Drawing Workshop

Class was amazing today! We sat in our classroom listening to music and drawing along to it. It was really interesting to see everyones different takes on the same song, also everyone was using different materials to draw with, so the outcomes very so varied. Here are some examples of mine, can you identify the beat in any of them?

The XX

“The XX”. According to The Guardian, they are ‘four young, sullen-faced youths dressed in black’. I chose this band because I was drawn to their individual sound and sense of style, as well as the fact that they are relatively undiscovered which enabled me to create for them without previous influences. They formed in 2005 after meeting at the Elliott School, which is notable for nurturing musical talents such as Hot Chip and Four Tet.
The areas I wanted to convey through the album artwork were; the band’s musical structure and style, their influences, vocal style and personal style.
With regards to their musical style, they have been described as creating minimalist, deconstructed and unconventional music. Though they can be technically assessed as an indie band, their style is unique in the fact that their omnipresent minimalist style and wide range of influences ensures that their musical cannot be pigeonholed.
I wanted to reflect the consistency of their music through my artwork so I decided that the artwork should have a strict monochrome theme that encompassed not only the band’s musical style, but also that tied in with their personal style. I used images developed from a pinhole camera that created an eerie, mysterious and enigmatic feel.
The XX have an unusual mix of influences including hip-hop, indie and minimalist. This shows their interesting take on music and their open-mindedness about genre.
This gives me a lot to work with and a lot to inspire me when producing their artwork. When researching their influences, I will also be looking into the ‘look’ of the bands. Some of these will include Joy Division, New Order, Aaliyah, Sonic Youth, Young Marble Giants and many more.
The vocalists style is rich in depth and creates a nice variety to their songs. The lead female, Romy, has hints of Robyn and Bjork in her voice, this gives the band a type of European sound quality. The backing music has undertones and structure of classic individual music like Joy Division, and in some songs, Enya.
They have a 90s quality which reflects the bands nostalgia for the era in which they grew up and were most likely influenced by.
Their personal style is original, haircuts are edgy and unique, clothing is all black, ironic for such individual music. They seem keen to present a united and uniform look, like carbon copies.

This has to be my favourite song of theirs 'Islands'

Screen Printing

I spent a day using the screen printing facilities at uni and produced some very exciting skull designs. I enhanced these by drawing figures in the spaces.

Photography from home

So here a few photos I took while at home. I took them on my Rank Aldis film camera, although they are not in focus, I really love the naive and child-like quality they hold. Thanks to my models Alice and Celie x

Pinhole Camera

Below are some images I took using my pinhole camera. I primarily took them with my band project in mind, I wanted to take photos of something ambiguous, that perhaps you wouldn' know what it was by looking at it, that it could be a number of things. I think I achieved this well, I'm very happy with the result.

One step, Two step, Three step, GO

Oh how we laughed.

So went to Doggers paradise last night aka Epsom Downs for some full on un-adulterated 'takes me back to when I was a kid' fun! (well, not totally un-adulterated, lets be honest).
We had our Survival kit for the night which included......copious bottles of wine, one hundred million squillion sparklers, and obviously a tartan blanket, a must-have for any outdoor shinanigans!
oh yeah, and a camera, so here are some photos...the sparklers and fireworks made some really interesting photos...