Alternative Miss World Rationale:

The Alternative Miss World Rationale, is a spectacular pageant created by Andrew Logan in 1972, that is composed of a vast display of the abstract, colorful and creative pieces of clothing and accessories created to represent London's booming alternative culture.
One of the most obvious themes of the fashion show is that all the pieces modeled are made out of anything and everything. If I was to create my own Miss World inspired piece I would need to look into materials that feature very bright, contrasting colours and a range of different textures and shapes for different parts of the piece. Below are some images that demonstrate the abstract nature of the clothing pieces and the range in textures and materials.

To begin my own project I would first need to gather the materials I want to use, which I think would mainly be composed of scraps and piece of material that I can find because then I will have a varied mixture of different colours and textures to work with. I may also look into using sturdier materials such as cardboard or wire if I wanted a part of my piece to stick out, stand up or create a particular sturdy shape. I will record the process of making my piece by doing initial sketches, labeling which materials and colours would work where and then by taking photographs of each step of creating the piece. Once the piece has been completed I will have someone else film me wearing my piece to show how it fits on a live model and to demonstrate how sturdy and how it works as a garment.

As this pageant is an alternative event, more effort must be put into the advertising and promotion of it, therefore I think I will base my project around the idea of promoting the event while sticking to the colourful and abstract designs of the entries. An idea I have is to create a garment out of an object that is usually just a stationary object but, when adapted, can be worn and moved around in comfortably. Therefore, I think a plausible idea for my project could be a wearable 'A' board that displays a poster design to advertise the Miss Alternative World pageant itself, which can be easily made with materials such as cardboard and acrylic and ink to make it sturdy and bold as well as colourful intricate. Although wearing nothing but a piece of cardboard might be an everyday sight for the real pageant, for my own interpretation I will wear an undergarment beneath the board that is one solid colour in order to make the poster stand out much more, but while still adding to the abstract style. To do this I will probably look into finding a dress such as a nightgown in white because it would be an unusual piece of clothing to wear in general but look even more engaging with the promotion board over the top.

James Reids cover artwork for The Sex Pistols 1977 album

For my finished poster I decided to work in the raw style of James Reids album artwork, I felt like this represented the alternative miss world well as the bright colours and D.I.Y style screams Alt miss world.

The Human Sign

Below is the development for my costume to run down the cat walk, I looked at making my costume mask as much of myself whilst getting the most attention to the full piece, I worked into using masks and body covering clothing to achieve my goal.

Final piece

My finished costume came out exactly as I wanted, the use of colour broke the whit up perfectly and the sign writing mirrored my flyers as I aimed for. Unfortunately I dipped from my original idea of standing in the street to attract people to the event and just stood by the stage as our group presented.

Achievements

What Have I Achieved From Year 1 To Foundation

Skills:

.I have found a great love for illustration and am working towards my own style

.I have found a skill in digital artwork

.I am able to work with in a more non-linear mind set with ease

.I have found confidence in presenting my work to others 

.I am more willing to take risks with my artwork

Personal life outside college:

.I am much more sociable with others

.I have found a job in which I've been in for the past year and a half

.I have made more connections with people in industry 

Plans for the future:

.I have plans to go to university and have a rough idea where I want to go

.I have a better understanding of the kind of work I want to get into in the creative industry

Life drawing digital

Unit 1 propaganda

Propaganda poster design

Unit 1

For unit 1 I looked into propaganda posters and how they can influence the opinions of their viewer. The aim of our propaganda was that it should inform the viewer of the importance of the creative industry and how much it would effect the whole of the country should it be lost.

I began by looking into styles of propaganda from around the world from different time periods and decided to work with the bold style of communist propaganda with its bold reds and blacks. I felt like these posters showed some sort of force and aggression that could almost I suppose dominate somebody into listening to what they are trying to say.

Next I had to look at the information; I had to make sure the facts and figures I had written were correct and that none of them could be false, otherwise what would be the point in the entire poster. I found several sources that all said the same, just to back up the facts.

Then I looked into the design of my poster. I had to stick with imagery that would relate to the point I was making whilst still being in the theme of my poster design. I began taking photographs of my fist clutching a pencil, a tool that I feel starts any creative idea; it can create the mock up, the plan, and it’s the very foundation of creativity. I raised my fist as if it was fighting for something worth fighting such as if it was starting some sort of revolution. Then I began to put my imagery together; I used a mix of mediums to create the feel of my poster being aged and worn.

To create the rising sun behind the fist I created a cut out stencil that I printed with an old silk screen, which gave an aged effect with lots of chips and scratches. I then tried to get this effect on the photograph of my fist. To do this I took a picture of a damaged surface which I then manipulated in Photoshop to take small notches and cuts out of my image to make the entire poster appear to be screen printed in bulk with rough materials.

After creating our posters we began to look at how we can manipulate them into becoming sculptures. I looked into materials that would be useful when making my prototype and found that grey board worked well as it was sturdy and easy to shape. I decided that my sculpture would be my rising fist in a style similar to the font that I used on my poster, eliminating round edges and keeping a sharp bold shape.

I took a photograph of my prototype and used some of the textures I used on my poster to make my sculpture look as if it was made from scrap metal, then I placed it into different settings to see how it would look, one being made from scrap and left behind a building, the other, made from wood and placed in a forest.

 

I think this sculpture idea works well within the theme of propaganda because it creates the idea that a lot of societies issues are hidden in plain sight or that a revolution/resistance can begin in any location or situation. I am also very happy with the way these designs worked out with the use of a green screen because it means that I could make many more designs similar to these two with various other textures and locations.

Art Deco
Started in france just before WWI
Took off internationally in 1920's-1940's
Incorporated the machine age
Used bold colours and geometric shapes
had a big presence in Architecture

Art Nouveau
popular in 1890's-1910's
name means "new art"
inspired by natural forms and structure
had strong presence in all mediums

Smart Target

S - specific, significant, stretching
M - measurable, meaningful, motivational
A - agreed upon, attainable, achievable, acceptable, action-oriented
R - realistic, relevant, reasonable, rewarding, results-oriented
T - time-based, time-bound, timely, tangible, trackable

Contextual

Dada.
Dada or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century. Dada in Zurich, Switzerland, began in 1916 atCabaret Voltaire, spreading to Berlin shortly thereafter, but the height of New York Dada was the year before, in 1915. The term anti-art, a precursor to Dada, was coined by Marcel Duchamp around 1913 when he created his firstreadymades. Dada, in addition to being anti-war, had political affinities with the radical left and was also anti-bourgeois.

Marcel Duchamp.
Marcel Duchamp (28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French, naturalized American painter, sculptor, chess player and writer whose work is associated with Dadaism and conceptual art, although careful about his use of the term Dada and direct association with Dada groups. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, as one of the three artists who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the twentieth century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture. Duchamp has had an immense impact on twentieth-century and twenty first-century art. ByWorld War I, he had rejected the work of many of his fellow artists (like Henri Matisse) as "retinal" art, intended only to please the eye. Instead, Duchamp wanted to put art back in the service of the mind

Ready mades.
The readymades of Marcel Duchamp are ordinary manufactured objects that the artist selected and modified, as an antidote to what he called "retinal art". By simply choosing the object (or objects) and repositioning or joining, titling and signing it, the Found object became art.

Duchamp was not interested in what he called retinal art — art that was only visual — and sought other methods of expression. As an antidote to "retinal art" he began creating readymades at a time (1914) when the term was commonly used in the United States to describe manufactured items to distinguish them from handmade goods.

First manefesto. 

The first Surrealist manifesto was written by Breton and published in 1924 as a booklet (Editions du Sagittaire). The document defines Surrealism as:"Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express — verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner — the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by the thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern."The text includes numerous examples of the applications of Surrealism to poetry and literature, but makes it clear that its basic tenets can be applied to any circumstance of life; not merely restricted to the artistic realm. The importance of thedream as a reservoir of Surrealist inspiration is also highlighted. Breton also discusses his initial encounter with the surreal in a famous description of a hypnagogic state that he experienced in which a strange phrase inexplicably appeared in his mind: "There is a man cut in two by the window". This phrase echoes Breton's apprehension of Surrealism as the juxtaposition of "two distant realities" united to create a new one.The manifesto also refers to the numerous precursors of Surrealism that embodied the Surrealist spirit, including the Marquis de Sade, Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, Comte de Lautréamont,Raymond Roussel, and Dante. The works of several of his contemporaries in developing the Surrealist style in poetry are also quoted, including Philippe Soupault, Paul Éluard, Robert Desnos andLouis Aragon.The manifesto was written with a great deal of absurdist humor, demonstrating the influence of the Dada movement which preceded it.The text concludes by asserting that Surrealist activity follows no set plan or conventional pattern, and that Surrealists are ultimately nonconformists.The manifesto named the following, among others, as participants in the Surrealist movement: Louis Aragon, André Breton, Robert Desnos, Paul Éluard,Jacques Baron, Jacques-André Boiffard,Jean Carrive, René Crevel and Georges Malkine.

Second manefesto

In 1930 Breton asked Surrealists to assess their "degree of moral competence", and along with other theoretical refinements issued the Second manifeste du surréalisme. The manifesto excommunicated Surrealists reluctant to commit to collective action: Baron, Desnos, Boiffard, Michel Leiris, Raymond Queneau, Jacques Prévert and André Masson. A prière d'insérer (printed insert) published with the Manifesto's release was signed by those Surrealists who remained loyal to Breton and who have decided to participate in a new publication titled Surrealism at the Service of the Revolution. Participants, and thus loyal Surrealists, included Maxime Alexander,Louis Aragon, Joe Bousquet, Luis Buñuel,René Char, René Crevel, Salvador Dalí, Paul Eluard, Max Ernst, Marcel Fourrier, Camille Goemans, Paul Nougé, Benjamin Péret,Francis Ponge, Marco Ristitch, Georges Sadoul, Yves Tanguy, André Thirion,Tristan Tzara and Albert Valentin. Desnos and others thrown out by Breton moved to the periodical Documents, edited by Georges Bataille, whose anti-idealist materialism produced a hybrid Surrealism exposing the base instincts of humans

Salvador Domingo (11 May 1904 – 23 January 1989), known asSalvador Dalí was a prominent Spanish surrealist painter born in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain. Dalí was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence ofRenaissance masters. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in August 1931. Dalí's expansive artistic repertoire included film, sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media.Dalí attributed his "love of everything that is gilded and excessive, my passion for luxury and my love of oriental clothes" to an "Arab lineage", claiming that his ancestors were descended from theMoors.Dalí was highly imaginative, and also enjoyed indulging in unusual and grandiose behavior. His eccentric manner and attention-grabbing public actions sometimes drew more attention than his artwork, to the dismay of those who held his work in high esteem, and to the irritation of his critics.

A Trip to the Moon is a 1902 French silent film directed by Georges Méliès. Inspired by a wide variety of sources, including Jules Verne's novels From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon, the film follows a group of astronomers who travel to the Moon in a cannon-propelled capsule, explore the Moon's surface, escape from an underground group of Selenites (lunar inhabitants), and return to Earth with a captive Selenite. It features an ensemble cast of French theatrical performers, led by Méliès himself in the main role of Professor Barbenfouillis, and is filmed in the overtly theatrical style for which Méliès became famous.
The film was an internationally popular success on its release, and was extensively pirated by other studios, especially in the United States. Its unusual length, lavish production values, innovative special effects, and emphasis on storytelling were markedly influential on other film-makers and ultimately on the development of narrative film as a whole. Scholars have commented upon the film's extensive use of pataphysical and anti-imperialist satire, as well as on its wide influence on later film-makers and its artistic significance within the French theatrical féerie tradition. Though the film disappeared into obscurity after Méliès's retirement from the film industry, it was rediscovered around 1930, when Méliès's importance to the history of cinema was beginning to be recognized by film devotees. An original hand-colored print was discovered in 1993 and restored in 2011.
A Trip to the Moon was named one of the 100 greatest films of the 20th century by The Village Voice, ranked 84th. The film remains the best-known of the hundreds of films made by Méliès, and the moment in which the capsule lands in the Moon's eye remains one of the most iconic and frequently referenced images in the history of cinema. It is widely regarded as the earliest example of the science fiction film genre and, more generally, as one of the most influential films in cinema history.

BARRONESS
DADA TEXT
DADA COLLAGE
RROSE SELAVE

Unit 85

I have been given the task to take a piece of my work, in this case my FMP and create a new piece from that using a different set of techniques, for instance Photoshop.

I looked at my FMP work of a costume for a character living in a post apocalyptic setting and decided to super impose myself wearing the costume into an environment that would suit this setting.

I began by looking at other pieces of work that have images that have been super imposed for inspiration and techniques

Superimposing images is a technique used for a range of uses from advertising to cinema. I found a range of images that used super imposed images, two of them really interested me, they used old photographs from famous locations during war time and blended them with pictures from the modern day showing how little had changed in the past century 

For my superimposition I decided to take a photograph of myself wearing my costume and edit it into a scene replicating the post apocalyptic scenes my character would see.

to begin I opened the image into photoshop and deleted the rest of the background, this is done best with the magic wand tool that will select an area of similar colour, to get the best effect you should take the photograph against a block colour background.

Next I found the image I would use for the background, I found in image of a war torn building that had a large chunk of it obliterated.

next I placed the image of myself onto it, flipping it over to have the light and shadow face in the right direction and scaled it to fit.

finally I used a heavy mix of the burn tool that adds shade to the layer, I used this heavily to create a burnt smokey effect to the clothing and building, I then used the dodge tool to make the light pieces brighter and more contrasting. The smudge tool can be used lightly to blend the layers softly. I lastly used a dull red effect to make the sky look more smoggy and polluted.

After looking at my final image I realised I could have used this superimposing to create a photographic comic or a range of concept pieces. This could have taken my FMP into a completely different direction but equally interesting.

Contextual Study

1980's Underground Music Poster Design

I decided to choose the area of poster design for the 1980's American Underground music scene, looking at the techniques many artists would have used to create their work. This topic interests me because I have always been a big fan of this style of music come across this style of artwork very often, mainly from the album artwork I own and the types of posters and online music promotion I see for gigs that I attend in this particular genre. I also decided to focus on American Hardcore Punk subculture rather than British Hardcore Punk subculture because the New York  alternative music scene was much more artistic and poetic in comparison to London's.

During  my research, I found that during the early 1980's America suffered from a huge recession that took its toll on many businesses, as well as the creative industry. Consequently, this meant that if a band or venue wanted to advertise an upcoming show then they would need to use the cheapest methods available, therefore all posters would have been printed in one colour, printed on a single block coloured piece of paper, or would have had to be completely hand made. This, however, reflected the nature of the particular music genre they were advertising, as the Hardcore and Punk bands of the time were supposed to display an anarchistic ideal that having a lot of money doesn't always make the music you make worth listening to. A large number of these bands also didn't  tend to have a lot of money in the first place and would have had to create and record their songs on a very low budget, which is one thing that  gives the genre its distinguishable sound. I think that the fact that these artists had very little money in this time was very important to how the artwork of this era turned out because if the economy had been in a different state, this entire genre of music and artwork might not have came into existence. 

Common designs were usually a combination of the older punk bands' rough and raw fonts/logos and psychedelic patterns with connotations to 60's acid rock. The places in which the posters were more effective at advertising these bands/gigs to their target audience, at no surprise, were at the underground venues that hosted these bands such as Andy Worhol's Factory, where a mix of porn stars, drop out artists, musicians and any one else seen fit to become one of Worhol's superstars would collectively  hang out. This place in particular was a very  popular social spot for any one who was someone, therefore  making it the perfect location for music promtions. As well as the Factory there was CBGB's; another underground music venue for the alternative scene. CBGB'S entire wall surface was covered floor to ceiling in posters of bands coming and going as some sort of time capsule for the whole alternative music scene and its followers. CBGB'S was a more raw, less artistic focused venue and  amore musically focused hang out spot but has a huge nostalgia aesthetic due to the generations of music promotion art still covering the walls of the venue today. CBGB'S is now more of a tourist attraction due to this, kept open for people who  want to see the nature of the alternative movement in its beginings for themselves. Many of the posters seen on its wall are oftern older than those who come to the club, almost making it an art museum of the 1970's and 80's Punk movement. I am really fascinated by places like a Worhol's Factory and CBGB'S because they represent so much history of this particular genre of artwork and the fact that orginal pieces from that era still exist in these locations today shows just how inspirational and important they are to fans of this genre of music and art.

The designs of these posters is often mimicked by designers of today and has become a very popular and noticeable style used for music promtions for new artists trying to gain recognition, with the intention of seeming really 'rebellious' and 'cool', almost losing the meaning to why these posters were made to look as they did in the first place. Due to the 80's recession, the original artists had next to no money and a particular cultural background that influenced the rough and cheap designs, yet the upcoming bands of today are spending vast amounts of money on getting a designer to create different mediums of music promotion in the same style. However, the same goes for any style that was originally a symbol of making the most out of nothing, for example the early punk rockers making their clothing from garbage, this has now become a style that has people forking out hundreds of pounds to buy a pair of Dr. Marten boots, a leather jacket, tartan trousers and a shirt from their local Blue Banana so they can show everybody how completely against capitalism they are. 

As unfortunate as it is, many designs and styles that originated from trying to defy against the norm eventually become mainstream and lose their anarchistic  edge. However, there are still musicians today that are trying to stick to their roots and do everything from scratch due to them not having any funding to do stuff professionally; an example being a band called Gnarwolves who draw all of their posters and album covers themselves using the techniques used by musicians and promoters of the past. I am personally of the opinion that people shouldn't overuse this style of art because of it has an important back story that relates to the financial troubles of original hardcore punk bands trying to get their music heard, and by making it a mainstream style to be used to promote bands of differing genres the legacy of these artists are lost.

The main method used by Andy Worhol was silk screen printing, the process of making a barrier over a sheet of silk in a frame and pushing ink through the unblocked areas of fabric, creating images that could be printed over and over again. This method was used for a large range of things from printing onto canvases, to posters and even clothing, meaning almost anything a designer may have to make for a musician could have continuity, and multiple possibilities. This meant that getting noticed was cheaper and easier. Worhol's silk printed canvases are one of the first things many people think of when they hear 'pop art', due to his Campbell soup cans and Munro faces which are now highly prized pieces of art work, created with with a process that only costs a few pounds and could still be created over and over again. Worhol is a huge inspiration to millions around the world for the use of silk printing and making the process known to everyone as a simple, cost effective, yet refined method that is still used today. I chose to study this artist because his art is one of the most recognised styles throughout all the time he has been creating it and to this day, whether people are educated in art or not. I also admire that he pioneered such a simple form of printing that has amazed and inspired so many people, as well as making him incredibly wealthy and successful for years.

Raymond Petibon of Black Flag also influenced a design style used by many hardcore bands of today; he designed all the posters and clothing for Black Flag during his time in the band, and he only worked in black and white and drew images of ultra violence and blasphemous acts that swiftly became the nomal imagery used by bands in the hardcore scene. His images were oftern very crude which suited their music quite well and gave a shock and awe value that none were expecting after the first wave of punk rock from the 1970's.

Petibon's designs are still to this day the most common images people relate to Black Flag and the 80s hardcore movement. The imagery used by Petibon caused a vast amount of disgust and moral panic during the 80s has somehow become accepted as the norm today with young pre-teens walking around in shirts with the 'Slip It In' album artwork printed on them, but as designs go, anything that is made to shock is soon accepted as the norm. 

Petibon's work interests me because I love how the all black and white aesthetic looks because of its versatility, as well as being  inspired by the fact that he wasnt afraid to dare to create and publish extreme pieces of art, knowing that it would cause uproar because his fans did still enjoy and wear the band merchandise and therefore made it very popular.

Winston Smith is an artist who primarily uses the medium of collage. He is the creater of most of the album artwork used for the Dead Kennedys. Smith is known for his collaboration artwork with Jello Biafra and Alternative Tentacles, for whom he has done numerous covers, inserts, advertisements, flyers, and logos. He is also known  for the famous Alternative Tentacles logo as well as the Dead Kennedys logo and six of their record covers. One of his compositions, God Told Me to Skin You Alive, was used as the cover of Green Day's album Insomniac.

Smith would create his posters with cut outs from newspapers that would be photographed and coppied in large numbers. This created a much more unique feel to his designs, creating bizarre images from everyday photographs such as celebrities and images from current events. I wanted to talk about Smith's work because I am intrigued by how he created his art using as commomplace materials as newpapers, relating back to the theme of creating art from very cheap materials and it becoming a very popular style. I also like how he used photos of current events and people because  looking at his work from this point in time can instantly tell you a lot about the culture he was living in when he made that piece, and maybe even what could have inspired him.

In conclusion, 1980's Underground Music poster and merchandise design was and still is a hugely important part of American music and art subculture. Artists who began with no money or resources have created art styles that inspired future designers up until this day when it comes to music promtion and art. This, to me, is an extremely admirable achievement that I am glad is still appreciated today, whether it is in the form of expensive reproductions or still viewed on the walls of CBGB'S.

FMP

For my fmp i wanted to create a costume for a post apocalyptic  setting, I looked at the Fallout  game series and Mad Max films for inspiration. I have always had an interest in this whole post apocalyptic setting and the range of armor and clothing made in these games and films. I began by looking at the costume design from a variety of apocalyptic set stories such as Fallout, Mad Max and Brink to get inspiration  for my own costume.

There are exactly 102,247,681,536,000,000 possible character variations in Brink, this includes all sub-options such as clothing colors, voice packs and Body Type.

                                     

The costume department for Mad Max, Road Warrior had an incredibly low budget meaning all costumes were made from the actors own clothing swell as sports wear and S & M gear creating a staple look used by many when creating apocalyptic settings.

Mad Max, Fury road took the look from Road Warrior and made it even more tribal and gritty with people dressed in fur, leather and scrap covered in dust making even more savage looking wastelanders

The fallout game series has taken a huge amount of inspiration from the Mad Max look with raiders dressed in old automobile pieces, slavers dressed in football gear to resemble the soldiers of ancient Roam and street signs used as body armour. The Fallout series has created a world where the most useless piece of scrap can become a piece of armour ensuring the survival of its wearer 

After looking at these costumes I began to craft my own using old pieces of clothing I was able to find. I created a shoulder guard/cowl from a leather skirt adore in nails to create some form of medieval scaled armor and added white hand prints to the shoulders for a tribal feel and a chest plate made from an old computer chair.

In the end I felt like it was quite a boring piece so I began to look at my references again. I created a new costume that looked more fitting for this setting. The second costume was made from a leather jacket cut to resemble the leather jacket worn by Mad Max in the Road warrior, a tattered vest, distressed jeans and a pair of Dr Marten boots. I used a method to age the clothing and add more grime to it that I shall show later. 

Ageing the armour:

step 1: choose your fabric

step 2: distress the fabric with any tool and smear it with black paint

step 3: sprinkle any dust of your choice and add plaster to pick out hi-lights

Once I had created my costume I decided to add props and a setting for my character. I looked at the general items found in fallout and recreated some of my own.

irradiated water

food rations

repaired pistol

home decor

ukuclub

ukuclub

chair

raider battle rifle

raider battle rifle

for the setting for my character I decided to make a stall selling salvaged goods food and other useful gear found in his journeys, most of the items were waste pieces I found and modified into useful tools 

I furnished the stall with old pieces of wood and metal and fashioned a makeshift bed from two pallets. to offer some shade in the extreme heat a created a rough roof from scrim to offer some protection from the sun. I also created a sandy floor with litter, bullet casings and bricks scatted throughout to show the little amount of life growing in his world.

Bibliography: 

- Bethesda.com

- Fallout.com

- Falloutwiki.com

-Brinkwiki.com

-Nuclear snail studios, youtube channel