National Trust

Because I have been struggling to come up with an idea for my XL Recordings brief it was suggested that I consider changing the brief all together to start on something new that I can enjoy and sink my teeth into. This is something that I have not wanted to do as we are getting closer and closer to the deadline for this project, however I feel that the work I will produce from the XL Recordings brief will be half hearted as I have had such difficulties with it. 
For that reason I am changing to the National Trust brief. 
We now only have one week till the hand in date so getting through the research and idea generating will have to be quick.

The national trust brief 

Aim: To connect people back with nature and the outdoors, to attract a younger audience.

Reason for this: The national trust has been given an image that it is for old people and cream tea on the lawn and it wants to show the younger audience that it is more than that. They want to reconnect people with the great outdoors and strengthen peoples bond with nature. 

Things to consider: Video format must be MPEG or MOV, Images must be JPEG only. Consider print, digital and experiential when creating work. Abide by branding guidelines.

Outcome: A campaign that consists of either a video (max 2 mins) or up to eight images. Supporting materials can also be added to the main hand in.


The national trust was set up in 1895 and has been going ever since, this long lasting trust has the aim to "Look after Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty permanently for the benefit of the nation across England, Wales and Northern Ireland". In 2010 the trusts membership count hit over 3.7 million and this brief is set out to make sure that number continues to grow. As the national trust is such a long lasting company they do have strict guidelines to keep them easily recognised. My first step in the process is to look though these and make sure that I know exactly what I can and cant change about their current set up.

Models

After a brief 1 to 1 with my tutor the idea of creating small models of the band came up, I decided to try the idea to see where it lead and started creating my miniature Thom Yorke. 

This took me quite a while and I realised it wasnt viable to do all of the members of the band. I also realised that the idea only lead as far as making the models. After a long time trying to come up with an idea I decided to wave the white flag on the models. 

Feedback and Barcode

I decided that the pieces I have been working on dont fully represent what the brief is asking, as its main focus is around the fact that in rainbows was set out to pay as you like. This is an obstacle I am struggling with as I dont want to make the poster look like it is suggesting they gained a lot of money as that is the oposite meaning that they were trying to tell. The music is more important than the money. 
I have been looking at things that represent money without screaming overpriced or huge gain and the two things I have though about are a bar code and a piggy bank. 
A bar code is a symbol for how much something is without actually telling you the price which could fit in very well with my brief, and the piggy bank resembles youth and saving suggesting pennies rather than notes and giving the audience the idea of innocence. 

From this I went on to create some images based around the bar code idea.

Here you can see I started with a simple bar code in rainbow colours and using the numerical alphabet I spelt radiohead down the right hand side.

With this I then made a 3D version and played with colours and angles to see what worked best

Once I had picked an angle I then tried to incorporate the previous work to try and represent both the money and radiohead.

Although I quite like this final piece I still don't believe that it is saying what I want it to and using such obvious references it is still in danger of looking too literal.

3D

When asking for feedback on my previous idea of the grid logo, there were a few concerns raised.  
The main worry was that the logo is too literal and therefore boring. It was suggested that I try and break it up a little to make it more abstract. I took this on board and have been playing with the different ways to make it look more abstract, the best way I have found so far that looks good is to change the pieces into 3D and move them around to break the clean lines. Here are some examples of how this effect looks. 

The other concern that the class had was that using such strong inspiration from Donwood when he has already worked for them before may cause an issue. So although I thought his work was fantastic and I will still use it for inspiration on how he transformed something from just an illustration to a beautiful moving gif, I will try and steer clear of taking too much of his style into my own work for this project.

Ty Wilkins Inspiration

As I was looking through different artist's works, I came across this artist Ty Wilkins. As soon as I saw his work I fell in love with the style. Doing some background research I have found out that he owns an illustrartion studio and has worked for big names such as Cheerios, Pepsi, The North Face and many more. What I like so much about his work is how clean it looks, the two images below are in my opinion the most effective, as they use limited colour against the white background, and the simple yet eye catching patterns stay independent in their own grid sections but work perfectly hand in hand.

After seeing this style of work, I was very eager to try it out myself. As I said before I decided to use the radiohead logo to represent them. Here you can see how I have used the same grid technique, but as my design needs to stand true to the logo I have decided to keep the blocks flat and avoid pattern. 

After I designed the grid style logo I added a background that was similar to the work of Stanley Donwood, because the logo I have drawn is quite busy with all the different tones, I decided to create a simple black and white lined background that can be animated to move in a very similar way to the gifs of the XL recordings building. 

To represent the album being whatever price the customer felt it was worth, I could use a hologram or 3D sheet so that I can have prices on the poster that change as you walk past them, showing the viewer that there was no set price and it is completely in their control as to what angle they view the poster and in turn this mimics the pricing set up by the band. I want the viewer to be able to choose how they see the poster and I want them to be able to interact with it by moving around and possibly then reflecting on how much they paid for the album when it was released. This poster should be a talking point for the viewers to discuss the album and possibly even disagree with how the band sold it. The online piece could work in a similar way with prices that change as the users moves around the virtual space. The bold background and interesting design should be eye catching while the hologram prices aim to be thought provoking and a conversation starter.

Stanley Donwood

Stanley Donwood is an artist that has a lot of connections to this project. When I was doing my initial research into XL Recordings as a company, I found these images of their studio.

As you can see the outside of this building has been painted by Stanley Donwood. Looking further into the work that he has previously done for XL Recordings, I found that he painted the building three times, and between each paint he took photographs, using these images he then put together a gif. This is where his work came to life, not only had he made the static images look good, when played in sequence, the building had a moving scene on it which you can see on the XL Recordings website that I have linked below.

http://xlrecordings.com/news/hollywooddooomgifbystanleydonwoodxinsa

This made me realise that this is the kind of work they are after for this brief, they want something that looks great as a static poster, but comes to life when you see it in the online exhibition. 

Researching further into Stanley Donwood, I found that he has worked closely with radiohead before and even created the artwork for the "In Rainbows" album. For this reason I will be looking through Stanley Donwood's work further in hope to take inspiration from him.

Radio Head

Radiohead are an English band that were formed in 1985 by their lead singer Thom Yorke. In 1992 they had their first hit with "Creep", after their initial album their popularity rose in the UK. It wasn't until 2007 that they released their seventh album "In rainbows". In Rainbows was Radiohead's first release after the end of their contract with EMI and the end of the longest gap between studio albums in their career.

Radiohead released this album as a digital download directly from themselves where people had the choice to pay as much as they liked. This new way of selling an album had mixed reviews with some people worrying that it was potentially "damaging" to the music industry and "destroying the careers of thousands of smaller bands by making music seem worthless". These allegations and negativity however, did not phase everyone whcih was proved when the album shot to number one and then went on to win two Grammys for ‘Best Alternative Music Album’.

As an extension of my research into radiohead as a band, I have been looking at imagery that could help create a starting point for my idea generation. The things I found most of were the album covers, logo and photos of the band as a whole. Their logo is very interesting and has the potential to be stylised to represent the band in my illustration. Here are some of the images that I have gathered. 

Some of the key points I pickd out from these images are:

Colours- Bold, bright, multicoloured

Font- Clear, easy to read, strong, simple

Imagery- Strong use of logo, abstract, busy, bright