2D – Zoe Wilkinson

For the first project of semester 2, my task is to create a fake band from a randomly created name. I needed to make some bold and imaginative merch, a poster and a band logo.

The name of my band is Pointless Ligatures.

I began my research by looking at inspiration such as other bands, art and graphic designers.

The moodboard’s contain album covers/bands that have similar vibes to my idea, textures I’d like to see in my work and logos/fonts that would inspire how I’d make my own band logo.

Russel mills

Russel mills is the person who designed the album covers for nine inch nails. I chose to look at him for inspiration because I love the texture of his work. He uses a variety of materials, ranging from rusted metal sheets, leaves, copper tubes or paint. his work Is very abstract which is what I love about it – it shows a lot of texture and makes you question about things such as, what materials did he use for this piece? or what emotions do the pieces convey?

His most famous piece is his album cover for nine inch nails ” the downward spiral”. which was crafted using a large plank of wood, layered with tools such as plaster, wax, oils, acrylics, rusted metal, dead insects, bandages and mills’ own blood. it really shows the feeling of decay and being wounded.

stanley donwood

stanley Donwood is the Artist who made the Radiohead album covers. he’s worked to make various gallery exhibitions too, whether it is his own work or work he made for Radiohead.

Donwood uses things like paints, Lino cuts and screen printing among many other materials to make his work but painting is definitely one of his more common methods. I love how abstract his work is, like you can make something out but it’s more up to interpretation of what you’re viewing sometimes.

Books

TO gain some more inspiration I looked at some books.

graphic design manual, principles and practice, armin Hofmann

This book was made for designers as a manual to teach them the art of graphic design. when looking inside I found lots of different textures that helped inspire where I wanted to go with my idea. I especially loved the splattering effect which reminded me of spray paint.the half tone dots in the black was also something I really liked texture wise.

street logos

Stencil Graffiti

Graffiti World

story behind the band

The band originates from Newcastle. They started as an underground alternative rock band, making a range of rebellious songs about the government. One day the band want to go on a trip to Spain to discover some new form of music and culture for their next album in late night clubs and bars. Whilst on the plane, the wing starts to tear off and it plumits to the ground and crashes.

Most people were badly injured and some died. The band members all survived however, lost limbs in the process. The drummer lost a leg, the lead guitarist lost an arm, the bassist lost an eye and the lead singer lost an arm and a leg. Through much help off the NHS they recovered and were given prostetic limbs. However, they found the prostetic limbs were too stiff so they tampered with them, adding new parts and making them more stylised to themselves.

When the band got back into the flow of playing instruments again they booked a gig local to them in Newcastle with their new limbs. A few tickets sold however, the people that saw them loved their style, almost like they were cyborgs.

Creating the logo

TO start my band off I needed a logo. I began by writing out the band name multiple times with a large posca marker on various a4 sheets until I found one that matched the vibe. I ended up selecting two of them and combining letters together to make a complete logo.

Final logo

I loved how the logo turned out and how the posca pen gave it a brushed like texture so it looks much grungier.

creating a poster

Before making the poster I needed some resources so I started by experimenting with spray paints to get some textures.I really loved the bold colours like the red and blue and how it makes the band look much grungier.I even went into one using a thick post pen to write out the bands name.

I even went further and spray painted a big slab of wood, chainsawed it then burned it to really get the rebellious feel of this band. I loved the whole process of it and got some really good photos out of it.

After my photoshoot I took both my images and the graffiti pages and decided to combine them together In photoshop.i loved the textures that it gave me and I decided to use lighter colour with the spray paint layer and reduce the opacity so that you can still see the background of the fire burning. I then had the idea to cut the cross out the logo and put it into the centre of the page so you know what band it is just from that. I put the logo on the top and then added the concert dates and location to make it feel like a real band poster.