Installation

So I've been pondering installations, guerrilla marketing campaigns and the like. I will soon be creating an installation so a little research is in order. There are great examples to be found of guerrilla marketing. These campaigns generally grab the viewers attention in a less obnoxious way than traditional advertising.

As a graphic designer I naturally want an installation to have a purpose... this could be to convey a message or to promote a product. The best example I thought of for installations promoting products is the store window. And when it comes to store windows who does it better than Anthropologie? They have a way of blending their installations into the space to create a functionally beautiful vibe.

Despite my musings on beautifully decorated shopping experiences, I don't know if that is the goal of this project, so I'll be researching more in the hours to come!

 

Most of these lovely Anthro images were taken here.

Synthesis

This project challenged me to combine my way of working with that of another artist. We were encouraged to choose an artist who worked in a completely different medium than our own.

Recently I have been experimenting with simple vector illustrations that use clean lines resembling those a pen might make. I wanted to find an artist who creates illustrations with strokes similar to mine. Kagan McLeod is an artist working in Canada. His work has a watercolory feel to it, so I wanted to incorporate my graphic strokes with his washy watercolor style. Below are photos documenting the process leading up to the final piece.

Materiality: my project

Early stage process photo from Project 1

 

Completed Project 1

Art History Timelines

Fabulous resource I stumbled across for anyone interested in art history.

Flute Choir

Here is an example of the Chinese papercuts in action! (These were mentioned in an earlier post.)

Papercut

Paper cutting is a folk tradition that can be traced to China and Mexico. My daddy gave me these beautiful Chinese papercuts of birds and flora. The information on the package reads: China National Light Industrial Products Imp. & Exp. Corp. Tientsin Arts & Crafts Branch. Chieh Fang Pei Lu, Tientsin. I hope the intricate details and fine cuts show up in the images. There are 10 left in the set... but I have used some :) I have been able to incorporate these papercuts into two projects so far (a bracelet and a concert poster). This is just a side trail branching off of the materiality of paper.

Paper: the materiality

With materiality the concept and medium are one. What is it about this material that is unlike any other?

Paper has many associations: paper mill, sheet, tree, forest, green, environment, global warming, book, print, cut, pulp, log, lumber, sculpture, texture, fibers, lint, tear, laser, mache, decoupage, collage, glue, Chinese origins, plants, cellulose, wood, cotton, flax, ink, pen, renewable resource, seeds, plant, folk tradition of paper cutting in Mexico and Germany, fragile, knife, outlines, communication, 2-D

Artists who use paper and blew my mind:
Chris Natrop: room-sized installations of hand-cut paper.

Su Blackwell: book-cut sculptures with a "pop-up" type feel.

Yulia Brodskaya: expressive typography from colorful paper.

Paper is traditionally a vehicle for meaning or communication, but what happens when the message or ink or graphite is striped away? Does the paper communicate? Does it communicate as well? Does the paper alone communicate better?