Moving Pictures Brief Development: Biting Off The Tentacle

The tentacle is representative not only of what ties women down, it could be symbolic of phallic imagery, which then references the male dominance and inequality of the patriarchy, often less obvious but ingrained thought patterns in all of us could explain why we put ourselves under so much pressure, linking then back to the idea of sexuality as women express sexuality to please men, the biting of the phallic symbol therefore counteracts this. 

Biting is typically a thing people do out of fear, for example:

biting nails (can also be linked to anxiety/ ADHD)

distract people from pain (eg biting on a rag)

In my COP essay last year I studied Laura Mulvey's Visual and Other Pleasures, and it was revisited this year in class by my tutor, it's a fascinating piece of feminist literature which can also be applied in this instance. The expression of the male fear of castration; while women have no penis, the fear of castration is already planted, men then go around this through voyueristic and fetishistic scopophilia. Voyueristic being the pleasure of looking while fetishised male gaze often leads to exploiting women's sexuality to draw in the gaze of the male viewer, we can see this in the media, quite literally 'sex sells'. In this case the fear of castration is apparent in this part of my animation as the creature I made (mirrored on the narrative character Koko the Clown from Betty Boop's Snow White) looses his limbs and they become clocks, denoting the fear of women's lack of time and impossible expectations of time keeping. The character then shrinks and is eventually warped into the shape of a mouth, the tentacle coming originally from his stomach now protrudes from an open mouth which then clamps down on the tentacle, biting it off from whatever creature lays within. 

This is supposed to be metaphorically representative of women needing to cut ties with their demons, this tentacle may well represent the phallic symbol but at the same time it could be a multitude of hidden inner demons and concerns that they perhaps hide or try to keep it bay, a busy schedule as Tiffany Dufu says...

"It's no wonder that so many of us are wondering around with these feelings of inadequacy given the fact that what we imagine ourselves to be doing, the expectation that we have about what we should be doing literally each and every day is humanly impossible." 

Visually representing these 'feelings of inadequacy is done through the tentacle. For me, throughout my life this has always been so. Making this project more personal for me, the visual symbol of tentacles has always denoted mental health problems, inadequacy and fear. This is because when I first started seeing a psychotherapist she got me to visual things; I imagined tentacles coming out of my insides, they'd wrap around my body strangling, suffocating and generally holding me tight. This sense of being emotionally wrapped up and unable to communicate certain things I felt worked well and ever since I've visualised tentacles as this symbol. Regardless of this, I feel universally this will be a good represented purely due to the nature of animals with tentacles :

Moving Pictures Brief: Research

Cal Calloway Rotoscope Animation

Lazy Gear: Cargo Trousers Design Inspo

For the cargo trousers, I want to replicate Basquiat's style, using snippits of the Lazy Gear original logo, and create a piece ready for screen print to be printed on the trousers than incorporate poetry/ wording entwined with illustrations.

Inspiration I've drawn from the Uniqlo x Basquiat range which came out years ago which I rushed to the shop to buy.

I was also watching a music video from the Colors series on Youtube the other day and fell in love with German rapper Kelvyn Colt's trousers, I'm still trying to source who designed these but the sporadic random layout of text and imagery I really liked:

   

The cargo trousers I've bought are black and will be printed on with with using textile screen printing methods. The last few days we've had preparing for print workshops so I feel a lot more confident preparing my positive that I can utilise to print.



I feel it maintains the urban theme that Lazy Gear seems to embody somewhat but isn't an inclusive thing that would alienate people. Especially the naive expressive feeling to this kind of illustrative style.

OUGD505 Brief 2: Drop In Chat Room

Defined Brief 2 of OUGD505:

Branding for a drop in 'chat room' available for all universities. 
This chat room will be available in all universities, where students can volunteer who have some form of background in social care/ good listeners, which students can drop in to unscheduled when they feel overwhelmed. The focus is going to be more on 'having a chat' as opposed to counselling sessions which is often an intimidating topic, from my questionnaire I found that many people found it uncomfortable discussing mental health. The aim is to update the aesthetic of welfare services and make this room as approachable as possible to combat the stigma behind seeking help.

Deliverables: 2 posters, a leaflet and way-finding system.


Responses that unsettled me most highlighted how many people were put off by extended waiting periods (which even at this university is a big issue, despite having the most efficient process of any university I've seen). The reality of many people using recreational drugs and alcohol as a means of escapism instead of discussing their stress/ mental health is alarming, but shouldn't be frowned upon or used as an excuse to not offer them further treatment which many services do confess to. For example on Leeds University website the list of requirements for undertaking their online counselling service (which the link is broken to) you cannot be under the influence which seems contradictory and not realistic of many university students who self medicate as this is the only way they've known. A staggering 82.6% of people who took my questionnaire have turned to this method under stress which says a lot.



The above statistic is similarly alarming, begging the question what can be done to alleviate the stigma around mental health, how can it be somewhat normalised and expressed in a more casual setting? Which got me thinking about how when students are stressed about their work they can come to a drop in session, they can easily access a tutor of sorts to discuss their work, so why can't we have a drop in for mental health? Like a physical health check up you can also go to a drop in clinic so why not for mental health, or better still 'a chat', this removes connotations of  intimidation people associate with discussing mental health.

Aesthetic
In my presentation I did introducing my concepts for this brief I purposely used the outdated typical aesthetic adopted by posters/ leaflets discussing mental health, hence the use of Comic Sans and dark blue shade. The backgrounds were imagery from therapy rooms, with the classic 'therapists chair' and tacky room decor. This was to expose the current state of almost every therapists room I've seen, somewhat depressing in itself that tries to brighten up the place with a garishly bright painting of some sunflowers.



Moving away from this clinical feeling baron room, I want to redesign the aesthetic of welfare services, the running theme will be to update the appearance. Making the room less intimidating to walk into which hopefully will work if it's modernised, welcoming and has a calming atmosphere not a hostile one. This goes also for the poster/ literature surrounding mental health, the visuals featured above are just from an image search for mental health, the classic tedious parts of the brain (mainly all in a dark blue) is an outdated image, a poor representation that we need to move on from.

Preparing for print workshop part 2

Blue Note
Prestige
Jazz records used spot colour printing, halftone was applied through photographic methods
Process came out of necessity

Miles Davis
Coltrane

Early- mid 60's

Recreating this 
Image must initially be grayscale
image> mode> duotone

adjust duotone


Using Pantone Colour swatches under the swatches menu (top right) under Pantone solid coated



Window> Output> attributes/ seperations

Illustrator- Colour Swatches
Never use registration in your artwork as this is for printer registration
Under swatches menu, click 'add used colours' so colours you've used in the document are saved as spot colours

Spot colour swatches will have this global box ticked


Using spot colours will allow you to work with tints which CMYK colours you couldn't


All things using this colour will update using a global spot swatch when you edit it in swatches (make sure preview is ticked):


clicking on the book icon in the bottom left corner of swatches you can go to pantone colours



So add swatches



change each under options to 'spot colours', then to see each ink layer (positives) go to...

Window>seperations pallet 

Illustrator will always automatically knock out one colour from under the other unlike photoshop



Window > Attributes


if you did want an overprint.

knocking out also works also with text (black is removed):

Preparing screen for print

have a threshold effect to remove grey colours so it's easier to print
set layers to multiply so you can se more accurately what the print would look like
overprinting allows new colours to be created as they overlap
knocking out removes the chance of overprinting as areas are deleted so they cannot overlap

Knocking out
select area with magic wand tool in other layer and delete



Halftone in Illustrator
before in photoshop, image> mode > grayscale
you may then need to adjust brightness/ contrast
save as a tif file

In illustrator, print> output> mode: seperations
frequency 50
angle 15

measured in lines per inch (50lpi max)
angle 15 (for one ink) to avoid Moire Pattern:

laserprint from upstairs computer room
202 b&w printer

Halftone- Bitmap in Photoshop
Can use this technique to apply halftone
image> mode> output: 1200
Method> Halftone screen
50
15
save as tif
take to digital print resource to print 

Colour
CMYK colour mode is used for print, it allows us to create a wide variety of colour through overprinting
 can see this in photoshop under channels

in illustrator, print> mode: seperations
can now set half tone values for each inks
frequency: 50
angles (for four inks): 15, 75, 105, 155



Spot Colours
One spot colour is used to print a colour e.g use green ink as opposed to mixing colours yellow and cyan to get green.

• Spot colours allow accurate reproduction of colour e.g Sainsbury's logo 
• It can be cheaper- fewer inks makes production less expensive
• Spot inks are used to print colours that are not reproducible using CMYK- fluorescent and metallic inks for example

In photoshop we can simulate spot colours, make sure your image is in grayscale...
channels menu> new spot channel

change solidity to challenge transparency:

the order of channels is important, the top will be printed first, bottom last.

Save as Photoshop or TIF file, make sure it's ticked spot colours

Then print in Illustrator, remembering to separate spot colours and turn off CMYK 

only change values if a certain layer has different tones (50 max):

Brief 1: Idea Development

Idea Development 


I think I'd like to narrow my many ideas and concepts down into a video. Focusing on possibly slowing things down, considering that 180 bpm masks some of the lyrics, slowing things down would uncover some of the sexist/ violent lyrics. So challenging this writing my own feminist lyrics over the top of a slow motion video montage of classic elements for a jump up rave, the outfits, jaws, pupils and x-stepping.

I have a vision of shots transitioning from an empty warehouse to split screen videos of people 'gurning' (chewing their mouth up on drugs), the same split screen but with widened pupils, and possibly crowd shots of events. I found this really fascinating way of split screening (in this case just ripped the  in a non conventional way which may help mirror this idea of exclusivity amongst the Jump Up scene, playing also on the idea everything is 'not as it seems'.

Slowed down I feel the scene will look less glamourised (if it ever was), and enable me to write some more precise meaningful lyrics.



Research- Jump Up Event



Furthering research and gathering clips I went to a Jump up night this weekend, I recorded footage showing people moshpitting- a new thing to the DnB scene which has been publicly shunned by MC Eksman, pioneer of the scene who runs multiple leading nights including Next Hype:



Other clips include someone filming me 'skanking', silhouette's of DJ's with visual projections and the lights on the ceiling of Mint Club, which work well illuminating an otherwise dark room, meaning I don't have to use flash which I feel would've ruined the aesthetic, taking away from the subtle hues created by the lighting effects. I wanted it to be more of an immersive thing rather than it look like a film crew going round with flashlights, ruining other people's nights.

This is just an initial experiment for what the outcome would look like:

I want to add more split screens from different events, have different people 'skanking and x-stepping' and include MC's as I feel this is such a large part of Jump Up and essential for my project as I aim to expose the misogyny. 

Feedback

"I like how it's so hectic, very reminiscent of Jump Up nights"

"I have no idea what Jump Up is but this makes it look very stressful"

"Too dark"

Things I can work on include taking more videos with better lighting which I will have to work out doing, this all seems a little difficult bearing in mind I cannot really afford to go to many night out and often Jump Up nights are quite infrequent. I will have to consider wether this is feasible to produce.

Happy Cabs: Final Logo Design

This project has taken longer than anticipated purely down to the fact the client has been so busy and has sometimes taken up to 4 days at a time to reply, however it was a pleasure producing for this and I felt positive that I was really helping as they put all their faith in my design decisions as soon as I told them what I thought would be more appropriate than what they had initially thought.

For example

• 'less industrial', yet after changes they preferred the previous design,
• 'more cartoony' which would just have been more and more a visual copy of their existing logo
• 'orange telephone numbers?' which would've been completely contradictory of the colour scheme as well as less visible on the side of the car, which is a key function. Below are some mock ups I showed them of colours I thought would work best if they really wanted them incorporated, I felt it necessary a darker shade of existing blue was most appropriate, orange they suggested really wasn't.

I liked however the concept they had in upholding a strong visual identity without having to use logotype. Incorporating the same colour as the Norwich city council sticker on the back of the car I feel this logo design in terms of colour is successful as users can visually associate this company with safety, no worries of unlicensed cabs. I think the logo fits the brief which I somewhat made for myself as they were very vague with what they wanted, so my criteria of a logo that connotes safety, reliability and is clean and contemporary is fulfilled.

So I took charge and as the designer suggested this specific design would be the most appropriate despite them requesting something more 'cartoony' and trying to add in orange numbers. After around 4 uneasy days they eventually replied. They'd originally paid me £50 upfront when I began the work and the rest £100 on completion, they stated they'd paid the rest and said they were happy with my design, the one I had fought for and gave reasoning for. (see email in previous blog)

Original logo next to new logo:

Minus the lengthly waiting time in-between replies, it was an honest pleasure making this logo for them, it was beneficial for us both as I improved my skills in Illustrator which have been incredibly basic until recently, so although that will have taken longer to get to grips with than a more skilled Illustrator user, I taught myself along the way and have been able to fight my corner in terms of insisting my designs are contextually strong. The client although not knowing what would be aesthetically the most appropriate and practical, was lovely and said they would keep in contact as I'm "part of the Happy Cabs story."

Final Logo

I thought this was very sweet and nice to be apart of a new business venture. They then added it to their website but in a J-peg format as they couldn't use the vector image for whatever reason, I offered to rectify this as it means there's a white box around it but the client didn't seem bothered about changing it, my brief was simply to make the logo however it would be nice to make it fit better on the website as a vector. Having said that it does look miles better than the original logo, the colours are fluid, design clean.
New:


Old:

Happy Cabs: Telephone Font

I experimented with different fonts, exploring the use of a more 'cartoony' style as requested by the client for the logo overall, I felt having the logo itself was visually 'cartoony' enough and any more would've been tacky and too much like their original logo, so I thought having the font for the telephone number more playful may be a way of getting around this 'corporate' looking issue.
Once I experimented however I found the most appropriate would in fact be the most simplistic due to it's functionality, it's most legible which is essential especially at a quick glance when the taxi is on the move for example. Particularly as the logo doesn't have logotype, it's essential the telephone number is very clear as this next to the iconography of a car makes it very clear as to what this company delivers.

I therefore stuck with the top right Arial Bold.

Brief 1: The Jump Up Crowd / Squat Raves

 

This picture endlessly entertains me as that's my brother with the denim jacket tied round him with his own 'bass-face' on. I'd like to think he's respectful of women and other people in general, although I overheard people mocking his shoes in the smoking area because he wasn't wearing trainers. This reinforced for me this idea that you have to look a certain way, anything outlandish or out of the tracksuit norm is mocked. This strong visual identity can be something I can challenge throughout this project.



Constantly I'm discovering some of my once favourite artists are just too awful to listen to, and by that I mean sexist, discriminative and downright offensive. Even little things like the misspelt words are nowadays making me cringe which is crucial, as I'm 'growing up' the scene just looks more and more childish, an army of immature grown men.

The underground element does lend itself to criminal activity especially with squat raves, there's a chance the police will shut it down, like they have done with this rave on the tube hosted by pioneer MC Harry Shotta, winner of the fastest rapper in Guinness Book Of World Records. This being an example of a very civilised 'shut down'.

Watching Vice's documentary 'Locked Off' and 'Britain's Illegal Rave: The Renaissance'

 

begs the question of morals surrounding 'illegal' raving. There are free parties however these usually play more Gabba and hardcore, Jump Up is usually played at indoor parties, industrial/ abandoned buildings especially in London. I've tried to find such parties in Leeds with no success. Going to a squat you put yourself in a position where you're at some form of risk of danger. There ares often questionably 'off their head' potentially aggressive crowds and especially as a woman you feel somewhat vulnerable. However the reason they put on such parties is to play the music, where they want in effect going to great lengths to worship the genre. These squat raves in London used to be more about the music, sharing the love of this with quirky interesting people but more and more it's becoming a violent drug fuelled chaos, where in clubs they oversell tickets and you get trampled or forced into a moshpit by drugged up teenagers who don't know what x-stepping is. 

Bringing back Jump Up's identity I may see if I can locate a warehouse in Leeds outskirts and see if I could film a video there.

Brief 1: Feedback

I need to pinpoint what it is that I'm trying to say, feedback from my crit group identified that I should focus on what message it is I'm trying to convey, is it more about the crowd in general and their attitude? We realised it's more about how people don't turn up to these events for the music anymore, it's more about the drug culture.

Ideas:

-They liked the idea of a 'cure' of sorts to remedy Jump Up DJ syndrome (drug packaging?)

-Sexualise men instead of women re-creating posters mocking Next Hype.

-Re-write bars, make feminist lyrics over the top of a video of people X-stepping:
X stepping is a dance very particular to this sub-genre, especially in London, events outside of London I've been to have attracted circles when me and my mates have been X-stepping which is quite a novelty outside of London:

So I'd like to incorporate the dancing, clothing and possibly a warehouse backdrop, including the criminal element, finding a loophole in the law and utilising squatters rights enabling underground squat raves. This is the essence of the scene, without considering how the crowds, lyrics and violence can transform the raves atmosphere. Someone in my feedback group alerted me to this Red Bull article focusing on DnB as a whole, begging the question where are all the women? The statistics didn't shock me. In the years I've been raving I've seen maybe 2 female Mc's perform and two or three female DJs. If I want to see them I watch live streams online which I've had to find and research myself.

DJ Mollie Collins is the at the forefront of the female Jump Up scene, you'd have to go a lot more underground to find others as headline acts like her, noting “D’n’b is thriving across all sub-genres – it’s really alive at the moment, there are massive parties happening all the time, d’n’b artists at huge festivals and it’s growing every year.” 

Even DnB legend Fabio highlights :
“D’n’b is still very male dominated. It shouldn't be, after being around for two decades – but unfortunately it hasn't changed much since the ‘90s in that respect.”

I will continue gathering information through primary research, I'm going to a house party this weekend which have rigs hired and Jump Up DJ's booked, I plan to take videos, chat to the MC's if there are any and record the whole atmosphere through photography, audio files and so on. I plant o also do this in clubs, possibly note down the differences between more underground events and decide what it is that I prefer, how I want the Jump Up scene to develop. 

Brief 1: Micro-genre Further Ideas

The aesthetics overall of Jump Up music artwork is atrocious, it's highly sexualised graphic representations of women scantily clad, skulls and 'dark' imagery photoshopped together by what looks like 12 year olds and an explosion of mis-matching colour. 

What always especially gets to me is posters for my favourite night out entitled Next Hype. Featured above, these are all the one's featuring cartoon women, every 2 months I await the line up but not the poster design, this scene really does alienate women well, ironic when all the MC's bars are about how many girls they get. In reality there are so many incidences where underage girls are sexually assaulted, women are raped, beaten and we're all aware, skank it off? As I grow and learn to accept certain incidences that have happened in my life, I find it harder and harder to support certain artists. I will either leave the room they're playing in or like a mature adult stand at the front with my middle finger pointed right at them. Although that somewhat defeats the point as a lot of MC's request 'middle fingers up...' so yet again, my attempts to fight back as a female are squashed. I want my revenge on 'DINNER TIME SET :)))' bedroom Jump Up DJ's, all greasy little men who sit in their bedroom, lure underage girls and give themselves erections looking at cartoon women. 

Above, me with my bass-face (to the right). Repping for Reload Records a label ran by my friend in Leeds, they're really coming along. I'm a big supporter also of their graphic design, their logo isn't tacky and garish like so many other Jump Up/ DnB logos, I admire the simplistic b&w style.

My aim for this project is to expose the horrifically sexist side of Jump Up and make people aware of what's going on behind the scenes, the MC's bars aren't all 'gas', Bassman does rape and beat women, R3dx does get with underage girls and so forth. Although a genre I have held close to my heart for so long, it's starting to repulse me.

Considering what I could make I started to think first about how it is that I want to portray this sub-genre:
sexist 
aggressive 
drug fuelled

I could create a receipt from a Jump Up night out, one black eye, 3 Rolls Royce Pills, 1g of ketamine, 1 pack of chewing gum... although this could be executed very easily not posing much challenge.

Focusing also on key characteristics like what people wear (tracksuits, man-bags), that swinging jaw and massive pupils I could also create an actual model of the classic jump-up bedroom DJ.

Or I could design packaging for pills that treat Jump Up DJ syndrome, running with this idea it could be an video advert for this as I'd quite like to get back into film, this way I could also make my own mix to go over the top as I have decks myself and can very poorly mash together some hectic Jump Up tunes that almost sounds right together (badly mixed like a proper bedroom DJ).

Looking into mockery adverts I found this about cannabis

Ideas Presentation: Brief 2

Brief 2 Concept 

Focus on mental health issue services within universities. A few friends and my younger brother have found it very difficult to access welfare services and have had to rely on tutors to turn to who aren't qualified in psychotherapy. 

Before writing my brief I did a questionnaire and carried out some research.

Watch my presentation: