Who Makes The Laws?

After looking at banksy's work, it got me thinking about spreading a message through a simple image that would make the viewer stop and think... something that is a controversial subject like sex, drugs or war etc...

 I really dislike smoking fags, I don't see the point in smoking something that has very little positive effects and almost guarantee's to shorten a persons life...

I had the idea of a coffin shaped cigarette packet, full of cigarettes: I often hear nick names for cigarettes like cancer sticks, or death sticks, which made me think of this concept... 

"Cigarette smoking causes an estimated 443,000 deaths each year, including approximately 49,000 deaths due to exposure to secondhand smoke."

The message is obviously that smoking kills, but also the fact that people who smoke are paying for shorter lives...

I added 'who makes the laws' below to add impact to the image, It's saying that not only are people paying to kill themselves, but it's completely legal and acceptable to do so?...

What is wrong with society? What is wrong with the world? Who makes these crazy Laws?

After designing the cigarette coffin box, I started thinking about other laws that I could question, or make a point about...

Alcohol:

Alcohol is a social pass time, It's a great way to socialise with friends and can be allot of fun when drunk responsibly... However, there are also serious health risks with alcohol too... 

"In 2011 there were 8,748 alcohol-related deaths in the UK"

It's hard to believe that such a dangerous substance can be bought from shops/bars in bulk, any time, any place and therefore allows people to drink themselves to death... 

Meanwhile it's all still socially acceptable because no laws have been broken...

What is wrong with society? What is wrong with the world? Who makes these crazy Laws?

My final design is on the subject of Marijuana...

Marijuana/cannabis/pot has got many names, and many questions surrounding it.. 

Most people see it as a drug, something that can cause harm to your body and mind, and something that is a class B drug therefore strictly illegal and off limits...

Other people strongly disagree with these claims and swear by using marijuana for a medical or even recreational usage...

"According to one report, it would take 800 joints to kill a person—but the cause of death would be carbon monoxide poisoning."  

In my opinion, drug prohibition in general has completely failed, the current system is just putting money straight into the hands of criminals...

I especially disagree with the laws on Marijuana and the propaganda that surrounds the truth... Unlike other drugs that are chemically changed and manipulated, Marijuana is 100% natural not to mention there has never been a single recorded marijuana related death, ever...

At the end of the day it's a plant, and I find it crazy to think people can go to prison for smoking & growing a natural, god given plant....

I really like these designs/concepts, I especially like the coffin cigarette box as it is simple, easy to interpret & clearly gives off a controversial message to the viewer...

Banksy's Tag:

Banksy is a Graffiti artist at heart so it makes sense that his signature/logo is a graffiti tag of his own name as it is easily recognisable of his style... 

I love graffiti, I love the vibrant colours, and the marks you can make with spray paint. Anyone can potentially be a graffiti artist, all you need is a hoodie, spray paint, and a wall...

Maybe I could incorporate spray paint into my logo, or try designing my own graffiti tag that could potentially become my logo... If I use spray paint in my logo then Maybe I could use graffiti in my 3d packaging as well so that I have a consistant style running through my work...

BANKSY:

Banksy is a mystery, He is an artist that spreads his views & opinions on the world through his graffiti work... Unlike other artists, Banksy keeps himself hidden under a mask of his own name... 
"He is perhaps the most famous, or infamous, artist alive. To some a genius, to others a vandal. Always controversial, he inspires admiration and provokes outrage in equal measure."

I love the fact that Banksy's work has a strong messages behind it, sometimes obvious, sometime hidden... He uses stencil's for most of his work so that the process is quick rather than taking hours spraying his designs with spray cans... 

"Design a package that reflects your unique skills and interests as a graphic designer. Develop a branding strategy and logo that communicates your interests as a designer and can be applied to a packaging design"

According to the brief: My Logo & package design should reflect my unique skills and interests as a graphic designer therefore using graffiti is perfect... I love working with mixed media, getting messy & hands on with paint, collaged backgrounds, pen drawings and especially with paint... Therefore it only makes sense that my logo/3d package should incorporate some sort of graffiti/mixed media work if it is going to represent me as a designer...


After I've decided on a logo, I will have a go at creating a stencil of it to use with spray paint...



  

 

 

   

Kid Acne Skateboard Designs:

These designs are simple yet effective... Ed has used his unique character designs therefore making his work easily recognisable, his work stands out a mile off. I love them. 

TimRobot:

Tim Robots main website header:

This header works well because: It tells the viewer exactly what the artist is about/specialisms, his artist name as well as a small illustrated character from his collection of work... Just from looking at this, it's clear to see what TimRobot is about... 

My Logo/Branding needs to be as clear & as easily recognisable as this...

Kid Acne:

Kid acne on the other hand has used his Signature (graffiti tag) as his main header/logo...

unlike Tim robot he hasn't given any other information than his name... although less is more on this occasion. That's because even without any extra information, it's clearly recognisable as Kid Acne's style and therefore any extra info would be pointless...

Both Logo's/Headers work well for the individual artist because it matches their work & style, I need to make sure my Logo does the same...

http://www.behance.net/Gallery/Zoo-York-_-Makeset-Decks/57222

Another example of hand drawn skateboard designs...

These designs stand out because the bright eye catching colours quickly grab your attention... on closer inspection the illustration work itself looks fairly simple and cartoony... The designs have allot of exciting layers using bright bold block colours to create a very unique style... 
These boards were designed for the company 'Zoo York'...

http://abduzeedo.com/100-crazy-skateboard-designs - while looking through this site of skateboard designs I came across an artist called Tim Wolff, aka TimRobot...
 "I’m a freelance graphic designer / illustrator living and working in Berlin, Germany. I do character design, graphic design, customizing and free art."

 

I find his character design style fairly similar to Kid acne... Like Kid Acne, he has a unique style which he carry's through all of his work which makes it easily recognisable...
His set of characters are very strange/individual with a definite graffiti style...

I like the idea of designing my own characters, I think it would be enjoyable and fun to create my own style, and maybe even my own set of imaginary characters...

I found my research about Tim Robot here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/timrobot/

http://timrobot.com/

Development:

after reading through this brief about 100 times I've decided I'm going to focus my work on Illustrations & skateboard design... 
My general audience will be skateboard companies & skateboard designers therefore I will design a package that represents me and shows off my skills as a skateboard designer... 

I'm really interested in hand drawn/illustrated designs, and the freedom that skateboard designers can have with their work... 

I'll start by researching skateboard designs in detail, looking mainly at illustration and hand drawn designs so that I can further research specific companies/designers work that I like, as well as artists I enjoy that may inspire my own designs... 

35 examples of beautiful album covers

"Album cover art is often considered to be one of the “extincted” fields in modern graphics design. In times when digital copies are cheaper and quicker to get, album covers have somehow lost their importance as less and less customers actually buy CDs and LPs in the stores. That’s a pity because album covers can be extremely expressive and convey the message of the album in a number of creative ways. This post attempts to prove exactly that."

"Music and art go hand in hand. And the best way to get a potential buyers’ attention is with an eye catching album cover. We all know you can’t just judge a book by it’s cover but it doesn’t hurt to give a CD a spin based off a sexy piece of art."

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/08/03/35-beautiful-music-album-covers/

I was researching good examples of Illustration Album artwork when I came across a designer called Dan Mumford who specialises in illustration. He has some amazingly detailed work, and a very unique style... I found an album cover he designed for a band called 'The Gallows'







http://www.dan-mumford.com/portfolio

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eLxc7bYpla8

Timelapse Video of Kid acne working on his iconic type face...

I tried adding white highlights to some of the logo's to add a 3D effect, I think it works really well...

These 2 designs definitely stood out from the others, i can see both of these being developed into a Logo for JJDesign...

Further development of the 'JJD' Logo using Illustrator, playing around with the outline/fill colours...

After having the vector shape workshop with allan, and the logo design workshop with lee and jenny, I combined them both and started playing around with my Initials using the pen tool/vector shapes... 
As Well as the record label & Skate company branding strategy  I had another idea that my Brand could be 'Joe Jordan Design' with the simple logo of 'JJD'... I like this idea because it would keep the brand/logo simple, sleek and therefore would give me more options for when I need to chose a design audience rather than just young people who like skateboarding & music... 

Quick experiment on illustrator using vector shapes to create a quick logo, The video below showed me how to add shadow, and shades of light to give the illusion of 3D...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkcElgEPbuc

I found this Simple introduction on how to use vector shapes on illustrator to create logo's... 

Workshop #02 - Logo Design:

In this workshop we were looking at "design permutations of simple 2-letter monograms, using mechanical type and the cut and paste method" to create a Logo out of our initials... The workshop was very useful, and got me thinking about the logo design process... A few of the designs I created during the workshop were very strong so I will develop them further in my sketchbook.. I will re use the techniques we learnt in this workshop using my own type fonts to create various logo designs...

First Attempts at the coca cola inspired graphics... I think the concept works well, I really like the idea of having a black and white BoomBox representing something that is dull and boring with bright contrasting musical waves blasting out of the speakers... The concept of this idea is that Music bring's colour and excitement into everyday life...

I'll try to simplify the design as well as looking at size/scale on Illustrator before I begin to draw up my own version...