Contemporary Comparison

Album cover for Kate Nash's Made of Bricks

Album cover for Puccini's La Boheme (by Alex Steinweiss)

Work like Steinweiss' first album covers ever are hard to come by in contemporary work. They may use simpler methods in creation (such as an outline drawing of a figure), but the cut out styles are rarely found. Contemporary album covers seem to either be much more complicated or a mass of good looking scribbles. The similarities in these two covers are found through content, rather than design, but I feel they are both eyecatching pieces of work.

Maverick

The creator of PalinAsPresident.com what I would describe as a maverick. This flash piece roared through Digg and Reddit and became much adored by those who didn't quite support what Sarah Palin stands for. Although the piece is, of course, greatly exaggerrated (I think), it's use all the labels Palin has aquired in a mashup provides a good deal of entertainment. This is a perfect example of a flash piece that doesn't have to be a video going from start to finish, but rather a interactive. Although the piece doesn't have a completely finished feeling like any story arc does, the subtleties tied into the piece are gold and provide a reasonable sense of satisfaction.

On Inspiration

Flash has been around for a long time, and it's power lies in simplicity. Flash video is at the core of viral internet memes and websites that have been viewed by millions of people. The End of the World was an absolutely huge success and I know people who still quote the phrase "But I am le tired."

Inspiration can come from any medium, the main inspiration for my piece is Edward Gorey. Often called the dark Dr. Seuss, his simple but whimsical drawings and storylines say a lot with very little.

My goal for the flash interactive is to create a simple piece that feels complete. You don't need a lot of colour or fancy images, you just need a good story.

WORKS: Poster Assignment

Artist's Statement
"DMBC Softball Tournament"

The objective of this piece was to create an eye-catching poster that effectively displays information to an event. In this case, the event is a charity softball tournament hosted by a church. My concept was to use silhouettes of softball players to make a modern impression, like the ones in Apple iPod advertisements. The silhouettes represent the idea that anyone can play in this tournament. Anyone can be those people those silhouettes are of. The typeface used is called Coverse Allstars, undoubtedly a play off Converse, the popular sneaker brand. This helps appeal to the younger demographic whom may be familiar with this brand.

This poster targets a demographic from 14 years of age to late 20s who are interested in a light game of softball. Since the tournament is said to be hosted by a church and for a hospital’s charity foundation, one can assume the games will not be taken too seriously. This poster could also potentially target a middle-aged demographic. An older demographic may like to watch the tournament, especially if their children will be playing.

Adobe Photoshop CS3 was used to create this poster. The silhouettes are cutouts of photographs from softball games I took over the summer. I used the magnetic lasso tool to create the general outline of the figures and the pen tool to smooth some edges out. A colour overlay was placed on all the figures create the silhouette effect. To create perspective, I warped the text by increasing the height on one side of the text. This created contrast with the enlarging silhouettes as they created perspective in opposite directions.

My main challenge was creating an appropriate colour scheme. I used a light beige background to get the feel of a retro baseball team. The colours used for the text are triadic variations of the three main primary colours. Choosing the colours of text was difficult, I wasn’t sure what would be an appropriate and whether it would be too much but since it is meant to be a bold poster with a slight vintage edge, I used a darker variation of the primary colours.

The final product was successful as it recreated what I originally visualized. I believe it successfully addresses the target audience and would generate interest in this softball tournament.