OUGD405 | STUDIO BRIEF 4 | EXPERIMENTATION

I decided on choosing Durham University for the location of this hypothetical talk; the reason for this is that one of my close friends does criminology there and was able to tell me the room number and where abouts it was, which makes it a little more personal and authentic. I also researched people who have previously done a talk about serial killers and found Dr Kathy Charles, who's name sounded pretty legitimate. 

At first, I started messing with textures on photoshop, and whilst placing one, my entire file glitched and produced this:

I have no idea what happened, but it looks pretty rad, and mental. I like how the colours reflect a TV with no signal. This 'accident' lead me to want to try out using very bright colours to see if I could achieve this type of image.

This was the first idea I came up with, and looking back at it retrospectively; it's crap. I tried to experiment with different colours and add 'collage' like brushes and scans. I also wanted to try and incorporate geometric shapes, similar to those in my research. I think this could work better with different colours and a nicer image, my hand just looks disgusting. The idea behind the colour was to make it less 'creepy', as this was the aim I was going for. I don't think I did this effectively, I think it looks really bad! The only part I like about this design is the black ripped edge, as I love anything that looks 'arty' and messy. I think after this design I wanted to abandon the vivid colours, I don't think it reflects the message I want to portray.

 Here I tried it out using red and keeping the design a little sparser. I still didn't think it was striking enough and was very mediocre. I like the colours together though and the silhouette of the trees achieves that level of eerie-ness paired with the red.

Here I have messed with my scanner and chose to scan my hand. It was a bit of a spontaneous decision but I always work in this way and I think spontaneity is pretty fun. I felt like the image of my hand looked a lot cleaner and professional than my last designs, and I liked how it looked like it was pushing against the screen. I also used my scan of the ripped paper just see see how it turned out but it's pretty boring. There's nothing contextual on it or anything to signify Jeffrey Dahmer.

I started fresh, after having a break, and decided to find a new angle I could take it. 

 Here I scanned in my illustration of bones, as Jeffrey Dahmer used to collect some of the bones of his victims... I think this looks creepy but the fact that it's illustrated softens it, as it isn't as realistic. I think they do look quite striking and interesting, but they definitely look a lot more subtle than a real skeleton. I experimented with the ripped paper and inverted it. I prefered it with a light background rather than black as the shadows are darker and more visible. I tried this colour theme after reflecting on my research, especially the design work for 'The Dahmer Files', and there's something about this colour that makes me think of the word 'retro', and Dahmer's case is quite dated now. I feel like yellow is just a colour that conveys him, I can't quite justify why this is but maybe it is because of the fact I think it's a pretty retro colour and he wore giant 'retro' glasses.

Here I've experimented further with my hand image, and incorporated the mustard colour. I wanted to create around 3 posters, possibly of different sizes, so I thought they should work as a set. I think this looks really cool, especially the one with the mustard yellow accents. Again, it's quite subtle and sets the right vibe without having to use a load of blood and guts. It also looks professional to suit the name 'Dr Kathy Charles'.

 Here I took some inspiration from perezramerstorfer. I liked how the head was just floating in the middle and felt it would be appropriate to use an image of Dahmer in one of my designs. Here I used some of the sharpie scans that I did:

I made each of them into a photoshop brush so I could use them freely. I like the 'collage' effect as I've mentioned before.

I experimented with a black background but felt it looked too dark and didn't match my other ideas.

I liked how the title text looked set to each side of the poster, however I like the one with the white background that was centred as it just adds extra focus to what it's actually communicating. Looking back over my work I do also like the 3rd image as the text is easy to focus on because of the white banner and it looks a lot cleaner.

The fonts I've chosen to use are bebas and letter gothic std. Letter gothic std reminds me of typewriters and, again, I personally think it looks pretty retro, but can also appear modern and not dated, thats what I like about it. Bebas is a very nice font that's easy to grab people's attention and looks excellent mixed with letter gothic.

These experiments have helped a lot in discovering the colour scheme that worked the best, and seeing what fonts to use. I struggled finding a solid idea at first but with perseverance I felt I produced some suitable work towards my brief.