start talking…

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project: your own interpretation on the ‘race exhibit’ at the kalamazoo valley museum

the ‘race exhibit’ examines the history of racism in the united states. based on what was highlighted, i concluded that by starting a conversation about race, a complete revolution in ideologies could very well end racism.

by luck and utter genius, i found this empty ‘truth’ newspaper box. i wanted to use this as the main image for my billboard piece. here, i am conveying the idea that change happens when becoming educated on the history and truth. the photo is dark to show the obscurities around such old schools of thought and action. the typography adds in white, conveying the idea of ‘shining light’ on the situation, opening the doors to change.

love ain’t dead

japan is breaking my heart. big time.

barber shop series

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i’ve been wanting to do a barber shop series for quite a while now. today my buddy took me up to his barber shop to get my fix…

big thanks to jermaine and bill for inviting me and to the gentlemen

(and lady) who let me photograph them!

redesign…

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i’ve been working on my final project for my ‘history of graphic design’ class. we are creating a visual timeline of graphic design. i’ve always been interested in propaganda campaigns, for both content and design. for my project i am creating a magazine which will discuss the periods during world war one and two, the korean war, and vietnam. the spreads will showcase actual posters from each war, as well as showcase my own redesign of poster campaigns.

here are two examples of the syphilis campaign during 1941-1945…

during world war two (1939-1945), the works progress administration (the federal art project) was in charge of health service announcement campaigns. apparently, peeps were gettin’ sick…

i want to recreate these posters to highlight what was happening during these times, but with a modern flare.

here is my redesign.

reclaim your state

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i live in michigan. shit is hitting the fan.

simply created from a personal interest in the current state of affairs in michigan. i have changed the date and place to indicate the rally’s organized in the area. it is also available in spanish.

a metaphorical approach

in collaboration with ryan hunt.

a design analysis:

an archetypal paradigm – using symbols to communicate the story.

our problem was to to create a scene based on the russian folklore “the fox and the cat” .  our process started by having a clear understanding of the story, but also of  russian symbology and culture.  we decided to the solve the problem by creating the scene to understand the cat and his roll with metaphors.

further, we used sharp angles and diagonal lines to convey movement and action, but also to guide the viewer  throughout the piece to understand the relevance of each of the metaphors we are representing.

here, we show the fox, cat, and food as the basic premise to the story.  we use these metaphors to convey the message(s) in the folklore. to further our constructivist movement, we took our illustrations and used a basic cut-out tool to give them sharp angles as well. we wanted them to look more like symbols than actual illustrations of the fox and cat to convey the representation of people, nature, and the order of things.

which brings us to our use of numbers.  to start, we used numbers to help guide the viewer, but also to help understand what each of these ‘characters’ or metaphors stands for.

1 – the fox.  we use only one fox. the fox acts alone. she is the mastermind of the story. she manipulated the forest with her calculating ways, but also with her sharp female intuition.  one is the beginning. a creative approach to the problem.

2 – steak. representing needs, food, survival, power, prestige. two represents the fundamental idea of division. we use two steaks to convey the division of people by which need, survival, and power will separate.

3 – the cat. male, opportunistic, lazy, basic survival instincts. the cat is a trickster. he is smart and will uses opportunity to gain control. we use the ‘nested doll principle’ to convey that the cat becomes many things to address problems.  in the story, he knows that the fox will eat him, so, he becomes ‘the governor’ to take control of the situation (though the fox is much smarter).  three represents thought, word, deed – past, present, future – me, myself, i.

4 – the path on with the story is played. to symbolize the action of cause and effect – one with the other. to finalize our design. four represents nature – law – order.

color – we chose blue for the background to convey a natural feeling – and also of movement.

our color scheme for our symbols are all representative of each other. the fox is the color of the fox, the steak is the color of steak, and cat is the color of the fox’s eyes, to convey (food) and the shell of the russian nested doll is also ‘food’. overall, the fox could have eaten the cat, but the cat provides much more food in the end.

 

thanks

this poster was created to convey the message of the effects of society and mass media on body image. i simply used an image of a television as a head and sketched a body. i used a brush made from a photograph i took to place the word ‘thanks’ in the bottom to convey the tongue-in-cheek humor i’m going with in this piece.