OUGD406 - Secret 7' Competition

Secret 7’ is a live brief competition on Talenthouse.

I had the opportunity to choose from 7 music artists’ songs, and produce a 7 inch vinyl sleeve.

These were the options, as well as my initial thoughts on a theme for each:

Public Enemy - 'Harder Than You Think' - Positive outlook, "rapping for the better", the Olympics.

Elton John - 'Bennie and the Jets' - Happiness, classes, colour, piano, love, glasses. 

Nas - 'The Don' - New York, gangsters, diamonds, gold, cigars, money, crime.

Jessie Ware - 'Still Love Me' - Droplets, disjointed construction, angles/ shapes, crystals, minimal. 

HAIM - 'Better Off" - Door, drums, acoustic, hand rendered illustration, piano, scratching on a guitar. 

Laura Marling - 'The Beast' - Warm feeling, acoustics, dreamlike state, hand rendered illustration, "giving up", anger. 

Nick Drake - 'Rider on the Wheel' - Driving, hand rendered illustration, friendly, a wheel. 

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Jessie Ware - 'Still Love Me'

Initial Ideas Sheet: 

I listened to the song again, then compiled a list of ideas that the song provoked:

Droplets
Metal tin
Metallic sounds
80's Synth
Alarm
Eyes
Face
Layers
Disjointed construction
Confusion
Translucency
Anger/ frustration
Dissatisfaction 
Repetition
Leaking
Blowing on a bottle
Choir/ harmony
Love
Progression
Progressive House
Echoe
Disappearing 

I then looked at the lyrics, and took key ideas out of it:

Eyes
Facial expression
Love 
Confusion
Ultimatum 
Being treated badly

I researched into Jessie Ware, and found this interview in the Guardian particularly interesting:

Jessie Ware: 'I'm such a bully about food'

The breakthrough British star of 2012 on Marmite, Lidl – and forcing her vegetarian guitarist to eat meat.

When I sat in my high chair, my mother says my toes used to twiddle excitedly whenever food was coming. So I became really podgy. Super podgy. I broke a family's paddling pool by stepping on the side of it.

My friends were denied biscuits at home but in our house we were allowed the whole tin. There were midnight feasts during sleepovers and then Mum would lay out little tables of food for us to eat for breakfast while we watched cartoons.

I'm like a dog, if I glimpse food I want it. I was born a greedy cow – so much so that mother's nipples would bleed and my poor grandfather, a proud old Jewish man, had to go into the pharmacy and ask for nipple guards.

My mum has always said that I'd remember the first meal of each holiday more than the holidays themselves. Like the divine feta cheese made with nectar honey at the restaurant in Glossa on Skopelos, and the huge sundae which I asked to have with "more cream, please".

Ice cream is my comfort food. Whenever I was sad I was given an ice cream and I'd ask for cream poured on it. My favourite today is Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey, with single or preferably double cream. It's so naughty.

I love Marmite and I'll have it with poached eggs, or anything. It's so versatile. Marmite and marmalade works, in fact everything works with Marmite. It's very reassuring and British and makes me feel I know where I'm at.

I can't eat before I go onstage because I've learnt that burping on stage isn't a good thing. It's all about acid reflux. At night I take Gaviscon Advance which has alginate from seaweed and prevents acid coming back up during a ballad.

I've become one of those annoying people who brings their own food on to planes. You can't go wrong mid-air with crepes. And I'm such a bully about food on tour. I made my vegetarian guitarist eat meat. It's terrible, but he's not going back.

I'm from south London so there aren't many Jews about and I can't get a good bagel. To have a bad bagel – one without the crunch and elasticity of dough, too powdery and without the right colouring – is really upsetting.

I did my dissertation on Kafka. I took a research trip to Prague and ate lots of dumplings.

I'm a Lidl girl. The food they have there is brilliant – really good meat, orange and apple juices and Florentines and excellent olive oil, muesli and Jazz apples.

Key Ideas from Interview:

Biscuits

Nipple Guards

Sundae

Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey Ice Cream

Marmite

Gaviscon Advance

Kafka

LIDL

Ideas

I then produced 30 ideas on design sheets, from the information that I had gathered. 

The first sheet was just ideas relating to droplets, as this was an ongoing theme throughout the whole song. Visually, droplets can also signify crying or emotional pain, which is a key theme in the songs lyrics. 

IMAGE HERE

I then developed my ideas digitally:

Droplet Imagery

I liked the idea of showing a droplet hitting the water, so I experimented with one image that was reflected multiple times:

I felt like this idea was boring and did not suit the song well. Also, I did not take the image, a significant part of the design, therefore did not have the rights for it. 

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Droplet Pattern Designs

I first drew lots of different shapes for the droplet, then chose my favourite to digitally render and involve with repetition. 

I liked the aesthetic of this idea, but I felt like it did not fit with the song. If the song was an indie or acoustic song, I can image these ideas fitting better. 

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Triangulation Ideas - Teardrops

To see how I used this technique, click here to access my context post. 

Triangulation - The process of determining the location of a point by measuring its angles. 

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The reason I liked this technique, is for two reasons:

- The song is about not having an understanding of a relationship, and triangulation could be used to act as a visual metaphor for this feeling. 

- The song uses '80's synth' - style sounds, which reflects directly in the aesthetic of triangulation. Late 80's video games used this low - poly design method, so I wanted the cover to be reminiscent of this. 

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I based these ideas on my initial brainstorm ideas. 

Different teardrop variations, some in more detail than others:

Teardrop variations with different backgrounds: 

I was extremely happy with the overal aesthetic the droplets had, from using the DMesh Software. The lines are sharp with no spacing, and fit into each other perfectly. 

Triangulation Ideas - Jessie Ware and her Interests

I then looked at other ideas using the DMesh Software:

I took my own images of Marmite, in order to replicate my thumb nail ideas, and so that I could have more of a variation:

The images did not have to be good quality, due to them being edited to a stage where the quality would be unrecognisable. 

The song is called "Still Love Me", and so I wanted to look at what Jessie Ware "loves".

The main two quirky things I could find were Marmite and Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey. 

Jessie Ware often appears on the front of her album artwork, so I experimented with two portraits of her, manipulated to an extent that they look almost completely different to the original, but still maintaing Jessie's obvious characteristics. 

Focussing On One Image

I chose to manipulate focus on this  portrait image:

Reasoning: 

- The colours hold depth and the same "cold" feel the song has. 
- The manipulation is detailed enough (particularly with the eyes, nose and mouth) for Jessie Ware to still maintain her beauty and character, but also widespread enough to express the poly geometric effect. 

Cropping

I cropped the original image in order to vary the ways the image could be used. The original image saved as a vector, so I could zoom in and crop without losing any clarity which I could have with pixels. 

Editing the Images: 

1. 

2. 

 3.

The reason I editted the original image again, as oppose to cropping the selected idea post - poly geometric editing, is that I could chose to add more detail or not. For example, the original image had very little density of triangles in the eyes, whereas when I crop it, more detail is needed. 

Crit

Unfortunately, I was too ill to attend college the day of the crit. However, I presented this idea sheet to my classmates, with all 30 of my digitally rendered ideas. I did this as my ideas vary so much, so I wanted to confirm that the route I had taken was appropriate. 

Feedback: 

1. Portrait choice: My classmates confirmed that using the image of Jessie Ware was an appropriate choice, and even confirmed that the cropped variations were a good choice. 

Suggestions: 

Colour Variations :  A few people I asked suggested that I vary the tone and hue, to experiment with the image. I intend to try out variations, and select an outcome that suits the "overall feel" of the song. 

Response to suggestion: 

My favourite edit is 5, as I feel it holds the same depth and ambient feel that the song does. It also reflects it's genre, as house music promoted visually with low saturation, and very little colour. 

2. Clarity in Different Areas: One person I asked gave me the idea of experimenting with adding more detail to certain areas. The eyes and eyebrows already hold lots of detail, but they could hold more. 

Response to Suggestion:
Unfortunately, the programme "D Mesh" doesn't have a zoom function, therefore I couldn't add more detail. 

However, I found a way of adding more detail, through placing the original image over the poly geometric version, and adjusting the opacity. I could also delete areas of the original image, so that only certain areas still held detail. 

My favourite edit is 3 (with a 30 % opacity) , as I feel it is not too similar to the original images, but still holds enough detail. I intend to work with these next. 

Combining both the droplet and the portrait of Jessie Ware: This idea was suggested by my tutor, and an idea which I really liked. 

Response to Suggestion:
Unfortunately, I couldn't simply copy on of the droplets and place it into the images I have worked with above, as it would not fit: 

The next step was to edit the drops into the images, before making them poly geometric. I was unsure as to which was my favourite, so I put this image onto Facebook, to ask the opinion of my friends and family:

Feedback: 

Summary: 1 and 4 seemed to be the favourite. The reason I chose to ask more than the people in my class was that I wanted to get opinions from non - graphic designers. The competition is initially judged by the public, and anyone who can access talent house.

 By asking the people who could possibly vote, I can fit the selected option to their views. Also, by public posting the options, I am making people aware of my entry, meaning that they may want to vote for me when the voting starts. 

Overall, people liked 4 the most, but suggested I change the teardrop. 

Final Image

This is the final image, with the modified colour and detail added. I chose to erase some areas of the original image that were at a low opacity where detail wasn't needed, such as in the cheeks, but kept the subtle difference in the eyes. 

Uploading Image onto Talenthouse:

This is my submitted image, with a description, summarising the process of product, as well as the visual metaphor that it creates. 

Caption: 

Triangulation - The process of determining the location of a point by measuring its angles.

"Still Love Me" is about understanding the complication of knowing where you stand within a relationship. Triangulation acts as a visual metaphor for this feeling, due to not knowing your emotional location.

I chose to study the first sounds and lyrics of the song; the sound of droplets and the lyrics: "See it In Your Eyes, See It In Your Face".

The use of a Poly Geometry was chosen to mimic the disjointed structure of the song, as well as showing the "80's Synth" - esque sounds in the song as an aesthetic, reminiscent of late 80's video game production.

Combining a portrait of Jessie Ware and Poly Geometry expresses her collaborative style with experimental electronic producers such as SBTRKT & Julio Bashmore.

Getting Into The Top 50

Fortunately, I was lucky enough to finish in the Top 50, with my design being exhibited and sold at the exhibition: