Production & Outcomes

Interpretation

The same stories have been told thousands of times. Sometimes they give us new twists, help us understand more and sometimes they are just the same old story with little originality. History is changing, nature is changing and the way we approach to the world is changing with time. There are many enduring and famous stories and of course those ones have the most interpretations.

I will look at the tragic story of Romeo and Juliet and it’s interpretations. There have been many versions of this story but the most famous one is clearly William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. It is believed that he wrote the story between 1591 and 1595 and was first published in 1957. Although even that time it was hardly an original theme. If we only mention the closest versions, in 1554 Matteo Bandelo published his Giuletta and Romeo in the second volume of his ‘Novelle’ which was translated to French and in 1562 with some changes Arthur Brooke translated it into English. Shakespeare follows this version closely but adds more details into the characters.  It was trend among playwrights and writers in those days to publish works based on Italian novelles. Everyone knows the story: too teenagers fall in love but can’t be together because of their family’s discordance, at the end they both commit suicide. 

 

There have been many other versions based on Shakespeare’s such as West Side Story or Shakespeare in Love. One of the most recent interpretations is the movie, Romeo+Juliet directed by Baz Luhrmann. He kept the content and the original dialogues but put the act in a modern time and place where the Prince is the Head of the Police and they fight with guns instead of swords.

In the first act the Capulets and the Montagues get into a fight which scene in the film was filmed like they were in a western.  Mercutio and Romeo

 

Both versions trying to refer to their time, the modern version is modern to us but it won’t be that new in 100 years. It all depends on where and when we live.

 

Medium

I chose Michel Gondry to write about as he is one of my favourite artist. I think his works demonstrate really well how you can make non-commercial as well as commercial works and still stay a 100% yourself and create outstanding things.

He started making music videos when he was in the band called Oui Oui. One of these videos caught the attention of Bjork which led him to direct her music video, Human Behaviour.

 

They worked together on many projects after this one. Later he directed videos for bands like The White Stripes, Chemical Brothers, The Vines, Radiohead and Beck.

His style is very unique. He has a surreal point of view and his works are very childlike. He also gets a lot of inspiration from his dreams. That last one comes out the best in his film, The Science of Sleep in which a young man struggles to keep contact with reality because of his vivid dreams and imagination.

In Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind we travel through the main character’s memories. Again Gondry creates a beautiful imaginary place which is surreal but still realistic.

 

Besides his films he also made many TV commercials for Smirnoff Vodka, Gap, Air France, Coca Cola etc. A good example how commercials can be creative and enjoyable to watch.

 

In 2006 he made his debut as an installation artist at Deitch Projects In New York. It was called, “The Science of Sleep: An Exhibition of Sculpture and Pathological Creepy Little Gifts" It included props from his film, The Science of Sleep and bizarre little gifts that the artist would have given to various women in his life who were/are important to him in some way.

It was his music videos that made him internationally recognized at the first place but the TV commercials he made also get him a big critical recognition all around the world. He is the director of the commercial that has won the most prizes, Levi’s Drugstore from 1995.

Legibility

It is quiet important that if we see a text, an advert or an artwork we can understand and don’t get lost in them because they were simply badly designed. Legibility is relevant whenever we do a presentation at work or an essay for school. Although legibility doesn’t mean you can’t experiment and play around a bit with the typefaces, the sizes or the colours.

There are obvious facts; if it’s too small people won’t be able do read it, if there are too many different types they might get confused and just won’t bother even start.

An example for a really badly designed poster

You can try new things out but this is another example of someone who didn’t do his/her research before creating this flyer. You have to know your typography before creating a text. The first thing to look at when making the decision is the content. What is the text about? Is it a children’s book, and interview with a shopkeeper or a flyer for a beauty therapist? Also the text has to work with the photos and illustrations that go with it. The colour is another important part, it’s the easiest to read when the white typeface is on black background or the black typeface is on white background. You have to be careful with yellow and other vivid colours.

This text is using many different types but you can see that this time the designer knew a lot more about typography and could put the different types together beautifully.

“Less is better.” This saying is not always true but it’s true most of the times.

Visual Hierarchy

It goes hand in hand with legibility. In a text you have to highlight whatever part is more important than the rest, if everything is the same size, same colour and type the reader’s eye can get tired especially when reading a longer text. The title has to come out, so to start with the reader knows what is the content going to be. Depending on the importance, to highlight the different parts in the text you can change the colours, the sizes and you can change where to put them; up in the corner, in the middle, etc. Obviously bigger typefaces catch the attention more likely than smaller ones. People might get confused when there is a lot of information on one page but if it’s designed well they find it easy to get through. If there isn’t a visual hierarchy they won’t know where to start reading or what to look at first, their eyes might jump from one corner to another without actually finishing reading anything on the page, poster, menu, illustration, etc.

Probably the most important place in the design industry to do your job well. Road signs. They have to use big and easily readable types so even if you are moving fast you can read them without concentrating on them too much. Every colour has it’s meaning so even without reading the text or looking at the illustration on the sign the driver will know from a bigger distance what it can be about. Red is usually warning you about something; white-on-brown direction signs are for tourist attractions, etc.

Links:

http://thinkdesignblog.com/inspiration-type-designs.htm

Research & Inspiration

Anything can be inspiring. A tree, a house, the people you know, people you have never seen before. Inspiration is one thing, you have got the idea which is great for a start but you have to go deeper. You have to explore the subject. That is how you get to know more and more about it and the range of possibilities and ideas will get wider and wider.

Many things inspire me, to be honest it is hard to tell what exactly the source in most cases is, sometimes you might not even realize where the idea came from. I love to go to those proper old English pubs, just sit there and watch the people; I think the whole atmosphere of those places is fantastic, how the past and present meets together and it works. Other places I love to go and really miss them, is the underground clubs in my home city, Budapest. What they do there is, they take an abandoned building, what no one wants to use and they just let it go to rack a ruin. They decorate those places with old furniture that people donate, old lamps, pictures and other bits and bobs. The walls are covered with the works of artists from all around the country and from abroad. The best thing is that the people create these places together, that is why they are so eclectic.

Instant - one of the newest ones right in the city centre

Szimpla-kert - this place has been there since I can remember, I think they have the biggest collection of antique furniture and anything else you can think of

These clubs not only do concerts and parties but they organize a lot of art events as well as charity ones, you can go to a yoga lesson and lot of other things.

For the magazine project, the only criteria we had is, that is has to be about Birmingham. It could be anything that has any connections to the city. We decided with my group that we are going to write about the visual culture of the city which gave us a lot of possibilities. One topic that I am involved in is about the architecture in the city. Birmingham can be proud of its various types of buildings. I was always more interested in the older buildings, so I am doing that part. First I thought I am going to go around the city and just take photos of anything I like, and then I went into it a bit deeper. I chose a few of them and looked into their history. Why were they built? What is the use of it today or if they don’t use it what are they planning to do with it? In Birmingham there are a lot of beautiful, old buildings that are just standing there alone, being forgotten.

 

The other topic I am doing is about J.R.R. Tolkien. Though he was born in South Africa he grew up in Birmingham. The reason I wanted to write about him is because he got a lot inspiration from the city for his stories. Many buildings and landscapes inspired the images for things like the dark towers or “Hobbition” in “The Hobbit”. I am trying to develop my drawing skills, so I am not using a photograph for this topic. 

Perrott's Folly as some say has inspired the images of the dark towers. I draw the tower and tried to illustrate what he might have imagined while writing that scene in his book

It is a good thing to use the internet, magazines, and books for research but you have to get out there! I came to live in England only a few months ago so I have to find places to go. At the moment nature is probably my biggest source of inspiration because I don’t live in the big city, I live close to the country side which is a big change for me but I like it. Wherever you are you have to make the best out of it, have a look around and you will be surprised of the amount of things that can give you great ideas.

Links:

http://www.instant.co.hu/en 

http://www.szimpla.hu/ 

http://corvinteto.hu/english.php 

http://blublu.org/