Firstly, review your visual ideas based on from the previous exercise through a process of critical evaluation. Which ideas are you drawn to? Which ideas have ‘legs’ – possible interesting outcomes which are worth pursuing? Often the ideas which are strongest are those which have depth, or many layers of association. Perhaps you are intuitively drawn to a particular idea. Select a few ideas you would like to push further. Use your learning log to record your thoughts.
Now, do you need to undertake any research to help move your selected ideas on? The form your research will take depends on the individual elements of your idea. Find source material that helps informs your ideas. For example, by doing objective drawings or taking photographs, to understand your subject better, and to consider aspects of composition. You can use both primary and secondary sources of research in this way. Research feeds into the development of your visual work, informing and advancing your ideas. Document this phase of the work accordingly.
The developing your ideas stage is about building on your initial ideas by reworking them, adding the visual or other insights gathered through your research, and testing out different versions or possibilities. Spend 45 minutes developing the possibilities of one of your ideas. How many different ways can you visualise this?
If you want to develop a broader range of ideas, then repeat the previous exercise to generate more possibilities, potentially using a different phrase as a starting point. Use your learning log to document this process of review, research and development.
Visualising your ideas is the culmination of all your preliminary work in which you work up some more developed visual sketches and ideas. This artwork can be hand-drawn illustrations, photographs, and/or include typography. The presentation can be a little rough around the edges but should show the main elements of your designs. Select the strongest variation of your ideas from the previous research and development exercise to start exploring how you can visualise them within a mock-up.
Use your learning log to document these research and development stages, and to reflect on the process and your results.
Review
Looking at the thumbnails and ideas from the last exercise and contrary to my initial thought “The oldest trick in the book” had, what I thought, generated to more interesting and less cliché ideas. I thought that the link between the word ‘trick’ and its link to the oldest profession. Whether this would be to red light or the more seedy side of the business, I need to do some more research into the subject and how the terms ‘oldest profession’ and ‘trick’ to generate some ideas and see whether an innocent take on the subject or more salubrious imagery would be best.
Research
I started with the phrase ‘oldest profession’ and tried to find its origin. I found that the phrase referring to prostitution is a recent one:
The oldest profession in the world (or the world’s oldest profession) is a phrase that, unless another meaning is specified, refers to prostitution. However, it did not acquire that meaning universally until after World War I. Formerly, various professions vied for the reputation of being the oldest.
This was a surprise to me as I assumed that the phrase had been around for a lot longer. However, this didn’t deter me from pursuing this course. The next logical step was to look at the actual history of prostitution.
Prostitution, the practice of engaging in relatively indiscriminate sexual activity, in general with someone who is not a spouse or a friend, in exchange for immediate payment in money or other valuables. Prostitutes may be female or male or transgender, and prostitution may entail heterosexual or homosexual activity, but historically most prostitutes have been women and most clients men.
Source: Encyclopedia Britannica
I then looked up the actual meaning of ‘oldest trick in the book’:
Said to mean that people should have expected something dishonest or unfair that someone has done because it is a very common or obvious thing to do
“Well, that’s the oldest trick in the book” – to blame someone else for your problems.
Developing ideas
From my research a few things caught my eye. Some of the images on my Pinterest board looked promising. However, I didn’t have any idea of how to use them! I also wanted to keep the red light in there somewhere too, whether that be the colour or using the lamp imagery. Images that stood out to me from my research were:
I went back to Procreate…
Of these ideas I liked the imagery of the prostitute with the eyes blacked out, the calling cards and the prostitute being picked up by a car. I wasn’t sure which to use so I thought I would try and combine them. I moved into Photoshop to see what I could do.
Visualizing ideas
The first thing I wanted to do was to try and recreate the halftone effect of one of the images I had found on Pinterest. I used an image of a man picking up a prostitute in his car and changed the image mode to bitmap and played with the settings until I was satisfied with the result. I then recreated another element from my research and blacked-out the eyes of both figures.
It then needed some colour. I added a pink/red background colour, but the image wasn’t as clear with the background colour. So I added a white box behind the halftone image but in front of the background.
I liked the way this was looking. It had that fanzine/homemade feel. I now needed some type.
I have recently been following an artist called Roy Cranston. He uses a lot of experimental typography which looks irregular and distinctive and I thought it would would work well for this cover.
The shadows of the car in the image gave a great vertical axis to work with which I lined up with the black box covering the woman’s eyes.
I added the title of the book in good old Helvetica in different weights and sizes and also distorted it by duplicating parts of the type using the marquee tool and offsetting them.
With the type added, the design looked a little unbalanced so I decided to add some more black bars. I aligned these these with the text and the original black bars.
At this point I was happy with the way it was looking apart from the flat pink/red areas. Initially I put a picture of red light district windows behind but I didn’t like it. I then tried it with the calling card collage behind and that was the one.
I was really happy with the design and decided to ask for feedback from my peers. The feedback was mostly positive with only one concern about the word ‘book’ being too close to the bottom of the page when it came to printing.
I went on to mock it up as a book cover.
Conclusion
I am surprised where this exercise took me. I initially wasn’t that taken with this exercise and found it hard to get going. However, once I had some inspiration and imagery to work from I enjoyed it and I hope that this shows in the final piece.
craig519809.home.blog 