Typography Portrait: A graphic consisting of purely typographic characters on top of a clean, non-distracting background. My portrait is constructed on a foundation of terms that all work to define me as my own individual.
Shepard Fairey “Streetscape” Portrait: Heavily inspired by Fairey’s contributions to President Obama’s “Hope” campaign, my portrait encapsulates the design process of various street artists (such as Fairey and Banksy) in taking a pre-established image or medium and adding a “twist” in order to convey a different meaning or manipulate the context in which it is presented and consequently identified.
Andy Warhol “Pop Art” Portrait: Influenced by Warhol’s contributions to the pop art movement of the 1960’s, my graphic takes a single subject, in this case my own portrait, and utilises repetition and a variation of assigned colours to pre-established levels of value.
Designer’s Statement
This term’s student-directed assessment required me to construct three individual self-portraits that demonstrated my understanding of personal identity. Each portrait is expected to demonstrate my capacity to identify and replicate pre-established design principles, techniques and processes used by professional artists and designers. While I was expected to create one “Typography Portrait”, I was given the freedom to choose from the works of a variety of designers to influence the style of my remaining two portraits. I selected Shepard Fairey and Andy Warhol as my two influences.
For my first graphic, my typography portrait, I chose a rather clean, uncomplicated aesthetic. Because I was dealing with almost 100% text, I decided to take a simplistic approach to my use of type and colour in order to produce a final product with legible content. As a foundation for my portrait, I created a base layer composed of a single paragraph, duplicated multiple times, consisting of various words, names, and adjectives that I felt covered every inch of my personality (not just the side I generally want people to see). To suit my uniform, “lines of text”-style, I selected just one typeface called “Komika Axis” as it provided a sense of “slanted formality”, a description that I feel could just as appropriately define my personality and psychology. Restricting the greyscale values of my own face to the fill of the text itself, I succeeded in making my face appear as if it were constructed from the words, adding that additional layer of “me”, that the typography portrait allowed for. In addition to that, I added a basic, non-textured fill of my favourite colour as the backdrop for my graphic.
My second graphic, heavily inspired by Shepard Fairey’s artistic contributions to U.S. President Obama’s electoral campaign, presents my face in a very bold, strong and saturated layout, much like the original. Utilising a technique almost solely reliant on Adobe Illustrator’s Layers and Eraser tool, I utilised the same colour scheme and the same font in order to effectively replicate Obama’s portrait. In order to make this artwork truly reflect my own individuality however, I applied a process in which many famous streetscape artists are known for: replicating a well-known image, in this case Fairey’s own graphic, and implementing a “twist” in order to reverse or alter the message it conveys. Achieving this, I altered the key word from “Hope” to “Nope”, a word a little more cynical and less heroic, a term I believe better suits my own person and effectively contradicts the “high and mighty” look my face is presented in, creating an interesting dynamic.
My third portrait, inspired by Andy Warhol’s pop art from the 1960’s and onwards, strongly utilises themes of repetition and an alteration of colour to create a vibrant and almost artistically chaotic piece. Once again relying on Adobe Illustrator’s toolset, in this case the Image Trace tool, I constructed this piece through the use of duplicating three main objects: a single-colour fill background and two varying levels of solid tone, and adjusting the colours accordingly. Quite similar to Fairey’s methods, Warhol was known for taking pre-established images and altering them to fit a specific artistic style. In order to replicate this, I used my own identity, the same image (much like Warhol’s work) and modified it accordingly.
In summary, these three portraits all successfully meet the design brief in demonstrating my ability to identify, adapt and replicate the various techniques and methods utilised by renowned artists and designers. My typography portrait, my Fairey-inspired streetscape graphic and my Warhol-influenced piece all demonstrate my understanding of personal identity and exhibit my ability to harness this understanding and apply it to aesthetically pleasing designs.
LUNACY DESIGNS 