Process Documentation and Journal by Gary Tang
2/16
Introduction of the project. Consider how to meaningfully include elements like timeline, pull quotes, callouts, etc. while balancing imagery with blocks of information.
Created a preliminary moodboard for research & reference.
Gathered some referential posters from the Swiss Punk and Vaporwave trends. I’m interested in exploring the vaporwave aesthetic because it appears to be a 2000s revival of the look Greiman designed.
Poster Themes:
Breaking of barriers, exploring past boundaries, breaking free of convention/the grid, trailblazing in the digital landscape. Ideally, feature Greiman’s eccentric personality somehow.
Assembling a Kit of Parts
- Distill your essay down to a few text blocks.
- Explore different looks for your timeline
10 Sketches
Thoughts On The Process So Far
New Wave is a design aesthetic that feels counterintuitive to everything I know about design. It’s important to remember that everything April Greiman created was revolutionary for its time, even if its execution may seem rudimentary by modern standards. I should be trying to push much farther outside my current ideas, because modernist principles aren’t going to do much good here.
Technique & Craft Explorations
Interim Feedback
- Your interpretation of her work is still superficial. There is a depth & interconnection in her collage work that you have yet to hit on.
- Keep it playful! See what/where you can push it further.
- Cut parts from her work to make something new
- Work with scale! The size relation between your visual elements is too similar, and it is inhibiting the visual depth.
- Don’t leave any swath of image untouched. Get into every inch.
- Combine the “put-togetherness” of your composition with the colors of your other.
- Focus on experimental typesetting & break up conventional typography rules.
Revisited Iteration (Initial & Revisited)
Crit Notes
- Keep in mind the use of negative space and scale when inserting pictures.
- Make her name more prominent
- Density and scale are related. How can you lead the eye and allow it to rest?
- Cohesion starts with the color scheme.
Thoughts
Main points I aimed to hit in depicting Greiman’s work included trans-dimensionality of image, whimsical placement of elements, and a defiance of the grid standard. There is a healthy blend of work Greiman has done and images I included on my own volition. Composition was a fun exercise in using the suggestion of silhouette and movement in my distorted pictures to pull the eye. Given enough time, I’d like to find more pictures and fill the space in even more interesting ways
Final Thoughts
I chose Greiman because her style was so distinctly chaotic, yet widely acknowledged as an accomplished designer. I hoped to understand something about her practice in order to include that kind of organized chaos into my own work.
In attempting to replicate this, I noticed that a lot of her images defied the collage process. They had been so carefully interwoven into her work that extracting them left them looking incomplete.
It was, however, very fun to play with the egregious and blatant cutting and pasting of image. I felt as though I was breaking some kind of rule by not attempting to smooth over the jagged cuts, and instead using them to play up the geometry of Greiman’s style.
