Background

No doubt it’s easy to get caught up with the trend towards the “latest of the latest.” Whether it’s a new product from Apple, some new internet meme, a new film, new app, new album – we’re surrounded and obsessed with whatever is new. This project will instead look back on what is old, what’s already happened, and what probably has been forgotten.
We will continue our investigations of the “cut-and-paste” aesthetic through one more project. While the last project used cut-and-paste to evoke “monsters,” this piece will consider the aesthetics of a pre-digital age. You will essentially be creating a portion of a cut-and-paste-style typeface.
Keep in mind that one of our central issues is to use Photoshop as a tool, but also to create work that doesn’t look “Photoshopped.” In other words, we want this work to stand on its own as a compelling design; something that, first and foremost, will draw attention to a specific message.

 The Basic Project

Using Photoshop, create a 24” High x 18” Wide type-driven “Public Service Announcement” (PSA) which highlights the importance of a historical event that is not particularly well known. The design should be eye-catching, dynamic, and intriguing from both up close and at a distance.

The Less Basic

The piece itself will be an oversized type-driven poster which promotes some historical event that might be of public interest.
Think about obscure events – occurrences that are perhaps less commonly known – and consider how you might get an audience interesting in your design. You will be assigned a random ten-year span of time, and you are welcome to use (everyone’s favorite) Wikipedia to uncover significant dates and events.
Part of the goal of the project is to create an interesting design, but a large part of the project is being able to tell a story in only a few short words. You are welcome to make contemporary references in order to get your point across – in fact, comparisons between the past and present may actually be a very good way to tell your story. What can you tell me about the year 1867 that I would really care about? Think about how you get people interested. You’ve got to lure in your audience – how will you do it?

The Concept

In order to get interest and attention about your important historical event, it’s likely that you will need to present it in some clever way. Both the visuals and text will need to have
a hook – a “headline-esque quality” that catches the eye. You can’t just create a poster that says the date and the event – your piece needs a bit of intrigue in order to get people to look.
For example, consider the perfectly random year 1913, in which Grand Central Station in New York was built. How do you spark some interest around this bit of trivia?

How about some other random events from the same year?

The Catch

There’s always a catch, right? The idea is not to make the project “harder,” but instead to see how you can come up with creative solutions and expand beyond your comfort zone. As you start to work in new ways, your designs will develop a broader aesthetic range. Therefore, pay close attention to these very specific guidelines:
1) A primary component to be featured in the poster will be text, and you must have at least twelve (12) “hand-crafted” letters in your project. This hand-crafted “font” should be the central focus of your poster. There can be additional imagery and elements, but this text should stand out from afar.
2) For the “hand-crafted” words NO ACTUAL “TYPE,” masking, or hand-drawn fonts will be allowed. All text/letters in your piece must be pieced together and CREATED from other existing media. In other words, you can cobble together images, photos, text, or any other media to make actual letters for your actual poster. The objects, bits, and pieces that you use should hopefully add an additional layer of meaning to your project.
3) NO WEB PHOTOGRAPHY can be used in this project. NONE. You cannot use ANYTHING from the web (that’s right, NOTHING!). Only scanned-in elements will be acceptable for this project. Don’t cheat and print something out from the web and re-scan it. So what does that mean? It means everything you use must originate from a previously printed source. Once you scan it in, you can distort it, cut it, tweak or reassemble it in any way you like. It’s likely you will create letters from lots of little pieces – the pieces you scan can have a direct or indirect relationship with your actual subject matter. (Hint: Start looking for books – visit the library, or visit a local thrift store to get started).
4) The imagery you use in addition to the type can be intact, it can be cut-and-paste, it can be integrated however you like. The only thing, of course, is that it must also be scanned. Seeing as there is no guarantee you will find the exact images you want, you may need to do some cutting and pasting to tell your story. The imagery you use does NOT need to be from the time period you are depicting (i.e. you could use scans from the latest issue of Thrasher magazine to create a piece about the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower).

Deadlines

• Wednesday, October 1, Three concepts (bring sketchpads)
• Monday, October 6, Digital Checkpoint
• Wednesday, October 15, Final Critique