#penguindesignawards

When out in Brixton today I took some inspiration from books covers in the Bookmongers bookshop. What drew me to these covers was the bold use of block shapes, colours and use of print. I would like to recreate some of my designs using screen print and Lino techniques...

Japanese bad omens can come in many forms. When reading Norwegian Wood and analysing its context I began to draw on some imagery which would relate to death and funerals, whilst also touching upon traditional Japanese ritual and symbols which are supposedly unlucky.

The first symbol which I came across was putting your chopsticks upright in a bowl of rice, this is considered to be taboo and unlucky as in Japanese culture this is how one serves rice to the death. Therefore, this symbol is heavily likened to funerals.

Another Japanese ritual which I came across when doing my research was the tradition of the tea ceremony and the use of Raku pots. Raku pots relate to the concept of Wabi Sabi and Raku directly translates to enjoyment, happiness or comfort. The irregularity of the pots is carried through to the motions of the tea ceremony where Japanese people appreciate the charm and beauty in imperfection.

Relating to the theme of Wabi Sabi, I am interested in working with the idea of chopsticks and regularity with a break in the pattern. For example, I could explore the idea of a line of chopsticks and one being broken, crossed or placed upside down. 

PENGUIN DESIGN AWARDS-

This was the completed entry that I sent off to the competition. It was very last minute as, believe it or not, the final composition came to me in a dream. When I woke up I had a couple of hours before the deadline so I decided to go for it just in case.

PENGUIN DESIGN AWARDS-

For the penguin design awards I decided to have a stab at Animal Farm by George Orwell as I’d read it in English when I was younger. I started off by finding key quotes and I quite liked one about “The distinguishing mark of man is the hand, the instrument with which he does all his mischief.” From this I decided to incorporate the hand with the windmill since the windmill is ultimately the downfall of the animals.

My main aim of the task was to try and work with photoshop more as although I have a tablet I’m not very good at using it. I made lots of my own textures and scanned them in and started to play around with cut-outs as I had seen Belle do some really lovely work with textured paper cutting out shapes. I quite liked how they looked and I think my work definitely benefitted from having the texture rather than just flat colour.

With these designs I'm using my best idea to now experiment with text and colour. 

After deciding that I wanted to use the lined paper in the background, I then refined my cover by rewriting the title and then editing it in photoshop so that the lines were sharper.

Gif

Design Competition:

It’s open. Please read the brief. Start your thinking.