Pink floyd dark side of the moon.

Pink Floyd's dark side of the moon album cover is one of the most iconic images of all time and certainly the best ever album cover. This design has now become a iconic image in history and is a must have image for anyone interested in graphic design like me. The reason why i think it really works is because it is unusually, Bright, colourful and simplistic. You don't have to have something that is all singing and dancing for it to be interesting and clever. In fact the with it being simple with white and black background it really draws your eye into it which is a element that i need to have on my glass manifestation design. Also the use of bright colors in this is not too much or over used it is just enough to liven the artwork up. Thats why this design has become so iconic- as nothing is design iconic its the product of it. But without a good philosophy, or element behind the work it never work. The simplisticness this album cover is what has made it so bold. And why it will go down in history as one of the all time greats!

Although the light prism isn't actually his design initially and has derived from the scientific use of it, However Storm made a bold graphical representation of it for the album. But the scientific use of it is when light is shone through a prism, it shows the lights dispersion showing the color components of the light which is obviously red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet.

Actually the philosophy and meaning behind this design is quite interesting. As we all know this design was done for the band Pink floyds album dark side of the moon and was by Storm Thorgerson the bands graphic designer. Storm Thorgerson is a quite famous artist who has worked on artwork  for artists such as Led Zeppelin, Black sabbath, Europe and Muse. As the bands graphic designer at the time he was approached saying they need a new album cover for dark side and for him not to 'Murder their tune'. In which he said "he wentaway listens to the album and bits of the studio time and was his job to reinterpreted". He then found decided that the artwork need to symbolise the "madness of the lyrics. Andsomething rick ( Richard wright the one of the bands singer and songwriters) said to him. he said “Could we not have one of your funny pictures, Storm?” and he replied “What do you mean? That’s what I do. Pictures. How about a change?” “But I don’t do graphics.” He said “Well, why is it a challenge?” So he was basically dared into doing something out of his comfort zone which is something i could take on board in my own artwork. 

Originally Storm came up with a silver surfer design from the marvel comics riding a wave as he thought the wave symbolised the pink floyd fans at the time rather well. However this design was turned down by the band 

T pea

The T and pea design for me is quite interesting and interacts with its target audience in a unusual way, that makes them have to think for a second about what the poster is about. I have taken the idea from looking at the old vw adverts, that follow the same style in being rather simple but have a unusual edge. This is so you capture peoples curiosity- which is a really good way to target people as you then make people want to find out more. Meaning they end up going up to look at the poster, to then read the information at the bottom, to find out that it is a tea stall.  

I find with this poster the letter T obviously just by saying it links in with the the tea stall. But it also serves another purpose to guide the eye down to the small pea. In the bottom right. So when you say them together it says Teepee. 

silk cut adverts

The silk cut advert were a piece of very clever advertising that had to get around a very big problem. The adverts were basically there for the purpose of trying to advertise and sell cigarettes to people through the cigarette advertising ban. However to get around the problem they used a surrealists technique by using word play of the brand name 'silk cut'. They did this by having some purple silk- which is the color of the logo with a small cut in it. So people had to engage more with it to find out what the brand or product was, as the only information on the advert where the mandatory health risks warnings. This advert was a massive risk as it could have gone one of 2 ways for the brand. people could have not understood it or even got what they were sell. However in this case it went down a storm and actually achieved the best selling brand in the start of the 1990's. Which i find absolutely amazing how this ban setting really tight perimeters for a company thats design to reduce the sales drastically. Managed to get around the problem and turn it into a massive positive.


I have looked at this because i really like its design philosophy behind the idea and feel that its something that i would want to achieve in my own future work. As i like ideas that are forward thinking and out of the so called 'norm'. Its also fits in quite nicely into my alice and wonderland project and the work i have been doing.

commedia dell'arte

This is my com media dell'arte mask. It was made using 4 different proses...


To start off i placed cling film around Charle"s face -avoiding the bottom of the nose and mouth. So i could then start mod rocking around his face so i could get a exact shape cast, so that then the end product will fit him perfectly. So these masks are intend to be tailor made to the individual to avoid it sloping down.


The next step was to once the cast had dried was to fill it up with casting plaster so I had a solid structure that would be the base for the design process.


Now i started to add the clay to the plaster to form the shape of the the captain- com media dell'arte mask. As you can see i have done a unusual large nose as that was part of the characteristics of the character. The nose signifies somebody being liar and not trust worthy, but also with it being pointy it makes it look angry. To compliment the style i have done quite angular features.




Once i was happy with the look and shape of my mask i then added latex to it to it. Which would form the end product. I had to ad several thin lyres to the mask to build the thickness up- in-between waiting for it to dry. Then to finish it of i just added 3 coats of thickener, Which was mixed into the latex itself. This makes the mask a lot thicker so it isn't quite as flexible.

This is now what it looks like. As you can see it is a lot thicket than before so it will be more sturdy.