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GRAPHICS PORTFOLIO

 

A LEVEL ART AND DESIGN COMPONENT 1 PERSONAL INVESTIGATION

 

LEARNER STATEMENT COMPLETION OF THIS FORM IS COMPULSORY

 

TO BE COMPLETED BY THE CANDIDATE

Centre Name

Cardinal Heenan Sixth Form

Centre Number

Candidate Name

Farai Junior Mavhunga

Candidate Number

2

Circle your entered title

Art, Craft & Design

Fine Art

Critical & Contextual Studies

Textile Design

Graphic Comm.

3D Design

Photography

 

Complete and submit the learner statement with your work as it will be referred to when it is assessed.  To place your submission in a suitable context, use the template below:

Explain the MAIN IDEA(S) for the development of your responses

The aim of this project for me is to showcase the knowledge that I have about the music industry. I am an aspiring artist myself and I aim to create this immersive environment that involves me promoting music for my artist image in which I refer to as “Mavdizzy” which is something that I am passionate about. There are different types of musical genres which promote music in different lights but the one which I will be focusing on mainly will be the rap and RnB genre. I want to showcase my digital skills in this project and expand on what I am already used to. I will try to step out of my comfort zone to expand on immersion using different file formats and software that I have never used before. I am looking forward to using music that I have created in this project so it passes both as a visual and an audio project.  The final piece will revolve around making a project and album for the “Mavdizzy” persona.

Outline your PLAN(S) for the development of your work

·         I will investigate and look into different designers that I am inspired by and see which style would best suit the type of project that I am going to be creating. ·         I will research about the musicians I listen to and am inspired by the most. This will allow me to craft some work in the perspective and style that they used when creating their own projects. ·         I will try to replicate different Album covers and beats that I have heard from these musicians ·         I will use thumbnails to show planning and structure and show how me working lead to the different types of outcomes I ended up with. ·         I will utilise different file formats which means I will be exploring different software to create certain aspects of my work. ·         I will use a lot of primary audio that I created to immerse the environment I am building around this entire project ·         I aim to show structure and to show how everything that I do leads to the final piece.

Describe the CONTEXT (influences, purposes and meanings) of your work

My work here is going to be heavily influenced by the music industry as I have a deep passion for making music and recording songs. I’ve had an interest in making music ever since I was 12 years old and over the years the music I make has progressed and I have been getting better and developed into someone who is able to adapt to different various sounds of music. I want this project that I am doing to portray my interest in music and hopefully it could teach people more about this industry. I also want to put myself in this environment and play this role as a big musical star with the promotion tactics that I am looking forward to doing. I also perceive myself doing something exactly like this when I release a real album and I want to give myself an experience with this project.

REFLECT on your work critically as it progresses and on its completion

 

Candidate Name (Printed)

Candidate Signature

Date

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MUSICAL ARTIST RESEARCH

Comethazine

Comethazine is a rapper that’s known for his aggressive grime style of music and he uses lyrics that are extremely explicit whole talking about the typical topics that rappers always talk about in their songs. His lyrics always link to money, females, cars, wealth etc. The reason why I chose to decorate a part of my project to him is because I really like his music and they way it makes me feel. His music is hype and loud and makes me feel energetic and his aesthetic for his album and song covers is so animated and he doesn’t even come across as a real person and more like a really dangerous evil character. From an art point of view his album art is usually monochromatic seeing as his first project had a purple colour, his second project had a green colour and latest project consists of primarily red colours. His upcoming project consists of red again but with a slight touch of some orange colours to create a pyro or fiery type of effect. I also like his contrast between his old self and his new self and he has definitely evolved into a different type of artist. He went from a childish skateboarder type of gimmick when he was younger to a boss evil villain type of gimmick and his image has changed too. It’s also evident that he used to have blond mixed with purple hair and now he just keeps it simply black all the time. He is also a big social media star and I could use what he portrays himself as on social media for my type of work and create something that is similar to what he does. I also like what his backgrounds look like on his song covers as the main attraction is the character in the middle but the background creates all the environment

PLAYBOI*CARTI

Playboi Carti is my favourite musician and most of my art and pieces that I’m going to use in this project are going to be derived from something that is linked to him one way or another. His aesthetic consists of airy cloudy type of art basically resembling what it would be like to drift in the clouds and have your mind wander and his new aesthetic now consists of mostly red and vampire type of art and fashion. The cover art that he uses always links to how the music sounds for example in his recent album “Die Lit" it shows him performing a front flip into a racing crowd that’s having fun in a rock star type of aesthetic. There is no colour and it is just black and white in a goth type of way. I will be trying to create some pieces that mimic that type of idea. The music in that project is also just fun and doesn’t focus much on lyrics and rather leans more towards the way it sounds.

The fact that this project is associated with PLAYBOI CARTI would mean that the project is automatically associated with fashion as Playboi Carti is a fashion icon and does a lot of modelling for huge companies like Givenchy, Adidas, Nike etc 

Kirk – Dababy

Kirk by dababy is an album where he emphasizes on talking about his life in the introduction song and then it progresses into his usual dance style of rap where he raps about money fame cars and all the stereotypical topics that are associated with rap. This album cover was one of the inspirations that I took when I decided on making the album cover with me being young in it. This album cover also has a sepia filter to make it seem older and to add a more vintage feel to it which is what I did when I edited my picture as well.

ME RECORDING MUSIC:

 

In this picture I am recording music and the way it was taken is that I asked my sister to stand on the table with her camera and take a picture of me from above and it looked like an amazing angle. After this picture was taken I went to Photoshop and I edited it slightly by putting the saturation all the way down to zero to remove all the colour and after that I increased the grain because the grain always gives this slight noise aesthetic type of effect that I like to use in almost all of my photos. This links in with my project because I was thinking of doing something strongly related to this for my final piece. This links in too because this was also me recording a song that I was going to use in this project for the graphics.

Young Me:

Researched some album covers and rap art and I saw that there were a lot of covers that had the young version of the artist that made the project and what I did was take a picture of myself when I was younger and edited it in a grungy type of style and made it look scratched and dirty to give it an almost old school or vintage effect. It came out looking quite good and I also put a sepia filter on it to make it look old as well seeing as that most of these old school art covers also feature the use of a lot of sepia filters. This artwork was slightly inspired by artist Dababy's cover on one of his albums where he is a baby and has his mother holding him but mine is slightly different because I am the only one in the pic and I am way older than a baby  in this pic

Logo Design

This is a simplistic logo that I tried to create by using a cross and a circle to create a target-like look. Around it I wrote the shorter version of Mavdizzy which is simply MAV. The first attempts were aimed at achieving a symmetrical drawing in terms of the circle and the cross. The software that I used to create this is called sketch and I did this on my mobile phone. Eventually I decided to add the x eyes with the mouth in the fourth corner as a secondary logo and to not leave it empty. After that I put a glass layering png on top of it to make it look more interesting.

Here are some ideas that I came up with for a logo. I really like the how the colour orange fits with my style of music. I picked orange because it's not a colour that is strongly associated with any projects that are linked to the type of music that I'm interested in and it could be great from a marketing standpoint. The blue headphones are something that I almost always wear and they are important because it almost contributes to who I am as a person. I use these headphones to create my music as well as listen to my music and all types of music.

Idents Created

These are Idents that I created using an app called video ad king on my phone and I utilised the logos that I made for this specific project

Silhouette Studies

These are silhouettes that I created from simply passing by in my room and seeing what the light was projecting into the walls. I also really like the way it portrays the image around me having my headphones. This is what it looked like and I enhanced and sharpened it on an app called Adobe light room. I enhanced it and added different colours such as red and green to make it stand out and to add vibrance to it. The idea for this silhouette originated from one of my favourite rappers named Playboi Carti and I replicate that with a different style. 

Album Cover Replication

My edit of precious:

The Actual Album cover by Playboi Carti:

This is an attempt at me using my friend, Precious to recreate one of my favourite album covers by my favourite artist known as Playboi Carti. I tried utilising the same fonts to recreate the exact sharp effects used in this picture. 

SONG AND SOUND REPLICATION:

This is a snippet video that I created in correlation to my favourite music artist's music. This was done to resemble the aesthetic and feel of his song known as "Rockstar Made". The song is called here to stay and despite the very simple lyrics there is meaning behind it. It is a motivational song that just states that I will never give up no matter what. This is stated in the bridge when I say "I'm finna go so hard ain't finna go out like this" and the chorus where I say "Imma let 'em know that I'm here to stay".

Primary Album Covers

These are album covers that I collated and got pictures of by searching around the house and they were designs that caught my eye and what I was impressed with.

I was intrigued by these album covers and I have chosen to use these type of styles in my artwork. I like the different variations and how some projects are simplistic and others are more complex in style. I gravitate towards the ones that look more colourful because that is the way I would set my album covers. I am intrigued by the cartoony aesthetic on these covers because it giver a great feel and the vibe is not as serious as others that have an aesthetic so deep that it feels wrong to evoke positive emotions towards it.

Instrumental Replication

 This is my attempt at remaking a beat that my favourite artist, Playboi Carti,, used in one of my favourite songs by him called ROCKSTAR MADE!

I created this using the software FL Studio and I replicated different types of elements with the instrumentals that sounded most similar.

This is the original CD quality album version uploaded by Playboi Carti himself

This is my replicated version which is the beat I created and In the background I put the album cover replication art in the background of this beat.

My Album & Album Cover

The album name that I have decided to go with is 'DREAMING IN COLOUR' because it links with the type of music that I have planned. It is more melodic and up beat. The reason I like this title and that I have gone for this type of music is because it links with my childlike personality which I find it best expressed in my music. 

I have created different album covers using a trial and error method and I also made use of stock pngs in order to not get copyrighted for using something that I am not the owner of.

These first 3 album covers were me trying to go in a more aesthetic route using skulls and lions to create something beautiful with a deeper meaning. The blue lion is something that I have associated myself with my music because there was a time when I was creating music with more atmosphere and it was sounding extremely spacious so the blue lion vibe fit with it.

Here are picures that I have collated and edited from the blue lion aesthetic:

This is the aesthetic that I wanted to go for with creating my album cover but I later decided on changing it to something less serious and more fun so I went down the route of fun fares, amusement parks, carousels etc.

This is the point where I started to explore the kindred side of my album cover formats and I started exploring with pictures of rides.

These are the album covers that I created with that childlike kindred spirited type of art:

 

 

These are all album covers that I created and I realised that going forward this was the style that I preferred more than the serious aesthetic lion type of cover

This is when I started to realise the type of cover that I wanted to create and I started collating different types of pictures. These are the types of pictures that I started to dive into and explore with

I reverted to taking this picture here because I was struck by the colours and scenery of it and this is the picture that I would then use in my final album cover. 

I drew up some thumbnails and i started working towards what I wanted my new album cover to look like. I drew up a thumbnail with where I wanted the picture to be and tried to figure out how i wanted the text to look like.

I created it on photoshop the exact way that I drew up the thumbnail and this is what I came up with.

I was aiming for a classy grainy look and I am pleased with what came out of it. The colours gel well with each other and the Ferris wheel type of rides are still there showing that flashy side of my personality. I added the grainy effect to add a nice texture to it.

These are the tracklist templates that I created:

These were meant to be trials for the back page of this album cover