Concept Magazine: Sampleposted 6 june 2008

UNI Project

I like to work on commercial creations with the idea of ‘service’ in mind….

I think whether you’re creating music, art or a design, you are offering a service. If people want to dance or feel happy, and you can’t give them that service, then you can’t expect people to desire what you’re creating. From what I gathered... Sample’s service was essential to inspire young (18-25) artists, advertisers, photographers, designers and communicators in general  who wish to explore new/old trends and alternative expression. So all I had to do was create an article that provided content that offered
this service.

What things are inspiring young creative people today? Hmmm… it’s a very broad question. I think if you look at it from a mainstream perspective you could say designers like Damian Hurst, Banksy, Mark Quinn, Ben Frost (a local Sydney artist showing his face on the stage), and music labels like ‘Modular’ are very influential at the moment, but there is always something on the rise.

SAMPLE FRONT COVER: 1st design.
The first front cover I created attempts to make people curious to explore the contents of the magazine.

What the image is trying to communicate is that Sample will take you off the street and into a more exciting and colorful reality. To do this - a photo that was taken at the UOSSA was blended with an art piece from a Brisbane art gallery. The word “EXPLORE” was then introduced into the background through hundreds of samples from my image collection. The word “EXPLORE” aims to pursue viewers to look past the front cover and buy the magazine.

SAMPLE FRONT COVER: 2st design.
The second cover has a very clear and bold format that cut’s strait to the content of the Magazine -
Design Influences.The image was kept fairly simple; to attract attention it relies on its big bold text and minimal bright colors. However this is what I don’t like about it, for some reason it lacks depth – I like images that mean something… and for this reason I favor my first design.

THE CONTENTES PAGE:

 

THE INSIDE SPREADS
Ok… This is my design for the reference spread (the last 2 pages of the article). I think this design is special because it offers something to the magazine that is unique. It’s unique because it manages to be quite modern while carrying a bit of an old Bauhaus design influence.It’s also a bit random in the sense that; what does a plate with a bunch of leaves or makeup have anything to do with Sample? The answer is, I consider them to be Samples… everything is a sample really, and I’m trying to bring that playful message into the magazine.

THE SUGAR IN COLLABORATIVE ART
What inspired me to write this Article? The idea of a new trend in ‘alternative’ collaborative art first clicked with me when I visited Hibernian House (342 Elizabeth St, Surry Hills), it’s a big old apartment/warehouse building where the knot gallery and frequency lab was once located. However more to the point, it has an explosion of thoughts and feeling layered on its walls.

I think as a whole, it’s a style of collaborative art that is extremely valuable for the following reasons.
*It offers a platform for people to express themselves.
*It holds insight into issues feeling and emotions that individuals who live in that area are going through.
*It’s not exclusive.
*There are only a small number of areas and opportunities available for people to visually express themselves on such a large scale.

For something that is potentially so abundant it’s upsetting to see so little of collaborative design being created and celebrated.

 Collaborative art could be described as different individuals coming together to create; this can take many forms from Architecture to Graphic Design. In this article I’m focusing on the random and spontaneous form of collaborative art, an image you might find behind an old apartment door, in an old school text book, or on a public toilet wall. It’s the type that could have evolved from a doodle, or a rainy day with a crayon, a process considered neither serious nor significant. As Australians merge closer into metropolitan environments with a greater cultural diversity, this form of collaborative image, let’s call it ‘Mutual Art’ can teach us a great deal about ourselves and the environment we share.

The beauty in a random collaborative image is that it creates a platform for people to freely express themselves. It’s not about whether you can draw, or what kind of media you use, it’s about how you think and what you’re expressing. As an artist I find it frustrating seeing friends putting themselves down over their creative ability. I’m sure you have heard this general attitude, you hear it in phrases such as:
“I can’t draw”
“I can’t really think of anything”
“I’m not a creative person”

This almost automatic sense of fear when being confronted with the idea of creating something not only reduces creativity but it discourages and diminishes potential expression. To say the least to create is an amazing achievement, of all the powers of the human mind the imagination has been least explored probably because it is the most difficult to explore (Egan).

At first glance, the idea of mutual art seems unlikely to be able to bear any fruit at all... only a muddy puddle of paint and ideas could result from such a thing. However as individuals we all have different specialties and mutual art has the ability to embellish our individuality. Expressing our individuality creates a sense of excitement that overweighs aesthetic, awakening our senses, sharpens insights, teaching us to think in symbols, metaphors, and to de-code individual expression, so we can perceive the world in new ways. It’s amazing what incite can be gained with people from different backgrounds not so much modifying themselves as they contribute, but creating with a method that accentuates
the differences.

The basic idea of collaboration isn’t new it’s been around for years. Traditionally, collaboration between artists was done in essence as two people acting as one. That is, one artist would consider what the other had done and then modify what they did to fit what had come before (Pete and Trevor). Mutual art however is innovative trend, in that it’s an abandonment of planned vision... Modernism, Surrealism, Pop surely we’ve had enough of that now... You don’t have to be an artist to be creative, from my experience many people feel that creative expression in society is in glamour and seduction, it’s for people like fashion designers and rock stars this is only a peep of what creativity can be. An artist is not a special kind of person, but every person is a special kind of artist (Kumar), what counts is our capacity to visualise and express ourselves, it’s all we have. 

STICKER DESIGNS
I noticed a posting on Samples forum expressing a need for some circular sticker designs (they could pretty much anything you liked). So I had fun creating some cool stickers deigns.

All images and text © Nicholas Cassey.