ds: beer final

So here's my beer packaging design...Not great, but it's something. I do stand behind my concept, though, of using onomatopoeias and visualizing their sounds/meanings with typography. It seems like I could not successfully showcase the history behind beer in a modern way, but that was my goal. After learning about the origin of beer (some say it is almost as old as bread, discovered around 10,000 BCE), I was so surprised to hear that this beverage has deeper roots in civilization; as beer developed, so did mankind. Current views on beer tend to weigh heavier on the negative side of the scale in terms of morals, symbolizing rebellion, night life, and everything bad A. But who would have thought that we were drinking the "water" of the Sumerians (back then people would drink beer with very low alcoholic content instead of water because they had not discovered how to filter it/clean it safe enough for drinking yet). Of course the beer we taste today from back then is very different, but the fundamental process of fermentation was the same. 

Anyhow, beer was an interesting topic to take on for me personally because I honestly do not know much about the culture around beer (the beer of today). I tasted my first beer when we went to Boulevard; I sort of live under a rock. 

Here's my statement:

BB'S Bread Baker's Brewery revives the ancient methods of producing beer. BB's Noise series features three different types of beers: Egyptian Ale, Sumerian Sour Ale, and the Celtic Pilsen. The very same ancient recipes from thousands of years ago are revived with a modern aesthetic and tang. So, you're really drinking a historical artifact. Old? It's ancient. 

Through this beer packaging design, I wanted to bring back the historical aspect of beer and make it relevant to today's culture of beer consumption. Using onomatopoeias, the sounds depict the response one would have after drinking each type: OOF! YOW! HUH.

ds: moodboards + early ideas

I have no idea what to do for these beer packaging designs. I am currently feeling extremely stuck with designer's block. Is it weird that I feel like I don't understand beer? Is it possible not to understand a beverage? 

Below are two concept designs I came up with in the midst of my confusion and mild frustration. I know one thing at this point, and that's my interest in the long history of beer. 

A possible logo...............yea, very rough

Above is how you write beer in cuneiform

I went in the opposite direction of history and went more modern

It's called Tetra based on the chemical Tetracycline, 

an antibiotic known to be in beer (but not anymore).

ds: tdwas final

Here are photographs of the final presentation. Individual photographs of each element will come later:

To Death With a Smile from Mary Lim on Vimeo.

ds: final poster

ds: poster iterations

ds: progress

After critique last Friday, I was pretty torn between the two concepts (Meat: Death is Everywhere vs. Angel: Everyone dies). I decided to go with the concept below, mainly because I thought it would be more fun to take on and an overall more enjoyable design process. This direction has two parts to it: showing how death is the all-democratizer and the suggestion of life after death. The cut-out faces include celebrities, political figures, animals, plants, philosophers, conquerors, dictators, comedians, activists, etc. The equal treatment of each forces the viewer to think of them on an equal plane. 

Working logo/banner:

A sample of the things I cut out:

+ text: 

Possible motion piece:

Something fun:

ds: working crit

Feedback from crit:
-images of meat + object still looks unrefined, needs finessing
-the meat collages still seems like talking about diet (commentary on eating meat)
-maybe showing the gory aspects of meat (not as a shape, but as a texture)
-the imagery for the angel-like symbol direction is strong, but reconsider the concept for it

ds: dead meat

In my Food in Art class, we covered how the inclusion of meat in artwork can remind the viewer of death, have religious connotations, and be commentary on life. Below are some works of art that include meat in different ways to mean different things:

What makes looking at meat so uncomfortable?

Based on that, some imagery:

Juxtaposing life and death (birthday cake vs. meat)

Critique

-seems like a comment on dietary habits

-consider other things that can have meat in them (nonliving things)

-think about this in the context of design

ds: more death

• thingsthingsthings - estate sales - excess - shedding
• the remains of living people who died which are then
• reused by other people (circle of life) - metaphorically
• reenacted by an estate sale

inspiration: 

Arman's Accumulations series, Dentiers

iteration:

• fractals - infinite regression - the fabric of death - mirror facing a mirror
• everything living is made of death
• like compost (chicken and the egg problem)
• everything is being "recycled"

inspiration:

Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirror Room, Phalli's Field

iteration:



feedback:
-think about how many little stories can create one big story
-possibly think about centering your imagery into one big image (making sense of it all)

ds: death moodboards

I found this quote by Ionesco, a Romanian playwright:

"To become conscious of what is horrifying and to laugh at it is to become master of that which is horrifying...Laughter alone does not respect any taboo...the comic alone is capable of giving us the strength to bear the tragedy of existence."

ds: death

First I want to go over the project requirements and specifications for my own use and to ground my research and design process:

Brief
Design an identity for an international poster competition, exhibition, and gala for The Mexican Museum of Design in Mexico City (MUMEDI) with the theme To Death With a Smile.

Components
logo, poster, gala (invitations, envelope), exhibition (catalog cover), website, the event space, extra collateral

Audience
fellow designers

Questions to ask yourself
How can we create a fresh, new way of depicting death?
How can we resolve the conflicting notion of death (fear) and smiling (acceptance, humor, triumph)?
How can we think about the spatial and print components simultaneously, and incorporate space into the brand? (ex. conceptual motion)
How can we approach the design with a respect for other cultures?

Example
A9 for AIGA - designed by Laura Berglund
http://lauraberglund.com/aiga-a9-awards/lfy34umzfeofmfw53psqnkr1yj4wn5

There are a lot of elements to this project, but I'm excited to problem-solve and think about how to incorporate space, web, and print. This is such an interesting topic to take on, especially because death has heavy connotations that can be treated with seriousness or humor with equal substance. The most interesting things come from paradoxes, and I personally think there's more truth to paradoxes than there are to black and white statements. 

As I was researching, Whitman's This Compost came to mind. The poem is about how everything living is made of from death (like compost). The viewer in the poem realizes this fact, and is suddenly terrified to be living in a world where death is inescapable. Last stanza of the poem:

Now I am terrified at the Earth! it is that calm and patient,
It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,
It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless successions of diseas’d corpses,
It distils such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,
It renews with such unwitting looks, its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops,
It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them at last.

From this I realized that death is inescapable spatially (nature, your own body) and mentally (manifested in photography, journaling, blogging, documenting). Perhaps I can bring this idea into my concept for the design to connect the gap between the event space and the flat surface.

Statements I could base my designs off of that interpret To Death With a Smile:

-Death makes us aware of the circle of life.

-Everything living is made of death.

-Taking a bite out of your own sugar skull is taking a bite out of death.

-Accepting death is triumphing over it.

Some spatial inspiration:

 

Images/books about death:

Interesting methods for burial/funerals:

http://ideas.ted.com/11-fascinating-funeral-traditions-from-around-the-globe/

Paradox

Everything living is made of death.

Acceptance

Accepting death is triumphing over it.

Direct Symbolism

Taking a bite out of your own sugar skull is taking a bite out of death.