FMP - recent SAM meeting

The last meeting before today was a bit rushed, and I was a bit unprepared, workings still in tracing form etc... This was followed by an amazing singing lesson, courtesy of SAM, which really got me motivated and was a great insight to the cause I am promoting.

This meeting was a little more productive, and very positive... Although there is plenty of idea development to do I decided to start using the computer to produce taster work for SAM. This went down very well as we are getting closer in the way of thinking - My ideas are starting to go where they would like them and vice versa...
I firstly showed them rough illustrations of Paul Roberts (ex long term 'The Stranglers' frontman) as a puppeteer to be used for the 'Band management' workshop SAM offers. Although I used an image of Paul with slightly longer hair, I was told he wouldn't be offended, if anything it would be a complement. So that went down well - We decided out of the body variations I presented, on using a portrait tall stance, which leaves plenty of room for type information and would house a silhouette of a band neatly in the middle with "your band here" in white... The puppeteers strings will be 're-jigged' in place of the band.

I next showed them rough photoshop work using their logo in different themed situations, for possible future developement - They really liked these for the various things they offer.

Next were illustrator based experiments with musical objects, vinyl case patterns etc for the SAM logo and different themes to tie in within. A cassette idea was one that could possibly be used as a flyer or elements of it could be used, mainly the label 'index' to use with different titles of say the posters. All nice ideas that can be played about with and either used or scrapped in the long run.

last but not least were some VERY rough ideas for the bumper sticker Ben wanted for a lot of his friends. It could be very good promotion of the company... The flame idea needs a lot of work, they look to fat/generic/precise, and Ben described the look he wanted to be that of a 'pimp my ride' car he had seen, with paint layers almost melting/burning/peeling off with the force of speed... My current rough ideas don't give the impression of speed or do any of the design justice so this will need a lot of experimenting and fine tweaking...

It has been decided that the utmost priority are the rock school posters, as a Worthing school has shown incredibly enthusiastic interest in SAM - So the posters will be put to the top of my list - All the artwork can be used and tweaked for everything else - and this also gives me another nice twist in the project, a new piece of work... The rock school posters, but for 'RAW' - 'Rock at Worthing'. So it's 'SAM @ RAW'.

Should be fun!

Ashley

FMP Update - Thurs 9th Apr

Ok, this meeting was planned for Weds, but hindered by a flat tire... I was also having a free singing lesson at SAM afterwards to experience what they offer. The lesson is re-cheduled for the next meeting. So this meeting took place on Thursday.

We mainly reviewed what we had last time, and I also requested they copy all the images SAM has since they opened onto a CD for me - This could be useful in creating the silhouette templates, as I need more images of other themed musicians such as double bass and saxophone players.

It was a short (as re-scheduled) meeting but a very useful one nonetheless. When I couldn't make it the day before, I took the train to Bognor Regis and stocked up at a craft shop as to not waste time. The templates I have been tracing I will eventually turn into stencils aswell -

I plan to experiment in a range of media and techniques to open up any possibilities with the tracings I have made... I bought expensive spray paint, acrylic sheet which I plan to use for scratch and print techniques (which I have tried in the past),

silver foil engraving boards, and I also wish to experiment with wax resist - scraping away wax to reveal a painted or coloured background.

After the meeting I have started experimenting (as you can see above) and I have also been experimenting with ways to change the existing SAM logo, without actually changing it... I have played about with tracing paper, and repositioning parts and swapping the negativity etc...

After this I will try changing it a bit more with possible flame graphics for the bumper sticker like me and Ben discussed. All the experiments to date will be shown to SAM at the next meeting, which as I am blogging backwards, is infact tomorrow... More updates coming soon!

Ashley

FMP Update - Wed 1st Apr

OK! I've been busy and haven't updated this blog in a while. I am going to backlog these updates from the last 2 meetings with SAM...

This meeting we discussed all of the things to date that SAM requires my skills for, and worked out what I will be producing for my benefit and theirs.

They are as follows (taken from a word document of progress typed by Ben Stringer of SAM) -
SAM and Ash Tugwell update 09-04-09:

Templates
Band management – Images found, put together and make into silhouette with puppet idea
Rock School - Images found, put together
Junior Rock School - Images found, put together
Jazz and blues school Music Video DJ Workshops – Sourcing crowd / urban images
Beatboxing Workshops - Sourcing crowd / urban images
Theseus Gerard – Stomp!
Drum up education Harmonica Workshop General posters / flyers – Result of all the other work
School posters / flyers – Result of all the other work
Car Stickers – pimp my SAM, comet / fireball imagery
SAM font? – Adult and for children
SAM Student Gift Vouchers Retail Template

Some more imagery needs to be researched for say the beatboxing and Dj workshops...
An idea of mine was to create an actual unique SAM font, by hand and converted by computer through fontifier.com for example, could be a nice touch...
I need to start compiling my work to be refined on the computer - A few templates will be made eventually just for the basic composition of pretty much all of the work... The templates will vary in theme.

One sketch of an idea of Paul Roberts (Ex Stranglers frontman running the workshop) as a puppeteer for the 'Band management' Poster got a good feedback, so thats an idea I may run with once I have found the style I will be working in.

So far to develop a style and get a feel for the project I have been tracing rockstars in action stances, as the template specific requirement for all the posters is a 'silhouette' style - I decided to trace all the inside details in orange, so i could still use them if not just the silhouettes. I am not finished with these yet, but again SAM liked what they saw.

As for the bumper sticker - A lot of friends and customers of the company have been asking for them, and after the progress crit at Northbrook it was decided that I should at least consider re-making the logo for SAM and this would give me the opportunity to do that.

I am happy with their current logo, but for the bumper sticker they want it to stand out differently with emphasis on the wing/wave/flame vector graphic that appears from the right side of the logo... Originally to represent a wave of Shoreham beach, the location of SAM - however a talk with Ben took us to 'Pimp my Ride' and a car he saw that had flame bodywork similar to what he was thinking for the bumper sticker... Inspiration from something the sticker would find itself on - a car. The Circular logo is to be played around with, and as we spoke about, maybe even "turned into a comet", to incorporate a flame effect or wind effect to almost animate the logo and add some culture-themed imagery for the different canvas it is being applied to. This is all stuff that needs to be sketched and played around with. Could have an exciting outcome.