OUAN503 - Secret 7"

I think I spent more time than I should have considering what would be a good brief to select in order to satisfy the requirement for a substantial brief in the responsive module. After a lot was said regarding the 'Secret 7"' brief I decided to have a look into it further and see what it was about. I had spent a little bit of time looking at it for the studio brief; 'What's the problem?' where I simply looked over the brief in order to see what it entailed and also look at whether or not the brief as a whole was suitable to pursue under the guidelines of the module. As I mentioned in my research for different briefs the Secret 7” brief essentially takes 7 tracks from 7 better known musicians, all from different genres and decades and then presses each one 100 times to 7” vinyl. After revisiting the list of tracks they release I realised that I'm quite familiar with the majority of the artists on the list. In order to make it a substantial brief I'm going to look into doing at least five of the vinyl's with an aim to do them all, in a way to complete a set of seven for the brief, and ultimately to make the brief as substantial as possible. However, due to the way I work and the bits of research and planning that each design will undergo I think five is a more acceptable and realistic aim, it would be nice to be able to do all seven of the tracks though. As they are square in dimensions, I'll have to think carefully about the composition of the images and what will work well with this ratio and size. Specifically the dimensions are 184mm by 184mm with a bleed of 3mm all the way around, making each side 190mm in total. The bleed actually isn't visible on the vinyl if it gets selected and printed so I think that's quite important to bear in mind. I've already spent some time thinking about the possibilities of different mediums and approaches that could be taken and used to create the designs in their final form, and although it's still in the early stages of the brief so far, I think that there are two options. Either, I create a set of vinyl's using a certain type of technique or process, or, alternatively I simply create individual designs separate from one another using a technique that I think will work best or is most suitable. I have to say at this stage the idea of create a set of work, is really appealing and it means I will hopefully get to grips will say for example a printing process quite well by the end of the brief. However, I'm not sure if that will be as successful as branching out and thinking more selectively about the designs and the process behind an individual piece, in order to hopefully create some really nice stand alone work. Having looked at some of the previous pieces people have created online, it made me realise how each one doesn't have to be a really intricate piece of art, but it's sometimes the case that the message and the meaning behind the work is just as if not more valuable. Some of the work I saw was incredibly simple, but because of how clever the design was it really stood out. Hopefully I'll be able to incorporate this level of thought and an element of intelligent design into some of my entries.

The first step for me after revisiting the track listing, is a mixture of research and brainstorming into possible ideas for the separate designs. The method I ended up using was just approaching the record sleeves on an individual basis, one at a time and not letting various designs and ideas overlap. So rather, I was approaching individual record sleeves as individual tasks. I think in reflection, this approach really allowed me to experiment with different media and approaches to the design process, making it so I ended up with completely different designs rather than a collection - which is what I wanted. As a predominantly illustration and graphic design based task due to the nature of record sleeves, I found that this was exactly the opportunity I had been hoping for with the responsive module. I essentially set out to make sure that I utilised the freedom and opportunities that the module presented. By this I mean that I can stray from the kind of briefs and tasks that I would normally be undertaking on the animation degree course and sample new things that I may be able to bring into my practice in future based on how successful they are. Although at this early stage in the brief I wasn't exactly sure on what my different designs and approaches to briefs would be, I knew that I wanted to experiment with various digital methods, perhaps using new software, as well as photography and illustration, or a combination of the two. As a bi-product of this I wanted to expand my understanding and proficiency in creating compositions and generating atmospheric illustrations based on the audiences perspective into the illustration and the way the story is being told within the image. This relates heavily to the kind of importance I'm placing into composition, perspective, storytelling and a whole range of techniques that I try to implement when creating an animation or film live footage, and the way the information is relayed to an audience or observer. Aside from the technical side of this brief and the design processes it remained a competition, and therefore was a big opportunity. Each of the seven sleeves has one hundred designs pressed for it, and although the people who run the secret 7" competition invite hundreds of artists to participate, there is still a lot of opportunity for people like me who will enter to win a place in the exhibition and get their work seen, so it's quite exciting form that point of view.