Kristin Becker's DTC Classes at WSU

On our trip to the archives, I found novelty in some of the smaller comics. I felt that even though they were small and short, their purpose was reached and they were fantastic little distractions if nothing else. This, however, only brings part of what I want to do to mind for my final project, and didn’t help in a major way. Bellow is an example of a poster image for a comic that was in the archive. My first thought when looking at this image was “how amazing would this look like under a black-light”. What struck me most about this poster was it’s surreal nature and how the scale of the poster comic allowed for more in depth detail and texture to be prominent. At first, I thought of using a simple concept for a poster and letting the content of the poster project speak for itself. The problem is, without guidance, the mind is free to wander. With this in mind, I believe I’ll move more in a direction of figuring out textures rather than using flat colors or images. An idea that has occurred to me recently about potentially making the background a cloth texture. The familiarity of the texture will flow with my story I want to tell, but I’ve got to find a texture to use that works well.

In class archives visit, but I do not remember the name of the book or the author

The reason that I chose this particular picture was because of the unique technique of cropping used. The three large letters in the composition are used as frames to crop the picture that is supposed to be seen. I will implement this into my poster because around, near the states that are “popped” out I want big bubble letters like these that say the names of the states and in them pictures of what those places look like. the letters will be a clipping mask so that the shape of the letter is held. Another thing about this picture that I want to point out is the fact that it appears as if the letters are stuck in the sand almost like trees. This relates to the position and font of the lettering. The idea that this sparks with my poster comic is to make the letters appear as buildings in a city a and then the pictures inside will tell the story as well as the shape of the letters themselves. Something in this composition that I particularly liked was the fact that the letters are split horizontally into three pieces and each piece has a different picture. These slices in the letters serve to create frames, I like this abstract way of creating frames. In my poster, I was thinking about overlaying on the whole composition white lines that will split the map up into sections which may help tell the story. My design is complicated to follow so I am trying to think of a way to make it easier to follow.

Hand made colored woodcut and Illuminated letter

During the trip to the archives section I saw many elements that inspired my work, however one book that I found that was especially drawing to me was one of the really old manuscripts that were available. Part of the reason that I was so drawn to these in the first place was because they were books from periods like the 1400’s and really, how often do you get to look at something that unique, but the other half of why I was drawn to it was the illuminated letter and picture that the book had been flipped open to. Not only was it interesting that this part of the page seemed to stand out because of its color, when I got closer to the page the two elements seemed to pop out even more. I really liked how it caught my eye, and how when I got close I could tell that it had been hand drawn with the way that the color overlapped the borders of the frame on both objects and the texture that the area had due to someone pressing a dull point against the page. There was a trend, in What It Is by Lynda Barry, of overlapping handwritten objects and printed objects to make certain elements stand out. In my poster comic I want to try to incorporate both color and handwritten/digital objects to make things like speech bubbles for the characters seem like they stand out from each other and convey different emotion as each bubble is used to represent the main character’s state of mind.

“Cross Current” Comic Book back cover.

During our visit to the Manuscript, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC) I was able to look at a lot of different comic styles that could inspire my design for my poster comic. Throughout this collection of comic books there was a lot of interesting comics that reflected the direction I was going towards for my poster comic. One in particular was the back cover for the comic “Cross Current”. Throughout this comic cover there are various items laid out across the page, some bigger than others, as well as some over-lapping each other. However, what is inspiring me from this comic  is the idea of things overlapping each other, and making them seem like they are simply laying across a table. This is the type of style I am aiming for in my poster comic. From a distance, I want my poster comic to look like random objects scattered across a table. However, when you look closer at the items they are all connected in some way. For example, in my poster comic design I am going with the theme of life accomplishments, for both myself and family. So I want to make my design look like pictures, paper, awards, newspapers, and other objects scattered across a table. However, the importance of these individual items is determined by hierarchical scale, overlapping, as well as the location it is positioned in. Another feature from the “Cross Current” comic book cover that is giving me some type of inspiration is where and how the text throughout the comic is used. In the comic you can see that there is a few pieces of text being used in bold letters at the top of the page giving some type of guidance throughout the entire comic. I want to do something similar for my comic by using some text to help the viewer understand what the comic is focused on.

(Jacobus, de Voragine, Albrecht Duren, Anton Kobergn, Legenda aurea sanctorum sive Lombardia historia, German imprints, 15th Century, 1488)

During our class fieldtrip to the Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections at the library I was immediately inspired by the older texts that had been placed out for us. I had been struggling to find to a way to convey a story in my poster comic without using huge blocks of text, but after flipping through the pages of the leather bound books from the 1500’s I decided to just use bits and pieces of text instead. I love yellowed and old paper and since the rest of my poster is already utilizing a sort of cut and paste/collage design, I felt that using clippings of words or numbers would match the style I’ve already started using.

(Rafael Reyes Spindola, El Mundo, Mexico: Compania Editora de El Mundo, 1896 (1906?))

                Another example from the exhibit was the Mexican newspaper compilation book, El Mundo. In El Mundo I found this page of sheet music and it also gave me an idea for how to incorporate my marching band and concert band experience into my poster comic more. As of the moment, the main focus of my poster is on bands that I listen to and how my taste in music has changed, but there really isn’t anything representing my personal experience in creating music. So I’m going to cut out notes, bars, and dynamics from music that I own and have played over the years.

                When it comes to what design concepts from the semester are important, it’s difficult to split them up because each concept we’ve discussed can be important in different ways depending on what the author is trying to create. But for me, I would have to say the really important ones are emphasis, point, line, and plane, scale, and color. These are all concepts that are present in every design, you literally cannot avoid these concepts when creating something. There are more that are also prevalent in every design, but I use and appreciate these ones the most. With emphasis, scale, and color I feel that an author/designer can really create an engaging piece of work, even if those concepts are used subtly or some are not present at all. But no matter what you create you are using a least one concept, even a pure white canvas was made with the intentional choice to use no color.

                I’m using all the concepts I listed in my poster comic and I feel that their addition to my design will make it all the more interesting and engaging for my audience.