I started messing around with layouts and writing styles on top of the Don't Panic logo. I was initially using the phrase 'don't waste your time' then slowly migrated to 'don't bother' as it was a lot easier to manipulate.
These are scans of just some of my attempts, I've got about 20 pages scattered on my desk and more balled up and thrown in the bin (in a stereotypical frustrated, misunderstood designer fashion). I've written it out so many times that I've completely lost track of what the whole purpose is, and they're all blending into one massive waste of time (ironic, I know). There are a couple that stand out as marginally better than the rest - the very first 'waste your time' scan, and the 4th 'bother' from the bottom - but because I'm incorporating the logo, to me, none of it reads quite right..
After sobering up from my angst induced fit of frustration, I had a moment of clarity that begged the question "well why are you even using the logo in the first place?". BOOM. That gets round the disrepute clause in the rules as well - my idiocy shocks me at times, it really does.
I still needed to step back and get my head around what exactly it was that I'm trying to say. Revisit the brief. Resistance. What am I resisting?? WHAT AM I RESISTING?! I'm resisting the brief - what does the brief want? What have I found from my critical theory approach? The brief wants innovative, out of the box, avant-garde on the surface level, but has so many contradictory terms - and the idea of them asking us to be progressive makes the whole thing kitsch anyway - it's under the umbrella of 'craft: illustration' but truly 'progressive' artists are those that create their own 'craft', as it were. What's my message? It's on the tip of my tongue, but for once I'm really struggling to put my thoughts into words. Am I trying to say that thinking is a craft? Careful analysis and the concepts it produces are forms of art in their own right? Trying to provoke thought processes in designers/artists? Is it an overwhelming resistance to 'thinking outside the box'?
... And there we have it.... I think... Being told to "think outside the box"... There is no fucking box, it's not as if people hold themselves back and are constantly sitting on the fence until someone prompts them: "oh yeah guys, you can think outside the box on this one" THANKS MATE. No. People worth winning the competition are those who think innovatively no matter what, and this is reflected in all of their work, so when the brief tells us to 'think the opposite of your standard practice' then all the innovative thinkers should essentially hold themselves back and produce something completely mundane, which in turn will never win them the competition. You see my problem? The brief is just one massive paradox.
So.. What does the brief fundamentally want? Something forward thinking yet 'oh-my-god-amazing' from the moment you clap eyes on it. Since don't panic is primarily a poster production company I assume that the idea is for the final image to be print-ready and appealing. Therefore if I'm resisting the brief I'm resisting all of these things: it needs to be understood before it can be appreciated; it can't be something typically appealing for a poster design and if I'm feeling particularly wild then perhaps it's not even physically possible to manufacture as a poster.
Cooking on gas here. I apologise if this makes little to no sense to anyone else but typing out my though process as I go along helps me to get my head around things
I'm thinking.. Entrants can submit up to 4 A3/A2 boards.. But they're not submitting boards, they're submitting illustrations mounted onto boards.. They're expecting work that is essentially constructed on top of a board.. What if instead of building up my work on top of the board I work backwards and take it out of the board itself? Let's roll with this idea for a while.
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