This week we were asked to look at an album cover, that we found interesting and analyze it. After searching my music collection I finally chose Cry Baby by Melanie Martinez.

Cry Baby was the debut studio album of Melanie Martinez, released in August 2015.

I really liked the mix of the digital background and cloud with the drawn and homemade style of the houses at the bottom. I found the use of colour had good contrast the Light pink of the background with the blue of the title.

My favorite part of the album cover however is the typography used at the top. The use of letter shaped balloons gives the text a rounded look which makes it look fun and playful.  Which is a strong juxtaposition with the meaning of the words it is spelling out.

We where asked to create a new typeface in illustrator, using only 5 shapes, a circle, a square, a rectangle, a triangle, or a pill shape. I tried some different ideas but in the end I chose to use squares and the pill shape to create my alphabet. I found it quite challenging and at times stressful, especially when some letters just didn’t look right. I did in the end find the challenge enjoyable and I liked that I was made to think outside the box  and get a grasp of just what was possible with geometric shapes.

Initially I tried using the geometric shapes of a circle and a square. Having the circle be the background shape and the square being the foreground shape But after creating the “A,B and C” I wasn’t happy with how the alphabet was looking. While it was creative I didn’t think it was very readable, if the alphabet isn’t readable then it seems pointless.

This is when I decided to change tack and instead use a Square and the Pill shape. This time making the Square the background shape and the Pill shape the foreground. I felt the elongation of the pill shape would work better than just using the circle. The letters I am happiest with are “A,B,M,N,T and Y”, I think these came out really well and tie in together nicely. I wasn’t so happy with the letter “Q”, I found this one really hard to recreate in my typeface. But overall I am very happy with my results.

Below is a wireframe diagram of how each letter was created. As you can see I had to change orientation, size and sometimes even cut the shape in half to allow me to create my alphabet. I also relied on over laying the shape to help create new ones.

This week we were able to meet face to face on campus. The task was to be cutting and sticking magazine and newspaper images/text and creating montages.

I began in class looking very carefully through what I had brought and began piecing together parts which I felt could create a story. In class I came up with the following. The first I thought told a story because the headline has the word “Unlocked” in it and I paired this with a crossword which is really a puzzle that needs unlocked. For the second I just thought the colour contrast of black & white and full rainbow looked interesting. I also liked that the black & white image was from the 70s, this made the piece look of era.

However I was not happy with either of these or the time it was taking to create them. So when I got home I began to digitally create some further montages using Procreate. I use this app quite regularly for drawing and sketching, so I was comfortable with the basic controls. However I have never created a montage within it or done much image manipulation, so I knew this would be tough. But I wanted to try anyway.

In total I created a further five pieces replacing my original two. I wanted to keep a running theme in each so kept the colour Red present through out. I felt this ties all the montages together and makes them part of a collection. I also wanted to add some text to each montage, I like the diversity it adds to the images. I also played about a bit with orientation. I found portrait made them short and to the point. While Landscape added a sense of a deeper meaning and story.

This is my favorite creation, I just loved how I was able to make the text flow. I found this really challenging but was very happy with the final result. I liked the message I created of mother nature not even being able to clean up this modern world. I found the Red, Black & White especially effective here, showing the bleakness and seriousness of the situation.