Journal Exercise 3 - Graphic Design and It's Use of Color

The Five Spot logo I stumbled upon on a picture gallery type website for designers. After searching for a while, I later found out a bit more about the designer, the restaurant and the logo. Patrick King on The King Group designed this sometime around '96 for a friend that was opening a nightclub. The nightclub opened around the time of the movie Swingers and also the same time as those Gap ads with groups of swing dancers and the theme of the logo evolved from there. It was a bar that was open in Philidelphia for a number of years hosted many big bands (as in Big Band music) as well as well known hip hop and soul singers. The bar unfortunately was burnt down in 1997.

I think the typography of this logo reflects all the artists and events the bar hosted. It's colour screams, 50's, lounge and swing music and dancing. The sans condensed and playfulness typeface remind me of Blue Note album covers of to 50's and 60's......and then Blue Note album covers also remind me of great soul artists of that time. The colours give the logo movement, the warmer colours are displaced throughout the logo and go up and around the cooler coloured letters. The desaturation of the colours gives the logo a lounge vibe. Overall it's a great logo and captures everything the designer set out to portray.

ORIGINAL LOGO

Exercise 1: Alter the Color Scheme

1a) Monochromatic Color Scheme

This variation reminds of airlines and airports. The colours used are very popular with airlines.....they love their blues. The fact that each word is coloured differently rather each letter,gives the logo an upward movement rather than a frentic, swinging kind of movement so I think that's also what's brought me to the airline distinction.

1b) Complimentary Color Scheme

This colour variation reminds me of basketball jersey colours.
The dark purple "I" and the "E" are fading way into the background while the yellow is jumping to my eye first followed closely by the lilac. My eye/mind almost blocks out the "I" and "E" and assumes that the fact that they are darker colours, they are not as important to read in the word.

1c) Analogous Color Scheme

This specific colour scheme with the warm yellow and orange-reds portrays a more sexy kind of vibe. The different coloured letters still give the logo life but these colours seem a bit more sensual.Probably a good colour choice for swingers bars, not bars for swing dancing.

Exercise 2: Alter the Intensity

2a) Intense Colours

The colours for this variation are just that, INTENSE......too intense. The intensity almost hurts. The screaming colours against the black background make the intensity that much more and it's burning my retinas right now. The colour scheme would be good for a venue geared towards children...but the intensity of the colours might just make the kids a bit crazy after a while.

2b) Less Intense Colours

This variation looks like something that's been left out in the sun for too long. It looks aged and weathered. Doesn't look like the happening, swinging spot the bar was. The colours don't give the logo the same life....the type choice gives it a feeling of the 50's but it's original colour gives the logo it's life and portrayed the bar more completely.


Exercise 3: Alter the Temperature

3a) Warm Colour Palette

This alteration gives the logo a whole new feel. It now feels as though this could be for a 60's lounge. The colours are so vibrant with this variation, the letters almost vibrate next to one another.


3b) Cool Colour Palette

I really don't like this variation. All the tinted blues and green make me
a) Naseous &
b) Think of hospitals and medicines and pills. Overall something you don't want to be thinking about when you're looking at the branding for a swing bar.

Favela - A Mural Artist using Color to Enliven the Slums of Rio

Another Light Artist

I was wandering the internet in search of more inspiration for my Journal Exercise and happened upon some interesting "light art" from the Venice Art Biennale in 2009.

Ivan Navarro's light sculpture entitled "Death row"




Buildings are illuminated as part of Biennale

Behavior and Light

Examine how the presence or absence of light has affected your behavior in a particular space (public and private):

1) Hospitals:

Every hospital is the same. I think there is one architect that designs all of them and just spews out the same design each time. All have an over abundance over fluorescent lighting around every corner. Desaturated and sterile colours that make me feel:
-Uncomfortable - They feel like places where you will be a test subject. There is no personality because of the lack of colour and the blandness of it all. The lighting is irritating and and bright keeping you on constant alert.

2) My Nana's House:Not actually my Nana's house but a good representation of it

My Nana passed away a while back but I still remember her apartment's colours and lighting. It was always very dimly lit or only lit by sunlight that came through the heavy curtains. The furniture was all dark burgundies and olive greens with dark wood. All the decorations were intricate and delicate consisting of porcelain, glass and large brass pictures frames making me feel:
-Not so cozy - The dark colours added with the absence of a lot of light gave the place a sombre, museum like quality.
-Out of place - As a child I didn't feel like I belonged there because of the dark uninviting colours, lack of light and lack of objects to play with that weren't porcelain.

3) Cambie Bar:

I used to work yeeears ago and I remember it took on a different vibe for me from day to night. The bar has large windows all around that let in light during the day while low lighting and xmas lights lit up the bar at night.
During the day the bar felt:
-Friendly, easy going, cozy place to eat - The light coming through all the windows onto the old wood tables and floors made it feel cozy and inviting.
At night time the bar felt:
-Frenetic - Lights all around. Coming from xmas lights, inside fluorescents, machines (keno machine etc), light from outside streetlights spotlighting action out on the the streets

Journal Exercise 2 - Playing with Light

I experimented with a laser pointer and a decorative glass full of water and got this shot. The laser pointer was just the normal single red beam of light but once I passed it through a clear glass that had decorations of fruit and such on it, the light started twisting and dancing. Kinda like a spirograph on crack. The slightest movement change it's whole movement and the light played with all the bumps and indentations on the glass.


Note: My camera was not taking proper shots in the dark so I am going to continue to try to get better shots as well as video because this shot does no justice.

Journal Exercise 1 - The Colours of Valentine's Day

Before

After



Before



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Before



After

The Colours of Valentine's Day

Even though the sentiment and the graphics of Valentine’s Day are mostly marketing executive created, the images and objects of Valentine's Day surround us on February 14 every year. The bright reds and baby pinks. A colour scheme that by certain tastes may be a bit garish but the colours of those objects that surround us on Valentine’s Day are deeply ingrained in to our “colour beliefs”. If they change colour, they no longer have any day on the calendar that they belong to.

In the first example, I altered the colour of a nice hearted shaped box of chocolate. The heart shape symbolizes love and the bright saturated red symbolizing that it’s intended for a romantic partner. So once you take the red out of the equation, and in my case make the box black, the meaning and symbolize COMPLETELY change. With the black and the blue box, one would expect to receive this box at a funeral. It’s colour now implies mourning but the shape stills says love. The same line of thinking applies to cupid. When red, cupid looks like he brings the message/symbolism of love but when cupid is pitch black, he looks he has been sent to bring you a special message of death. Black, in our culture, has a profound implied meaning of death and the unknown.

The coloured valentine’s day candy in the last example may not follow the red and pink colour scheme mentioned previously but the pastel colours and cutesy sentiments on the candy imply a softness. Once the candy colour scheme is changed to deep blues and purples, the candy looks inedible or if you take to many, you may not wake up. The blues imply something medicinal and stark.

Most of the time colour is tricking our minds and our pre-determined beliefs on “how things are”. Your mind needs to categorize things and put it in it’s predetermined place otherwise, we’d be on overload all the time so when your mind sees that black box of chocolates, it doesn't fit in the Valentine’s Day category anymore, it has to belongs elsewhere and because of historical/political/social uses of the colour black and the shape of a heart, our brain puts it in it’s nice little category of funeral…..well because it fits.