viscom exhibits, bringing you up to date.

here are two rounds of visual systems for smithsonian exhibits! these are the result of all that brainstorming and stuff we were talking about earlier. i left the pirates back in the brainstorming phase, and ended up splitting my mainstream music concept into two different visual ideas, one more about production, and another more about consumption. the concepts at this point were an old vs new look at music technology:

the biography look at the people who set hip hop and dj culture off on its course:

the falsified production of popular music:

and the basically unavoidable consumption of popular music:

from that point i said goodbye to music-for-the-masses, despite its nice use of icon scale, which i tried to recycle later to no particular avail. here was the next step.

i tried to incorporate more scale in victrola to itunes. it looks slightly more like wrapping paper than it did when i started. i need to consider different relationships for my mac and my synth than the old add-ons they currently have, trying to find something with a more beautiful form to go better with the recordplayer.

i swapped out some images for the hip-hop ancestors, and cleaned up the messy icon pattern, electing just one icon to represent their contribution to the culture instead. by the by, if you're wondering, these gents are grand wizard theodore, dj kool herc, and afrika bambaataa, going left-right-down. i tried out two different versions of this, trying out different names/typestyles and icon usage.

for my pop star idea, my classmates encouraged me to look at different processes or outside imagery i could use to reinforce the production methods. i tried out the photoshop interface and magic wand tool to reference the idea of computerized alteration, and then i tried another version that focused more on the industrial manufacturing concept using factories and a conveyor belt. i also tried out a different title to try to use another copyright symbol. none of this worked.

so, to date: my undergroundkings/godfathers are no longer in the running, given that it was more about using the look of that culture than utilizing my own designyvoice. that leaves me with pop stars and the evolution of music tech, both concepts that i love, and both executions that are pretty weak.

being me, i am of course still dragging both of them along for the ride, letting them play chicken to see which one i can get a better idea out of first. which will be applied to real forms, in three iterations, by friday.

wiiiish me luck!