September Industry

TOM CRABTREE on the Poster
My editorial contribution to Edition 3 explored the topic of inspiration in relation to the image aggregation website ffffound! I hadn’t read a balanced critique of the site so I thought it was an appropriate subject, particularly for a publication that exists both as a blog and as a printed journal. In the writing I both question the legitimacy of using ffffound! as a successful tool for researching and finding inspiration as a designer, but also go on to celebrate the scrap-book nature of the site, and how it can feel like a visual flea market.

I’d discussed with Thomas the editor, the possibility of creating a piece of print design to link with the editorial contribution. An insert or poster perhaps. We decided upon an A1 poster that would conceptually support the theme of the written text and would be sold separately after the publication had shipped.

After giving it some thought, I made the link with an ongoing self-initiated project I had been working on. It was a series of images (future prints perhaps) that were a study in the aesthetics of utility and ‘found design’. The images featured a series of abstracted formats of print ephemera – formats that performed a function in one way or another. These were things that I had literally picked up off the ground (I have a shoebox full of this type of stuff). I thought it was a fitting graphic solution for an editorial contribution that explored the difference between ‘finding’ an image online to be inspired by, vs being inspired by finding a physical object.

With each of the graphic elements (which are carefully redrawn vector versions of the original designs) nothing was added, only a few elements were subtracted to get to the essence of the designs. For example, the item on the top left is a Tokyo train ticket. The original found object had diagrams of trains on the front and Japanese text, but these were removed, and just the structure and format of the design was presented.

The full list of items are as follows (from top left to bottom right):

• Tokyo Train ticket (front and back)
• Math flash card for child learning (front and back)
• Photo slide frame mounts
• Two American lotto tickets
• An envelope for Polaroid 8 x 10 instant film
• Time-clock punch card (front and back)

The graphic elements of the poster were than abstracted further and converted into black and white line-art for the cover of Edition 3 of the publication.

EDITORIAL
It’s Wednesday and as you’d expect, I have some lovely work for you to enjoy. Now some of you may have seen this poster already, but you probably haven’t seen images this large! After that whole switching hosts fiasco last week you’d think I’d resize my images but fortunately for you (dear reader) that isn’t going to happen. ;) I care about the details just as much as the next person; to go down to images under 800px would just hinder your viewing experience. :)

So I hope you enjoy these exclusive images which includes the Process Edition 3 spreads above and, thank you to both Tom @ Manualand Thomas @ Process for making this feature possible :) .

The poster and Process Journal Edition 3 are available for purchase at:

www.processjournal.com.au
FFFFinding Inspiration
Manualcreative.com