Charlie Mead

Edited, written and designed by me (using sourced images), this project was intended as a designed exploration of a topic. I chose to investigate the power and visual representation of nuclear weapons. My intentions for this project were to use editorial design to tell a history of nuclear weapons through real historical images and created illustrations, political discourse and media views of this topic. I wanted people to really think about this formidable object which has become almost an abstraction, meaning to destroy or cook or just a cool toy in a video game.

I wanted to maintain a constrained chaos. Pared back page elements, no colour and a single sans-serif typeface is mixed with blocks of cut out grainy scanned images and rough illustrations. The rigidity is an attempt to stay somewhat objective and matter of fact as historic images and real information is shown and to let the imagery remain impactful.

The aim of this project was to create a visual system for a season of events/exhibitions called Jet Wash Culture. The events aim to let people experience ‘the image of music’ through presentations, live performances and interactive elements. I was required to make a visual system and create print posters and London Underground Digital Escalator Panels, four for each representing the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s.

I wanted my focus on the feeling invoked by the music, alluding to the tagline for the events: ‘the image of music’. With the most important and influential acts and genres in mind, I made the images out of relevant shapes to my research of the decades and created dynamic patterns using movements and reactions to music. For example, the low, downward moving, heavy blocks represent the darker and more atmospheric music of post punk and industrial in the 1970s and the sharp jabbing exaggerated spikes represent the glitzy, synth focused pop and new wave music of the 1980s.

This project is a rebranded music campaign for an alternative Hip-hop artist called JPEGMAFIA. I wanted to make a limited edition packaging for the vinyl record to create a special, collectible format for the album and to create a visual system for the album to be applied to tour posters and flyers.

The visual identity is derived from the content of the music, the album’s themes of the internet and punk take on politics. Internet culture and punk culture/music is linked by a DIY, low budget aesthetic so this is what I tried to make, a punk album for the internet. I was taking cues from computer windows, screens, icons such as the mouse cursor and Susan Kare’s original apple application icons. To this, adding in rough and colourful illustrations with aggressive and rebellious imagery. As part of the visual system, I created a logo for the artist, 19 icons for each track and illustrations or scanned media for each track in the lyric book.