Mizotion Creative

Personal Project – Love & War IV

admin — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 22:27:37 +0000

Hello it’s been a while since I posted anything on here which fortunately is a result of being busy with live projects amongst other things. I’ll be making quite a few updates to my portfolio in the coming weeks and going through my process for some live briefs but for now I’m going to update you on the Love and War personal project I started a while back. My last update on thius project documented the development of the Contego crest which is now complete so now I’m going to pick up on the process I went through to complete the Instigo crest.

I wanted the shape and composition of the coat of arms to reflect the offensive characteristics of the Instigo group, I perceive stars as being dynamic so it seemed like a good starting point. Most of the elements of the Contego coat of arms are enclosed within a shape so I wanted this coat of arms to be more expansive in contrast. Having looked at a lot of insignia I’ve taken a particular liking to emblems that are for air forces so I wanted to incorporate some elements commonly used in them, I feel these elements are in keeping with the idea of Instigo being expansive so I included some wings. I created two war flags in a similar style to the two included on the Contego crest and also added a chevron. the next step was to choose a motto that reflected the characteristics of the Instigo group, I used Latin for the Contego motto so I felt it made sense to follow suit with the Instigo motto. with that said I came across some mottos in various languages that I felt were strong, after a lot of searching and translating I narrowed it down to the following

Ducti amore –

Led by love

Toujours en avant-

Always forward

Paratus et Fidelis -

ready and faithful

Nec aspera terrent -

Not afraid of hardship

omnia vincit amor -

Love conquers all

I settled on omnia vincit amor which led me to the next stage of developing the typeface to be used. Throughout the process of I was conscious of striking a balance between the two coat of arms being similar yet distinctively different to mirror the idiom that gave me the idea for this project (all’s fair in love and war). I initially sketched a font that was completely different from the Contego typeface but I then decided to use the Contego typeface as a starting point. The defensive nature of the Contego group came across in the form of tight counter areas and thick solid strokes, I wanted the Instigo font to be more expansive so I slightly altered the proportions to make it much lighter. Once I’d finished with the font it was just a case of setting it on the coat of arms. So this is the completed Instigo coat of arms,now that the pair are completed I’m going to focus on some of the ideas that have been floating around in my head based on the concept. If you’ve got any questions or feedback feel free to leave a comment, thanks for reading.

Type Series III

admin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:12:12 +0000

Hello, I’ve been busy over the past week so I haven’t had time to do as many type pieces as I’d aimed.
Here’s the latest though, critical feedback is always welcome and appreciated.

Type Series II

admin — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:04:53 +0000

Type Series

admin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:20:16 +0000

Hello, just a quick post to sum up a little personal project I’m starting this week. I’ve mentioned in other posts that besides design, music is one of my main interests and whilst making a beat a few days ago I had an idea. When making music I try not to think too much and just see what comes out, to ensure I don’t have much time to think I often set myself a time limit to have the basic framework of a beat down before turning my keyboard off.

With design work it tends to be the opposite as a lot of criteria have to be taken into account, so I thought it would be interesting to do a few pieces of type design under a time limit with minimal thought involved. I’m going to post a new piece every day this week hopefully so here’s the first.

As usual I’d appreciate any feedback, thanks for reading.

Video Killed…

admin — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:07:01 +0000

I have a lot of interests, design, trainers, philosophy, history, trainers, gaming, technology, trainers, etc etc

Of course there are some interests that I actively explore more than others at different times, but no matter what or when their are a few interests that are permanent fixtures. If I was pushed to narrow it down to 3 they would undoubtedly be music, football and design.

Design is everywhere and since I first analysed a piece of typographic design a few years ago I’ve never been able to look at a letterhead since without at least one passing thought about the layout or the typeface. Football is pretty much self explanatory, 11 people on a field somewhere who can have more influence on the mood of my weekend probably more than they’d like to account for (and this season they’ve accounted for quite a few sombre ones). But music is without doubt my biggest interest and the most integral to pretty much everything I do.

I think in many ways my interest in music is a direct result of being brought up around it from an early age, Sunday afternoons have been synonymous with my mum swaying to Lovers Rock from as far back as I can remember. I inherited my mums taste for music but as I grew older dance, rnb and hip hop became my favoured genres. I’m an 80’s baby so of course I’m part of what is sometimes referred to as the MTV generation which is a reference to the time at which music video’s became largely influential.

When I was younger MTV was one of my favourite channels and like a lot of other people I used to make my own video mixtapes, lol their are certain videos even now that I can provide second by second running commentary to I’ve watched them that many times. But even though I enjoyed watching music videos I have always had an interest in music genres that weren’t accessible via the mainstream media channels, so what music sounded like always took precedence over what music looked like. As time’s gone on video’s have become increasingly influential in determining how successful an artist is and how their music is perceived.

I sometimes think that the problem now is that music is an audio artform yet it has become almost entirely visual, whereas before it seemed that video’s were used as a means of adding to the music it seems that now it’s become a way of compensating for music of poor quality. I hear people say quite often that they didn’t like a track up until they saw the video. This is probably a result of the way we tend to ~~listen~~ watch music these days, when I think of music these days I think youtube rather than radio. The increase in popularity of shows like XFactor ( :-l ) have also put what we’re hearing in the background as opposed to what we’re seeing, the entertainment for viewers seems to come in the form of the competition and the judges personalities rather than the talent of the performers. Of course what is seen has always been important in shaping people’s opinions on what they’re hearing, record companies have had marketing and styling divisions dedicated to molding the image of artists for decades but it seems that the music is becoming secondary.

I think this is why for the most part I’m drawn to music genres or artists in their early days before they’re exposed to the mainstream, the music takes centre stage because theirs very little else to sway your opinion. With that in mind I feel like I’m running a bit low on fresh music to listen to so I’d appreciate it if you’d drop me a comment, email or twitter me with any suggestions, thanks for reading.

Personal Project – Love & War III

admin — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 17:33:14 +0000

Hello again I’m back with another update on my personal project. The last update I made was a breakdown of the typeface I made for the Contego coat of arms so I’m picking up where I left off with adding the text to the coat of arms. I didn’t do any work on this for a few days and when I came back to it I thought it looked a little sparse so I decided to make some changes and additions. I’d purposely left some space in the inner circle for a motto which is a common feature of military heraldry, I did some research into motto’s used by various military regiments around the world and made a shortlist of some I thought were suitable for the Contego coat of arms. Some of them are in Latin with translations at the side.

Nemo me impune lacessit – None attack me with impunity

Yesterday for today, today for tomorrow

No one comes close

Second to none

Conservo et supero – I conserve and conquer

Ever Vigilant

Protect, defend, preserve

I settled on “conservo et supero” because I think it fits in with the defensive characteristics I based the Contego coat of arms on and I also like the continuity of the Latin language influence. Surrounding the motto I was originally going to add a laurel wreath as they’re commonly featured in military heraldry and are recognised symbols of victory but I decided against it and opted for a chain which I think is more in fitting with the defensive characteristics behind Contego. It’s common for each branch of a military to have their own flag, for example the ground forces of the British military have a different flag (war flag) to that of the naval forces (roundel). Based on this I decided to create a war flag and a roundel to be featured on the coat of arms. After trying the flags on the coat of arms in various positions I added a few ruffles and settled on the one below So this is the finished Contego coat of arms (aside from any minor adjustments) so from now I’m going to be concentrating on the design of the Instigo coat of arms which I’ve already started sketching. Aside from both coats of arms I’ve got a lot of ideas around this concept which I’ll be posting about a lot more over the coming weeks and months. If you’ve got any questions or feedback feel free to leave a comment, thanks for reading.

Personal Project – Love & War II

admin — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:58:58 +0000

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been continuing work on my personal project Love & War and I’ve got a few updates to make.

In my last update I was up to the point of my initial draft of my Contego coat of arms so the next step was to focus on the typographic elements. As mentioned in my last update the graphic style employed by the Soviet administration has influenced my work on this project quite heavily and as I looked at adding some type to the coat of arms I decided to look at some Soviet propaganda posters for inspiration. I looked at the type of numerous Soviet propaganda posters and noticed the typefaces used typically have characters with strong bold strokes, are angular in form and in keeping with the doctrine of the Soviets decorative elements are kept to a minimum. The next step was to look at typefaces with similar characteristics I could use for the Contego coat of arms. I looked at various typefaces that had a Soviet influence and narrowed it down to the four featured above but each of them had elements I didn’t like. I thought that ‘Nyet’ and ‘East Bloc’ were too compact in form and that the counter areas (hole in the ‘o’) of the characters in ‘Kremlin’ and ‘Eurocentric’ were too large so I decided to make my own typeface. In keeping with the angular style I’d employed for the coat of arms I decided to use a grid system for the characters and stick to straight lines, I also decided the characters would have narrow counter areas in keeping with the defensive theme. I’ve still got some work to do on the punctuation marks and additional characters but I’m at a point where I can continue with the design of the coat of arms, thanks for reading and be sure to check back for more updates soon.

Personal Project – Love & War

admin — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:32:37 +0000

Over the past week or so I’ve been working on a new personal project on the theme of Love & War so I though’t I’d share a summary of the thought process behind it and an update on how it’s going.
All is fair in love and war is an idiom that I’ve heard hundreds of times but upon hearing it recently I started doing a few doodles and felt I could produce some interesting work from it.

I didn’t really know what direction I wanted to go in or what I wanted to produce from it so I simply started by looking at the some of the most obvious visual representations of love and war to try and generate some ideas. The most obvious representation of love is undoubtedly…

♥

The love heart is a symbol that’s easily illustrated and as a result you’re just as likely to see it on a greetings card as you are to see it etched into a school table or furthermore in a status update on Facebook.

Their isn’t a symbol for war that is universally recognised in the way the love heart is for love so this proved to be more challenging and as a result interesting. The armed forces were an obvious starting point due to them being the most instrumental people in wars (besides the politicians) and so I started looking at how their identified visually.
Most branches of armed forces have a seal or flag and further to that award badges and other insignia as symbols of authority or tokens of achievements. Military flags and seals often give a good idea of what the country stands/stood for and when they were established. Image 1A is the flag of the British Army, the presence of the crown points to the monarchy we have in place whereas images 1B & 1C are the seals of the USA and Brazil which are both republics.

I like the way different elements are brought together in military seals/insignia to indicate what is worth fighting for or defending so I thought this was a good starting point.

By this point I’d started to look at the similarities between love and war to see how I could mesh the two together to produce something visually, the two are in many ways polar opposites but looking at them in more depth led me to some ideas worth developing. This is a summary of a mish mash of thoughts, observations and doodles in a notepad so I apologise if this a bit hard to follow lol.

When a war takes place their tends to be two sides who each take up the role of either the aggressor or the defender, both are willing to fight or defend for what they believe in whether it be something of financial value or a moral belief. For a relationship to develop into love their has to be two people and although not always the case their tends to be one person more reluctant to open up than the other. So I grouped together the two roles that I see as most similar with the intention of producing a coat of arms that represents the mindset of each group. I also gave each group a Latin name, the translations are:

Agressor & Pursuer = Instigo to incite, instigate, urge
Defender & Resister = Contego to cover, shield, protect

New website & blog

admin — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:49:45 +0000

Welcome to my new website and blog, I got a bit tired of the old one so thought I may as well spruce it up and add a blog in the process. On here I’ll be mainly talking about my personal projects and documenting how some of them develop. I’ll also be providing links to other designers that I like and probably writing the odd post about my other interests (music, sports etc).

the more feedback I get the better, so feel free to respond via comments or email, thanks for reading.