OUGD406 - J-Card Initial Ideas 2

OUGD406 - J-Card Initial Ideas 2

In 1969, the BBC used the song ‘Space Oddity’ by David Bowie, who at the time was relatively unknown, for their coverage of the moon landing, and in doing so made it his first big hit. This J-Card design uses images taken by the astronauts on the first moon landing, which have been warped and thresholded creating monochrome abstract imagery in reference to the modernist avant-garde approach of some Art Rock artists. The images are laid out rationally and spread over panels, this was inspired by designer Peter Saville’s more bespoke J-Card designs such as his one for New Order. As a visual juxtaposition to the warped imagery the bold sans serif ‘Good Headline Pro’ is utilised, with its newspaper headline aesthetic in reference to how the moon landing was ground breaking news, and the colour red representing Bowie who would often be seen with red hair, clothing or with the red lighting bolt on his face when assuming his ‘Aladdin Sane’ alter ego. The lyric from Space Oddity - “Put your helmet on” - is used as a reference to how Bowie shot up into fame after the song, almost as a hypothetical pre- caution for him to ‘get ready’. 

This J-Card design contains 5 more panels then the standard 3 panel J-Card. After the cover, each panel contains a track from the cassette and a fact or bit of information about it. This increase in number of panels and use of facts and information uses the same principle as Art-Rock as a genre - to create something more in-depth and intellectual than the standard approach. Appropriate imagery is used in reference to some of the facts and the back- ground colours and imagery are not confined to one panel and instead overlap, creating a less regimented and more experimental design, with more of a focus on the J-Card as a whole composition when unfolded. Orange and Black are used again as the colour palette after noticing its visual potency in the first j-card, something noted in a group critique. A custom modified version of Compacta Black is used for the title and spine, while Franklin Gothic is used for the body text to ensure clarity in the printing process. The one thing which may be difficult with printing this J-Card is the legibility of the body text as there is a lot of it and it is layered with images in 3 different colours which is why, for example in the penultimate panel about Vicious by Lou Reed, where the orange text overlaps the flower image, it is given a small black drop shadow.

Thoughts and Opinions

I like the design for the David Bowie inspired J-Card, and while it could be developed even further, it is probably not worth it, as in general the rationale and ideas behind it are just not as good as the other J-Cards which have various design aspects directly informed by information and research about Art Rock. This long J-Card idea is fairly successful, some elements work really well such as the cover, use of my own typefaces and utilisation of the black and orange colour scheme however having designed it, its become even more apparent that this quantity of body text will be very fiddly to print successfully. I will continue to try and develop it and look to my upcoming group critique for ideas.