After researching into the New Wave Design of the 80's I found Peter Saville, an English art director and graphic designer. His work contains various geometric shapes and bold colours, I took inspiration from this into my final design with some simple New Wave patterns.


The aim and purpose of this brief was for me to discover how imagery is used in a wide variety of graphic disciplines including print and digital media. Designers need to be multi-disciplined, adaptable and understand the software tools that are available to them, including typographical and illustration packages so that they are able to create innovate and exciting visual communications. I had to create a 48-sheet sized poster for the London Underground to promote the V&A Club to Catwalk: Fashion in the 1980's exhibition.


I researched into several artists including Reno Msad, Billie Jean, Patrick Nagel and Jasper Goodall. I also looked at two designers whose work featured at the exhibition: Anthony Price and Katharine Hamnett. I included Anthony Prices' garment on one of my main illustrations to give a small insight on the many wonderful garments within the exhibition.

After looking into the styles of these artists, I decided to experiment and try the styles of Patrick Nagel and Billie Jean, these experiments can be found on my blog. I am happy with my experiments and feel that they were successful. I have incorporated both of these styles into my final pieces and found that this has worked really well together.

Both Final 48-sheet posters include 2/3 Illustrations, the V&A logo, the exhibition name, times, dates and also underground travel information. I have used complementary colour schemes which are simple and effective. However, I feel that my second poster has the stronger link to the 80's after using bold blue and orange hues instead of the pastel green and pink of the first poster.

Overall I would say that I am happy with the result of my final outcomes and had fun experimenting with illustration styles and the Adobe software. If I were to do a project similar to this again I would have a deeper look into the theme, in this case the 80's as I often found it hard to pull the 80's link through, I feel as though I managed to do so. However I could have made a stronger effort to get a better understanding of the 80's by asking a variety of people what was iconic about the 80's etc.

This is my first final 48-sheet poster, I am happy with the finished result. I have included 2/3 Illustrations, the V&A logo, times, dates and Underground travel details. I have used complementary colours as a simple colour scheme that works effectively. I have been influenced by the Club to Catwalk exhibition itself along with several artists such as Billie Jean, Reno Msad, Patrick Nagel and Katharine Hamnett. 
This is my second final (also) 48-sheet poster, I am very happy with this finished result too. I have included 2/3 Illustrations, the V&A logo, times, dates and Underground travel details. I have also use complementary colours within this piece, I feel that the bold blue and orange shades have a stronger 80s feel to them rather than the pastel pink and green of my first poster. I have been influenced by the Club to Catwalk exhibition itself, including Anthony Prices' "Birds Wing evening dress" featured on my illustration. However, the original "Birds Wing" evening dress is Ivory. I was also influenced by a variety of artists including Patrick Nagel, Billie Jean and Reno Msad.

This is my first final illustration, inspired by Katharine Hamnett - the bold type on tops, Patrick Nagel - black outline, square eyes and white skin, Reno Msad - the juicy lips and blonde hair and the Club to Catwalk exhibition. I am happy with how this illustration turned out and think that it's evident that this model would fit into the 80s. 


This is my second model, inspired by Reno Msad - Juicey lips, large, detailed facial features, Patrick Nagel - White skin, black outlines, Anthony Price - whose dress "Birds Wing"(garment in illustration) featured at the Club to Catwalk exhibition.
These are the "Club to Catwalk" illustrations/type I created these in the same way I done my Billie Jean experimentation, I thought that this is a funky yet smart way to display "Club to Catwalk".


For this experimentation I took an image by Patrick Nagel and tried to recreate it in his style. His style consists of black outlines, black hair, white skin and squarish eyes.
Here is my recreation of Patrick Nagels image, I took a small section. The section I took was of the womans face, as Nagels models seem to contain the same attributes, dark hair, square-eyes and full lips. I am happy with how my recreation turned out and feel that it is very alike the original apart from the highlights within the hair could have been more realistic. To create this I used the pen tool on Photoshop and created black outlines, similar to the way that Patrick Nagel would've done. I will bring this style forth into my final piece as it looks very effective and meets with the ambiance of the 80's decade.


Below is my experimentation inspired by Billie Jean.
Billie Jeans piece of work consists in the word "LOVE" and uses colours that people relate to love, for instance pinks and reds. The quality isn't perfect, but it isn't "messy" as such, either. Before I begun my experimentation I thought that Jean had created the piece by drawing freehand on Photoshop.

Here is my finished experimentation, I chose to oppose the "LOVE" with using "HATE". For this I used Photoshop. Starting with a standard Sans-Serif font I traced over it freehand with the pen tool, however I found that this made it a bit too messy, unlike Jeans "LOVE" piece. I therefore used a pen tool, which created a sharper and straighter edge, although it's more pristine than Billie Jeans piece I feel that it still created the same effect. I used colours that represented hate, and to me this is a variety of greys. Hate is a draining emotion and I feel that grey perfectly presents this in the way that red/pink represents LOVE. I also added noise to the background, to give it a bit of a rustic and rough look.

I am really happy with how this turned out, even though it's a bit too straight-edged I still think it was a successful experimentation.


  • An English illustrator who was at the forefront of reinventing illustration in the late 90's.
  • Clients range from music, fashion, advertising, publishing and editorial.
  • Goodall has his own swimwear label: JG4B, a limited edition range of "wearable art".
  • Has worked for Gucci, Nike, Adidas and Dazed & Confused.
  • Jaspers work shows a symbolic look at eroticism and contemporary culture.
I really like this flowing and sophisticated piece, it has a mysterious aura about it with the use of shadows and silhouettes.

I also like this piece, it represents Dior really well, he has stuck with his popular silhouette theme and this fits impeccably well with Dior, a sophisticated and expensive company.

Although this piece is purely computer manipulated and produced I really like the geometric shapes and the space-like features. I find this piece very mystical and random but I like that there's no specific theme.


  • Is an English illustrator from East London.
  • He creates his work through the use of biros, Indian ink, acrylic paints and photography.
I really like this piece by Billie Jean, it is simple yet bold and represents itself well. I like that the colours used are colours that link to the word itself, and that the design is not flawless -  and neither is love.

I like that this piece is a mixed collage of happy, fun, summer times and Cornetto! I think that this piece works really nicely as it's black and white, apart from "Cornetto" being in colour, almost as though Cornetto makes your summer. Being a summer music festival, I think that Jean has perfectly sponsored cornetto for this piece. Including the cone pattern amongst the collage and other illustrations of a typical summer.

I really like how Billie Jean has turned this design into the purpose of which it has been produced. He uses illustrations that represent stresses and feelings in the day of the human mind, this design piece advertises Samaritans, a phone service that anyone can call - simply to chat about anything, to unload the mind. The caption "Things on your mind?" Is also displayed on this sign under the illustrations of potential worries. I think that this piece flows and shows the audience exactly what it is.

On this day I attended college in "Club to Catwalk: 80's fashion", like I had seen at the exhibition. I kept with a neon pink theme and wore fluffy leg warmers, neon pink top and bright pink armbands/headbands. The neon theme I wore would've fitted well into the early 80's pop dress code. 

 In a group of 4 we created a themed 80's club based on our 80's attire, therefore we created an early 80's pop club called "Illuminate", we chose this name to symbolise the lights and colours that would be found within the club.

 We created wooden signage boards to present our club Illuminate. These boards showed illustrations of tapes, records, music notes, neon colours, peace signs and patterns of the era. I placed the club name in italic over my main illustration of a peace sign.

 We presented our 80's club to the other students in our class with a short performance to Cindy Lauper - Girls just wanna have fun. We danced in and presented our club with "Illuminate, an early 80's pop club, open day and night" our presentation displayed a bright, fun, aerobic style that followed with our early 80's pop club culture that we wanted.

 I found that getting involved this way made it a lot easier to be inspired as your brain is already under the influence of the culture and style of that time. I feel that this was a very effective research method which kept your mind easily with the research topic, and would happily take part in more research methods like this.

Club to Catwalk explores the creative explosion of London fashion in the 1980s. London fashion began to create a stir internationally and the risk-taking designers behind the styles remain some of the most influential figures in fashion today.

 Upon entering the Club to Catwalk exhibition I sensed a true feeling of nostalgia, hearing music that I had heard my mum play on the vinyl player when I was a lot younger. The amount of bright colours that were displayed around the exhibition were very bright, bold and mixed. Looking around the exhibition I was quite astonished by the amount of clashing colours and tacky accessories that were worn in that era, but when I looked closer into detail about the various sub-cultures (Pop, Goth, Glam Fetish, Hard times etc..) I realised that a lot of this culture and style is still a big part of todays fashion.

 I found this exhibition exceptionally different to any other, it was fun, exciting, colourful, bold and playful. I found it very interesting and found it easy to get into the whole 80's vibe, which really helps with my understanding of how the 80's was like. I found a new love for the work of Katharine Hamnett, who uses bold statements that often revolve around the political side of Britain - purely to get her opinion across. I also really liked the Evening dress "Birds wing" by Anthony Price, who had designed garments for Duran Duran The Birds wing dress amazed me with the geometric shape to it, Anthony Price had said "I am an architect, I build frocks" and this is definitely see-able within his work, the structure of the dress produces a very bold and sophisticated statement.


  • Hamnett is an English fashion designer.
  • She is well known for he political t-shirts of the 80s, that are still worn today.
  • Founded Katharine E. Hamnett clothier in 1979.
  • Hamnetts designs were adopted by pop bands including Wham! and Queen.
  • Wham! and Queen separately featured Hamnetts t-shirts in a music video.


I really like how Hamnett has included issues in the world within her t-shirt range to get her point across with catchy slogans. I also like how simple the design is - Large block printed lettering, this was promoted into the music scene and therefore effectively reached the audience.


  • Is an American Artist based in Brooklyn, NY.
  • Msad specialises in traditional and vector illustrations, logo and broadcast designs.
  • Reno Msad has worked with Paramount Pictures, MT, VH1 and Vevo.
This is one of my favourite pieces done by Reno Msad, it is an 80s style Lady Gaga. I feel that this expresses the fashion and club scene of the 80s exceptionally well with the PVC trousers, fingerless gloves and shades. Even the background of this image shows the popular, colourful laser/strobe lights. I really like the style of his images and they are do-able as he uses the Adobe Creative suite.
I really like the use of colour within this piece, even though they don't represent the popular colours of the 80s, however the popart style in which it is created is similar to that of Patrick Nagel. Msads subject also has the white skintone and colourful, full lips.

I also really like this piece, although it looks quite futuristic there are certain elements that link well with the 80s, the subjects clothes for instance have jazzy patterns and she wears an arm warmer which was a popular accessory in that era. The main illustration is also inside a triangle, which links well to the geometric shapes of the 80s.

  • Patrick Nagel is an American artist (1945 – 1984.
  • Nagel created popular illustrations on board, paper and canvas.
  • Best known for his works for Playboy magazine and Duran Duran.
  • Nagel would start with a photograph and work down, simplifying and removing elements which were thought unnecessary.
  • His work embodies the roots of early 20th century graphic design while giving shape to current trends in fashion and music.
 
This is one of my favourite pieces by Nagel, a minimalist monotone piece of a female on a motorbike which is very effective and classy. I really like the style of this illustration as it fits to the 80s style.

This piece is also minimalist and monotonous, aside from the colouring of the females lips which are a dark shade of burgundy. I also think that the attire in this image is vastly similar to that of the early 80s aerobic pop culture.


Lastly I really like this image as it displays the perfect use of pop art, the colours, the use of dots similar to that of Roy Lichtenstein and the club wear seen in the glam-fetish fashion.

Brief

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The aim and purpose of this brief is for me to discover how imagery is used in a wide variety of graphic disciplines including print and digital media. Designers need to be multi-disciplined, adaptable and understand the software tools that are available to them, including typographical and illustration packages so that they are able to create innovate and exciting visual communications.

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