Beauty? - Fine art graphic design [abstract]

Abstract

While included in the School of Fine Art at Mizzou, graphic design is mostly a client and consumer based discipline. Fine art skills are learned and often used in design, to produce a logo, brochure, poster, etc for a specific client. My goal with this research was to rid myself of the client and produce a piece that was graphic design and at the same time fine art. Research in the field of art is the artist's skills and ideas in the act of creating work. My research takes the form of a large poster combining my skills in graphic design, illustration, and photography. I began with a few images and a concept, and then experimented with different techniques to find the best way to capture my ideas. My images depict examples of women in our society and the things we do to ourselves in order to look/feel beautiful, such as the act of applying make-up or wearing high heels. I also included images depicting historic ideas of beauty, and some that show how beauty is played out in other cultures. I began with photographs, some of which were my own and some I had to obtain from other sources. I then used a computer to compose and print the poster. The ink from these printed pieces was transferred to another sheet of artist paper where I drew over the photo images with conte crayon, pastels, and ink. For the final production the hand worked piece was scanned back into the computer in small sections, put together like a puzzle, and then the colors and saturation were fine-tuned. Finally I was ready to print the work on photo quality paper with a large format printer, and this printed work is the culmination of my research.