Wednesday 2 November 2016

What If Metropolis ? Green Light Review : Part 1

Green Light Part 1 by Sam on Scribd

1 comment:

  1. OGR 06/11/2016

    Hi Sam,

    I think you're getting too preoccupied with character and people in regards to Erte - and of course I know why, as it appears that's all he draws. Your travelogue is highly imaginative, but it's not got a great deal to say about the design of its physical surroundings.

    Like lots of your classmates, I think you need to try an answer a slightly different question. The 'What If' of the project title is 'What If Erte was an architect?' and not 'What If Erte's existing designs were turned into buildings?'. This is why I think you need to step away from thinking that this a project about female bodies, and rather more about the shapes, colours, patterns and motifs that show up in Erte's work again and again. In terms of your existing thumbnails, I think you were more 'on message' at numbers 14, 18, and 32, because these begin to capture the essence of Erte without repeating him literally. If Erte was an architect, he wouldn't be looking at creating huge 80foot statues of women, but he would be looking to convey their glamor.

    Take a look at these Art Deco objects, patterns and things and observe the characteristics they share with Erte's illustrations:

    https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/e1/ae/f7/e1aef7fbd4758a73a4d30feec1d6ed40.jpg
    https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/58/fd/3b/58fd3bb2f6af8810825e062495cea537.jpg
    http://www.bradbury.com/images/deco_fan-mahogany_400.jpg
    https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/9a/24/8b/9a248b339e23e931a8f613e6eb5d0640.jpg
    http://media.hgtv.ca/blogimages/design-style-art-deco-0.jpg
    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Books/Pix/pictures/2012/6/25/1340643737779/Metropolis-008.jpg?w=470&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=0a10288adde8df7bc2ddf075ace73d16

    You'll see Egyptian-inspired crescents and fan shapes, objects topped with half-circles, symmetrical pattern, strong emphasis on black and gold etc. I think you need to create a word stack of all the repeated elements you see in Erte's work (minus the women) - and by elements I mean things like symmetry, recurrent colours and recurrent basic shapes. Once you've done that, start combining those basic-shapes into a series of clean, crisp thumbnails. The really important thing about Erte and Deco is how graphical and clean the lines, curves and shapes are. I'd suggest that you come out of Photoshop (which encourages you to be a bit 'blobby') and work instead in Illustrator where you've got more control.

    In short, you're not making buildings out of Erte's drawings, you're asking yourself this: if Erte was an architect, what sort of buildings would he design?

    Finally, what with Erte's emphasis on the performing arts, when it comes to deciding which building(s) you're going to commit to in terms of your digital set, maybe you should look at theatres and opera houses as the obvious sort of building that Erte would delight in designing.

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