24Steps Art and Design

For this exercise we had to identify a piece that we connected with in some way and write the brief that might have been given for it. I chose the piece ‘Wired Sound’ or ‘Wired for Sound’ depending on the source. This is a piece that Syd Brak created for the Athena Publishing group in the 1980’s when I was in secondary school in mid Wales. It was a very popular piece at the time and I loved the bold, strident use of colour.

The Athena Group had stores all over the UK and their business was selling posters. As such there wsa no particular message to be conveyed in ‘Wired for Sound’ other than resonating with the target market.

So my stab at a brief:

A strong, visually arresting design is required, depicting modern punk culture. The illustration should be stylized and use punk colours such as pinks and purples. The art will be reproduced on posters up to A2 size and its intended audience is mid teens to early twenties. The image needs to be a very smooth finish such as produced by air-brushing.

Update Following Feedback

Here is a rewrite of the brief to include the feedback of putting more focus on the visual elements to demonstrate ‘reading’ the image:

A strong, visually arresting design is required, depicting modern punk culture. The illustration should be of two young women connected via headphones and they should have punk hairstyles in red and purple with bold makeup. They should form the whole image with no background needed. The art will be reproduced on posters up to A2 size and its intended audience is mid teens to early twenties. The image needs to be a very smooth finish such as produced by air-brushing.

Tagged as: Tags 1980's, brief, exercise 1, Illustration 1 Part 2, poster