36 days - P
I went for psychedelia over phonetician because I enjoyed doing Art Nouveau a couple of days ago and was also aware of the similarities between the Phonetician alphabet and Greek, which I have been using a lot recently. The first thing I relished was creating something distinct enough from the Nouveau form and creating something that wasn't too stereotypically 'flower power' and pastiche. My research started with by looking into the exact definition of psychedelic art and finding some prominent practitioners that had an eye for typography as I'm aware that the genre doesn't have a specific type orientated craft normally as the type is considered a part of the wholistic artistic composition.
Wiki says:
"Psychedelic art (also known as psychedelia) is art, graphics or visual displays related to or inspired by psychedelic experiences and hallucinations known to follow the ingestion of psychoactive drugs such as LSD and psilocybin. The word "psychedelic" (coined by British psychologist Humphry Osmond) means "mind manifesting". By that definition, all artistic efforts to depict the inner world of the psyche may be considered "psychedelic". In common parlance "psychedelic art" refers above all to the art movement of the late 1960s counterculture, featuring highly distorted or surreal visuals, bright colors and full spectrums and animation (including cartoons) to evoke, convey, or enhance psychedelic experiences. Psychedelic visual arts were a counterpart to psychedelic rock music. Concert posters, album covers, liquid light shows, liquid light art, murals, comic books, underground newspapers and more reflected not only the kaleidoscopically swirling colour patterns of LSD hallucinations, but also revolutionary political, social and spiritual sentiments inspired by insights derived from these psychedelic states of consciousness."
With this in mind, I watched the first video that sprung to mind which was Alexander Rebens 'Deeply artificial trees' an AI manipulated episode of Bob Ross that places images of animals in whatever forms they fit constantly, a replication of the mind on LSD as the overactivity of the imagination creates misinformation. The soft and ambiguously familiar forms created were a big inspiration behind my P.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DaVnriHhPc
I then progressed to this article https://99designs.co.uk/blog/design-history-movements/tripping-history-psychedelic-design/ which outlines the routes of Psychodelic art in Nouveau, Op art, Surrealism and Vienna Secession. The article also led to a list of Prominent artists which I sorted through and selected two main sources of inspiration.
Victor Moscoso - I took a lot of inspiration from Moscoso's balance of form and use of clashing yet in a sense harmonious colours. The way Moscoso uses all of the available space is very of the era and how one forms flows into the next in a continuous landscape. Also, his emphasis on type as it morphs to be a vital part of the image made me see it was essential to include him as a key reference. His colour pallets were directly picked and reassembled for the final outcome.
The next prominent artist researched was:
Rick Griffin - Rick stood out to me and being a typographer in the contemporary sense as his type was in relative isolation from the illustrations and also a dominant feature of any composition. There are a lot of gothic influences as well which is an interesting twist to the smooth rounded lines of psychedelia but a welcome contrast for me. Helping me establish my niche on the borders of psychedelic type.
The final branch of research was a quick delve into fractals "A fractal is a never-ending pattern. Fractals are infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar across different scales. They are created by repeating a simple process over and over in an ongoing feedback loop." These are patterns seen in nature that the eye naturally jumps to and repeats when on a psychedelic trip. Therefore incorporating these spiralling, organic forms in some way was important to convey the psychedelic realism.
With the research thoroughly completed it was time to get sketching. Trying to be as freeform and lateral as possible, almost as if on a psychedelic trip, I began to sketch freehand with a biro before vectorising. This inevitably meant a lot of unusable but abstract forms.
Inspired by the almost melting base serifs employed by Rick Griffin I most enjoyed working with a couple circle fractal inspired structure, a highly organic form that I've never seen before in a P. The fact that can look a bit like a head and shoulder in profile was also quite fitting. The final thing was to brush it up and decide some slight border surrounds.
Final post:
Wiki says:
"Psychedelic art (also known as psychedelia) is art, graphics or visual displays related to or inspired by psychedelic experiences and hallucinations known to follow the ingestion of psychoactive drugs such as LSD and psilocybin. The word "psychedelic" (coined by British psychologist Humphry Osmond) means "mind manifesting". By that definition, all artistic efforts to depict the inner world of the psyche may be considered "psychedelic". In common parlance "psychedelic art" refers above all to the art movement of the late 1960s counterculture, featuring highly distorted or surreal visuals, bright colors and full spectrums and animation (including cartoons) to evoke, convey, or enhance psychedelic experiences. Psychedelic visual arts were a counterpart to psychedelic rock music. Concert posters, album covers, liquid light shows, liquid light art, murals, comic books, underground newspapers and more reflected not only the kaleidoscopically swirling colour patterns of LSD hallucinations, but also revolutionary political, social and spiritual sentiments inspired by insights derived from these psychedelic states of consciousness."
With this in mind, I watched the first video that sprung to mind which was Alexander Rebens 'Deeply artificial trees' an AI manipulated episode of Bob Ross that places images of animals in whatever forms they fit constantly, a replication of the mind on LSD as the overactivity of the imagination creates misinformation. The soft and ambiguously familiar forms created were a big inspiration behind my P.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DaVnriHhPc
I then progressed to this article https://99designs.co.uk/blog/design-history-movements/tripping-history-psychedelic-design/ which outlines the routes of Psychodelic art in Nouveau, Op art, Surrealism and Vienna Secession. The article also led to a list of Prominent artists which I sorted through and selected two main sources of inspiration.
Victor Moscoso - I took a lot of inspiration from Moscoso's balance of form and use of clashing yet in a sense harmonious colours. The way Moscoso uses all of the available space is very of the era and how one forms flows into the next in a continuous landscape. Also, his emphasis on type as it morphs to be a vital part of the image made me see it was essential to include him as a key reference. His colour pallets were directly picked and reassembled for the final outcome.
The next prominent artist researched was:
Rick Griffin - Rick stood out to me and being a typographer in the contemporary sense as his type was in relative isolation from the illustrations and also a dominant feature of any composition. There are a lot of gothic influences as well which is an interesting twist to the smooth rounded lines of psychedelia but a welcome contrast for me. Helping me establish my niche on the borders of psychedelic type.
The final branch of research was a quick delve into fractals "A fractal is a never-ending pattern. Fractals are infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar across different scales. They are created by repeating a simple process over and over in an ongoing feedback loop." These are patterns seen in nature that the eye naturally jumps to and repeats when on a psychedelic trip. Therefore incorporating these spiralling, organic forms in some way was important to convey the psychedelic realism.
With the research thoroughly completed it was time to get sketching. Trying to be as freeform and lateral as possible, almost as if on a psychedelic trip, I began to sketch freehand with a biro before vectorising. This inevitably meant a lot of unusable but abstract forms.
Inspired by the almost melting base serifs employed by Rick Griffin I most enjoyed working with a couple circle fractal inspired structure, a highly organic form that I've never seen before in a P. The fact that can look a bit like a head and shoulder in profile was also quite fitting. The final thing was to brush it up and decide some slight border surrounds.
Final post:
"P is for Psychedelic - type and art popular in the late 60s inspired by hallucinatory fractal patterns. I liked how this sketch looks like a head in profile."
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