Visual Book

Process

Inspiration

I was inspired by acidwave/vaporwave music and their corresponding aesthetics, and how these relate to the popular culture of today. The art forms corresponding to acidwave and vaporwave have been popularized in current pop culture as an “aesthetic,” but started out as containing undertones of societal critique on media, consumerism, and more. The aesthetic of acidwave/vaporwave is of bright or pastel colors mixed with illustration and elements of popular culture, such as brands, fictional characters, trends (trendy fashion, slang), and “glitch” effects.

Picture inspiration:

Audience

Because acidwave and vaporwave are small sub-genres of music (house, electronic music) that have been extrapolated into popular culture in the form of visual art styles, my audience would be both admirers of said music as well as those who appreciate the art style. Additionally, since these themes have seeped into the “aesthetic” culture of modern young people, often associated with a satirical take on consumerism, my audience will also be teenagers to young adults, as well as those who are interested in the theme of popular culture in general.

Core theme/Message

I initially did not have a core message to my book when ideating and writing my proposal, instead focusing more on the visual aesthetics; however, after presenting my proposal, I realized that my book needed a unifying theme, so I decided to have book my book act as a critique of how technology, media, and consumerism affect society. I chose this message as it fits the tones of the original meaning of vaporwave/acidwave music, and would provide a deeper meaning to my potential illustrations containing references to modern living and popular culture.

Color Palette

As aforementioned, the color palette of this particular art style is usually bright or pastel. Consequently, I decided to use a pastel color palette, as I liked the mellow and happy feeling these colors emit, which fit the youthful nature of popular culture but also serve as an ironic contrast to the somewhat dark themes I want to express in the book.

Palettes I chose:

When choosing colors for my illustrations in the middle and final stages, I put these two palettes next to the spreads and used the color picker on these palettes, as I wanted the color scheme in my spreads to look unified.

Drafts

In this illustration draft, I stuck somewhat to the pastel color palette but deviated from it a little bit with the rainbow and with the brown tones; I received feedback for the next iteration to better adhere the colors to the pastel theme. I wanted to combine popular trends (small sunglasses, bold makeup, hoop earrings, etc.) with a subtle sadness (hence the tears). However, this would only be a small part of a bigger spread in general, and I also needed to work on improving the lackluster background.

In this draft, I wanted to expand on the topic of toxic consumerism and branding, so I took the well-known red Supreme logo and added to it, making it look like it is dripping with blood. Because the logo is already red, I wanted to give the famous brand a new dimension with a twist. I added bills of money around the logo to make my message clearer, and made the background black to convey a grim tone. However, this illustration did not match my color palette, so I needed to figure out how to integrate it into my book’s theme without letting it lose its message (the red and green colors are vital to the message in this illustration).

During one of the class critiques, a classmate suggested that I play around with the Supreme illustration on Photoshop, as there is a function that allows you to manipulate/change the colors. I felt that this was a great suggestion, so I took the illustration and changed the colors to ones that match my color scheme. However, I still felt that the original colors were essential for the message, so I decided that I would use both of them as a combination for the two pages of a spread.

After releasing ideas out of my mind with some of these initial illustrations, I planned and drafted my spreads (how to use the space on each page). However, this made me realize that I want to add text to my book, as it would aid in the conveyance of my message (it is a book, after all). I decided that I would write my own topic-related poems to put into the book.

My written works:

This poem is about how technology and social media have seeped into the fabric of our lives, dictating how we experience the world around us.

This poem is about media (celebrities, fictional characters, advertisements, etc.) and how they set unrealistic expectations for us.

I wanted to keep my poems/written works short, as I hoped that they could be viewed in conjunction with my illustrations as brief, meaningful pieces that are up to the interpretation of the reader/viewer, but that make them think and are conducive to discussion.

Along with my poems, I also decided to use quotes from The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan in some of my spreads, as this is an iconic book, famous for its take on media that was ahead of its time, that holds meaningful sentiments about how technology/media are affecting our culture.

I decided to alternate my poems with the Marshall McLuhan quotes between the spreads in order to keep the content fresh. I also decided to alternate between pink backgrounds and blue/green backgrounds to keep the spreads visually appealing.

After critiques in class, I also realized that my book needed to be more visually unified, as my illustrations were all very different from one another stylistically. Therefore, I decided that I would make the unifying visual element (aside from the color palette) minimalistic line drawing. Here, I’ve laid out the Supreme spread and added the line drawings and original text that I decided to put in all spreads.

For this spread, I fixed up the illustration more and put it in the corner, and added line drawings to match the theme. I wanted this spread to be about the rapid innovation of technology throughout the past few years, so I drew a timeline of technological devices (I chose to focus on music devices). Because my Supreme spread felt slightly disjointed, I had the illustrations on this spread span the two pages.

This is the illustration above, edited from the first draft and with a pink background that I intended to use as the background color for the spread (this one is edited from the first draft, but a few changes were made when I put it into the above spread).

More draft spreads with line drawings:

This spread was meant to go with the text about unrealistic expectations, with a girl chasing after things like beauty (model, makeup), success/glory (Olympics), material goods (brands), and more. Again, I wanted to make sure the spreads were fluid over the two pages, so I made the illustrations on the two pages relate to one another. I planned to put another color/small drawing/line in the center to span over the two pages as well.

This spread was supposed to be about social media. I hand-wrote the poem in the corner to see how it looked/if I wanted to hand-write all of the text in the book. However, I decided that it seemed a little messy and that I should use text. I wanted to use a text that wasn’t too formal (to match the young spirit of technology/social media) but that was simple enough to match the minimalistic theme of the drawings and as to not distract from the meaning. Consequently, I decided that I would use Avenir as my font, as it is modern and simple.

The drawing is in pink which is hard to see against the white background, but I intended to choose a blue or green background. I also connected the two pages with wisps and an implied connection between the phone and the social media icons, but I made a mistake by having a gap between the pages so the wisps didn’t actually match up, so needed to fix that for a unified spread.

This was a spread intended to be about how media shapes our identities. The text would be in the white space around the person.

Final Visual Book

Final visual book: https://issuu.com/maddieliu/docs/cdf_visual_book

Cover

Socialight (socialite + light, since book shines a light on media/popular culture [including social media] and how it affects our [social] lives and relationships)

Table of Contents

Short title for each spread with their page numbers; spreads color-coded based on which text they contain, with purple for original writing and blue for quotes (as noted on the left side page).

Social Media

This spread is about how, in the modern era, social media and technology dictate how we experience life and hinder us from enjoying what is around us.

Personality

This spread is about individuals’ lack of identity in this age of new technology; we have so much information at our fingertips that our identities are shifting and ever-changing, never allowing us to be grounded or comfortable with who we are. (Text is reflected)

Consumption

This spread is about toxic consumerism and branding, with individuals willing to spend exorbitant amounts of money on items just because they are “cool” or “popular,” or to flex/keep up the appearance of wealth.

Identity

This spread is a remark on how new-age technology overloads its consumers with media, to the point that we (the consumers) are all consistently enveloped in everyone else’s ideas/issues, rendering us all without personal identity and therefore “homeless.” In this technological era, individuals’ identities are heavily shaped by online trends and popular culture (since they are so easily consumed/accessed), so much so that young people base their personalities off of certain molds and lose true senses of self. I also believe that sensory overload is becoming increasingly common with the rapidity of technology’s growth.

Unrealistic Expectations

This spread is about unrealistic expectations; as mentioned previously, we chase after beauty (model, makeup), success/glory (Olympics), material goods (brands), and more due to the media we are bombarded with, when reality is far from these ideals for the average person.

Technology

This spread is about how, with the incredibly fast-paced development of new technologies, it certainly feels like we are in a period of transition between two technological eras. I grew up with things like VHS tapes and have witnessed technology develop into what it is now right before my own eyes. I was also born in a year too late to make me a “Millennial,” but too early to classify me as part of “Generation Z,” so I feel that I can understand this “transition period.” Also, it is interesting that there is a link between media forms like television and the mindset/emotional state of a whole generation

Back cover

Socialite spelled correctly