Mexican Tiles

I have been looking for inspiration for the actual design side of my project. Of course I have been predominantly looking at strictly day of the dead imagery, with skulls and skeletons and other various connotations of the day. However I thought about exploring a different route and ending up stumbling across an incredibly large selection of Mexican tiles. After visiting the country I am fully aware of the popularity of these tiles, for they are not strictly indoor decorations, they are often used to cover exteriors. There are incredibly vivid and often quite intricate. The designs that you see below are all handcrafted and therefore each one is 100% unique, however not all tiles in this day and age are produced in the same. More often than not to ensure detail is perfect and no major mistakes are visible most tiles are printed using modern methods. These can range from completely digital to using templates and painting over in several colours.

I think that I will bear these designs in mind when it comes to working with aesthetics and brainstorming visuals. I really like the colours and I think that blue, red, yellow and white will feature heavily in my compositions. In terms of the production of these particular tiles, the whole process from beginning to end can be found by clicking here. It is really quite fascinating.

Obviously all the tiles you see above are a single example of each particular set, so to help with visualising a completed piece of tiling I have duplicated each one and rotated it accordingly. I personally think the final thing is incredibly impressive and visually exquisite.

El Fuego del Catrina

El Fuego del Cantrina
Hot Sauce Kit Description

Student packaging project. Hot sauce kit includes "El Fuego del Diablo" hot sauce, fiery pepper rub, arbol chili peppers, and picante chili and lime marinade. Design inspired by the Mexican holiday, Día de los Muertos, Day of the Dead.

Package includes hand drawn logo, illustrations, and typography based off of wood cut printmaking and sugar skulls.

When the package is closed, a fire pattern wraps around the box. As the box is opened, there are multiple different ways to display the product inside, each creating a new pattern with the illustrations. There is a secret skull illustration that can be seen when the box is open at a diagonal.

This is a great example of mixing interesting packaging design with a mexican twist and of course practicality. The thought that has gone into it must be staggering for a skull motif to appear when it is opened in a certain way. I want to create some sort of packaging that relates to Mexican food so this has been a big inspiration for me. I'm not sure about the massive amounts of black in the designs but if it works for this designer then I guess I am not one to complain. I'm sure I will refer to this in the future if I find myself struggling in which direction to follow. I imagine that because it is a school project then it will have been digitally printed, however it if where a real product then a larger run would be necessary and offset lithography would probably be considered.

Shift Knobs

OK, this may not necessarily relate to my work, or printing processes for that matter, but I think the idea is a great one. Somebody has taken the idea of a flat piece of illustration and twisted it on its head to create a product that has an actual purpose. The artist Cody Langford has turned his wacky head cartoons into 'shift knobs' for your car. The reason I think it works is because by deciding to make a product he has clearly identified his target market and in turn has found a place in which to sell his product. There are a very large number of people who like to modify cars, and a large number of them like colourful and one of a kind items, something that these definitely are. I think the idea is unique and the artist has done his best to get his designs onto the market. Below are images of the car accessories and the accompanying artwork that you also receive on purchase, another way of spreading his name and vision.

Letterpress Poster

From Designer:

Sugar Skull Letterpress Poster – six colors
Size:11×17
Price: $35

Using the unique art of David Lozeau we hand cut linoleum, hand set type and ran multiple passes of ink for countless hours to create this incredible letterpress poster.

The Sugar Skull designed by David Lozeau combines Carnival, Day of the Dead, and tattoo imagery. Underneath it we layered multiple colors of wood and metal type to create a rich composition. This poster is limited to a run of 200 and is signed by both artists.

I thought this poster was a great example of the different methods of print that work incredibly well with Mexican designs. To be completely honest I'm not a great fan of the composition or the colours used. I feel it is not vibrant enough for Mexicana artwork, however I can understand that subtlety was what the designers were aiming for. Below are fantastic images that give an insight into the process these hand crafted posters went through.

Moustache Madness

This is a piece of interesting print that I thought was appropriate to both my printing research and the theme of my current project. Apparently it is a silk screen production, one of only 100 and therefore limited edition with only three colours used. Also it measures 16" by 20". It's a pretty simple idea but I love how the designer has been clever with his use of colour. For example only three colours have been used; yellow, turquoise and red, but by layering the red on top of what I'm assuming was turquoise, a dark brown has also been created. The two images below show a full shot of the piece, but also a close up shot, which helps you really understand the method behind the printing process and how the different have come together to create something quite aesthetically pleasing.

Candy Box

I found this piece of package design that has been inspired by 'The Day of the Dead' or 'Dia de los Muertos', the topic that I have chosen to experiment with for my project. Apparently the box was designed to contain sweets, therefore making it a form of food packaging. The idea of printing several different 'calavera' designs on each side of the make-shift cube is inventive, and it allows for many different compositions for the customer to play with. The quality of the designs is not great, and I'm sure there are plenty of far more accomplished designers that could do a better job, but I think the idea itself is strong. A bit more planning, and maybe choosing a better stock, would have made this product far more successful.

A shot below of the cube arranged into a different composition, resulting in a range of skull imagery on all sides.

Enterprise Lecture: Ideas and Opportunities

Earlier this week we had our second enterprise lecture and this one was a lot more informative. The title for this lecture was 'ideas and opportunities' and so we learnt the differences between the two. Below are a few scans from my notebook.