After my initial thoughts about my object placement, I attended a group discussion with Craig in which we discussed my idea in more detail, and it was made clear that the most important thing for me to do was experiment with whether I was going to use the tape as the instrument to write the phrases on the walls, or use the tape to cover up the phrases and literally be the thing covering it up.
Craig advised me to look into the work of Barbara Kruger who uses this style in her own work, just to get an idea of how effective it is when done well.
After researching Kruger’s work it became apparent that the way to make it the most effective is by using thick, bold text very large and covering all the walls to really overwhelm the viewer and make them feel very small. The text works black on a white background or inverted, or just as well in other colours which means more experimenting. It also became apparent I needed to design the text within illustrator in order to make it clean and fill the space as effectively as possible, as any negative space within the room would ruin the effect.
After the discussion with Craig I had the overall idea decided so I just needed to experiment with different way of doing it and which would end up being the most effective. I knew I wanted the room to be very large with the possibility of using mirrors to make it even larger. I also knew I wanted large typography on the walls, but was unsure whether I would do this in tape, or in print, and whether to take the metaphor of the tape even further and using it to cover the text.
Overall, although the discussion with Craig didn’t cement the final idea, it really narrowed it down to a few possibilities which I could go and experiment with, and it taught me about a new designer who I had never heard of who really inspired me with her work and visual metaphors. Although the idea of group and individual discussions is one we use within graphics very often, it helps to get a different opinion and get some feedback on whether the idea works as a concept or not.
Ben Jackson 