Ok, well here it is

The full sized version can be found on flickr over here. You probably want to look at the full size version to properly evaluate it. I myself still don’t know what I think.. when do I ever?

I basically look at it as a first step and exploring a direction that.. well I have another post in draft form.. that talks about it a bit.. but.. ok, screw it, let me give you some of the challenges:

I want to combine fine art and commercial.. a fundamental difference between the two could be described as.. fine art being about expression where as commercial art is about communication… and has to do with.. whatever the goals of the business objectives are… Strangely.. (expression has to do with the goals of the expresser.. if business is an amplification of natural processes.. and social media takes us closer to the humanness, so to speak.. you can see why this sort of approach might make sense in a social media context) the process of this project is one of “we’ll figure out our goals along the way.”

So I suppose it’s like a kind of cubism.. you can view it as art or as commercial art, right? I say cubism in the sense that in cubism you have multiple views of the same object in the same image.. so to speak.

Commercial Objectives 

The goal is to refine our objectives.. At the current state of things.. this is a flyer for a friend.. who’s putting them up around town, so to speak, to help promote my stuff..

My feeling about it is.. that this project…  well you want your campaign efforts to be coordinated and thought out.. and this is kinda thrown together..  but basically we’d like folks to check out the site and down load the music. Beyond that there’s branding… and we are telling people something about our selves.

How I sorta conceptualize it

The first thing I want is for it to be visually compelling. Is it? That’s the first thing I want you to respond to. Why? It’s a brand value… And its a brand value that has a very particular importance in my brand. And so.. I basically want it to act as a painting first.. and then as you get absorbed into the painting.. you start getting the messages. That’s what we hope anyway.

So it operates in a way that’s different from like.. poster design…  although it is somewhat modeled after the psychedelic posters of the 60s.. that’s an influence anyway.. as well as the art around the rave scene of like.. the 90s..  and other strange things..

So.. lets say you’re like “Ok, this is pretty groovy visually.” You get the name of the site pretty quick.. and then you get.. ok.. its free electronic music..  

There’s “the Mystic Prophet Philosopher shtick.” 

Latter, next day:

So I quickly whipped up some stickers:

Again I’m not sure about the one above… It was whipped up so fast..  

I kinda dig this one. 

Feedback

I haven’t been real sure about these designs..  For the flyer design.. I posted a link on flickr with a request for feed back.. here are a couple of the responses I got:

@hbeeinc @MattSearles re:flyet - that’s just about the busiest thing i’ve seen for a long time. also is it supposed to be “world of the know … 

@djcitymaus @MattSearles flyer is cool. but i don’t know about the little matts inside the head of the big matt. uh, does that make sense? 

NewApeV @MattSearles AHHHHHHHH!!! Dude, this is PURE 100% AWESOME!!! Seriously! The text sort of mirrors your musical feel and that pic..

NewApeV @MattSearles …that pic makes you look 10 years younger, too! ;

Many thanks for the feedback..  As you can see, it’s perhaps not real easy to communicate much about a visual work via twitter but…   

Matt Responds to Feedback 

To Paul’s point (hbeeinc).. 

I’m not sure if he was saying it was “too busy” or not.. though I have gotten that comment from other’s..  and others have said it’s not too busy..  so perhaps its busyness is an issue, or at least something to think about? What I will say about the busyness is..  

I think the busyness.. relates to the communications issue.. which is something I think I need to work on.. You have a lot of things competing for your attention.. and as a result I don’t think it works in certain contexts. Another words.. in modern web design ultra clean simplicity is a big trend.. a long term one at that.. and a reason for that is usability.. people fly through websites so fast.. that it really needs to communicate in a kind of billboard kinda way.. quick, fast.. no time to contemplate… 

So.. I think if you’re helping me put these things up..  You probably want that flyer.. or perhaps printed as a sticker.. up in places where people are sitting around and waiting.. have a chance to look at it for a while.. say like at a buss stop or something… As a pose to some place where they’re moving buy quickly.

I’m not sure what Paul was getting at with if it was supposed to be “world of the known,” when I first got his tweet I a looked at it I went “oh shit, I think I fucked up.” When doing these kinds of designs.. / signs.. its incredibly easy to screw up spelling.. or have things where you word it all wrong..  Further.. I’m not 100% on the language.. but.. it is a rush job so..  as we say in the Bush administration “good enough for government work.” … (And we hope Billy Bob Neck doesn’t object to that too much)…

[editors note: After looking things over Matt ws surprised to see that the word “world” is miss spelled in the first sticker.. just where Paul seemed to find the problem in the flyer.. which leaves Matt feeling baffled and.. well creepy mystical feeling] 

>>> [Editor’s note part 2: After posting this, Matt found the issue] 

To DJ City Maus’s point.

This could be one of those subjective things..  I like the little Matt in the big Matt cause I think it’s sorta disturbing looking..  like a screwed up face.. flesh somehow horribly disfigured…  

There’s also a “conceptual continuity” thing going on here… Perhaps we could call it fractal reality? It is eastern philosophy stuff.. the idea that.. who are you really? That the ultimate answer to that mystery is to say.. that in every grain of sand is the universe, in you is the universe…  

To New Ape V / Evan Pew’s Point:

My theory of this whole process is that there’s an organic unity to the whole thing that happens on an “expressive level.” I mean.. the same sorta impulses that are diving the design / painting are driving the music..  so there’s a unity to the whole that you don’t get when Led Zeppelin doesn’t do there own album art… and this is sorta central to what I’m doing and what I think is exciting about what I’m doing, assuming I can meet the challenges of all this.

Ok, this post drags on a little too long I think..  so lets end it here.