URBAN EXPRESSIONS

Emblems and symbols have been used to identify friend or foe as long ago as the reign of Charlemagne in Europe during the 8th century. Originally used to distinguish other combatants on the battlefield, coats of arms and banners were an instrumental visual devices for quickly recognizing your enemy and friend. These surcoats, or coats of arms, were worn on armor, shields and horses. By the mid 12th century, coats of arms had been inherited by British royalty and persons of prestige. The coats of arms were later used as identifiers of ownership, adapted for use on goods and correspondence. ...read the intro to my book!

The Concept

After considerable research into cultures, identity, and urban legends, I designed twenty emblems that can be used as personal branding and identity. There are four categories—Alien Conspiracy, Local & Regional, Cryptozoology, and Occult. Each of the emblems have visual references to other things, almost like a scavenger hunt to understand and uncover deeper meanings within the emblem. The emblems can also be used as self-starter questions, much like brands, but instead of pointing to a product or company, the emblems point to times and places.

Below are some original sketches that live somewhere in a sketchbook, amongst five or more other sketchbooks from 2017, safely stored for some future viewing. Left is M-12 organization; the masterminds behind every government conspiracy. Next is Project Bluebook, the listing of every extraterrestrial encounter on earth; followed by Project Red Light, seeking to learn about anti-gravity propulsion. Then last is Project Delta, or as many have called them, the Men in Black.

Some Challenges

Before I decided upon the decals as my final product, I experimented with embroidery. Embroidery has a higher sense of fahsion and value than decals and would also last longer than a vinyl graphic. Since I already built vector files for the emblems, it was not too difficult to convert them to embroidery files. One of the constraints of embroidery is, of course, the software. I did not have access to top-shelf software like Wilcom, but I was able to construct some stitch files that were compatible with the machine that was available. Unfortunately, the quality of the machine I had access to was not something I could overcome. Despite the issues, some of the patches look ok-ish, and I would love to revisit the patches if/when I get a higher quality embroidery machine and software.

The Deliverable

The final product is a book with my designs and the urban legends to accompany them. I produced five copies of the book for Masters of Fine Arts in graphic design at Indiana University. The book was perfect bound at Document Services on campus using heavyweight cover stock and semigloss interior pages. After every section (there are four) is a page of decals that can be removed and applied to your personal belongings, car, or laptop. The decals are digitally printed on vinyl and are pre-cut for easy use. 

My MFA thesis exhibit was in April of 2017 where my books and a few posters were on display at the Eskanazi Museum of Art on the Indiana University campus. The posters were 30”x20” printed on an HP Dreamjet printer and mounted on foam core. Accompanying the posters were 9”x9” prints of the individual emblem designs, also mounted on foam core. The event postcards were designed by me and printed at Document Services.