There’s nothing wrong with pressing a few buttons and, as far as print goes, a well-judged foil stamp, screen print or special varnish will rarely miss the mark when it comes to making people slobber over your folio. Drafting these elements in to give the cover of your folio a bit of prestige is a good way to show off without overcooking it.
Keeping your folio unbound so you can switch out elements and change their running order is a good idea. This folio should be of a good size, perhaps A3, and can form the basis of your presentations. A bound folio or brochure is a nice reminder to leave with you client. Backing this up with a disc also helps.
Printers are the experts, so make friends with yours. They’ll be able to recommend the most suitable (and best value) stocks and print techniques, and will be able to send you samples of particular processes. Having access to cutting edge input and advice will give your folio a genuine edge.
It would be wonderful if you had a merchant bank funding your folio, but since you probably don’t it makes sense to turn the financial constraints to your advantage. See sticking to your budget as a challenge rather than a hindrance, by creating something that plays on the lo-fi aesthetic.
Given the expense involved in creating a good print portfolio, it’s a worthwhile exercise to consider how many copies you’re going to have made early on. This depends on wheather you’re going to be distributing them or just showing them off. A digital or offset print run of around 100 copies covering maybe 10 projects is a good general starting point, with these projects updated every year or so.
For many jobs you won’t have samples available, or it might be impractical to bring them along to every meeting. In these cases, photography is an essential part of a good print portfolio. Make sure you photograph work in a clean, ambient space with excellent light (a few reflections can work wonders), and ensure the angles highlight the finishes you’ll want to talk about.
If there’s one thing designers fetishise more than anything, it’s print options. Foil blocks, special varnishes and finishes, weird and wonderful new papers and handsome binding techniques all give print it’s fascinating mystique.
All this, though, leads to a slew of conflicting desires and mind-boggling choices for the typical designer putting together a print portfolio. Alongside the need to show creative flair, there’s the question of technical competency – and print can be very expensive. Should you throw money at it and go for the ‘designer porn’ approach, or make a case for clever use of resources? Do you leave samples? What format should you present your work? Which way is ‘up’?
While Fernandez and Harrington’s design-led illustration has found favour with big name clients, animators are also soaking up the psychedelic influences of Glaser, Aldridge and Barney Bubbles, and adding new twists to the genre.
Steve Scott is an animator and illustrator based in London whose playful , experimental work for the likes of Volvo and Nokia, and stage graphics for Led Zeppelin, mix psychedelic characters and shapes with cutting edge transitions and effects.
Scott has a list of broad influences that span and eclectic mix from Herge’s The Adventures of Tintin to 2000AD, though the narrative of Yellow Submarine at a tender age shaped his of narrative and animation, while Terry Gilliam’s slapstick pop surrealism and Edward Gorey’s sinister Victorian gentlemen are influences as well.
Scott is not a fan of everything, but on first viewing Martin Sharp’s work, he was blown away. Sharp was the art director of Oz magazine as well as designing album covers and a series of fantastic prints on foil. Psych art should feel like tumbling down the rabbit hole whilst riding an elephant that is playing a 20-minute Moog solo through his trunk.
It is only through the freedom of expression within psychedelic-styled art which, twinned with more open briefs from clients, has caused this resurgence in the style. You don’t have to look far to see contemporary marketing campaigns from some of the world’s most famous brands drawing on the likes of Huford, Scarfe and Aldridge who, more than 40 years later, may have finally come mainstream.
There’s been a resurgence in creative work in creative work and abstract work that’s able to co-exist with more corporate work. The abstract nature of psychedelic art lends itself to this and it’s the exact opposite of where a lot of brands were three or four years ago.
Everyone from big soft drink companies to wine festivals are interested in the flow, movement, freedom of mind and ornate lettering of psychedelic design. The context and the aims of psychedelic design are different now than they were in the 1960’s.
Many designers are trying to walk to the same path while trying to improve it a bit more, according to the possibilities that the present era brings us.
People are seduced by the graphics of the psychedelic era, which brings a lot of possibilities. They can be oriented to appeal to children, as well as be very sophisticated, but they always bring us a kind of mystic dreamlike feeling.