100 Ideas Bang - How To: Reinvent a Bucket

For my typology how-to poster, I ended up with the subject of how to reinvent a bucket. I found the initial ideas quite difficult; the topic itself is very open-ended and doesn't even particularly spark off many visual ideas right away. I resorted to more obvious solutions, such as the heavy night idea and the emergencies. The rest of these initial sketches were quite broad and random, and none of them really excited me too much. I think this was a combination of the actual ideas themselves, coupled with the actual images and how the ideas were executed; drawing from my head proved challenging and unfulfilling to start with. My favourite off these first sheets is the take-away bucket, as I love the simplicity of adding a handle to a coffee cup and calling it something else, as well as aesthetically I feel it works well with the similarity of shape between the cup and a bucket.

When having a discussion with Jamie about my initial responses, he eluded to the success of the firework idea, the simple nature of the image and idea but still visually effective. I soon realised that I was trying too hard on the idea side of the brief, trying to force humour and absurdity when there wasn't much reason to, instead he explained how it can be a really basic idea but executed well. With this, I decided to explore the idea of keeping the bucket consistent, but instead simply just changing the contents, taking 'reinvent' a little less literally, and focussing more on the aesthetic approach to the final poster than forcing a clever or humorous concept.

For my first development ideas with the consistent bucket idea in mind, I chose very random things to fill them, using what was around me and what I could picture in my head. They was very little thought or conscience to it, although I did try to consider what would visually work well, considering the shape and form of the contents. The best of these were the moon, the heads, the mountains, the rabbit, and the palm trees, to name a few. From these I tried to think what sort of theme I could take and use in order to bring them all together, and I came up with the idea of a bucket storing un-storable items. I feel like these responses have the most substance to them, having a humorous quality, if only in a subtle way.

The next step I felt was to start thinking more consciously thinking through each idea. Not all of these further outcomes are particularly un-storable, but the idea was to work in rows, pushing one concept and making variations as a way of exploring each further. I think of all my outcomes so far these were by far the most successful. I love the consistency through each row, the organisation and uniformity creating a coherent body of work which lends itself to the gridded layout of the whole sheet. I particularly like the dynamic nature of the structures, namely the bridge and pylons, and the way the roofs and lines can layer onto of each other to create a busy form rising out of the buckets. I also like the heads for their comedic element, plus the way they work as a little series. I am going to push the heads further though, working more from reference material and pushing the facial expressions further. As a whole sheet the middle one is my favourite, the subtle changes in image each time is successful in series, such as the houses and insects. With that said the broad concept of ovals on the top line I feel also works well in a less obvious way, keeping the concept a little more ambiguous even if not technically un-storable. 

Today I got good feedback on my outcomes, many people liking the aesthetic choice to keep the buckets as a constant and just changing the contents. There was some discussion around media and titles also, which I have come away and thought about through making some rough layouts and I seem to have reached a point where I am more or less confident in how I am going to execute the final poster. I am going to have 6 rows of 4 different concepts within the un-storable theme in a gridded fashion, such as these last 3 sheets. I want the title to be separated into letters, in a light tone behind the buckets, one letter per bucket, to spell out 'how to reinvent a bucket'. In terms of numbers, this works perfectly with 24 buckets, and I feel like the layering of dark lines on a lighter shade will be very effective. I still have yet to further develop the actual images themselves, but I feel like I have a good idea of what steps to take from here to produce the poster I have imagined and roughed out on A4. It feels really good to have a direction to go in and crack on with that I am happy with.