Lecture 1-Bertrand De Langeron

Bertrand De Langeron aka So-Me is a Parisian graphic designer, animator and also the art director of Ed Banger Records. It is evident from So-Me’s body of work that he has taken inspiration from some of the iconic graphic designers and illustrators.(Saul Bass) 

Composition

So-Me deeply considers the composition and layout of text and image within his work making sure his own illustrative style is still present as well as keeping everything legible, an example of this is SoMe’s ‘Response to Kanye West’ album artwork.

 

He uses visual hierarchy so you focus on the eye catching ‘Kanye’ in red then your eye naturally follows to the ‘West’ then to the stylised image of he man himself. Your eye finally ends up in the bottom right corner this is because the information or text ‘Roc-A-Fella Record 2007’ is not as important as the actual headline. The hand drawn styling of the type gives a more relaxed and personal feel to the illustration, the merging of the ‘ Always Be Alone’ type works well due to the yellow text being on a black background.

Target Audience and Context

Research into the target  audience is essential for the message behind any piece of work to be understood, without that depth of research the work might miss, offend or be interpreted by the audience in an unintended way. In the following music video So-Me has thought about the target audience and the context of how graphic illustration would fit into the video and have meaning.

 

In this video So-Me has visualised the contrast between reality and the warped reality  form being on a euphoric high. The way he has done this is very clever, as the the character (Kid Cudi) walks about town everything he sees or come into contact with is illustrated causing the character to do a double take like whatever he's seeing isn't real.

Creative Thinking

Creative thinking exercises and activities in design give a wider range of ideas and often give a totally different approach to solving a design problem or brief. There are various different exercises that utilise a persons creative brain, here are a few I have found.Creative Thinking Excercises

So-Me recently teamed up with Coca-Cola to create a specially designed bottle for Club Coke. He has displayed creative thinking in the design of of the bottle and the display box, the box and bottle are more of a collectors piece of art as So-Me has used his hand drawn style to illustrate the joy of music in the whole design.