FMP CONTEXTUAL RESEARCH

1. FMP CONTEXTUAL
RESEARCH

2. Jamie
Reid
• Jamie Reid is a well known and highly praised graphic designer that created the popular art form with the usage of newspaper letter
articles to create a ransom note design which was known to be in relation to punk rock and really defined what punk rock was. Jamie
Reid born the 16th January 1947 in London, he was born into family were politics filled family he enrolled onto college called
Wimbledon Art College but very soon left got enrolled Croydon Art College instead. In 1970 joined a leftist political group called the
‘Situationist International Movement’ which they were advocating for the equalisation for the imbalance of rich and poor and believed
that we should live in classless society. By joining a movement he was called a Anarchist, which soon enough became an editor for an
anarchist publication called Suburban Press as he started producing work/ producing magazines to coney those messages and
surprisingly got quite a lot attention from them and was creating these until 1975. Reid formed this type of art but was heavily criticised
and the work was seen as controversial as some of his artwork was politically demonising to various politicians such as Donald Trump
but mainly his work was heavily disliked for his mockery of Queen Elizabeth. Although criticised Jamie Reid’s art work was heavily
praised by the Punk Rock community as Reid had the iconic album cover for the punk rock Sex Pistols, the album being called ‘Never
Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols’ and Jamie Reid was apart of rock band Sex Pistols but more for his artistry than for his
musicality. And even for the Sex Pistols as a band expressed that they weren’t mainly into the music they create but the were more
focused on their message being heard which was fitting for Reid to join/ be partnered with Sex Pistols. Jamie Reid’s designs have now
become an iconic pieces to what British culture is but mainly the British punk rock culture, The themes conveyed in his art pieces by
creating or forming art where he would rip apart photos of very well known and respected politicians and royalty and he would damage
the photos and have the Sex Pistols logo in the background or behind theme to create the symbolism of that they had message really
important with wanting to get rid of but make the public aware of the terrible things these people in power have. But also Reid has
formed art to attack big corporations such as McDonalds with forming art stating in the photos ‘McCheap and McNasty’ to bring up the
discussion of how unhealthy and damaging food from McDonalds can be, but in result of Reid of doing McDonalds response to him
forming that type of art they took it into their own hands and used similar art styles of what Jamie had used to the art to bash
McDonalds and they made an adverts in style to advertise the wraps that they sell which gained McDonalds more success in sales
which would irritate Reid as he said in a 2021 interview “It depends in which ways it’s been done. I’ve just done a campaign against
McDonald’s, who rip my work off terribly, and if it’s done by corporate people I hate it.” But aside from Reid is quite pleased that his
form of artwork has inspired so many artist of the new generation to from art to address worldwide issues as he also said, “I mean the
movement against global warming and the planet is fantastic.”

3. April
Greiman
• Another graphic designer that I have researched on is April Greiman, she was born March 22nd in 1948 in New York City.
She is a very famous graphic designer being one of the first graphic designers in 70s of the ‘New Wave’ of art to use
technology to form various art styles. Her work consists of collages and typography which back in the 1970s wasn’t really a
common form of art, it started off with April attending Kansas City Art Institute from the late 60s to early 70s as a
undergrade when starting out with her interest with graphic design and developing her graphic design skills. After she
finished studying there, she travelled to Basel Switzerland and got herself enrolled into Basel School Of Design (previously
known as Kunstgewerbeschule Basel) for graphic design again and she became the student for two other very famous
graphic designers at the time Armin Hofmann and Wolfgang Weingart. Greiman was interested with the ‘International
Style’ that involves typography but would require technology that is now known as the ‘New Wave’, this style was
introduced her by Weingart and she popularised this form of art back in the USA with created/experimented on a page with
a 3Dimensional view with making the art more personal and more unique. In 1976 in the Los Angeles, California Greiman
created and founded ‘Made In Space’ that is design studio that she had created to challenge interdisciplinary boundaries
with the differences of art and design in all aspects of her work. Made In Space is a key example of what style Greiman’s
styles of art in graphic design is which consisted of creating art that included the sense of “glitch-like” and illusion based art
with different colours, shapes and different styles of text in her work as that gained Greiman more praise and her work was
acknowledged. Seeing Greiman's work inspires me and in my work to follow the lines she goes in with her art as she
illusion art in her and that is what I will be interpreting in my work as I think illusion based work is intriguing to the eye and I
think Greiman is something very intriguing and different that I will be taken acknowledgement some of their work in plans
to my own.

4. Cass
Bird
• Cass Bird is a well known fashion photographer born in Los Angeles in 1974, she has worked for very famous
publications such as GQ, GAP, New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stones and more. As she photographed and
directed for these famous brands it all started when she graduated from Smith College in Los Angeles and then moved
to New York, her work being recognised quite early on as her styling of photos and the sensitivity she creates through
her images with artists, celebrities and musicians she takes brought so much attention to her work as she would
challenge the “social normal” of fashion with what was feminine and masculine. Bird with her models has been said that
she creates a environment of that has an emotional intimacy that powers through to be showcased in the
product/images she makes. In interviews she has said her journey to be where she is hasn’t been the smoothest start
in the industry as she stated she had the ‘un-glamorous start” as she was struggling to financially accommodate herself
as she originally started off with wanting to be a portrait photographer but she was struggling to receive any
opportunities and she struggled for about ten years on trying to get any opportunities. The style of Cass’ work is having
the models really have connection or deepening their connection more as she is able to capture the connection through
photos and the connection is easily read through photos from an audience consuming her content. The style of Bird
photographs vary depending of what kind of photos she is capturing for the certain high end brand and or magazine,
the editorial section of photos they can very different but all have the same emotional sensitivity to the images as that is
point of taking the photos, as a lot of her photos from her portfolio include images in black & white with the model
having a clean look to them or the complete opposite where the model is dressed quite messy or just in various colours
and patterns and it is clear that the model is focus of the photos as some of photos the background are blurred out but
entirely where but just enough for where model is centre of the image and nothing in background would trial off the
audience gaze from the images. Which is an interesting way of the photos taken and edited as that is something inspire
when it comes to my own work as seeing Bird’s work is very intriguing to gaze as she creates the an emotional tint to
her photos which I take notice in for me as planning to taking photos for my Final project but as photographer myself,
with the image I capture I wont provoke some to the images so I think Cass Bird is one of my big inspirations to this
project.

5. Bibliograp
hy
- Anon. (n.d). April Greiman. Available: https://www.art-directory.info/design/april-greiman-1948/index.shtml. Last accessed 11th Feb 2022.
- Anon. (n.d). April Greiman. Available: https://worddisk.com/wiki/April_Greiman/. Last accessed 11th Feb 2022.
- Anon. (n.d). April Greiman. Available: https://www.famousgraphicdesigners.org/april-greiman. Last accessed 11th Feb 2022.
- Anon. (n.d). April Greiman. Available: https://designlectur.es/events/april-greiman/. Last accessed 11th Feb 2022.
- Anon. (n.d). April Greiman: Does It Make Sense. Available: https://alechagraphicdesigntalk.wordpress.com/history_of_graphic_desigh/april-greiman-does-it-make-sense/.
Last accessed 11th Feb 2022.
- Anon. (n.d). Cass Bird. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cass_Bird. Last accessed 10th Feb 2022.
- Anon. (n.d). Cass Bird . Available: https://www.businessoffashion.com/community/people/cass-bird. Last accessed 10th Feb 2022.
- Anon. (n.d). Celebrating women in design: April Greiman. Available: https://opusdesign.us/wordcount/celebrating-women-in-design-april-greiman/. Last accessed 11th Feb
2022
- Anon. (n.d). International Style. Available: https://worddisk.com/wiki/International_style_(architecture)/. Last accessed 11th Feb 2022
- Anon. (n.d). Jamie Reid- British Artist(19470. Available: https://peoplepill.com/people/jamie-reid. Last accessed 9th Feb 2022.
- Anon. (n.d). Jamie Reid . Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Reid. Last accessed 9th Feb 2022.
- Anon. (n.d). Jamie Reid. Available: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/jamie-reid-12111. Last accessed 9th Feb 2022.
- Anon. (2017). Jamie Reid Biography, Life, Interesting Facts. Available: https://www.sunsigns.org/famousbirthdays/d/profile/jamie-reid/. Last accessed 9th Feb 2022.
- Anon. (2021). Jamie Reid Supreme. Available: https://milled.com/supreme/jamie-reid-supreme-ii1-CKON7CSlPMPT. Last accessed 9th Feb 2022
- Brady, D. (2017). Jamie Reid — God Save the Queen. Available: https://medium.com/fgd1-the-archive/jamie-reid-god-save-the-queen-25852ef575d4. Last accessed 10th
Feb 2022.
- Marchant, J. (2021). An Interview With Jamie Reid. Available: https://barnsleycivic.co.uk/blog_posts/an-interview-with-jamie-reid/. Last accessed 10th Feb 2022