Show 4

This poster again visualises the exchange of 35 briefs from writer to creative.

Brief 01

"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” Edgar Degas

Escher, Duchamp and Dali were pioneers in the art of visual manipulation. They each, using their own unique methods, mastered pieces which created illusions and took the viewer's eyes on a journey; forcing a double take. Contemporary artists, too, are digitally creating illusions which transform standard images into entertaining conundrums through a simple trick of the viewer's brain.

You are invited to create a little visual trickery of your very own. Whether it's a painting or photograph that looks too surreal to be reality, or a simple graphic with a hidden image, your challenge is to design a poster which changes the familiar and causes the viewer to look twice. Have fun!

Brief 02

My brief is the following quote:

Some people are annoyed that roses have thorns. I’m just glad the thorns have roses.

Brief 03

Create an illustration for a book you’ve read that you hated. It may or may not include the title as type.

Brief 04

A spoonerism is an accidental transposition of sounds in two or more words.

Here are some examples of spoonerisms:

Intended word(s) —— Spoonerism

Bulldog —— Dull bog

Mix and match —— Max and Mitch

Wasted two terms —— Tasted two worms

My brief invites its recipient to go down one of two possible routes:

1. Visualise a verbal spoonerism.
This might mean showing the intended meaning as well as the spoonerism.

2. Compose a visual spoonerism by transposing one or two parts between two objects. The result should be two new objects and or meanings.

Brief 05

What does your favourite drink say about you? Be it tea, coffee, a pint of blue moon or a yop!

In addition to this poster, Michael created more here

Brief 06

Tura Satana was a six foot tall Japanese-American B-movie actress trained in martial arts. She worked as a burlesque performer in LA and Chicago from the age of 15, formed a violent girl gang while she was a teenager, dated Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra and is best known for her ferocious role in the cult film Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

She also worked as a nurse, a police radio dispatcher and a hotel security guard and survived being shot by a former lover. Amazingly, there's never been a film made about her eventful life.

Your brief is to design a poster inspired by the life of Tura Satana.

Brief 07

"If music be the food of love, play on".

Illustrate this famous line from Shakespeare, in any way you want: collage, photography, mixed media, illustration, computer generated art, etc. You can interpret the words out of context.

Brief 08

Interpret this snippet from Lord Byron's poem "Childe Harolde's Pilgrimage":

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture in the lonely shore,

There is society where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar.

Brief 09

Juxt Supposing

Surrealism approached collage and assemblage a bit differently to the illusionistic representation of Picasso.

It was based more on the juxtaposition of unexpected and hybridized forms – Things that don’t necessarily belong together because they don’t add up and yet, they compose an image nonetheless.

Create a poster based on the theme of ‘juxtaposing things that don’t necessarily belong together because they don’t add up and yet, they compose an image nonetheless.’

The poster may be funny and playful and not necessarily have a meaning but simple be the result of your experimentation with visually combining things that don’t necessarily belong together. My one stipulation is that you have fun with this brief.

Brief 10

Design a poster that reflects a celebration of your personal culture.

Brief 11

Vörður (pronounced roughly ver-therr) is an Icelandic word meaning “guard”. In Norse mythology it represents the idea of a guardian spirit or protector.

Your brief is to imagine and visually represent your own personal vörður. This could take the form of a fantastical beast or spirit, but it could also be a representation of something in your life that you feel gives you strength or protection—feel free to interpret it as you see fit!

The recipient may use illustration, design or photography (or a combination of these) to complete the brief.

Brief 12

INSPIRED BY STREET ART

In recent times many street artists have moved away from aggressive and politically fueled and inspired works and taken the modern street art down a different path, a more mature and humanist level, where street artists encourage people to feel better about themselves every day.

Some of these interesting artists are Morley and Above. Understanding a need for human inspiration these artists give back and create art that speaks to the public on a very general level, often through humour.

Taking inspiration from this movement produce a poster in any medium incorporating both text and imagery that will draw a smile from the passer by, offering a form of escapism to anybody who may be having an otherwise shitty day!

Brief 13

Design a poster for a new movie called 'Stab City' that is based in and around Limerick. Stab City tells the tale of a young Thomond lad caught up in gangland crime in Cork and Limerick.

Stab City stars Brendan Gleeson, Colin Farrell and an acting debut for Munster's Paul O'Connell.

Brief 14

A Limerick is a rhyming, humorous, and often nonsensical five-line poem,

The first, second and fifth lines rhyme (forming a triplet) and have the same number of syllables.

The third and fourth rhyme (forming a couplet) and have the same number of syllables.

Limericks often begin with the words: There once was. . . or There was a.

Ie: The format is : a-a-b-b-a

Your brief is to write a limerick based on Brief Exchange and to illustrate it using any medium you choose – from a purely typographic solution to a painted or mixed media one. Enjoy!

Brief 15

That was some good advice.

Brief 16

Limerick is famous for having a market around every corner (corn, potato, hay, milk). Illustrate / advertise this fact through your chosen medium, from a photo, painting, map, illustration or other.

Brief 17

Much criticism has been leveled against the wildly successful English artist, entrepreneur and art collector, Damien Hirst. The main criticism is the idea that Hirst's work is not really art at all.

"A Dead Shark Isn't Art”

- The Stuckist Art Group

“Hirst should not be in the Tate.
He's not an artist.”

- Julian Spalding, Art critic

"He may be a designer,
but certainly no artist."

- Stefanie Schneider, Photographer

“He’s functioning like
a commercial brand"

- Robert Hughes, Art critic

Is Damien Hirst an artist, a charlatan, a visionary, a celebrity brand or simply an astute businessman? Design a poster that explores this idea.

Brief 18

My Nude Self.

Brief 19

It’s time to make a map. My brief to you is to map any place in the world.

Brief 20

This is your chance, this poster is your voice! Visually communicate something you’d love to say to people passing by on the streets of Limerick.

Brief 21

Trip to Mars

Nasa is planning a manned mission to Mars believing that it is mankind’s destiny to leave earth. The trip will take 20-30 years, in cramped quarters facing potentially deadly radiation levels when they reach the red planet’s surface. These settlers headed for Mars will have to bring everything they need to live out their days there, including food, water and air!

Design a poster aimed at recruiting aspiring astronauts for this doomed mission to Mars.

Brief 22

“Between two worlds: past and present”

The simplest things can evoke the strongest memories. When was the last time you had a memory so overwhelming that, if even only for an instant, you felt that you were in between two moments in time?

Use the emotions generated by this memory, whether positive or negative, to inform the design of a poster or image that can inform, warn, or comfort, the viewer about the power of memory.

This can be as literal or abstract as you choose, and may be a typographic solution.

Brief 23

The Limerick Soviet

"Limerick might be one of the last places in the world that you would expect workers to seize control of businesses let alone an entire city. Yet this is exactly what happened for two weeks in April 1919. In response to British authorities declaring martial law and a restriction on travel throughout the city, a general strike was declared and supported by almost all the cities 14,000 workers, along with the strike the workers seized control of essential supplies and even began printing their own money, the strike soon became known as the Limerick Soviet.”

Your brief is to create a promotional poster for a play called "The Limerick Soviet" that is set during these events of April 1919. The play will be shown in community halls throughout the city to commemorate the 95th anniversary of the city being self-declared a soviet. Feel free to use photography or illustration in your design and to represent the plot in anyway you wish.

Brief 24

Design or illustrate a poster based on a fortune cookie message.

Brief 25

“You always had the power my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself.” Glinda, Wizard of Oz.

‘Power’ has many different meanings. Take your interpretation of the word ‘power’ and design a poster using it as the central theme. It could be someone you know, you yourself, someone you aspire to be, a ‘super hero’, someone who has used power to transform themselves for better or for worse…it is up to you, be as creative as you wish!

Brief 26 (abridged)

God of the Gaps

The human brain appears to be hardwired to find causes for any "effect" experienced in the world, from eerie sounds, to scary thunder, to terrifying shaking ground, and deadly diseases. Early humans, just beginning to seek explanations for natural things they experienced in their world found answers by saying those things were caused by gods, or other supernatural figures (like ghosts or witches); many early "gods" are storm gods (such as Thor) or gods of the wind (the Kami, in Japan). The very act of birth was apparently seen as magical and godlike.

Your brief is to visualise your chosen 'God of the Gaps'. You can choose to visualise the fictional explanation or the scientific explanation, something which has been solved by science or something which is still mysterious.
The only requirement is that this is delivered in an optimistic, witty way - think of how Dara O'Briain might deliver the explanation and visualise same.
Good luck!

Brief 27

Oh My Gods!

The ancients believed that every aspect of their daily lives was controlled by a collection of specialised deities.

The Norse made offerings to Thor, the beardy hammer wielding lord of storms, for safe passage on the rough northern seas. The Greeks prayed to the saucy nudist Aphrodite for luck in love and the Romans looked to Apollo for help with their musical noodlings and poetics. Christians too worshipped a pantheon of regional saints (almost entirely rebranded versions of Pre-Christian pagan gods), each with their own special brand of magic.

All of these Gods and Goddesses had their own unique and instantly recognisable iconography, Poseidon's trident, Hermes's winged feet or Bacchus's vine leaf garland and flagon of wine.

What, in this age of reason over reverence would our imagined gods be? What would they look like and what would they be the bosses of? A saint of smart phones, a God of Facebook, a Goddess of online dating? Your brief is to create a new God or Gods to help us with our modern day frolics and foibles.

Brief 28

Home is where the heart is. Home can mean many things; people, places, things...

Develop a creative based on the theme of "home". It can be as simple as what home means to you, what you think home is to somebody else, or even what it's like to be away from home. Have fun!

Brief 29

Base a poster on one of the following (or part of one of the following) Shakespeare quotes:

"As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words" (Two Gentlemen of Verona)

"With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls. For stony limits cannot hold love out. And what love can do, that dares love attempt." (Romeo and Juliet)

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep." (The Tempest)

Brief 30

EVERYONE KNOWS I’M RUBBISH AT MATHS.

FIND “x” AND EXPLAIN WHY IT WAS MISSING.

Brief 31

The human brain is a wonderful thing. We take in and store information consciously and subconsciously. Sometimes we filter our days through our dreams. Sometimes our brains go bananas on us through our day and night dreams. We don’t even know the full capacity of what lies within our skulls. Create a poster in your chosen discipline using the following poem as a starting point:

If Tim Burton ruled our night times,

What might we count to fall asleep?

Would zombies chase and jump o’er fences

While androids dream of electric sheep.

Should dragons fly through our dream times

With Targaryens on their backs

Or would we still rehash the day gone by

With beige people in beige slacks.

Brief 32

Lost and Found in translation.

Brief 33

“The year you were born marks only your entry into the world. Other years where you prove your worth, they are the ones worth celebrating.”

2014 means the year of Culture for Limerick but what does 2014 mean for you? Design a poster to visualise your idea. Feel free to make it as profound or as frivolous as you like. Imagine your audience is just you.

Brief 34

Design a poster to promote FREE GYMS. Free Gyms promotes utilising any and all of our urban landscape (parks, streets, stairwells, lampposts etc.) to get fit, and for free. Nothing and nowhere is off limits. If it is free, accessible and can be used in some way for fitness its a go. Your audience is everyone and anyone from the city, young and old, builders to suits, Moms to pigeon feeders…

Brief 35

Create a poster (in your respective medium: design, photography, illustration etc) based on the concept of nostalgia. This could be something specific that evokes a sense of nostalgia in you, or it could be nostalgia in a broader sense.