Ellie Spencer

The Comedy Carpet

http://comedycarpet.com/about/

This project graced the cover of the October edition of Creative review. I first noticed it based on the vintage typography which a big love of mine. I then went on to discover that the typography was taken from the styling of a piece of installation art, the Comedy Carpet, created by Gordon Young.

The article states; Gavin Lucas (October 2011) “Created by artist Gordon Young, with typography by Why Not Associates, the Comedy Carpet is a celebration of comedy on an extraordinary scale. Referring to the work of more than 1,000 comedians and comedy writers, the carpet gives visual form to jokes, songs and catchphrases dating from the early days of variety to the present. Sited in front of Blackpool Tower, the 2,200m2 work of art contains over 160,000 granite letters embedded into concrete, pushing the boundaries of public art and typography to their limits.

 When commissioned to make a work for the new headland, Young was initially inspired by the inside of the Blackpool Tower with its fantasy Viennese Baroque ballroom and Arabesque circus and wanted to bring “this quality and ‘over-the-top ness’ out of doors. The new art work also had to make a visual impact amongst the heady mix of architectural features on Blackpool’s Promenade. But why comedy and why a carpet?”

Comedy in all its guises is a big part of who we are; it has its own social history and a very important place in that history is Blackpool’ says Young. ‘I’d been looking at photographs of stars and the Blackpool Tower was a reoccurring backdrop to the photos - Eric and Ernie in deck chairs, Ken Dodd, Les Dawson. It soon became obvious that Blackpool had been a magnetic chuckle point for the nation, the sheer breadth of comedians who had performed in the town over the decades is amazing!”

Gavin Lucas (October 2011). Heard about the artist, the designer and the carpet of concrete?. Creative Review. Advertising, design and visual culture pg. 40-45.

Image Source: Comedy Carpet Design & Research. Available: http://comedycarpet.com/Last accessed 19th Jan 2012

I think that this project has been brilliantly executed from concept, completion and beyond. It is an on-trend, yet timeless piece of installation art that will be talked about for years to come. Gordon hopes that his artwork will be laughed at, and that is precisely the point of it. The Comedy Carpet is a great piece of inspiration, especially for the group project in which we are currently undertaking. Although we will not be able to produce an outcome of this scale, the concept and process of the whole thing is fantastic. It would be a success if we could achieve even a small amount of hype and recognition in comparison to what Gordon Young has. 

You can even purchase merchandise linked to the artwork: http://www.visitblackpoolshop.co.uk/comedy-carpet-souvenirs.html

At first, I thought that the Comedy Carpet was made from painted text but I have gone on to learn that each of the 160,000 letters is made of solid granite cast into high-quality concrete panels. Given the unusualness of the project, its complexity and scale, no one company was able to produce the work in its entirety so Gordon had the challenge of producing the work in-house.

Gordon Young (2011) ”After several months of research, with input from chemists and engineers, the Comedy Carpet team evolved new techniques and recipes for production including a special white face mix and the perfect blue that wouldn’t fade. They searched far and wide to find materials of the exact quality and consistency; from India, they sourced black and red granite; from China, stainless steel.” 

Gordon Young (2011) Comedy Carpet Design & Research. Available: http://comedycarpet.com/Last accessed 19th Jan 2012

Although constructed on an industrial scale and making use of new technology, the work also required craft skills of a very high standard. The process of making each of the 320 slabs involved many complex stages from cutting, sorting, fettling and laying out each of the letters to a three-stage casting process, curing, trimming, grinding and polishing. Each slab is a work of art in itself; multiplied by 320, it takes the project to an altogether different level.

To conclude, I am greatly inspired by how Young has managed to create some beautiful typographic pieces on a range of different media. His work has encouraged interaction from the public and after five years of production, it is one of the most complex pieces of public art ever commissioned. I think this is a brilliant design because it appeals to a range of people, as long as you can read you can enjoy it! it could also connect older generations with the younger ones.

Evaluation

Looking back over the work produced for this module, I feel a mixture of satisfaction and disappointment. One thing I know is that I have learnt a huge amount from the last few months and I have gained a decent portfolio piece.

I started this module with the intention of creating an editorial publication but I was unsure of the topic in which I wanted to communicate. After writing multiple rationales to explore different topics, I decided to produce a ‘quirkbook’, where I would document the unusual parts of people’s personalities or habits in the most creative way possible. I started my research for the project and gathered material to take forward. However, due to a live brief coming in, my project was stalled as I focused my time here.

Having the opportunity to work in collaboration with a marketing director to produce a Sixth Form prospectus has been a great experience that taught me a lot in general; more specifically about working relationships and the importance of communication. Designing for a commercial print has informed me greatly about all of the conventions and issues that have to be addressed before work can be sent through.

Although taking part in this live brief was highly relevant to my practice and resulted in a great addition for my portfolio, it did eat away into my deadline time and caused me to change my main project proposal altogether. At this point, the D&AD briefs were released so I purposefully chose a topic that I had no prior knowledge of enabling me to enter the project with a completely open mind.

Creating a product to communicate ‘Peace One Day 2012’ has pushed me to design for a certain context that I did not initiate myself. My choice of format was a newspaper as it is easily recognizable and is a great way to promote a lot of information. As I wish to become an editorial designer it has been a great addition to my practice, especially as working for a newspaper could be a potential career option for me.

My intended goal was to gain a solid piece of editorial on a current topic that is visually different from my existing workload and I think that I have achieved that. Although I already have a newspaper in my portfolio from previously being involved in producing the NULC HE prospectus, visually the outcome of my Peace One Day poster completely different. Furthermore, I have educated myself into the newspaper-printing format, where as before I simply just had input in the design of the project. Being involved with the printing output as well as the design of the newspaper has helped me to become aware of the importance of designing a piece of work with restricted guidelines, which again is great industry practice.

I chose to produce a project set by D&AD as they are a hugely recognized prestigious awarding body and winning a student award really makes you stand out above the rest. I still have time to enter my newspaper to the competition, even though my deadline is over. As I have had 5 copies printed, I can afford to do this. Even though my chances of winning are slim, it is worth entering.

In terms of the costing and funding of the brief, I set aside money for the printing of my development work (30p for 1 x A3 colour print) but I underestimated how many pages of work I would produce – I overspent by £14.90 here. Halfway through the project, I also decided to create a fold out leaflet to promote Peace One Day, which I had printed professionally (5 x laser A3 - £12.86) so this also incurred extra costs. The main final outcome of this project remained as a 12-page digital colour newspaper at £29 for 5 copies, which I think was quite reasonable and it was a wise choice to purchase 5 copies of the newspaper for the purpose of my portfolio, submitting to D&AD, and reflection.

In reflection, the biggest problem in this module was planning. I did not make clear timescale plans, resulting in me spending far too long on one project before I realized that I had two or three more all to get done for the same deadline. This led me to feel that I rushed work towards the end and didn’t push it far enough to ensure I got the best design results possible. While being pleased with the final printed output of my newspaper, I feel that with just a little more time I could have elevated the rest of my projects from satisfactory to successful. At present they don’t represent the very best of my work and therefore I feel that I need to produce polished portfolio pieces in the next module. This all said, a short time limit is a realism that once working in industry and the lack of time certainly made my designer a quicker more succinct process.

In future modules, I must have clear timescales and plans, plus break this down further to individual tasks. In this project I have always had lists of things to do but they had not been assigned a time slot or date and this caused problems. Throughout this module I have been designing/working non-stop and harder than I have to date. However, it has not always been working smart. Again this needs addressing and time management will rectify this problem.

To give my self some credit though, I am proud of the work I have produced for this project and feel that is a fresh, on-trend piece of work that is a fantastic addition to my portfolio. In order to improve, I just need needed to push my work further enduring I fully exploit it as well as produce more as a whole. I am looking forward to next term and still have a lot that I wish to achieve design wise and skills that I want to develop further