Neville Brody Vs. Marvel Vs. Capcom...

Last thursday i had finally received my copy for Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, a game for which i have been waiting for 10 years so you can only imagine my excitement (call it sad, its just part of being a geek...). However, the following day was to be an important one as a pretty famous graphic designer was coming to our school to gives us a lecture on graphic design and all that jazz... I found myself conflicted between goin' ape shit on my new game and bein' a serious student and taking advantage of the rip off supposed benefits of my school, a truly tough call. So the night ended with me playing MVC 3 until 5 am and waking up at 8:30 to make sure i got a good spot in the lecture theatre to see this supposed god like guest.

Now i'll be honest, i have never heard of Neville Brody until last week (this is apparently very very embarrassing for a graphic design student... But heck it's not like this guy created spider-man or anything soooo yea... big deal...), so i came to this lecture with a pretty vague state of mind. Hoping this guy will be as mind blowing as everyone claims he is, my friend Andres tells me he designed the font for the "Public Enemy" film, that was a pretty sweet font so that already boosted my expectations a bit. Then i see my friend Sid sitting next to me about to piss himself with excitement over this one dude (who i repeat did not like create spider-man or anything as remotely awesome), so i reckoned wow this dude must really be the shit...

Putin...

Thus began the lecture, and this guy did in fact blow my mind but probably for the wrong reasons... His constant approach to somewhat dismiss my school and it's tutors simply made my day as he points out that LCC has failed him and told him he had no position in the commercial industry was the most beautiful bitch slap i had ever witnessed. Now the dismissal and piss taking elements aside he did have some interesting topics to discuss.

El Brodinski hard at work...

What really caught my attention was his advice on taking risks in art and how there can be no faults to taking risks. Personally i see this differently as i don't usually like taking risks in my work as i am too specific with i want to do, however looking back at this has made me want to take risks as you never know what could happen, things could look a vagillion times better for all we know. Then Mr. Brody, or as i now like to call him El Brodinski, started talking about how Print is Dead or rather dying as well as how we should be hippies and think about the environment and all that weed smokin' mambo jumbo, and that we should be moving onto the digital format and media as that's where the shit is happening right now. A valid point i guess, but i don't believe print will ever die just as i don't believe deforestation will ever end (there isn't enough pot in the world to make everyone believe that...)

Anyhoo enough of that, here is an illustration i made based on the event:

The Art of Russian Roulette (a.k.a Taking Risks): from my understanding taking risks is sort of like playing a game of russian roulette. You got your Colt Revolver with 1 out 0f 6 bullets placed inside your cylinder barrel, this means you got 5 out 6 shots to live. In this case let's say your working on your very own Mona Lisa and you believe it to be complete. However you've made it from your exact specifications and requirements but you have not taken any "Risks" on experimenting with it. Now with the digital media aside, this is your only version of the piece and you doubt you will ever be able to re-do it as perfectly as it is now. What do you do? Do you take the shot? Do you land on one of the 5 safe shots and turn the piece into the ultimate Mona Lisa or do you land on the 1 fatal shot and have your piece shot to shit?

So to conclude this event, Neville Brody is an excellent speaker (no doubt about it). He'll woo you with his audible skills but at the end of the day, you might end up more confused, questioning, lost or curious as ever before...

P.S: if none of this made sense to you i honestly do not blame you... I wish i could tell you i was high whilst writing this but sadly... i wasn't...

D*Dreg