I’m so pleased that I have finally gotten over the initial hump of generating content for my sketchbook. In the first week I was thinking too hard about how I wanted to set it up or how neat I wanted it to be but once I stopped caring about it being perfect, all of the visual thoughts I was having starting flowing out onto my pages.
Castiglioni’s studio really kick-started my creativity because there was SO MUCH to sketch and I really wanted to remember all of the ingenious inventions I was seeing. Some of his devices were a challenge to illustrate because they had dual functionality, such as “cow-milking belt” or the tiny swinging desk he built for his daughter. I’ve been enjoying utilizing arrows to demonstrate how things work.
Since I finally narrowed down my focus on branding, I started to pay attention to my surroundings much more. For example, when we went to Alessi, I was completely unaware of their logo for the entire duration of the tour. The first time I realized that they use heavy red typography as their logo was when I stepped into the gift shop. I found it interesting that they paid attention to the branding in the gift shop and neglected the factory.
On the other end of the spectrum, a few of us went to the Fondazione Prada in Milan to check out Bar Luce which has extremely consistent branding. Bar Luce was designed in part by Wes Anderson which made complete sense upon walking into the cafe. The interior was minimalistic to an almost surreal extent with pale pinks and greens lining the walls and ceilings. The logo was plastered on all of the menus, mugs, and coasters. Everything matched and was perfectly placed, much like how the scenes appear in his movies. I had fun making notations of my observations, it made me feel like I was really taking in the whole experience.
I fell in love with the branding of the Museo del Novecento so that was a great opportunity to use my new Stabilo pens in my sketchbook! All of the coloring was very consistent and the graphics were minimal. It is interesting to see the big museum brands juxtaposed with the small pieces of branding I come across from day to day such as a breadbasket label I stumbled upon at lunch one day. At first I was attracted to the design of the basket which was a machine-washable paper bag material. Upon closer inspection I realized I really admired the label and that ended up taking up a whole page in my sketchbook. The lesson is to always keep my sketchbook in hand so I am ready to sketch when I least expect it.
