OUGD401 - Alfred Hitchcock : Graphic Design

For my publication I have decided to focus on Sir Alfred Hitchcock. As one of my passions is film I think I will find this task very interesting. I started by carrying out some research into what design there already is which is focused around Hitchcock, to do this I simply searched his name in the engine of Behance. My findings are below..

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This is a selection of graphics produced by Sebastian Barrena from Argentina. He created them for a series of film screenings of Hitchcock's most successful pictures. The construction of  an image from a range of other images and sharp geometric shapes mirrors Hitchcock's gothic movies as also reflects the horror from within each of his films. I find that it is very futuristic and interesting to look at.

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This is a publication called 'The Art of Cinema' produced by Ellie Bpink. The interesting layout and timeline creates an interesting and visually pleasing double page spread. Minimal imagery and sans serif typeface reflects the contemporary layout and interpretation of the designer. 

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These interesting 'Psycho' illustrations for Bant Magazine were produced by Saydan Askit from Turkey. Personally I feel that they are a brilliant representation of the theme running through Psycho, the dark illustrations with a gothic horror edge relate to the film perfectly. This type of illustration I find very appealing though I do not feel that I would be able to produce something to this standard. 

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These poster designs for Hitchcock's films are very interesting. I like the minimalism within each poster as I think it adds to the overall effect of the illustration. Produced by Enzo Lo Re from Italy he has represented each film with one image which I personally feel is very successful.

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When brainstorming ideas for this brief I pictured something like this project by Mariana Bottaro. She has created a poster, brochure, cards, tickets and souvenirs for people who are interested in Alfred Hitchcock and his films. I would like to produce a publication which has posters and specialist tickets for screenings of his films. This project reflects the style I intend to follow. Though this idea is not yet solid I do intend to look into it in some detail.

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This publication was redesigned by Anthony Schmiedeler, it is based on an interview with Alfred Hitchcock.

'Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut, redesigned to make it more navigable and appealing as an entire book based on one interview. With the redesign, I was able to separate the conversation into more clearly delineated subjects, including sidebars and captions applicable to the subject matter. I also added a special feature about Francois Truffaut that wasn't included in the original book but I felt would fit in and appeal to interested readers. The book cover was screenprinted and bound by hand'


Although the layout is not to my personal taste I do think that the publication has been produced very interestingly and the way in which Anthony is displaying information is very creative.

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Hitchcock was known for his interest in his leading ladies. This infographic poster by Eve Warren shows the different leading ladies which he has featured in his pictures. The link between all of the women is that they were all blondes. Hitchcock's obsession which blonde leading ladies quickly became known by the general public and the cast and crew surrounding his films.

"Alfred Hitchcock was obsessed with blondes starring in his films, they often played aloof beauties; frosty, but with fiery streaks beneath. He believed that they made the best victims, he once descibed them as 'virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints."  

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Continuing with the theme of blonde leading ladies I came across a Vogue photo shoot which was based around Hitchcock's blondes. Formento + Formento from the USA worked with the actress Giovanna Gorasinni to create and editorial shoot which highlighted the vulnerability of a blonde woman in a Hitchcock film. I think that the nudity in the photographs further highlights this theme and therefore puts it into perspective for a contemporary audience. 

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One idea which I have had is to produce a 3D publication. I am not gifted in this area but I am interested in experimenting with this style. I found this carosel book made by Laura J. Wilkens. I find this book very interesting as think that the hand made aspect adds to the style of Hitchcock.

"This handmade carousel book opens up and secures with magnets on the front and back covers to reveal five seperate cells, each showcasing a work by Hitchcock. The films, displayed in chronological order by their release date include Rope (1948), Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), Psycho (1960), and The Birds (1963).

 The covers also feature Kodak 16 mm Tri-X film as a decorative element."

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Sumita Nanda from India created these posters for a 7 day Hitchcock festival. The imagery she has used reflects the genre of Hitchcock's films and represents some key scenes also. 

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I favour information graphics so I really like this design by Mengying Wang. He is focussing on the life of Hitchcock and has produced a really interesting timeline. Part of my brief is to produce a timeline of Hitchcock's life. I think this is a very unique and different way of showcasing this information.

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Alfred Hitchcock was famous for his rather questionable sayings and quotes. Neven Udovicic produced some posters featuring some of his most popular quotes and imagery from his films. I find this very appealing and the colour scheme visually pleasing. It is an interesting way of displaying information which I think is very impressive. 

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Hilal Ozcelik from Turkey designed this poster for Istanbul's film festival. He has featured Hitchcock's famous headshot and turned it into a mask which is being held over a mans face. I think this instigates that anyone can be a successful director like Hitchcock. 

OUGD401 - Alfred Hitchcock : Practical Jokes

Throughout my research into Alfred Hitchcock I am slowly beginning to get a better understanding of his personality and behaviour. I found an article from the Telegraph describing Hitchcock's questionable sense of humour. Personally I believe that his childhood affected his life more than people have suggested. I think the treatment of Hitchcock by his parents damaged him significantly. This is the reason, I believe, that Hitchcock was such a disturbed an obsessed man. 

Alfred Hitchcock, who was born in Leytsonstone, London, 113 years ago today on 13 August 1899, is rightly being celebrated this year. It's the 90th anniversary of his first film and the British Film Institute is having a special season celebrating his genius.

Classics such as Rear Window, Vertigo and Psycho have made him one of the most popular and celebrated of all film makers. He was also one of the 20th-century's most enthusiastic practitioners of the creepy and sometimes warped practical joke.

He admitted to Francois Truffaut in 1966 that "I do have a weakness for practical jokes and have played quite a few in my time." Alfred Joseph Hitchcock's pranks varied from ostensively harmless japes, through mind games, and on to sadistic humiliation. Some pranks were simply amusing. Hitchcock would often enlist a colleague to whom he would tell a tantalising story in a loud voice while they were in a packed elevator. He would perfectly time his exit just before the punch line and then bow politely to the eavesdropping, frustrated passengers.

His targets were often people he had privately identified as "phonies" and "big heads". Pompous guests would be invited to dinner parties where he would slip whoopee cushions on to their chairs before they sat down. Sometimes, the food would be served in the wrong order, starting with dessert. At one lavish meal, guests were disturbed to find all the food laced with colouring. They found it hard to eat blue soup, blue trout, and even blue peaches and ice cream. Hitchcock was fascinated to see how they would react.

If he really disliked strait-laced non-drinking guests, he would ply them with strong liquor and watch them come apart. Actors and actresses were often targets. He sent 400 smoked herrings to one star. He had a horse delivered to the dressing room of actor Sir Gerald du Maurier (father of Daphne) just to see how he would react to inconvenience. When a cameraman boasted about his elaborate new all-electric kitchen, the man returned home to find two tonnes of coal delivered to his doorstep with a receipt marked 'Paid by A Hitchcock'.

Actresses were often the target of his 'jokes'. Elsie Randolph revealed her fear of fire to Hitchcock and he later played an elaborate trick on her, getting a technician to pump smoke into a telephone box after the door had been surreptitiously locked.

All sorts of theories have been aired to explain his behaviour. Some suggest he was damaged as a child when - at about the age of five - he was sent by his father William (a greengrocer) with a note to a local police chief, who locked the little boy in a cell. After about 10 minutes, the policeman released Hitchcock, saying: "That's what we do to naughty boys." Hitchcock later said he could never forget the fear of such a humiliation. There have even been academic disagreements about whether the pranks demonstrate that he was repressing sexual feelings towards men.

There was certainly an element of bullying. Assistant cameraman Alfred Roome had been the target of one of his jokes but exacted revenge by putting a fake smoke bomb under Hitchcock's car. "You never saw a fat man get out of a car quicker," he recalled. "Hitch never tried anything on me again. He respected you if you hit back. If you didn't, he'd have another go."

Perhaps he was just an unaccountably strange man. It's telling that he was a fan of black satirical  another man who liked practical jokes cartoonist Charles Addams - and Hitchcock himself called it the "humour of the macabre." He believed it was simply a typically London form of humour, and used to say as an example: "It's like the joke about the man who was being led to the gallows, which was flimsily constructed, and he asked in some alarm, 'I say, is that thing safe?"

He was never really pressed in interviews about his behaviour. Asked on a TV once in 1972 about his pranks, the 72-year-old Hitchcock (who died in April 1980) became rather defensive, saying that he had never meant to "harm" or "denigrate" anyone. His wife Alma (with whom he had a long but mostly celibate marriage) admitted his practical jokes made her "apprehensive".

His ill-treatment of Tippi Hedren during the filming of The Birds is well documented - using live birds to attack her, and himself behaving like a sexual predator - but he extended the odd behaviour to Hedren's six-year-old daughter and future actress, Melanie Griffith. He gave as a gift a painfully accurate wax doll figure of her mother in a miniature coffin, dressed in the same costume she wore in The Birds. Years later, a grown-up Griffith said of Hitchcock: "He was a mother------, and you can quote me."

One practical joke absolutely soils Hitchcock's reputation - and it's worth bearing in mind he was a man who was fastidious about his own cleanliness and prided himself on leaving bathrooms "spotless". In Donald Spoto's excellent 1983 biography of Hitchcock, The Dark Side Of Genius, the following tale is recalled:

"Hitchcock bet a film's property man a week's salary that he would be too frightened to spend a whole night chained to a camera in a deserted and darkened studio. The chap heartily agreed to the wager, and at the end of the assigned day, Hitchcock himself clasped the handcuffs and pocketed the key - but not before he offered a generous beaker of brandy 'the better to ensure a quick and deep sleep'. The man thanked him for his thoughtfulness and drank the brandy, and everyone withdrew. When they arrived on the set next morning, they found the poor man angry, weeping, exhausted, and humiliated. Hitchcock had laced the brandy with the strongest available laxative, and the victim had, unavoidably, soiled himself and a wide area around his feet and the camera."

Article from the Telegraph

OUGD401 - From Theory to Practice : Alfred Hitchcock Quotes

Hitchcock once said that he migrated to the US as a kind of cultural exchange, only nobody knows what was sent in return because, said Hitch "they are afraid to open it"

On actors and actreses:

Ingrid Bergman, triying to make Hitchcock help her understand the motivation for the feelings of her character told Hitchcock:

I dont feel like that, I dont think
I can give you that kind of emotion

and Hitchcock replied:

Ingrid -- Fake It

To anthony Perkins: Don't wory Tony, it's only a movie

When an actress asked Hitchcock if her right or left profile was better, he told her, "My dear, you're sitting on your best profile."

"Actors are cattle"

"I didn't say actors are cattle. What I said was, actors should be treated like cattle."

To crew complaints that Tallulah Bankhead's habit of not wearing underpants was creating camera angle problems in shooting Lifeboat:
I don't know if this is a matter for the costume department or the hairdresser.

"When an actor comes to me and wants to discuss his character, I say, 'It's in the script.' If he says, 'But what's my motivation?, ' I say, 'Your salary.'"

"Disney has the best casting. If he doesn't like an actor he just tears him up."

"The best way to do it is with scissors"

On the relationship with his audiences:

To a woman who complained that the shower scene so frightened her daughter that the girl would no longer shower:
"Then Madam I suggest you have her dry cleaned."

On why people were fond of his thrillers:
"they like to put their toe in the cold water of fear."

"Always make the audience suffer as much as possible"

"The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder"

On murder on TV:

"Seeing a murder on television can help work off one's antagonisms. And if you haven't any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some."

"Television has brought murder back into the home - where it belongs"

On his movies and his method:

Reporter: What is the deepest logic of your films?
Hitchcock: To put the audience through them

On his mission in life:
"to simply scare the hell out of people."

"To me Psycho was a big comedy. Had to be."

"Even my failures make money and become classics a year after I make them."

"If I were to make another picture set in Australia I'd have a policeman hop into the pocket of a kangaroo and yell, Follow that car!"

"We try to tell a good story and develop a hefty plot. Themes emerge as we go along"

"Drama is life with the dull bits left out"

On violence:

"Some of our most exquisite murders have been domestic, performed with tenderness in simple, homey places like the kitchen table"

"There are several differences between a footballl game and a revolution. For one thing, a football game usually lasts longer and the participants wear uniforms. Also there are more injuries at a football game."

"There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it."

His dry wit:

"This paperback is very interesting, but I find it will never replace a hardcover book -- it makes a very poor doorstop."

"I understand the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, asthmatic pig under his arm. Unfortunately, the manmade sound never equalled the purity of the sound achieved by the pig."

OUGD406 - Communication is a Virus : Business Card Research

My task within this brief is to design a business card for our company which we will hand out at our event on Thursday. I have to keep cost in mind whilst also keeping true to the themes within our designs and being unique. I started off this task by first researching business cards which are already in use. I wanted to keep away from the typical Vista Print style cards whilst also wanting to keep it simple and to the point. I found a website with a large range of different business cards for a variety of different businesses.

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I would very much like to make a business card which is interactive. Features such as a pull out would be very interesting but also quite costly and time consuming.

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In order to keep cost down I think that printing on white stock without block colour would be a better solution, though I will have some problems with this as the rest of the group have printed full colour. 

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Thinking literally about the business card could also be very interesting. I would probably think about making a pill box which when opened contains a business card shaped like a pill.

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Making a multifunctional business card could be a great way to make our company go viral. Though this would be a good way to become more known I do think that our audience are so niche that creating a card which they could use in within their day would be difficult and also goes against our theme.

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Edible business cards is a brilliant idea to attract people to the brand, this is an interesting idea but I do think it would be near impossible for us to create.

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Adding a function to a business card is something which I have touched on before though this example is probably more suited to the audience we are targeting. I do think that we are limited by stock and that  it would be very difficult to produce something to this standard. 

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Damaging the business card could be interesting as it adds another interactive trait to a sometimes boring product. 

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The idea of including a laptop or computer into the business card design could be very interesting as it would link to the machine which the audience would be using to view the blog and site.

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Stock is something which I can play around with though I do have to keep cost in mind. I have played around with idea of negative space and printing my business cards on acetate but I think it would not go with the theme we have running through the project.

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A box would be an interesting way to promote a brand. I have mentioned this above and would like to experiment with the idea. 

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Literal business card ideas could be very effective 

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OUGD401 - Studio Brief 2 : From Theory into Practice