Tom Mcfarlane (he/him)
Throughout this year, my practice has aimed to look at many different areas; from type design, creating album artwork, publication design, and identity design. I try to take inspiration for my projects from a number of my own personal interests, as well as looking at both contemporary, or historical sources; wether that be music, football, or architecture. I feel like bringing those interests into my work helps give it a strong personality and unique style.
Burial, ‘Untrue’ Album Artwork Re-design
For re-designing the cover for one of my favourite albums, I gathered various imagery relating to the themes within the album. This led me to using symbols as a way of expressing the themes, and ideas within the album. The symbols where taken from various archives, cultures, and time periods; as I wanted the record to represent this idea of a time forgotten, but also feeling oddly dystopian. I also wanted to incorporate colour in an interesting way, so I decided to use hints of neon colours, as a nod to rave flyers, with the rave scene being a big influence on the album. The main album artwork was created using by layering AI generated imagery, as I wanted to replicate working in tight parameters similar to how burial created the album, famously using a single piece of software to make the record.
Go-Tesk Typeface + Specimen
Something that started off as an academic test to learn Glyphs, this neo-grotesque typeface has expanded into a project that I’ve been working on since June. Currently sitting at around 500+ glyphs, it has grown and grown. The choices behind the styling for this typeface are to make a body-copy sans-serif with unique characteristics, and quirks when closely inspected or looked at on a larger point size.
Ally’s Army: The Story of Scotland’s Journey to The 1978 World Cup
For the third project of this year, I am continuing my theme of working on topics and that I am interested and passionate about, as a way to grow my skills as a designer, and focus on what I’m interested in for post-GSA working practices.
The book follows the 1978 Scotland World Cup side, as they look to do the unthinkable and bring a World Cup trophy back to Scotland. The book spans 240 pages, and tries covers the highs and the lows of the Scotland national side during this period, and get across that feeling of football frenzy, that was at its peak during this time. Throughout the project I took visual queues from football programmes of the 70’s, through the use of typography, halftone imagery, pattern and layout.
Flash Sheet (exhibition identity)
Identity design for the Communication Design Y4 work in progress show. We wanted to avoid the design feeling stuffy and boring (which we felt was a misconception about Com Des), instead aiming to highlight the personality of the course and the fun of experimentation. We decided on the theme of temporary tattoos as a way of looking at the ephemeral nature of a WIP show compared to the permanence of degree show.
The Politics of Type
The Politics of Type explores how typography is embedded in and influences wider socio-cultural and political relations.
In 1929, shortly after founding the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk decreed a change in script for written Turkish. This replaced the traditional Ottoman script with a Latinised version, as part of wide-ranging reforms intended to ensure the regime’s long-term cultural influence.
An archival image of a hand-painted sign announcing this change of script became the basis for a new typeface, recontextualising the letterforms from a tool of governmental discipline to one open to new modes of communication.
This typeface was then applied to a promotional poster for a forthcoming documentary, which examines the recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria and the wider political contexts which made them so destructive.
Collaboration between Aaron Leigh & Tom Mcfarlane.
