Found Text

I found this a really interesting exercise and process. I have included many of the initial layouts below (where I laid out cutout text from newspapers and magazines onto A4 coloured card or pre-painted A4 and A3 sheets of paper). Following those are the four final collages that I made.

I have included a large selection of the layouts to record the thinking processes I went through as I changed layouts and adjusted these based on the particular coloured background. You can see that the initial ones in particular and even some of the later ones used too much text which created a very crowded image (e.g. Layouts 1 and 13). I started to use fewer text cutouts which produced a cleaner more interesting image and began to adjust text layout based on any patterns of colours on the background paper (e.g. layouts 2 and 3). Some layout evolved over several attempts, so that a later layout extended an earlier one, often by simplifying the pattern (e.g. layouts 5 and 6, and layouts 13, 16 and 17).

I quickly realised that exploiting the varying size of font could produce interesting effects and I particularly liked the single large letters – my favourite in fact was the single green ‘i’ from the ‘i’ newspaper which I reused in a number of the layouts. And, I would say my favourite and most successful layout (with out any additional pen or paint marks was layout 6).

I have included further text analysis below just above the images of the final collages which are shown at the end of the 18 example layouts depicted here.

I produced 4 final collages from my favourite layouts (layouts 6, 14, 17 and 18). These are shown below. I was a bit anxious about spoiling the overall image in each case by adding additional paint and pen marks, but in all cases the pattern of text cutouts quickly suggested a way of replicating or complementing that pattern. I felt quite happy with the results – collage 1 and 4 almost look like game boards, collage 4 also looks a bit like a map / tube map and I quite like the fact that there are words and phrases like ‘Exit’, ‘Dublin’ and ‘Postcard from’ which reinforce the place / map-like theme.

Collages 1, 3 and 4 are all quite cleanly presented and have a design feel. Collage 2 is a little messier, but I don’t think the daubs of extra paint got out of control – there is still lots of the nice bright acrylic background triangles coming through and the spiral shape seems to keep things together. I also think the larger lettering as the spiral expands seems to be complemented by the thick daubs of paint – the latter don’t feel out of place. The combination of large lettering, bright colours and messy paint strokes almost give this particular collage a punk-like feel – it’s a bit less restrained than the other collages.

The only one where I thought the addition of pen marks and extra acrylic paint actually detracted a bit from the initial layout is collage 1 – I preferred the original layout on a clean bright yellow background.