|Feature Projects
Highground Design
Pop Goes the Beagle:
Project entry added: 12/8/10
Previous entry: Smashing Studios Logo Design 13/5/10 (click here)
Previous entry: Ali Baba Poster Design 16/12/09 (click here)
Previous entry: CAFE Logo Design 30/10/09 (click here)
Mobile phones (and other such smart devices) allow the possibility of taking high resolution snaps on-the-move and in
ad-hoc situations where your pet may have nicely positioned itself on your favourite chair - just as you were directly opposite in nice lighting conditions.
(click image to enlarge)
Such was the event that presented itself to one of Highground's most ancient and oldest clients - Mr. Rolf McCullagh (although to be fair he's not that old, or ancient).
Armed with his new iPhone 4, Rolf took the opportunity to take a few pictures of the family dog 'Bea' as she happened by to settle momentarily on a particularly decorative chair in the corner of the front room.
After the photographs were developed (approx. 1 second) - it was clear that some nice pictures had been taken and the desire to make more of it became apparent.
And to the brief;
'Could you make a Pop Art picture out of our dog and turn it into a poster'?
Rolf McCullagh
The short answer was 'yes' - but although Rolf had sent some links to images which showed other pets made into Pop Art posters, the process wasn't entirely as straightforward as it may have seemed - i.e., there is no 'Pop Art' button in Photoshop to press which would magically undertake the work required.
Firstly, with projects that require image treatment, Highground always ask for the very original, un-edited photograph. This is particularly important as any digital artefacts or enlargement distrubances can severely compromise the quality of any image. And it's so easily done these days, with so many image editing packages available.
Thankfully, Rolf had the original image stored intact, untouched, and with a resolution capable of withstanding the enlargement to A1 and the exploitation process required for Pop Art simultation.
For reference - here is the original photograph of Bea:
(click image to enlarge)
Any keen-sighted person may notice the slight digital noise embedded on the photograph and the slight blurring on Bea - it would seem the iPhone had appropriated the chair as the focal point rather than the dog, but that's splitting hairs (excuse the pun) and in this instance not entirely detrimental to the project as the brief wasn't to simply reproduce the image in poster form, it was to create a Pop Art version of it.
In which case, the digital anomalies added to the project in the same way Warhol's loose and somewhat 'rebelious' cut-outs came to symbolise the Pop Art movement in the sixties (pictured left).
In order to colourise the picture - the main elements needed to be divided into sections in a similar way to how Marilyn's facial features had been separated above. The background, the chair and Bea herself all needed to be extracted into sections to allow for this colouring process.
Pictured below are the elements which were (painstakingly) cut-out and colourised:
Red layer (wall)
Green layer (chair)
Blue layer (Bea the beagle)
Once the image division was complete, control of colour was obtained and each layer could then be altered; the chair, wall and Bea could all now be switched into different colours with relative ease.
This process was required and repeated when creating the further three versions required to form the entire Pop Art makeover.
An additional level of authenticity was then added to help date and age the separate images with a final stage to assemble into A1 size for printing onto canvas made to fully complete the brief.
With thanks to Rolf McCullagh, and of course, Bea.
For anyone wishing to hire test instruments, Rolf's your man: