Brief :
‘This project aims to engage in experimental practice-based research to further your understanding of the book and publications as objects of communication. You will identify how the alternative book format can function as an effective, interactive object of information and storytelling.’
What I get is poems from John Cooper Clarke called ‘Beasley Street‘
Far from crazy pavements
The taste of silver spoons
A clinical arrangement
On a dirty afternoon
Where the fecal germs of Mr Freud
Are rendered obsolete
The legal term is “null and void”
In the case of Beasley StreetIn the cheap seats where murder breeds
Somebody is out of breath
Sleep is a luxury they don’t need
A sneak preview of death
Belladonna is your flower
Manslaughter your meat
Spend a year in a couple of hours
On the edge of Beasley StreetWhere the action isn’t
That’s where it is
State your position
Vacancies exist
In an X-certificate exercise
Ex-servicemen excrete
Keith Joseph smiles and a baby dies
In a box on Beasley Street
From the boarding-houses and the bedsits
Full of accidents and fleas
Somebody gets it
Where the missing persons freeze
Wearing dead men’s overcoats
You can’t see their feet
A riff joint shuts, opens up
Right down on Beasley Street
Cars collide, colours clash
Disaster-movie stuff
For a man with a Fu Manchu moustache
Revenge is not enough
There’s a dead canary on a swivel seat
There’s a rainbow in the road
Meanwhile on Beasley Street
Silence is the codeHot beneath the collar
An inspector calls
Where the perishing stink of squalor
Impregnates the walls
The rats have all got rickets
They spit through broken teeth
The name of the game is not cricket
Caught out on Beasley Street
The hipster and his hired hat
Drive a borrowed car
Yellow socks and a pink cravat
Nothing, la-dee-dah
OAP, mother-to-be
Watch the three-piece suite
When shit-stoppered drains
And crocodile skis
Are seen on Beasley StreetThe kingdom of the blind
A one-eyed man is king
Beauty problems are redefined
The doorbells do not ring
A lightbulb bursts like a blister
The only form of heat
Here a fellow sells his sister
Down the river on Beasley Street
The boys are on the wagon
The girls are on the shelf
Their common problem is
That they’re not someone else
The dirt blows out
The dust blows in
You can’t keep it neat
It’s a fully furnished dustbin
Sixteen Beasley StreetVince the ageing savage
Betrays no kind of life
But the smell of yesterday’s cabbage
And the ghost of last year’s wife
Through a constant haze
Of deodorant sprays
He says retreat
Alsations dog the dirty days
Down the middle of Beasley Street
People turn to poison
Quick as lager turns to piss
Sweethearts are physically sick
Every time they kiss
It’s a sociologist’s paradise
Each day repeats
On easy, cheesy, greasy, queasy
Beastly Beasley Street
Eyes dead as vicious fish
Look around for laughs
If I could have just one wish
I would be a photograph
On a permanent Monday morning
Get lost or fall asleep
When the yellow cats are yawning
Around the back of Beasley Street
1.Research Content:
“Beasley Street” is a poem by the English poet John Cooper Clarke. Dealing with poverty in inner-city Salford in the Britain of Margaret Thatcher, Cooper Clarke has said that the poem was inspired by Camp Street in Lower Broughton.It has a relentless theme of squalor and despair.
So after reading the feature poem, I selected some keywords and sentences, and collected some pictures through these words and sentences for collage.
Keywords: Taste Dirty Luxury
Sentences: Sleep is a luxury they don’t need. In a box on Beasley Street. Yellow socks and a pink cravat.
Mood board
2.WORKSHOP
3. Sketch 01
Through the understanding of each paragraph, I tried to design some inner pages with different visual effects, such as poetry collage, text design and some collages, and I also kept some blank pages in the design. The audience can collage the materials according to their own understanding.
INNER DESIGN 1
INNER DESIGN 2
INNER DESIGN 3
Tutorial feedback
In the initial design, I have been thinking about what I should do to have more interaction with the audience, so I focused on the design to generate interactivity in different ways.So in the design process,I still can’t determine whether to use a unified expression or different visual effects to design.
But through sharing in the class, my classmates Yang gave me some suggestions, she suggested that I use a unified style, and Danny also suggested that I keep trying during the design process, and introduced me to the recording method to show.
So in continuous attempts,I chose to use a unified style for the final design.
Second attempt (the final)
Through constant attempts and re-study of the poem, I tried to design with the words of the poem itself, brainstorming by selecting the words in each paragraph, and at the same time I also combined Chinese and English, because English text is more like a lively and agile symbol, and Chinese text is like a graphic symbol.
Cover
Combining the elements used in the inner pages on the cover, all the elements are like chaotic and distorted Beasley Street.
Inner Page
The overall inner page design of the book is mainly designed by the combination of Chinese and English text, as well as the extraction of some keywords and text deconstruction. Using black and white as the overall tone, dark and hopeful, is like the story of Beasley Street. Everything and people on this street seem so unimportant, but they hope to have a wish. I also used different text layout designs to express my understanding of each paragraph.
Producing the publication 01
