Jesus are we just getting hung up here on semantics or what? I think the line between what we are referring too as aesthetically driven & conceptually driven is pretty clear.

ginetteginette on Jul 01 '09 at 11:09am
well it doesn't make sense because star wars isn't a theatrical play, and we can't imagine what it would be like if it was...

i can imagine it. i can also imagine it conveying the central idea of star wars, albeit in a different form. i still think concept precedes execution.

Thanks, Craig.

I personally love pared-down graphic tees and they usually rely on a strong concept rather than a stunning visual. But that's just my preference.

exactly, this literal interpretation thing is strange.

well, first you were trying to compare a film with a stage play and now you're bringing in the script? i'm confused.
maybe i don't know enough about star wars to contribute further haha :)

if a design has absolutely no concept or instrinsic meaning at all, and it gets printed...then we know FOR SURE, inarguably, that it is an aesthetic design. there is absolutely no other reason why it was printed, other than the fact it looks good.

if a design has any value as a joke, or a clever take on a story, then it is conceptual. if it is a pun, it now is valuable in another way: its underlying CONCEPT.

looking at icarus is a bit of a problem, though. it does have a concept, but you might say it isn't valuable because of its concept. we all KNOW the story of icarus, and there's no pun in it. take, for example, that other take on icarus' fall. Same concept, except Joe's looks better. The other one never would have been printed. Joe's did get printed, because it looks great.
so maybe Icarus would be...what was the word used up there...concesthetic?

I guess I have just grown tired of the massive, detailed, more is more style.

As little design possible = easily seen concept.
The most design possible = clouded concept.

You cannot see the forest through the trees.

oh sorry hogboy haha my mind is...in the past i guess. i still saw people arguing about icarus:(

Sure it's different. a screenplay is for certain professional people to read as a possible end product so the context, audience, etc is different and particular to that medium.

Story may not change, but production, response, interpretation, etc would. All things that deal with concepts and ideas.

opifan, that comment upends your argument, as the message is the medium. Star Wars is on film and as film it has existing context in terms of production and viewing, it references other films, etc.

this would mean that the concept of the original screenplay was different somehow than the concept of the film.

sorry, didn't see your post

Icarus is not a concept driven shirt.

I think i have yet to do a really sweet concept driven shirt

all my printed shirts are just illustrations

i need to get more substance and depth i reckon

it was argued earlier that concept was idea and nothing more... why doesn't the story and themes qualify as the central idea (and therefore concept?)

ginette - it's not that hard to understand the crude distinction between concept-driven and aesthetic-driven designs that I outlined earlier for the purpose of this discussion. I've acknowledged (a bunch of times) that all design/art has an underlying idea, but not all designs are idea-driven. Some stuff just exists because it's nice to look at.

in the industry they even refer to screenplays as being "high concept"... what does that mean if the concept doesn't survive the migration from the page to the screen?

i guess i just can't see it as that black and white.

Shit, if you want to talk films then I think Transformers 2 is a great example of a singularly aesthetic film. The point is that people like watching it now, but when those flash sequences become the norm, that film will not be remembered. Conceptually driven films, are timeless.

Like Star Wars.

I think I am just sick of clutter which is funny because I am guilty of producing a hell of a lot of cluttered subs myself.

My favorite tshirt print at the moment by far:

...then again I have a Tesco tattoo so I guess that qualifies me as a fanboy.

That's balls Joe. Your artwork is awesome - it clearly has a lot of thought behind it and you don't need to change anything you're doing. That's not what anyone here has said and I'll be sad if you feel that way.

haha Aaron. I'm also a tesco fanboy, but I try to play it cool.

lol @ aesthetic films not being timeless.



i think all this talk of movies is muddying the waters though.

lol @ thinking the yellow submarine is not conceptually driven.

you're just proving how this black and white shit doesn't work.

I have been struggling to tone down the detail in my designs, I feel like I'm getting to an OCD level at times, but on the other hand I find it satisfying when I've finish something that takes more then an hour to make.

All that being said I would take offense to someone saying that my designs have little or no concept.

One more thought some concepts can't be conveyed in a sketch I don't think that is proof of concept.

you can argue conceptual films versus aesthetic films all you want, but you're really just arguing about good films versus fucking awful ones. proves nothing.

nah dude, I am not taking anything personally -

just saying I am all about pretty pictures - not tricky images

not to say that I do not enjoy concept based shirts -

like when you look at the woot archive, it is 99% the concept based design that you are talking about. And DBH is 90% the aesthetic realm you are talking about (although I am not sure who's aesthetic haha)

sometimes this seems more like an argument about obvious concepts and abstract concepts.

"zero concept" was a bit harsh, I agree.

And maybe Icarus isn't the best example. Ater studying it closer, he does flash the Rock On sign. I guess that qualifies as a concept :)

I agree that nothing is so black and white ginnette.
I'm just saying that i think you might be complicating this discussion with saying that you believe that concept also includes the creation medium of the piece. That is true, but it is a DIFFERENT discussion.

What I find people are talking about here is the idea behind the art/designs themselves. Or the absence of them.

That's a good way to draw the distinction, Isa. See - I knew I wasn't talking complete bollocks.

but i don't see an absence.

also - you know what does bug me?

when I hear people bitching about this tequnique or that teqnique. Like watercolors, I mean whats wrong with them? sure they are being used alot but they recently had the technology to really do them well so it would make sense. That combined with some successful shirts containing watercolors. Not that I work in watercolors... i am just sayin.

This also applies to the "overly detailed work" that has been getting panned as not suitable for t-shirts. Screw that, the printing technology when I joined could not handle the fine intricate detail work that a pen can make. But they have gotten better at printing so we can now play around with this. Honestly I think the involved illustration haters are just reminiscing about the 4 color vector days of old.

albeit an obvious example, but this is a case where the aesthetic is the concept. it's integral. without this specific aesthetic the concept couldn't exist.

true ginette - but the the presence of an aesthetic not make an aesthetic shirt. But the presence of a concept indeed makes a concept shirt.

why is one weighed more than the other?

anyway, i wasn't trying to label, simply pointing out that here, the concept is in the aesthetic.

conceptual or aesthetic?

That's a good example... but it's not the same thing as arguing that the aesthetics always qualify as concept.

aesthetic

what if someone made a concept shirt that you dont get (or even realize was a concept) but you liked it aesthetically? what if someone made a pure aesthetic shirt you interpreted as a concept and you decided you didnt like it because you thought it was about a certain concept which you dont like?

* i am using you in a global sense *

i think this is an interesting conversation.

And Ginnette- this is what I was meaning by the "Polished turd"

That pixel design you showed I actually consider concept driven, because your right, it would NOT work without it's concept, which happens to be the aesthetic.

Wait, does that make sense? :

It's not like I don't like all watercolour stuff personally, just the way a lot of it is executed... To me it's become cliched.

The same goes for the overly complex stuff. I personally think many of the designs in Jess' top 25 blog look butt ugly as tshirts & will be dated in about 6 months. I've produced my fair share of overly complex stuff so whatever. It's an opinion Joe.

ha, I knew this will crop up sooner or later :)

IMO, it works conceptually in the context of all shinyshiny artworks, as a statement against them.

I'd say that in the 8-bit design, the concept relies on the aesthetic. The medium is part of the joke. If I'd watercoloured it, it would make no sense. If tesco's Untitled was watercoloured, it could still be an awesome design.

Whoa, this is a runaway blog, One second you're typing, the next you're ten comments down where you intended to be

TYPE FASTER

I think that is the real argument here, aesthetic based designs always end up looking out-dated sooner or later, concept-driven designs live on longer because the the ideas behind them we can always relate too.