Micro Music Genre: Design Development

Based on research conducted I realised previous initial ideas wouldn't be able to be physically produced economically which was an issue as this brief requires an object to be made to feature within an exhibition. Consequently leading to the idea to potentially make a flag as this was identified as an interesting piece of fan memorable when talking to other students. This lead to the implementation of the hands feature on the pin badge to be used within the flag (see figures 1-3) in order to communicate unity amongst football fans as no matter the chant hand gestures and clapping are an important aspects, used by all fans. One issue faced throughout this brief has been identifying a way to show fan culture as a whole when the songs within this genre are very club/supporter specific.  This was something I thought I had achieved through the use of hand gestures as it shows how chants start with just one person and then develop to include the whole community (see figure 1-2). In addition I also experimented with incorporating the shape of the football pitch within the hand gesture design in order give more relevance to the hands (see figure 3). This was refined further so the placement of the hands was informed by the two sides of the pitch which also symbolises the call and response aspect of chants as both home and away fans get involved (see figure 2-3). However I felt I needed to explore other ideas in order to further develop my designs, leading me too look at why football is so important to fans to see if I could capture the passionate nature of football fans within an image or phrase. Whilst conducting research into what makes fan so passionate I came across Tim Marshals book Dirty Northern Bastards and Other Tales from the Terrace in which he states 'I support a football club. That's not just five words. It's a life sentence'  (see figure 4) which I thought perfectly describes the passion felt by football fans and the key inspiration behind many chants as its a form of communication for fans to share their opinions. This lead to some experiments featuring 'it's a life sentence' (see figures 5) which although the phrase does showcase the passion of fan culture I felt these experiments where too basic and failed to fully capture/communicate the passion and unity within football chants. Upon reflection of this phrase it reminded me of an Everton phrase made by fans 'born, not manufactured' which I also thought effectively communicated the passion of fans however the powerful impact the phrase has when spoken didn't transfer to the flag during my experiments (see figure 6). This reference to Evertonians also lead to experiments based on the fan nickname 'toffees' however upon reflection and after receiving feedback this ideas was slightly irrelevant as it didn't capture the fan culture as a whole, rather one aspect (see figure 7-8).

Upon reflection if the ideas above I started to consider different way to get fans to interact with the flag which lead to the idea to feature something which fans could respond to in order to encourage fans to chant. This was inspired by a fellow student saying fans don't chant as much as they used to, leading me to develop a few phrases that could be used to encourage fans (see figure 9) such as silence kills vibes and don't be a downer shout who are ya, inspired by the chant 'who are ya, who are ya'. Furthermore I looked at different icons I could features, similar to the hands, that would encourage fans to make noise such as clappers and drums (see figure 10) (inspired by conversation had with fellow students who regularly attend games). However I feel like these ideas need to be developed further and feedback gained in order to see how to progress as personally I don't think these ideas are very effective both visually and conceptually.

Figure 1

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Figure 9

Figure 10