Money history
This project used street/graffiti illustration to aid visual communication of the history of finance. Such a combination was chosen to prove that seemingly dry topics could be enlivened by a contrasting style of design and illustration.
Inspired by vintage hand-painted wooden signs, and Mission School artists Margaret Kilgallen & Barry McGee, it was consequently decided that the base of the history illustrations would be made of plywood. The background colours were applied in deliberately uneven coats and sizes, and the boards cut up into irregular shapes to convey a raw street-art style of illustration. The plywood sheets were first painted up on one side, and then turned over and blindly hand-sawn into smaller sections so that the backgrounds would have randomly-grouped colours.
The typography and illustration upon the plywood backgrounds were all applied by permanent marker pen in a hurried, irregular way. This was done to encourage the thought that they were created by graffiti artists, whom had made them whilst trespassing on private property where time was of the essence. Some of the text and pictures were later painted over with thin coats to build up the same layered patina of graffiti one would see on a wall or surface in the real world. Equally, it was ensured that existing marks, scuffs, chips, and dents in the plywood were left exposed, and to be made as much part of the work as the illustrated subjects themselves.
Once the hand-applied art was created, everything was imported into software to create a digital book that combined the text of historical episodes in finance with their accompanying illustrations.
Post production of the book, the following print was the result of an attended letterpress workshop. The quotation ‘Greed is Good’ comes from Wall Street; an inconic film by Oliver Stone about inside trading tycoon, Gordon Gekko. He says this line moments after his tearing apart of a major company. A second print was made thereafter by simply omitting one letter to form 'Greed is God'; this was intended to place capitalism on a pedestal and infer how strongly it drives people.
The final project piece was inspired by Mari Mahr, who's work began with a collage constructed from photos of Wall Street figures and landmarks. It was then used to create the photo-etched plate that would become the master copy for the subsequent three prints on heavy GSM Somerset paper.
The red edition of the print was called ‘Blood Money’ due to the violent episodes within the film, and Gordon Gekko’s violent temper: “If I find out who leaked this, I will come down there, rip off their heads and suck their f**king skulls’!! The green edition of the print was entitled ‘Dollar Bills’ in reference to the colour of American money, and the millions of dollars Gekko makes and spends through his illegal insider deals. The black edition is entitled ‘News’ in reference to the black and white newspapers which Gekko and Buddy are constantly reading through to check out possible angles for new scams.
