talkmagic.co.uk

Hi I'm a graphic design student at Kingston University and I'm currently doing a self initiated project. I am proposing an exhibition which would display work produced by artists/designers collaborating with magicians so for example an outcome of Penn & Teller working with say James Dyson or Vivienne Westwood collaborating with Dynamo (apologies for the use of celebrity magicians my knowledge of the subject is not yet comprehensive.) The proposed exhibition would feature design inspired by magic and magic inspired by design.

What I will be doing is creating the visual identity for purposed exhibition. I was wondering if you had any knowledge that may help inform the design such as rules and codes for magicians or things to bear in mind visually and conceptually.

From my limited knowledge of magic I believe there are certain commonalities between it and design such as display/presentation, interaction, visual intrigue etc and is why I find it interesting to see the two areas meet especially since magic is/can be considered art in itself.

Thanks for any feedback!

(apologies for posting in here and introduction but i noticed here has more posts/views)

OK, we'll remove the other post so respondents can focus in this one.

As someone with a keen interest in graphic design, I'm intrigued!

For an overall visual identity, how about the theme of concealment? Magic is all about secrets, concealments, revelations, and false revelations. The "trick" behind a magic trick is kept secret. Objects themselves are kept entirely secret, or concealed until the moment of revelation. And this would work no matter which individual magicians take part -- close-up work, stage magic, mentalism, street magic, whatever, it's all about secrets.

My brain isn't working today after a string of late-night working, so apologies if I'm not being clear.

Thanks for your reply Robbie appreciate it definitely will explore concealment and revelations linked to each other. it will be a challenge to incorporate visually the influence that both practices will have on each other but i think it could be interesting and may lead to quite a nice typographic solution although i don't want to get too far ahead of myself at this stage. If you have any other thoughts and ideas please share as it's good to hear from someone with an interest in magic and graphic design.

imagine the result of Martin Creed working with David Blaine on a project would be great!

anyone else have any suggestions advice?

- if you want to show a playing card from a distance, never use o court card but a LOW card like a 4 or a three
- if you work on stage with light, use always BLACK cards (clubs and spades). Red cards can be seen very difficult under certain light conditions
- you have also the way certain illusions are painted to let certain areas look smaller

you have also the different decks of playing cards that are designed by artists

Sam Hayles of www.dose-productions.com is an excellent graphic designer that has create many beautiful decks for Big Blind Media and others.

He is a lovely guy and it might be worth dropping him an email.