Itzacon 6 are Go!

I was contracted to reprise my designs for Itzacon 6 this coming February. I had been running the concept around in my head and had been thinking a lot about the continuum of design ethos that starts with Italian Futurism, goes through Art Deco and on into the 1950s with Streamline Moderne and what has become known as Raygun Gothic. A retro feel, slightly grungy but also somewhat aspirational. There seems to be a swell of Deco-esque designs out there lately too, from this glorious Deco reimagining of the X-men, to book covers like "Soon I Will Be Invincible" and tours de force of art direction like the computer game BioShock.

So, it seemed like a good idea to go with the flow, so to speak, since the Itzacon people have always been happy with my flights of design fancy in the past.

I decided that the underlying principle of all these design ethics was a generalised Heroism, whether it was heroically imagining the future, or heroically reinterpreting the present, there was a general feeling that things could, and will, be better. There was a forceful element as well, and there are few things more exemplary of this than the 1950s hood ornament, a distillation of Streamline Moderne design.

With this in mind, I set about making a badge/hood ornament as the central logo of the 6th con. As before, once I had this central design, I would embellish it to a greater or lesser extent for the various different media on which it would feature; posters, fliers, brochures, booklets, website, tickets, badges etc.

I started with winged characters, and for some reason decided to include goggles from early on. It just seemed to fit. The winged persons were advancing to some heroic future, with arms outstretched, striving, seeking, never yielding. That was the feeling I was going for.

I came to realise that incorporating a full person into the logo, while very appropriate for a hood ornament, would be a little unwieldy for something that would need to fit on a pin badge and still be discernible, so I narrowed the focus down to the head. Wishing to retain the wings, I attached them to the head instead.

Originally the design was a two-winged head motif, like a stylised American Eagle, with a head instead of a body. I started to think this a bit freaky, and re-rendered the design in profile, and it sat a lot better.

Finally, I needed something on which to set this simple icon, and with the glorious Charle's Demuth's "The Figure 5 in Gold" as my guiding light I surrounded the Winged Head motif with it's own aura and rocket plume, in the Deco style. Elements of this will translate over to the other media over the coming months.

I'm rather happy with the way it turned out, though it wasn't the instant work of art the previous con engendered. Time will tell how well it is received, but those who've seen it so far like it. Fingers crossed.