Mac Clapper
is a graphic designer, photographer, and budding 3D artist.
CV. Linkedin.
My goal was not to create pristine, lifelike 3D renders, but to lean into the low poly, odd look of primitive 3D graphics—think back to the Playstation 2, or other early 2000’s videogames.
I began going down the path of recreating letterpress in Blender, as I wanted to explore how that analouge process would look and work like in a virtual space.
The process of digitally replicating an analogue process created its own quirky leftovers, but instead of being familiar and charming like letterpress, these artefacts were uncanny, odd, and off-putting.
This uncharted territory was very exciting for me to explore. I began to wonder, why do we value film grain? Why do we value vinyls that scratch and skip? Why are analogue imperfections charming, but, for example, noise from a digital sensor should be eradicated...
I am challenging the viewer to value digital imperfections as much as imperfections from an analogue process. Most digital art is flawless; it’s easy to correct mistakes, what happens if we embrace them?
The logo has been redesigned to reflect CLT’s transformational nature. Combining ideas of the structure of an atom, carbon structure, and wave diffusion, the logo was well researched and carefully considered.
The new logo was designed in collaboration with the CLT team.
This was a part of a larger rebrand as a company that involved creating wireframes for the website, creating letterheads and other materials such as powerpoints and word templates for company usage.
A company manifesto was also created in collaboration with a copywriter.
This work took place over the course of mid august to late september.
We were briefed on the possible routes we could take, and I selected the path of creating a more visually engaging version of a climate document. We were encouraged, via the brief, to take a look at not just legislation from governments, but also from organisations and higher education institutes, such as UAL.
Expecting to find an innovative and creative plan to address climate change, we were disappointed to find out that the climate action plan had little to no substance, and the substance that was in the document, was buried deep within.
The UAL Climate Action Plan unfortunately was a greenwashed document. It was filled up with stories that were seemingly unrelated to climate change, projects that didn’t reduce carbon, and overall had no sense of urgency or desire to act on hard-hitting measures that could mitigate CO2 expulsion.
Instead of pivoting to a more positive document, we decided to be the proverbial change we wanted to seek with the UAL climate action plan. We thought that if we could raise awareness of what’s going on within this action plan, we could put pressure on the powers that be to enact a change.
The zine “UAL: CLIMATE (RE)ACTION PLAN” is the result.
By isolating key phrases and words we emphasised how empty the language used in this document can be.
We included scraps from the swap shop and GCD’s scrap pile and created 6 unique versions of the zine, emphasising sustainability and evidencing re-usage and re-imagination of trash. We printed on scrap paper from CSM’s publications workshop and in black and white, again emphasising that design can be made interesting when considered in a low-carbon way.
Coded difference effect on website title scroll, as well as the titles for the different website pages.
Created different modular layouts for different projects.
Presented work to clients and CEO of company.
Following the initial experiments, I focused further on the minutiae of my balcony, the textures, the trash, and the objects my flatmates forgot about. I knew in some way, I wanted to combine, photography, graphic design, and layout to create a guide to the personality or traits of the textures and objects of the balcony. For example, I saw the ashtray as very decadent, but the stairs as very utilitarian. The wood that makes the stairs is intimate and soft, but the brick that composes the walls of the flat is hard and public.
I ended up creating two maps, with compasses on axes from decadent to utilitarian and public to private. To create these, I used photography, scans, and the threshold effect to emphasize the small scale of the objects I was investigating. I also utilised physical processes, using a lino roller and water-based ink to lift some of the textures off of the object and onto paper, which I scanned and transferred into Photoshop. I also exclusively used monotone throughout the entire process, even with the physical samples I took — I wanted to remove any distractions by focusing on the textural qualities of the images. (Was inspired by early [1850s+] photography).
Following that, I refined the concept further by focusing on one trait at a time and expanding the breadth of the traits I was exploring. The result is a mini publication that guides the viewer through the balcony and its contents. This was refined for the final time after submission by printing on textured paper which represented the contents of each page.
I researched more into the brand, Gaultier’s garments, his signature style—I realised that above all, the silhoutte was the most common theme. In JPG’s perfume line, haute coture, and ready to wear lines, the silhoutte, male or female, is always at the centre of it all.
So for the logo, I took the shape of the iconic Le Male bottle and developed it into the logo — the J is an interpretation of the Left side of the bottle, and the P’s bowl is a direct refrence to the bottle itself.
This was further developed into various advertisments, staionery designs, and branding guidelines.
The physicality of letterpress was amazing to be a part of — Letterpress demands that you are a part of bringing your designs to reality, whereas modern digital printing is essentially always an external process, you outsource your labour to your printer.
We were assigned three projects this term, it doesn’t seem like much, but creating lockups and letterpress designs is a lot of behind-the-scenes labour and time.
For the first project, I was asked to create an illustration (an ornament) by carving an image into a block of wood coated with soft PVC. I carved an image of my car and then set the type underneath the block.
For the second project, I was tasked with creating a poem related to an ornament I was assigned, the typewriter. I created a poem within a few minutes and then assembled my lockup and printed it that day.
As for the third, a classmate and I were tasked with creating an inspirational poster using wood type.
I was inspired by Germanic design language, particularly the design language of Swiss designers, German auto manufacturers, and the Bauhaus movement. However, I wanted to put my spin on it—if it was too clean it wouldn’t be distinctive.
To create the logo, I had to imagine what the company would do. As Germany is known for their engineering prowess, I thought that Hahn could be a fictional competitor to Siemens.
I started out with some preliminary ideas on what to do, mainly based on the idea of the typeface being representative of buildings. It wasn’t really translating, so I went back to the very start. I warped the text to the shape of a feather, and it created a nice juxtaposition between the cold sans serif typeface and the organic form of a feather.
The result is the Hahn brand and identity, which I further extended into stationery as a part two to this project.
This was perhaps one of my most challenging projects in undergrad, as well as the project that made me love graphic design. I briefed that we could not use words to describe what the dance was about—only design elements.
I used photography, illustrative responses to music composed for the dance, and the idea of exposing the DNA of digital imagery to complement the McGregor’s genesis of the dance—genome sequencing.