Leon Yan
California Institute of the Arts

Made of Stone

Biography: Leon recently graduated from the California Institute of the Arts with a Bachelors of Fine Arts Degree where he studied Graphic Design. With a focus in print design, his interests have also included photography, motion graphics, film cinematography, sound design and editing. Prior to attending CalArts, Leon studied cinema/television at the University of Southern California for two years. This upcoming fall he hopes to attend graduate school overseas in the U.K. where he will continue his film education.

Objective: This project was created as the printed component for a hypothetical exhibition about the Madchester indie dance scene from the early '90s in the U.K. For this prototype of the exhibition catalog, I researched key/influential bands from that musical era (for example, the Stone Roses, Primal Scream, Happy Mondays) and compiled a narrative history for each musical group. The format I chose was a newspaper spread, referencing British music publications like NME or Melody Maker. When folded down, the catalog takes the form of a series of pamphlets outlining the chronological history of each respective band. Unfolded, it can act as a series of posters, serving as a promotional campaign for the exhibition. In addition to the informational newspaper spreads, I designed typographic posters for each band using selected lyrics from songs to convey the mood and energy of the music. These typographic posters are intended to give a depth, a more personalized context, and a visual vocabulary to the music's meaning.

Tools used: I typeset the articles and reviews in Adobe® InDesign®. I brought the text into Adobe Illustrator®, which I used to lay out the newspaper spreads and photos. The typographic posters of song lyrics by Primal Scream and Happy Mondays were created in Illustrator. The typographic poster of song lyrics by the Stone Roses was collaged and layered in Adobe Photoshop®.