Research Into Neon Signage

Gods Own Junkyard - London 

Gods Own Junkyard is a Warehouse space in London crammed full with neon pieces. The venue is a great representation of idea of over-saturation i want to convey in my publication.

While I cannot gather all the neon signage in Leeds into one room and document it, the venue does give ideas on how to layout my publication and whether I can incorporate physical elements such as scanning an overlaying to bombard the reader with neon in the publication. 

Neon: The Charged Line

The Charged Line exhibition at the Grundy Art Gallery in Blackpool is a collection of neon art pieces from a variety of artists. The exhibition combines both typographic and non typographic neon pieces, reclaimed vintage signage sketches among other pieces. 

I Know, I Know, I Know, Tracy Emin (2002)

I Know, I Know, I Know by Tracy Emin is one of my favourite pieces in the exhibition. The piece is combination of blue neon and red neon typographic elements. The way in which the piece is presented creates a dark, somber tone that creates the feeling of sadness, shock, anger and stress. The ambiance of the neon signage helps emphasise these emotions and convey them to viewer. 

The simplicity of the piece and the power it has really interests me and i'd like to look into that idea further, trying to re create that same power in simplicity in my own work.

Neon X Neonly, Francois Morellet (2012)

Neon X Neonly by Francois Morellet is a really nice example of a simple geometric neon piece. The geometric patterns of the piece are complimented by the ambience created by the red neon. The piece stood out to me because of its geometric from and its patterns emphasised by the colour and the bold nature of neon. 

Despite this piece not being of typographic nature I really like the idea of possibly breaking up the typographic documentation of my publication with really simple, pleasing on the eye geometric forms such as this one.

Untitled Neon sketch, Artist unknown (1930's)

One of my favourite pieces from the old sketches of proposed neon signage from the is this one from the 1930's. This is a really nice piece and an incredibly detailed sketch. The simplicity of the typographic elements mixed with the complex stream/rainbow works really well.