1. Brief
In this project, I was assigned to Nick Cave‘s song The Mercy Seat. In order to fully understand the content of the music, I needed to visualize the song and turn it into an interactive book.
2. Understand
Before coming up with ideas for the project, I did some research into the background of Nick Cave and the song.
The song was first performed by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds on their 1988 album Tender Prey. Tender Prey is a complete collection of Goth Records and everything they have to offer. On the album’s ten tracks, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds keep the tone of things in the dark. The lyrics are full of Southern Gothic tropes. And it was a groundbreaking record in the gothic rock Canon.
The Mercy Seat tells the story of a skinny man strapped to the electric chair and about to be executed. Cave’s roles alternate, one as a death row inmate and the other as a missionary. The electric chair is the incarnation of the Mercy Seat. In the Old Testament, the mercy seat symbolises God’s throne over the ark of the covenant. So the whole song is also full of religious metaphors.
Goth rock
Goth rock took post-punk synthesizers and processed guitars and used them to create a soundscape that was fraught, sad, and often epic and ominous. Its lyrics are often introspective and strongly personal, but can be interrupted by poetic emotion, which naturally leads to a taste for literary romanticism, pathology, religious symbolism, and supernatural mysticism. Other hallmarks of goth rock include heavy rock beats, romantic lyrics, electronic influences such as keyboards and a tendency to focus on gloomy lyrics checked off by the genre’s pioneer, Nick Cave.
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Therefore, in the visual creativity of this project, to better fit the connotation of this song, I will integrate more gothic elements into the overall visual elements. I think more in line with the song style of visual language expression will better attract the user groups: Nick Cave fan‘s attention. Fans must be the group who most understand the core of the idol spirit, so how to better reference the gothic elements in the visual expression needs to be constantly examined.
2. Play
In the conception stage of visual creativity, I first analyzed the content of the song.
According to the paragraph content of the lyrics, high frequency keywords are extracted for graphic analysis.
After the content analysis of the lyrics, it can be seen that there are large repetitive content in the lyrics. Therefore, IN the layout of the book, I will consider more continuity factors to achieve the effect of repeated chanting.
For the final effect, I first considered the physical book model. But after much comparison and consideration, I found that the physical book does not fully reflect my understanding of this song.
In fact, due to the constraints of many time and economic factors, it is difficult for paper-based books to achieve the communication effect I expect in a short time. In addition, as a form of communication different from text content, songs hold more variability. Therefore, for the final presentation form of brief 02, I chose electronic books likewise suitable for digital publishing.
3. Amplfy
For the final effect, I chose a GIF to represent the visual content of my ebook. Gifs can show the visual effect of repeated continuous transformation, which is more consistent with the expression of the song.
The cover is in the form of a gothic vinyl record
I chose Nick Cave’s classic mid-length curly hair styling combined with an electric chair to form the image of the cover. The combination of these two images can be seen by the audience before the title of the book appears, which is a metaphor for the theme. In addition, the images of eyeballs that repeatedly bounced suggested the lyrics: Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.
The second page shows the skinny Nick imprisoned in prison.
This image corresponds to the beginning of the song’s MV, where the thin protagonist is imprisoned in a cage and protests repeatedly in the form of singing. The repeated iron chains represent the shackles, and the protagonist’s unchanging posture also represents his helplessness.
The third page shows Nick’s unfairness and repetitive.
The content of this part is full of religious elements. The face of God appeared in Nick’s soup bowl. God represents hope, so I put God above the colorful clouds, and the dove that is going away also represents the desire for freedom.
Page 4 shows the burning of the Mercy Seat in Nick’s heart
Page five shows Nick being imprisoned in the electric chair. The electric chair echoes the Mercy Seat on the previous page.
The next two pages show Nick’s inner chant. An eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth.
The mercy seat is burning, and my head is burning. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The author chanted these two sentences repeatedly. These two sentences also represent the fusion of the themes of the Old Testament and the New Testament. Regarding religious elements, I understand that there may be certain limitations. So I chose the recurring flame, tooth and eye font changes to express. Maybe different audiences will have their own different understandings.
The back cover shows Nick’s fading back and hints at the end of the book’s content.
Finally outcome
