Paramore - Pool - digital collage

After the design I made before Christmas for the band Ider, i’ve been thinking more about using photography and digital collage in my work. Usually I would spend time drawing whatever visual element I needed for a composition like this, but in some cases, a photo is just more immediate and communicative, so it feels like a waste to not use them in certain opportunities. I do think that the photos I’ve used work quite well here, as I’m not really sure how hand drawn elements of these visuals would have worked.

Water is something I’ve always stayed away from illustrating, because looking at art that contains water sort of bends my mind and I can't visualise how it would work in the context of images I make. So using textures and images of water (and the lack of) was helpful in saying what I wanted to with this image.

The song uses the metaphor of  water and swimming pools to represent emotion and relationship. “Headfirst into shallow pools” suggests to me that the speaker is throwing themselves into a situation that could potentially be harmful, but is carelessly diving in headfirst anyway. I wanted to use the image of an empty swimming pool as it appears as sort of a liminal space, because normally (being full of water) you would float in it and be able to move in any direction. So stood at the bottom of one without water in it is a disconcerting experience, and hopefully that comes across in this design.
I enjoy working like this, it feels like I don't have to depend on certain ways of working to make things I’m happy with, and the message of the work is largely more important than the components that it's made up of.