My inspiration came from a theoretical dirty punk band named Rat Funeral. I was inspired by the general re-imaging nature of punk culture: army boots in fashion, heavily distorted sounds, alternative piercings, etc. Alternative uses of typically mainstream/systematic things. I needed something dirty and punk juxtaposed with a typically "normal" item. I find the combination of milk and cigarettes unwholesome. Milk is often symbolic of purity and life force, and cigarettes are seen as dirty and death. In the combination, the cigarettes contaminate the purity of the milk, making it seen as the mucusy bodily fluid that it actually is. I also tinted the photo a slight yellowy green, to give it a sickly feeling.
For the logo, I created something that could easily be stenciled, because it's an easy way to piss off authority figures without heavy, if any, repercussions (and isn't that what punk is all about?). So it had to be simple. The face of the rat is obviously appropriately relevant to the band's name, and it's important to have something that can immediately be recognized as the main logo. The colour scheme red, white and black is common among the dirty, punk and seemingly "unpolished"/rough music scene (The White Stripes, Queens of the Stone Age's Songs for the Deaf, Green Day's American Idiot). I split the logo to give a "two rats or one rat?" question.
I named the album "Honesty Versus Tact" because sometimes you can't have both, and you've got to choose. Like dairy and tobacco, they don't mix.
Overall, Rat Funeral is a way to capture punk culture, all the while being tongue in cheek enough to put it on the edge of sincerity and parody.
On the technical side, I did a whole lot of clone stamping and heal patching. With those I removed the lettering from the cigarette and milk cartons. The graphics (lettering, logo) were made with text and basic shapes and then warped/distorted/skewed to fit the perspective. I also played with the colouring, changing the wall colour from a bright green using the magic wand. Most of the text was done in Photoshop except for the "Rat Funeral," which I drew and scanned.
From this, I learned that if I look long enough, I can figure out how to do what I want in Photoshop. Unfortunately I also learned that I am not too good at remembering how to do things. I tried working with a tablet and learned that it's not as easy as I thought it might be. In-class critique wasn't anything less than positive, and hearing that my piece looks like it was "professionally done" is a nice shot in the arm.
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