Mississippi KiteProcess Book

by Nate Pyper

A�er listening to the “acoustic” version of Mississippi Kite by Kristin Hersh, the song struck me as a tale one might tell to warn younger, otherwise naive, listeners. It sounded like the song of someone who’s been through some hard times and wants to keep someone else from making the same mistakes (however jaded their forewarning might be). At pretty much the same time I came to this conclusion about the song, I came across the illustrations Stacy Rozich. Her use of “collaged” pattern immediately struck me as beautiful and well-considered.

initial thoughts

I started creating the persona of the person telling the story and decided on a gypsy-like vagrant who’s seen it all and has a few stories to tell. I wanted to create visuals that indicated the experi-ences she’s been through and the time that has passed, so I decided to depict her walking through a scene from le� to right, following the natural progression of a timeline. (But I’m getting ahead of myself...)

inspirational imagery

character development

�is was actually the �rst sketch I did of the character, but I liked it so much that I stuck with it. the shape of the face and enormous eye was actually based o� of a sketch I made of Lady Gaga earlier in my sketchbook.

�ese are the patterns I collected for her out�t (some used, some not).

final developments

I used this texture for a past project and really like how it interacted with the already existing imagery. I added it into the background of the video and also used it on the main web page.

HVD BodedoI chose this typeface to re�ect and accentuate the rugged nature of the song. It’s a nice font because although it was created for headlines, it also functions on a smaller scale with more copy as well.

I used the provided notes from the song to add another, more project-speci�c layer to the exisiting texture for the main web page background.

�is is the �nal solution I came up with for my project. Everything else I created was just an application of these elements.

Advanced Computer Studio 2011 Project

under the direction of Jake Stroh