Stank Face
Tasked to make an Images and Concept book to evoke a certain topic that we had an interest in. Since I had a passion for music, I chose a light-hearted topic of the expressions of a playing musician.
The Art of the Stank Face
When a musician hears or plays a certain riff or groove that is particularly funky or emotional, they will start to make a unique facial expression to show they are really enjoying the music.
However, an unsuspecting spectator might discern that the person making the expression looks like he is not enjoying it at all! Many distort their face till they look like they smelled something weird, hence the name “Stank Face”.
I wanted to document this and juxtapose it with a similar facial expression to showcase why people can get confused over the facial expression certain musicians make. The term became popular in the Jazz Age during the 1920s, as African American culture fused their traditional music with European music.
Since it had roots in jazz culture, I took inspiration from Jazz posters at that time, where many of them used very playful and experimental fonts and layouts just like their music. Hence, the use of bright colours and geometric shapes.
Explanation of layout.
For every spread, there are two pictures: a photo of a musician and a non-musician. Both with similar facial expressions, the only difference is the context that they are in. To create a sense of interactivity, I cropped the picture to just their face, so it is indistinguishable to tell who is the musician and then reveal the context in the next spread. This allows the reader to take a guess before knowing the answer, further encapsulating the concept that musicians do indeed make strange faces on stage.