Níamh Byrne is a Meath based creative with a major interest in photography and multimedia. While she enjoys all aspects of design, including typography, editorial design and animation, her strengths lie within the careful art direction of her projects, as well as her love of colour and noise. She always carries a camera with her and likes connecting with new people through their work. She is hardworking and always looking to experiment and learn more in her practice.
‘Marrow’ is a photo series and publication documenting young Irish people in their spaces, as well as detail shots of these spaces and how they reflect each person’s individuality.
The pandemic forced people inside. For a lot of people, their rooms became their offices, workspace, main place to be. Personally, I would spend a lot of time in my room. Not just for sleeping, but also as a college workspace over the pandemic, a general creative workspace over the years, as well as a safe space to relax and destress in. My room is an extension of my personality and has changed as I’ve grown up in it. The aim of this project is to get an insight into other people’s rooms and their habitat, and how it how it echoes their character and nature. It’s possible their room isn’t even their main habitat or favourite place to be. Especially when factoring in different career and social aspects of the area they live in, as well as the economic state of the country in general, what part does their room play in that? Marrow is shot both on film and digitally, as well as some accompanying video animations, in an attempt to capture all ‘angles’ and aspects of the people and their spaces.
This project was in response to a D&AD brief set by Editor X + XL Recordings, in which the aim of the project is to create a website that celebrates and promotes an older album in a renewed context, to help it become relevant to a new audience. I chose The Fat of the Land by The Prodigy, released in 1997. The Prodigy’s live presence enhanced their music, which is vital when comparing the social and historical context between then and now. A concert in 1997 would be drastically different to one in 2022. So, how do you connect this album with a new audience in an exciting way? 90s trends in all aspects have been cycling back around for the past few years. 90s nostalgia seems to be universal in TV, fashion, music, and design. This project uses the aesthetics of 90s design to connect this album with the target audience of young adults between 16-21 who weren’t around when the album first came out. They’re into music and visual culture, as well as keeping up with trends on social media.
The website is based loosely on the 1997 Mac OS 8 System in terms of graphics and type. The ‘start up’ screen features a pixelated crab that pinches its claws while it loads, accompanied by Prodigy lyrics. The website loads up to a simple desktop-style home screen. You can change the background and ‘clean up’ your desktop. The ‘apps’ on the website are the Walkman – a music player for the album, FatTV – a media player for reimagined music videos, and a Poster Maker – to make your own Prodigy poster. The Walkman can be played/paused and skipped through as the CD spins. The media player proposes the idea of reimagined music videos, using archival footage of the band and England in 1997. This is intended to bring the target audience into the historical context, to comprehend in a way that is visually exciting. The Poster Maker is aimed at the target audience’s love for visual culture, the opportunity to interact and be creative without spending any money/time on software. The user has the option to choose a background and mix and match graphics. Without limit to how many the user can make, the option to save their poster to the website’s desktop while listening to the album while they create, it gives the user a reason to stick around.