Sense of Place

This afternoon I was handed the brief for A Sense of Place, the workshop included group discussions, getting to know one another and informing others on ways the brief could be carried out. Within the brief are five different themes that us as students could use in our project assignment. Exploring the city, species of space, system of subjects, image and language. 

The post it notes were given to us to jot down words that felt relevant to the brief, on a personal level. There are so many paths that I could take, therefore writing down a number of words, such as, culture, urban/rural, history, weather will all mind map out towards bigger ideas that will help me understand what I will want to include in my sketch book. I was extremely confused at how many possible ways I could take my project, and sharing ideas with others in my group expanded my own mind map to an extent of not knowing where to start. 

We discussed ideas between us, and my tutor expanded on words that we wrote to help us gain confidence and a clear pathway as to why we thought the words were important for the project. 

The Book of Lies

'The Book of Lies' was my first Foundation Studio workshop, with Rob. As a class, we created a slideshow that gradually changed from one photograph to another, placing statements in front. The photographs were of each student, including myself, in front of a green screen. Helping each other with the reflection materials, we made sure lighting and shadows were perfectly addressed, for Rob to take photographs and place them all into a slideshow that merged and overlapped student during the change over. 

The second part to the slideshow once the photographs were took, was too fill out a form that asked for lies, facts and phrases that involved yourself, friends and family. I found it quite difficult to think of short sentences that would be appropriate, but in the end the form was filled and every students statements were anonymously posted along side the changing portraits on screen. It was an effective slideshow, humorous at times, but would also fall deep depending on the sentence placed in front of a face. 

"I robbed a bank and got away with it"

"She loves him unconditionally"

"I hate him"

"Pandas are her favourite animal"

Test Post

Coffeecompany: The Coffee Story (EN) from From Form on Vimeo.

I am opening my blog with a three minute video I found interesting from Vimeo. The Coffee Story created by the 'Coffeecompany' really stood out to me when the video was played in my first studio class. It is a brilliant, distinctive way to tell the story of the bean itself, through to the variety of brewing methods they serve in their stores. The long table holds all the graphics, from engraved numbers/words, to clocks, boats etc. It is a friendly video that really catches the eye of the audience and draws them in to their experience.

Personal Manifesto Poster

During my first workshop with Rob, we ran over  InDesign and its uses. I have already done two years worth of Graphic Design so I had a very good idea of how to use the programme already. We started with arrangement of text, using columns, and settings to justify the text with the last line aligned left. 
As you can see, the top screenshot shows a placement of text into two columns, on both pages, however the lines are not justified, and hyphens are still being used to show the break up of words. This does not look as clean, and professional as the screenshot underneath,  presenting lines of the same length.

We also we formatted the crop marks and the bleed to accommodate the page for printing. 

The next task was to recreate a german magazine cover created by a designer that produces a series using the same style. This work was not saved unfortunately  but I used grids, text and shapes to recreate the cover from scratch. 





From practicing with shape, alignment and placement, we were given a piece of independent work to complete; this was to design a poster which is a typographic expression of my personal, creative manifesto. The emphasis should be in the communication of language, using type, shape and colour in a manner which magnifies the meaning within my words.  I started out by producing a few of my own manifestos, shown above on the left. I selected my favourite, and creating the poster on the left in InDesign. The coloured circles represent different opinions gathered together, whether they are big and important, or small and less important, they are all shown and all work together. 

Genealogy

Throughout this seminar Thursday morning, we learnt the foundation behind genealogy. Genealogy was described to me, and compared to a family tree; however rather than sprouting out with more of the family relatives, genealogy uses ideas and theories to show how they have developed. Creating a genealogy includes using a topic/condition to then trace an emergence. Comparing this to a family tree, means using one person as the main topic, and expanding into other generations.

The principles of genealogy:

Creative formation of histories from particular perspectives

Multiplications and often contradictory

Never about declaring absolute origins 

Genealogies are resident - they are among many

The activity my group were given, was to identity a subject in small groups based on what could happen in the future, and project an emergence for the topic - which we could then try and solve/debate between us. My group decided on using the topic, ‘dogs are cats that talk’ which you can see above, we have used as a starting point in a small mind map. We came up with a range of emergences, such as the Ipaw (iPhone for dogs/cats) this then lead us onto this piece of technology being holographic, attached to the animals collar for various reason such as them having no capability of holding the phone. There were also negative possibilities of cats and dogs talking which we didn’t jot down on the mind map. Our thoughts lead on to animals demanding rights, being treated equally, and would most likely cause an outburst that drives humans and dogs/cats away from having a relationship with each other. 

These somewhat ridiculous topics were given in the seminar as an ice breaker challenge and I think sharing thoughts and ideas was a very good way of bringing the class together. We voiced our opinions to other groups, had a laugh at a few ideas, and altogether made sure everyone got a chance to be involved.

First Things First: A Design Manifesto

Anna's seminar this afternoon was associated with the First Things First 2000 Manifesto, it was the first seminar of the year. To begin with, a manifesto is a verbal declaration of intention or motive, this was new to me, however I can now see myself generating a lot of manifestos that will help me during university and my future. 

Ken Garland, the writer of First Things First 2000, relates his manifesto to graphic design, most of which I agreed with or 'slightly' agreed with, however the inflection of the written piece was quite negative overall. We were asked to discuss, debate and help each other cross out anything we didn't believe in or agree with, circle anything we didn't quite understand, and leave the sentences, phrases, or even single words that we understood and did agree with. 

Below is a copy of First Things First, with a few notes I jotted down throughout the seminar. The highlighted green paragraph I did agree with, it was very positive. I also got a few more positive points from the manifesto as well as the negatives, including subvert expectation and embrace chance.

What is Theory?

This morning was one of my first lectures on the course. It was the start of my Theory as Practice module, looking into the importance of theory behind the work that designers produce, including myself. History, theory and practice have all come together to form the best possible outcomes, and this module will work with me to put ideas and concepts to the best of my uses.

It is very important for designers to use ideas that are well informed when working in the industry, visual communication has the power to educate and persuade by just using the power of image. 

A developed mind can instantly acquire the intended meaning of a piece of work that is highly visual, as well as it being easier for children to learn. 

A piece of design work can hold meaning as well as just being aesthetically pleasing, portraying certain messages of why the piece had been created. The diagram above was an image that was shown throughout my lecture, simply showing the three steps you need to combine to produce an effective piece of work. 

Visual communication has been powerful and influential for a long period of time. Looking into the history of subjects you are working with and researching audiences is vital, it helps you to understand how the substance and style of designs can be determined. Producing work that was also inspired by past designs does not mean it lacks originality or creativity, using techniques or practices from other artists can hep to create for effective pieces of work.

Theory is important in every piece of work, otherwise the piece has no internal inspiration or influence, and the piece will have no critical background. - “A theory provides an explanatory framework which can be used to explore or support ideas, develop hypothesis or as a basic for critique.”

Terry Eagleton - "There is no reading of a work which is not also a re-writing"

Oscar Wilde - "An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea"

Design authorship was explained throughout the lecture as well, it means that the work you personally produce is made to suit your style, and the audience can point out a piece of work, automatically knowing who it is by, due to the recognisable style. 

Example I found: Minga Firm (http://abduzeedo.com/wtf-series-minga)