9/1/15
Paula Rego/Daumier exhibition at House of Illustration lecture and tour was today. I'm excited about this projects as there is a lot of potential, especially of the recent paris attack. It is a topic i am particularly passionate about because i have family who are french in Paris. and because of the free speech element behind it i want to look into that. Daumier is someone who was effected by free speech. When i research further about free speech i will look into coming up with ideas.
3/01/2015
I have drawn out almost all of the meanings in illustrator. I have 4 left to do and then I will go through and refine them. So far I'm liking them. I feel they get the meaning across in quite a funny way. I also still have a few left that might not look as good as some such as kearnig which I feel might not come across very well. So I'ill need to try and either make a new one or refine the one I've before drawing it out in illustrator. I didn't work as much as I had hoping this week but I got distracted with other things.
21/12/14
I created initial ideas for my Christmas building blocks project. I initially looked at what the different words means. such as x-height and stress. I then looked at bowel and thought that it is also an object i could illustrate that as the idea. I then looked at others to see if i could make the some association that i could illustrate. I feel that would work quite well as a way to teach people about what they meant. I feel that this project has alot of potential, with many different ways of presenting and explaining the meanings. I would like to try multiple different ways. due to my trip to France is tomorrow, i wont be able to draw many out in illustrator, so while i am away i will be coming up with ideas and try and test how some would look.
6/11/14
Presentation day. Some peoples work was amazing. I especially like Andreas piece. It was really interesting and had some humorous parts too. Our video didn't get uploaded in time to be presented but was shown on a phone. It was nice seeing peoples reactions and comments. we were described as evil which i thought was funny.
5/11/14
Recording day. Today was simple yet very fun. We put out the sweet stand and recorded people getting tricked. We initially wanted to go outside but we were told that we couldn't do it in kings cross fountain area. So we went inside and set up in the road in CSM. It all went to plan except i forgot to put on the bunting. Some peoples reactions were great, some people get very annoyed. We recorded for about 45 minutes until we had plenty of footage. We went home and i waited for her to edit the video for tomorrow.
4/11/14
Day two of interact. Today we were to meet with the tutors about our idea. We came in and when we were called over we explained the idea. I had also brought over the fake sweets i had made the day before. She asked for one and fell for the trick so we started off well. The tutor really liked the idea but felt that we need some branding to make the sweets more appealing. Which we both thought would defiantly be a good idea. We were advised to Make our own sweet brand and make the stand look like a sweet stand. After I discussed what to do, when i noticed someone had boxes perfect for a podium for the sweets. I asked about it and they were from a pile of boxed we could use. So that was decided and we went home to design the sweets branding and decorations. I was in charge of the box and she was doing the sweet wrappers. I think she did a great job on the sweets and we had some good feedback from students too. I made some bunting and covered the box with a sheet. That is all we needed and on Wednesday we would put it out to the public.
Interact 3/11/14
Day one of the new project. I read the brief and it didn't seem like the normal graphic design project, but i was still looking forward to it. We were all put in groups, i was put with Vicky who i hadn't spoken to. when we looked at the quote we were both quite happy with it. it was simple and had some interesting themes. Our quote was a piece of text from The Boy Who Cried Wolf. We started with a brain storm coming up with simple ideas. Which then moved on when we had selected and spoken to our tutor. We chose to develop the free sweets idea as we felt it would have them most interest and could be fun to do. It also fit well with the quote, as we are deceiving people into believing something then, they found out it was all a lie. that is what the boy did in the story. We were told that tomorrow we were going to see a tutor about if our idea was good and would work.
Final Video Project 2
2/10/14
Presentation day. I felt other than the actual presentation we didn't do much. But i did have a lot of fun looking at others work and some of them were really good. There was a group which i though did something really creative, about diversity, race and sexual orientation. I though the way they portrayed the sexes using fruit was interesting. the meaning behind them images were not too obvious making them appealing to people who don't understand it or are of a young age. They used saturated colours in the foreground and background which made it very eye catching and felt approachable. I felt that my groups presentation could have done with some prep. I also found it hard to explain our idea and the ideas behind our animation. But it went down well and i revived some good feedback. In future i will work on preparing what will be said before the presentations so that i can communicate my ideas and designs better.
30/09/14
Today was the day we were given to take our photos and videos. My group started by discussing where and how to start, and we decided that the courtyard in the bin are would be interesting. We shot our into there and moved around to the front of the building. We wanted to make it quite cinematic. With an animation that can be quite hard, but i do feel that if given more time it would have looked better. Once we had shot the intro we moved to another location in a park. This involved a bus ride which we used to film our can traveling. This wasn't discussed but was, in my opinion one of the best parts of the final film. the noise and background footage makes it quite engaging. I also like how it personifies the can and its need for public transport. When we got to the park we set up the camera in a place where we wanted to shoot but someone got into frame. Initially we wanted to move but i thought that if they stayed in frame it would make it seem more natural. Once we had shot this one scene we found a tree to shoot the ending. This took a while and i still feel that the ending lets down the animation. I felt it wasn't sending the messages that we had talked about and tried to present. When we got back we put all of our images into i movie, and tried adding music and sounds. this took a while because we couldn't find any sounds that fit. We tested for about 30 minutes before looking on-line for some appropriate music, which we found and used in the final. I do like our groups final animation but i think, if given more time it could have had more detail, been better shot, and have a better plot. But i defiantly think it was a good choice to do an animation, as i go to test with video and photography in a short project.
29/09/14
Today we started a new brief. IMAGE: Photography & Fashion Communication, and we were put into groups of 3. The grouping process was pretty entertaining, we all got into a large circle and were piced out. our first task as a group was to chose two words from 2 lists, which would be the basis of out images or animations. our group chose industrial and enviroment and started creating mind maps to make links and note ideas. this went on for 2 hours trying to create several ideas and slowly refining our ideas. We worked it down to 4 possible ideas with a mutual agreement on one. But we wanted to ask other if the idea would be good, so that we didnt waste time. We asked Tim and he agreed that our can idea would be interesting and could be good. It was also mentioned that the idea could be done as an animation, which we thought could work very well. Towards the end of the day we discussed what kind of animation we wanted to make and we decided on the flower in a can trying to find nature in the urban, polluted area it was put. I liked this idea and am looking worward to doing the animating.
16/09/14
Today in class we were told to create 30 different ideas in 30 minutes. This want too difficult at first until around idea 17 where i stopped creating good ideas. This was mainly due to our groups choice of material and process. Regardless i felt i had come up with some good enough ideas which would be good if developed. After the 30 minutes we were told to develop 3 of these ideas using our research. i had chosen 3 ideas which i felt it were a little simple compared to the rest of the people in the class, but instead of thinking too hard about this i developed them. Once i had developed all, i chose a specific to create a presentation page, which i would show to a small group. My idea consisted of a dark, sensory box. the aim was to create the feeling of being inside the body, as if the user were a organ. I had some really good feed back, and some good ways to improve it. The others in my group had some great ideas and pages. one in particular had come up with a dress for a couple getting married. It would be worn by both people and would grow and change when air moves around it. I thought this idea was really interesting, and if actually made would look great.
15/09/14
Me and my group went to the V&A to garter research and fins some inspiration. We had a look round most of the museum looking for things that would link to our process, (Assemble) material, (breath) and artist which was Andreas Gursky. Although initially it seemed like a bad choice going to the V&A due to its historic nature. But i feel that i found some interesting and relevant things. Once we had looked at the first floor, we decided that it would be a good idea to look at the jewelry area. we spent at least 30 min looking for it, while looking at other exhibits along the way. When we couldn't find it, and collectively agreed that we had enough material for our research we headed back to CSM. I felt that, even though we didn't get what we wanted. We did note some very interesting works of art.
15/1/15
Today we learnt how o book bind, not something i think i will use for my zine which is about censorship. I was thinking more about presenting it as a document. I'm looking into using Indian ties, or just using a paperclip to bind my sheets together. I made am mock up to show how my pages will be. I will be testing with how the front cover will look, and also what the contents will look like. I will be researching into ways the government censor, and which way will look better when scanned. So far i think my idea has some potential, and it doesn't seem like anyone is doing something similar. I had got some good feedback from other students. they seemed to like to concept and that the content was the lack of content.
8/1/15
Today felt really wasted. We spent most of the day learning about indesign, which i think most of us knew how to use. Rather than drawing out my types. Though i did learn some things, i felt that the morning could have been better spent working on the current project. But after lunch we we given some time to work on out type, which i used to finish my block type. Over the weekend i need to make a poster for this type and create my object type.
5/1/15
Today the class presented the Christmas images. Unfortunately my images hadn't been printed so I had nothing to present. It was really interesting to see what people had done. And there was a lot of nice embossing. I feel that the ones that worked best were those that had used nice paper and did it quite simply. I feel that they got the meanings across in the most efficient way. For the building blocks project i feel that the use of tape was a really good idea. It was fun to use, and it was easy to visualize different types quickly. I feel that the strongest of my tape one will be the one i create and develop further, as its bold and i feel that with the size consistency that i want it, it could look good. My object type that i created in class is also something that i think would look good, so i will also try and crate an image for it.
28/12/14
Back from France. I have done some of my ideas in illustrator and Photoshop. I feel that the illustrated ideas work really well at explaining and visualizing what they mean. I also think that most people will go with some simpler, sleeker look and choose to make the images with the printing method. So i want to be a little different, by using a less obvious way of explaining. But i will also do a less illustrated version as i also think that it explains it well. I have some scetched out which need some work as to how i want to present it.
13/11/14
Presentation day. Some people had some really nice work, for example Eva who had done some really nice photography. I also really like Kings video, it was funny as well as unusual. He had someone eat words from a news paper, im not too sure on the meaning behind it, but it was cool to watch. I had some really good feedback from fellow students saying that they like it and especially the smell. I as also told that i should have done it on one long piece of wood or paper rather than a booklet. I agree with this as i feel the fact it was a booklet left it down. In future i wont get too hung up on one process and test more with other medias.
12/11/14
Today i went to but some thicker paper. I got 200 gsm paper as i thought i would work better. I then started to draw using the fire stick, and when i had the base smoke layer down i used a soldering iron to create the darker lines. This worked very well except that it took forever. It took around 90 minuets to do one page. So by the end i was pretty tired. I had burnt through a whole page meaning i had to re do it but in the end it looked good. Some burn holes but i feel that it added to the pice. Because you could see the marks on the front cover. Which was something i didn't want, i covered it in another piece of paper so that i could draw the front cover on. Overall im quite happy with it but i feel that it could be much better if i had more time and practice. Tomorrow is presentation day and im looking forward to see the other students work.
11/11/14
Today we spoke with the tutors about our ideas. But due to them running over time i had to wait for 2 hours after my appointment to be seen. This didn't bother me that much because it gave me time to develop my idea further. I was told During the tutorial that my idea was good but it needed something to make it more interesting, as it felt too simple. I was told to try and draw with fire or dirt. Which i thought was a great idea. It was just like Douglas Gordon self portrait of you and me and his use of fire. I was really excited to try drawing with fire, but i knew it wouldn't be an easy task. I got home to research how it would be done. I noticed that some of the artists that i was told to look at who used fire, didn't have and information on how they used fire to draw so i had to test for my self. Initially i used a candle, but it was hard to control and wax got everywhere. I then tested with a stick, which worked really well. It was easy to control and didn't use wax. Another issue was that the paper would sent on fire really easily. This was due to its thickness. Tomorrow i will look for some thicker paper and finish my booklet drawing.
10/11/14
Day one of White Space. Initially i was really taken back as this was a very conceptual project. Which can be difficult to generate interesting ideas in such a short time. But i was really looking forward to doing something that i hadn't or wont get the chance to do. We started the day with a presentation showing how different artist have used White Space in their pieces. Al of really interesting artist were mentioned such as Hiroshi Sugimoto and Douglas Gordon. I particularly like Douglas Gordons self portrait of you and me series. It Looks really cool and scary. His use of fire to remove peoples mouths and eyes in photographs works really well and The effect of the fire produces is really intense. After we were shown the 5 categories we were supposed to create ideas from. Project, Obscur , Erase, Hide, and Compose. These 5 words would be the basis ideas. I came up with 4 ideas until i had found one that i like to develop further. I chose to develop My erase idea, as i felt it was the most interesting of the ones i had come up with. I stated initially looking at erase in the dictionary, which lead me to see the word wipe used. I thought that wiping could be and interesting was to cover or mask white space. So i teste with pain, it looked nice and reminded me of crude oil due to its thick blackness. This idea developed into an idea for a publication. Tomorrow we are supposed to talk about our ideas with the tutors. When i got home i did some testing with materials and tested with the format of the piece.
9/11/14
Weekend spent re doing the Bee publication and Doing book work. i tested with multiple different drawing styles looking for what to do for this. Once i had decided on the more simplistic, classic bee shape and style i moved onto story boarding and drawing each page. I mail used Illustrator for this, and because im new to the program it took me a while to get started. But after a few hours of testing and using tools i think i got the hang of it.
9/10/14
I had spent all of Wednesday doing this publication. I regret my topic choice as there isn't that much that i can do for it other than some drawings smaller details. Some of the content had to be taken off the internet as i couldn't get good enough images. Presentation day. I got in early to fix up my design and print, but was unable to print due to something wrong with the printer and my file. This was a set back and i had to present as a PDF file. This as okay but one of my pages was slightly corrupt causing a section to glitch. Feedback was okay but told me to change some letter spacing before printing.
There were a lot of really nice publications, but i feel that i over did it on text. Some people didn't have any text other than a title. But their images were much greater. Next time or if i have the chance to re do it, i would chose a topic i can produce images and content for.
6/10/14
First day of project 3. This project was layout: Grids & Composition. I feel that looking back on this week, today could have been used better. We cut up newspapers and created 'grids' which were supposed to be usable. But in the end these grids had almost nothing to do with what we had to do for the rest of the week. It was still very interesting learning about how publishers and editors have to use grids, but i think our time could have been used better.
24/09/14
Printing day. I had already cut out all of my stencils already so i went up early while others finished. my red layer came out well. i was happy that they all differed in small ways. Due to the amount of people printing, we waited till after lunch. When i got back i got into line and got the black printed on. The black came out really well and i like that it isn't that neat, this makes it seem more 'rubbish'. Everyone's prints came out really well and some were really amazing.
23/09/14
Today we created stencils of our face type so that we could print them onto paper. This seem, at first hard due to the fact that my fact type was 3D. But once i used my phone to change the levels of light and contrast, i could make it easy to separate different levels into stencils. I sketched out the layers developing and refining the shapes so that they looked like folds in paper. I liked the look of my design, the simple shapes and easily legible letters were all things i wanted in my design. As well as an interesting style. once i started cutting out the shapes in paper it all came together nicely. I had finished early and was told that there wasn't anything else to do at archway, so i went home and did some sketch book work.
22/09/14
Today was my first day with the graphic design specialist group. It was really fun and interesting. We folded a sheet of a4 white paper into 16 rectangles. Using these rectangles we were told to make letters, and to create our own style. But we were only allowed to create them by folding, cutting, and tearing. I had started by making simple letters, taring to make them stand up. after 1hr of testing we walked round to look at others work. Some people had some amazing designs and i felt mine were not to standard. When i got back i created a new design changing the style into something like a scrunched up bit of paper. This was inspired by the waste i had in a pile. I named my typeface 'rubbish' and photographed it next to some rubbish outside. I liked my face type and apparently were going to work on them more tomorrow. I am looking forward to this. Good start to graphic design. Its actually engaging.