Creative Exchange Week

Creative Exchange Week

Wednesday
D&AD winner Jamie Kirk put together a series of mini workshops aimed to introduce us to problem-solving techniques. I found this helpful as we linked it to our everyday frustrations to see how we could apply the problem solving within our work. We were asked to write down words to describe ourselves and focus specifically on one word also looking at how this could help us within our briefs - i.e. creative, I used this word to describe my current work and everyday life.

Friday
Icons - we created our own stories using icons. I really enjoyed this workshop, being creative and found that using icons was a good way to communicate to viewers other than using words or other images. I would like to explore this is the future and maybe create my own icons that could be used in the future.

Photoshop

Process and Production : Photoshop

Today was about developing Photoshop skills and learning how to mask and overlay images to create different montages. I took an image taken in the first week (portrait of me) and used photoshop to make it appear on another background. I took the image (JPG File) and opened it into Photoshop. I created a duplicate layer of this so that it is easier to cut out the image and mask. I used chroma key to cut myself out from the background (green screen) and added a solid block colour to the background as a temporary. Choosing from a variety of background pictures I decided to keep within the theme of warm browns and cream colours so that the image would look more realistic by playing with the hue and saturation and levels of both the image and background. 

I really enjoy working on Photoshop and developing skills, I will continue this practice in my own time and whenever necessary so that I become quicker and create better looking pieces of work. 

 

A screen grab of the layers used in Photoshop to create the image below.

Seminar - Creative Ideas

Today was related to the essay coming up. We were practicing how to keep our sentences concise and straight to the point to avoid taking up word count for the real essay. I enjoyed this excercise but struggled in some areas...

1. A bear. A char.
2. A fluffy bear, a chair.
3. A fluffy bear, a dirty chair.
4. A fluffy bored bear, a dirty chair.
5. A fluffly bored bear walks into the house after smashing up the dirty chair.
6. A fluffy bored bear walks into the house after seeing his ex with a bigger bear. He smashed the chair up in anger.

I found this exercise helpful as I sometimes struggle to get straight to the point when essay writing, with more practice I think my essay's will become much more concise. 

I researched a book : Goths, Gamers and Grrrls : Deviance and Youth Subcultures. I am going to use this to help explore question one from the brief given. I am planning on focussing on Gaming and how women are not considered to 'play games' or 'game' at all. Looking at how this has changed over a period of time, up until today.

1. A bowl of cherries and cream.
2. A bowl of luscious cherries and cream.
3. A bowl of luscious cherries and whipped cream.
4. A bowl of luscious glossy cherries and fluffy whipped cream.
5. A bowl of luscious glossy cherries sit in the warm sun and soft melted whipped cream.
6. A bowl of luscious glossy cherries cover the ground beneath them, the melted whipped cream coats the dog's fur.

This is another example (made up) just as practice. 

A Sense of Place : Text & Image

Focussing on text and image within the brief : a sense of place. We looked at some examples of this in todays lecture:

'Library' - James Peel
Is a collection of translations of the word 'love' in 700 different languages. The piece also features reference numbers with a world map so that the viewer is able to see where the word comes from acorss the world. 3 elements - the archive, index and a map.

Experimental Jetset
Is a small, independant Amsterdam based Graphic Design studio. They focus on small printed matter and site specific installations - describing methodology as "turning language into objects." The studio has an online archive, like a taxonomy of their work. It features a varied amount of work that creates an index - arranged in a democratic grid, each project has equal importance, nothing stands out - they are all the same, meaning all their work is to high standards.

'Mmm - skyscaper, I love you : a typographic journal of New York' created in 1997 by Karl Hyde and John Warwicker. The journal features heavy use of layers and overlays to create feelings of energy and emotion, it makes the reader 'feel' as they respond to the visuals, they aren't concerned with langauge and written narratives they can see this through the drawings. The journal is the opposite to a modernist journal there is no structure, grid or importance of everything, the journal is post-modern abstraction of feelings.

'J Street Project' - Susan Hiller 2002 - 2005
Based around Berlin a street called 'Judenstrasse' meaning 'Jew's Street.' The project follows a democratic grid structure, each image is the same size and scale. (Similar to the typology of the Beckers) All the photographs taken (303 images) fit the wall, there are two images left over - making the viewer question whether this is an ongoing archive. Hiller added a map as an index of the writing - the same set of elements as James Peel.

'Crossing Paths' - Vivian Maier
Maier took photographs of things she saw and liked in New York, she deliberately placed herself in the space and time of the photograph. By doing this Maier created a narrative of the image, turning it into an event so the photograph eventualizes the place - makes it more interesting. Maier also liked to create reflected images by placing herself in the background using glass as a reflective surface in order to super impose herself into an imaginary stack of layers.

'Wanderlust' - Joseph Cornell
A fabric book showing structured grids, images and objects combining as composites (creating repetition), sequence of images as narratives and concertina's.

Ghostsigns
These are faded remains of advertising from the late Victorian era up until the 50's and 60's. The project has been created so that we can see how they used to look when they were first painted - using light projections to see them today. The project itself is research lead - looking into the companies and finding visual references so that reconstructions can be made and projected onto the buildings to see what the signs looked like 80 years ago.

(autoflaneur)

Keywords:
Situations / narratives
Advertising / images
Signs / texts
Fringes / edges
Palimpsests / opposistions
Way finding / navigation
branding / inconpgraphy
movement / stillness
movement / typologies
inside / outside
frames / scale
image / text

Surrealism & The Uncanny Valley

Surrealism:
'a 20th-century avant-garde movement in art and literature which sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, for example by the irrational juxtaposition of images.'

Ideas that relate to surrealism:

1. Dream analysis
2. Interesting juxtaposistions

Andre Breton was a writer, poet, anarchist and anti-fascist. He was one of the founders of surrealism and suggested it as a philisophical movement. The surrealist manifesto (1924) was also written by Andre Breton, he set down all the ideas about dreams, the revolution and transforming the ordinary.

Why discuss surrealism in relation to visual design and communication?
Graphic Design or visual design and communication conform to a structure and specific grid. The images (example below) tell us that by surrealism and uncanny ideas break from this form, meaning that creating a relationship between surrealism and graphic design produces strange, mysterious pieces of work.

Examples of surrealism:

• Surrealism alphabet 1952 - connections with typography, they have intertwined with eachother
• Automatic drawing - Andre Masson - example by a surrealist. 
• The False Mirror 1928 - Rene Magritte - questionning the authority of an optical illusion, the eye is subjective - it see's what it wants to see.
• Max Ernst - painting

Salvador Dali and Walt Disney created Destino (1945 - 2003) A collaboration between the two artists to create a short animated film. The surrealist artist Dali described the plot as "A magical display of the problem of life in the labyrinth of time" whilst Disney described it as "A simple story about a young girl in search of true love." Destino doesn't fit a particular mode or structure (like graphics design) but instead combines the surrealist artwork of Dali together with Disney's animation to create an enticing short film.

Other examples of surrealist artwork are shown in 'Dumbo' the Pink Elephants in Parade. Walt Disney was so fascinated by Salvador Dali's work at the time that he chose to create a dark, mysterious scene in the film. Disney makes sure that the scene is filled with strange creatures, angles and folows no rules regarding objects physics.


The 'Uncanny'
'strange or mysterious, especially in an unsettling way.'

Sigmund Freud was an Australian neurologist said that uncanny "is that species of the frightening that goes back to what was once a well known and had long been familiar." He wrote 'The Uncanny' in 1919 and talks about how uncanny is the subject of aesthetics.

Marcel Ducamp was a French artist who created a piece of work called Fountain in 1917. This piece of work is considered uncanny because of what it actually is and the way Ducamp has created an interesting piece of work. Fountain is a porcelain urinal, signed 'R.Mutt'. He signed the piece with this name because of a curret cartoon strip (one of the characters) that was widely popular at the time. Ducamp added the 'R' for 'Richard' before finishing the final piece which is significant, meaning (in French) money-bags. Ducamp has taken something that we consider not sanitary and signed it with the complete opposite - money-bags, he added this for more artistic value.

Freud also worked with Ernst Jones - 'Uncanny is a product of 'intellectual uncertainty' 1906.

Uncanny likeness... A likeness that is strange, but not complete.
Distinguish:
Something is strange about something
Something from something strange
Something strange added to something familiar
Uncanny is more disturbing than surprising
Uncanny = Unhomely

Uncanny example:
'The Uncanny Valley' 1970 - is a scale of theory that shows how it leads to a disturbing effect. It involves art, robots and human emotions.

The human likeness can also be represented as realism. To put it into perspective, an example:

Simpsons, Snow White, The Incredibles, Polar Express, Cubo Girl and the Real Person

It shows the change of something that it so far off being a human through to the development of changes to make it more realistic.

Colour

Colour from Maria Lynam on Vimeo.
Video created in Adobe After Effects. The use of colour to combine with the beat from the music to create a simple 10 second clip.

Seminar - Assignment Questions

Today's seminar was about the assignment questions.

Project Brief - the essay questions

1. Discuss the effect of subcultures on the influential graphic designers and/or animators?
2. In what ways have the prequel and sequel influenced contemporary graphic design and/or animation practices?
3. Brand versus Anti-brand. How have graphics designers and/or animators worked with or against brands, and to what effect?

These were all discussed in groups today and explored ideas on how we could answer these questions. I am looking at exploring question one, I find it interesting to explore subcultures the effect they have had on influential graphic designers. 

1. Subcultures - a cultural group within a culture that differs one or more ways from the culture, the group is against the main flow, they are below the main culture. I could explore music genres, punk era, etsy website, how gaming has changed. I have the most ideas here so will most likely explore this question for my essay.
2. Explore before and after graphic design

Concertina Sketchbooks & Themes

Today's lecture related to the concertina sketchbook and themes from the brief. We first explored how to practice different techniques and ideas to help the development of creating new designs. There are plenty of other ways to start the development of a design such as:
Thumbnailing - a process to help plan for a design task, it encourages you to develop multiple solutions for an idea and consider the decisions
Morph Sheet - this is a single core idea that morphs into as many other different ideas as you can think of - having a central idea and creating multiple impressions of it. This is typically used more in Product Design to help create more developed ideas from one
Storyboard - following a linear narrative and creating the storyboard to help visualise the narrative
Maquettes - are models that describe the narrative to the body of work - they are easily moveable and adjustable
Drawing Process - thinking whilst drawing and creating a collection of ideas that super impose themselves. The sketchbook is an archive of thinking, ideas that solve problems. Thinking about themese without having to worry about the final form


We also discussed a theme within the brief, a system of objects. Within this, we explored typology and taxonomy.

Typology

 ' a classification according to general type, especially in archaeology, psychology, or the social sciences. '

      

 Typology is a study of material and form - they are viewed as objects and collections feel like catalogues          

Berndt and Hila Becher were German conceptual artists and photographers working as a collaborative duo in the 70's, 80's and early 90's. The work shows how grids are important in design, that archives are/should be symmetrical, there should be a consistent lighting and scale shown through the photographs. The archive is democratic and everything is presented in the same way, an objective matter.

Idris Khan is a British artist based in London. His work is created by using a collection of images (similar to that of Berndt and Becher) to super impose them together and create a 'ghost like' image, it also shows how consistent all the seperate images.

Karl Blossfeldt was a German photographer, sculpter, teacher and artist but was well known for his photographs of plants. He thinks about scale and lighting to create the consistency in his work. Using strong shapes, patterns, textures and multiple viewpoints/angles so that we see all sides of the plant in great detail.

Juan Fontcuberta (flora) is a conceptual artist who uses plain backgrounds, consistent lighting to create his monochrome images of plants. He uses Blossfeldt's work to create a new meaning by incorporating other plants and animals. As a collection Fontcuberta creates an image of an imaginary world

Donovan Wylie is an Irish photographer. His photographs of the watch towers in Northern Island show how the camera is posistioned at eye level for every image. The consistent aspects of the scene link back to the Becher's.



Taxonomy
'the branch of science concerned with classification, especially of organisms; systematics'

Eadweard Muybridge was an English photographer, best known for capturing motion through still images. He focussed on animal movement as humans were considered to be animals. 'Horse in Motion' is a series of images which proved that whilst a horse was galloping it left the ground. Muybridge also looked at the human form from multiple viewpoints, the way humans and animals move - within that there are multiple typology's which then become the taxonomy.

Neubau Welt Archive is a catalogue of objects. It is an attempt to describe the objects that he has encountered in his world, the objects tend to be things that we consume, they are all types, indexed and catagorised in the archive. Everything has a unique number so that it is easier to find. The archive is commercial as well as describing the world he imagines.

Walter Benjamin was a German philosopher who created The Arcades Project, an archive of fragments rather than a taxonomy or typology. Benjamin collected narrative fragments, writings, objects and quoted them to create the same design/layout as a book. He was drawing with language and drew in an imaginary place with a complex mixture of fragments - described as mythology.

Objects can be collected as types, described visually, described through language. Core idea about objects is about consumption.

Reading - The system of objects - New York Verso 2005
The Arcades project - New Edition, Cambridge
Neubau welt -  Berlin

Keywords: Material, Form, Taxonomy, Typology, Archive - use these to explore concepts wandering through, and in space. Document experience using drawings, photos and texts.

Bauhaus

Form, follows and function

We learnt about what Modernism is (1890 - 1940) 

• Innovative forms of expression
• Expressed feelings and ideas - creating abstractions and fantasies rather than representing the world in an 'accurate' way
• Adopts machine aesthetics
• Rejection of ornamentst

The 14 year history of Bauhaus started in 1919 in Weimar, Germany. The Bauhaus School of Art and Design was relocated to Dessau in 1925 and ended in Berlin, 1933. Bauhaus tried to combine art, craft and technology to reach a common goal and vision of a purer form of design without unecessary decoration. It was practical, functional and clean. The school taught across the board in a range of Art and Design forms and transferred ideas. 

1937 saw the New Bauhaus move to Chicago and in the 50's moved to Yale University.

These are some of the designers to come from the Bauhaus

Josef Albers - Homage to the Square

Wassily Kandinksy - Wassliy chair

Paul Klee

Shape Test:

 

Circle - Red - China see's the red cirlce as prosperity and joy - I like this idea

Square - Yellow - 

Triange - Blue - The colour blue can be seen as an indication of strength and stability which also reflects in the triangles shape

Monday PM - Seminar

The seminar focused on searching for information to help write essays. 

1. Define the topic and plan search
2. Find relevant information
3. Evaluate information 
4. Organise and use information
5. Review the process

Sketching

Today carried on from yesterday's lectures. The morning consisted of making 6 'mini' sketchbooks, which each had 4 ariel drawings of a certain memory that I had chosen e.g. Travelling New York earlier this year, watching the sunset at Top of the Rock. Each drawing of the memory got closer - relating to the "Power of ten" video.
The afternoon we grouped together and created a bigger piece of work, combining all of our memories and linking them as best we could.
My group chose to take the idea of a roller coaster, showing how life has 'ups and downs' e.g. Visitng New York/Paris/Thailand was something positive and a negative was a memory of a car crash. It moves from New York, through Paris, Thailand and Huddersfield

Real Life Drawing

The afternoon consisted of visiting Huddersfield town centre to look at the buildings, architecture and typography used throuhgout. We decided to explore the market place and capture the busier buisness atmosphere in the drawings. I like to work in fine liner and pencil I find both easy to sketch with and quite like the end result. All the drawings were then put together on the wall to show all the other areas that were documented, including Byram St and St Georges Hotel.

Seminar - Writing Assignments

Seminar - Writing Assignments

Academic Writing with Beth Cladwell

Steps in a writing process:

• Annotate/analyse the brief
• Gather information and research (secondary)
• Write a plan/mind map
• Read and check when you start writing your essay (draft)
• Final changes
• Reference work (use APA 6th found on library website)

Analysing the brief:

Break it down

Work out the word count

Find out the deadline...Formative and Summative

Research

Borrow books from the library, read them for a better mark. Or download books/articles

Formats

Continuous text (lots of paragraphs, no subheadings, no bullet points)

OR

Report format (structured sections using headings, images, points, contents page)

Structure

Induction, then main body, conclusion

Plan

Write down the essay title to remember

Plan each paragraph

Style

Expected to be format

Avoid contractions (didn't, hasn't, it's)

Avoid using 'i' 'me' 'my'

Don't address the reader as 'you'

Paragraph

One topic per paragraph

Paragraph should be about half a page, no floating sentences

Introduction, orientate the reader. Show the reader you are actually answering the question. Provide background on the topic. Use 'This essay will discuss (state aims)' Outline the plan telling the reader what will be coming next.

I will use all these points to help create a well developed and correct essay when necessary

Development of Maps

Today's lecture focussed on the development of maps over time. We looked at Jan Visscher's map of London, a panoramic view of what he thought London would look like around the 1600's. Today's culture shows how we use simple lines and colours to code certain aspects of a map or area compared to the developed detailed pieces of work that used to be created, work like Visscher. We were shown a video, "The Power of Ten, a dealing with the relative size of things in the universe and the effect of adding zero" which showed how places look from above, ariel shots.

Image, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visscher_panorama

Brass Agency

Guest Lecture

Today's lecturer was Andrew Brown from the Brass Agency based in Leeds, who specifically focuses on digital marketing. Brass has worked with large companies such as Haribo, L'Oreal and Ribena. It was interesting to see how the Andrew worked specifically with a large company such as Ribena. Marketing this company gave him the chance to experience new opportunities and create something new and inventive for Ribena to promote their product. He has had the chance to travel the world being creative and designing for all different companies which is something I'm aspiring to do.

Andrew gave us some great advice: to work hard, work with new people and most of all have fun. 

Convergence Seminar

The seminar was about exploring convergence in greater detail. I was asked to create (within a group) something that had meaning to us, we were asked to look at newspaper and magazines and use key words that stood out to us to create something bold and meaningful. Our group chose to explore politics, here is the outcome...

Jonathan Lindley

Graphic Designer Jonathon Lindley presented todays lecture about convergence. He showed how design and communcation meet to create convergence and new ideas, there were clear points throughout the lecture that theory is a very important part of Graphic Design and that we should spend more time researching theory and theorists to become better developed Graphic Designers.

Convergence

• The process or state of converging 
• The coming together of two entities 
• A meeting point

Culture can also be explored - ideas and social behaviour of a particular person or society 

OR

Culture can also be seen as an idea

Convergence is a point of translation and the moment of translation can be seen when design and communication 'meet.'