Assignment One: Introducing Myself

Introducing myself – the final set

Introducing Myself – the process

Initially, on tackling this assignment I was thinking in terms of a coherent series but as I began developing different ideas I decided to use it as an opportunity to experiment with a range of techniques and approaches. I started with a mindmap and developed the ideas from there. After the minimalist sketches I worked on lots of little thumbnail sketches to develop more ideas.  I have created a set of five postcards that introduce different aspects of my personality, my interests and my life.

 Minimalist Books

As a starting point for the set I knew I wanted to try something very stripped back and quite minimalist. It is not a style I am very familiar with so I thought this would help me start to think in graphic design terms. I did some research online and started a Pinterest board for my postcard inspiration. During the research I found the work of Genis Carreras and that really helped me think about how I might communicate the essence of something important to me (particularly his Values and Philographics series).

Using a mindmap as a starting point I made four small sketches based on a notional ‘work, rest & play theme,’ these then developed into four postcard size ideas, of these it was Work and Books that I preferred. It wasn’t until I had worked on some of the other postcards that I then came back to this set and decided to go with books. I also felt it was something I might be able to try in Illustrator.

Johari Window

The brief made me think a lot about how best to introduce myself. Whether I should represent my work, my home life, my personality traits or preferences and so on. This led me to question how much it is ever possible to share anything that might go beyond the superficial. How can I introduce what I might not even know about myself?

I do a lot of personal development work and use a variety of models and was reminded of the ‘Johari Window’. I decided I wanted to include this as one of the postcards and quickly sketched the two by two matrix.  I did an internet search and found that almost all the diagrams used for the model are four boxes with text in each but I wanted something more visual and very simple.

I did an initial sketch using circles (like ‘minimalist books’ it was in part inspired by the work of Genis Carreras) and decided to go with that approach, I didn’t do any alternative versions as this felt right very quickly. I then decided that the simplicity leant itself to my first tentative steps to learning Illustrator.  I used the full circle for those aspects of me known to myself and to others, half circles for those elements known only to me or only to others and then a black rectangle for those hidden aspects. Where I did try alternative versions was with the colours but given the infinite variety available this felt a bit like falling down the rabbit hole! I’m not sure I got the colours quite right but I was really pleased to get as far as I did in Illustrator!

Smile

Smile was prompted by my enthusiasm to do something playful and built on some earlier collage work I had done for a previous module. I could have made it a Photoshop composite but I wanted to keep it as tactile as possible and preserve the cut edges. I simply thought of things that made me smile, collected some images from my archives and royalty free sites and played on the page. I created three collages and chose the bicycle version for the final selection.

I really enjoyed making these and was surprised how quickly they came together. It was a good reminder to play and not be too caught up with ideas of ‘perfection.’ The sunflower was printed just as my printer was playing up but I decided to keep it because I quite liked the effect. I’m not sure whether ‘Smile’ fits a graphic design label but it certainly says something about me!

 

 

Still life

An early idea in the formstorming was based on some of my recent still life work. I have spent some time researching the history of still life and particularly the Vanitas tradition. The Tulip for me has now become loaded with meaning – connoting beauty, wealth, capitalism, economics, life and death. I experimented with framing the the tulip in different ways and decided on the less cropped version. I wanted to show an almost ethereal tulip and to include the text ‘still life’. The words are arranged for the reader to read them in different ways – stillness, life, still life the genre, and still living!

 Universal Declaration of Human Rights

This was the last of the ideas to emerge and came out of a desire to create something different in format. As the others were evolving I was trying to think of something that might have a more sculptural or ‘off the page’ feel to it. This was in part influenced by some recent photographic work on still life where I was trying to break the conventional frame of the image.  As I was continuing with collecting for my Pinterest Board I came across the book cover by Nina Jua Klein.

This was just the inspiration I needed and it got me thinking about what text I would use by way of introducing myself. I went through favourite books, articles and so on but nothing quite landed. A lot was happening around current affairs at the time in terms of Brexit, migration, horrendous atrocities and complex national conflicts and so on. It was also the time of the Olympics and Paralympics. I was reminded of the 2012 Paralympic opening ceremony (I have a connection to one of the two Artistic Directors) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) presented itself. I felt it was a perfect text to use in terms of my concerns for social justice, equality and human rights in general.

The UDHR also felt right because Article 27 enshrines the right to participate in the cultural life of the community and I know how privileged I am to be able to do so.

Article 27.

 (1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

I experimented with a range of layouts, and after many hours of cutting up and re-positioning the strips I produced a sculptural version, I then photographed the final result.

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All the postcard backs were produced using Publisher, I didn’t feel I was ready to tackle InDesign but that is next on the list. With hindsight it was probably a mistake to do it this way as I then needed to make some convoluted format changes to get them to a suitable state to upload. I should have been brave and done them all in Illustrator, which I think I would do in future.