Author Archives: DLangley

Research Point: Typography

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The history of typography, printing, and reading are all linked; what else can you find out about this history that you find interesting?

A quick online search of the ‘history of typography’ reveals a wealth of information primarily documenting the timeline from its earliest developments through to the present day. This short animation is fun.

This TedX is also a playful look at how we see typography

I was struck by the statement that ‘typography, printing and reading are linked’; for me this has political connotations. It is closely linked to education and goes back to the debates about providing the masses with the ability; a political act that was seen as controversial. Much of my secondary research has therefore focused on typography in relation to politics and protest.

When I first started GD1 I watched lots of graphic design documentaries, it was a new field for me and I knew that this immersive approach works for me. One of the videos I watched was Wim Crouwel Talking About Swiss Style.

While it was not specifically about typography in relation to protest what I was struck by was the fact that typefaces I may take for granted were not universally available, he describes how difficult it was to get the Grotesque typefaces in the Netherlands when he started working. This is an extraordinary concept in an era when I can pretty much download any typeface I want (as long as I can pay for them). I think this is important in terms of the cultural history of typography. I was intrigued and previously unaware that typefaces were so closely associated with particular countries of origin.

 

 

 

Assignment Three: Colour Me

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A collage using orange showing things that made me happy in my childhood

Assignment Three brief:

Choose a colour that has a meaning that you want to explore and celebrate. Think about what the colour you have chosen means both to you and to other people and create something that celebrates that meaning.

This process started with a mind map and photos taken of items around the house and garden.  All the colours had meaning for me and I realised that I have quite a few favourite colours.

A collage of householditems showing my favourite colours

Colour Me mood board

I used Adobe Color CC to see what colour options emerged and I decided to go with orange and teal as that combined two of my favourite colours.

The orange comes from my favourite jacket, made from a glorious Irish Linen. It is one I made myself and always makes me think of my Irish grandmother who along with Mum taught me how to sew and knit. It always makes me feel happy and confident when I wear it and that was the theme I wanted to develop.

Having done a bit of research about colour theory I found the quote attributed to Frank Sinatra, “Orange is the happiest colour.” I decided this would form the loose theme I would work with.

The first idea I developed from a sketch and a physical collage, and included a number of orange things that make me happy. I played with different elements in Photoshop and while I like some of the combinations I didn’t feel it was going in the right direction.

The second idea I decided would be much more minimal and focused on the text and orange as the dominant colour. Initially the teal colour was too central so I moved it over. I liked this idea for its simplicity but was a bit concerned that it hadn’t fully answered the brief.

This took me to developing a further collage in Photoshop, using some of the elements of the physical collage. I wanted it to feel a bit looser than the earlier idea with a variety of textures as well as the designated colour palette. It includes my love of books, nature, and initially I went with a broader quote about happiness from “psychology now.’ I quite liked the layout and decided to add the photograph of me and my brother as children laughing and go back to the Frank Sinatra quote. While this was my preference feedback from family suggested they didn’t ‘get it’ and it was too busy and messy.

So I decided to ask for feedback from the Visual Comms Facebook group and they provided some very helpful feedback. The two preferences were the minimal version the square and the final collage. The minimal version with the squiggle was felt to be too distracting. There were suggestions for the minimal version about changing the typeface for happiness and its colour. I tried this out but the interplay of the colour made it too difficult to read so I changed the colour blocks instead. It is fascinating to see how many permutations there can be with so few elements!

One reflection suggested the flowers in the final collage were also not necessary so I tried a version without. Monica Pritchard picked up on the childhood theme with the photo and rippling pool water. I decided to take this theme further and rather than include things that make me happy generally I focused on my childhood in Australia and included elements that I think of happily – the tree frog on my blind, the Sulphur crested cockatoos that would steal the washing and follow me about, swimming, sunshine and freedom to play in an extraordinary natural environment. At that point I was going to be the next Gerald Durrell!

Final Selection

It was hard to choose a final version as in some ways it felt like I could keep working on them and coming up with yet more ideas. I want to select two rather than one because they are so different in approach.

I suspect that Monica is right that the stripped back version of the collage works best in design terms, although it is the version with the Australian flora and fauna that makes me smile the most.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Exercise: Photomontage

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Green plastic bottles on an orange background with a fish in the middle

Whereas I had to drag myself through the Abstract Cities exercise, working on the photomontages was a complete joy and something I could happily carry on doing outside of the course. I decided the issue I would focus on is environmental sustainability. I had several ideas about how this might incorporate issues around food production/monocultures. Although it is hard to draw a montage I did sketch out some ideas to give me a starting point.

This helped me to assemble a number of stock images and some of my own photographs to create the photomontages themselves. I decided to work in Photoshop as for me it is the most efficient way to combine images and easily work with layers and masks. I created six photomontages, laid out in the order they were created:

  1. Just before midnight: three core elements with a textured background showing a parched earth
  2. Time running out: playing with the Just Before Midnight (JBM) approach and morphing the clock
  3. Wheat: A more structured design using the cycle of wheat production from growing annual wheat to supermarket shelves to waste and mould
  4. Three Fish: I had something else in mind but when I added the fish layer it came up this big and I liked the way it looked lying on the rubbish. So I added two more fish to resemble fish lying on ice in the fishmonger
  5. Down the plughole: working with the fish and rubbish theme and showing everything ultimately swirling down the plughole
  6. Plastic shoal: I had made an early sketch of fish swimming with bottles and this is the result

Just before Midnight started with the background. I then added the earth on the left, followed by the clock and the pumpkin. I finished by adjusting opacity and using some masking. It is designed to be read left to right.

Time running out (TRO) was created using a similar process with layers and masks and using the distort transformation tool.

Wheat used  a more formal grid structure. I wanted to try a different format and to create something that looked at the issue of monocultures and the growth of annual wheat varieties in particular. The background image is of a huge dust storm to which I added the photos of the wheat roots and the soil differences. I moved the images and changed opacities and added the wheat. I added the circles of supermarket shelves and finished with the mouldy bread to show the lifecycle of the process.

Three fish was very simple in process terms. I found the rubbish image and used that as the background. I was intending to weave the fish into the rubbish but when I added the first fish I decided to just copy them and overlay them on the rubbish. I left both at 100% opacity.

Down the Plughole used the same background as three fish and I integrated the fish into the rubbish. I thought I would just fade the bottom as a metaphor for bleaching coral but this looked quite top heavy and I wasn’t sure how how best to finish it. Thinking about pollution I decided to ad an oil slick. I completed DtP by working with opacity levels, masking, using the swirl filter and adding a plughole.

Plastic Shoal came directly from one of my early sketches. I knew I wanted to use green plastic bottles so decided on an orange background. I added the fish and made some adjustments because it wasn’t quite flat on. I then added the bottles in a fairly random order. I finished by creating more of a repeating pattern with the bottles.

I shared these images with other students at our recent monthly Thames Valley Group meeting and had some very helpful feedback. The two images that seemed to stand our most for the group were ‘Just before Midnight’ and ‘Plastic Shoal’ (PS). Some liked the image of JB4M but felt that the message wasn’t clear enough. Everyone felt that PS had the most graphic feel but one person thought the message was too strident/obvious. It seems the issue of message is a hard balance to get right. Someone said the images with the fish felt quite ‘pop art,’ which was appropriate for the subject in terms of reflecting on where consumerism has brought us.

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Exercise: Abstract Cities

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Four abstract arches to use for a city guide cover for Madrid

Create a series of ten abstract designs in which you balance blocks of subordinate, dominant and accent colours. These designs are going to be used as covers for ten cities. As part of the process explore your DTP packages further by creating the artwork in different software packages.

I think it’s fair to say that compared to previous exercises I have made a complete meal of this one! I made a fatal mistake at the beginning, which was to do the maths –  ten designs at four to five different iterations, that’s at least forty images! Oh, my that’s a lot of ideas and uploading. I think at this point I became a bit overwhelmed by the task and wasn’t sure how best to approach it. This triggered quite a lot of procrastination and longingly reading and re-reading the next exercise about Photomontage.

I collected the odd image and started thinking about how I was going to approach the exercise but the inspiration was slow in coming. Some of the cities I knew so had some initial connections and my own perception of colours and shapes. I did some wider research online to collect images of the different cities. This then prompted some initial sketches to start the process of thinking about composition, having decided I’d work on composition first and then work with colour.  I was reasonably happy with some of the ideas but not wildly excited by them.

Six thumbnail monochrome sketches for travel guides

Panorama based sketches

Unusually for me I also then looked at other student’s work for this exercise. I wouldn’t ordinarily do this as I have found in the past it can be a bit intimidating when I see the quality of other peoples work. I am also mindful that sometimes you can take on subliminal ideas that may then appear unintentionally in your own work raising concerns about originality. With those caveats in mind and being as stuck as I was I thought it might help. It was certainly useful in seeing how others had approached the exercise, and especially helpful in looking at how others had assembled their palettes and the use of Adobe Color. I also noticed some motifs and images were used by a number of students and that these were very similar to the images I had found.

The next step was some quick research on other travel guides. The ones that stood out for me were the Louise Vuitton and the Luxe guides. It was particularly the Luxe guides that caught my eye, I really liked the idea of taking a small detail to represent the bigger concept. My first sketches, and other student work seemed to be more panoramic in nature and I wanted to focus in more.

At this point I decided to refine the brief and think about them in terms of guides for art lovers in each city, which meant I could focus in on a particular theme. As I did the research this also helpfully showed that many of the arts buildings in these cities are quite iconic. Finally, I had a way in and something that interested me!

Abstract Cities – stage two

Having decided on the approach I wanted to take I set out some dedicated time to work on all ten cities together. I  worked on them in batches rather than city-by-city, in part to think about consistency but also to keep the energy going.

I created what I have called a mood board for each city in which I brought together arts, architecture and public art examples.

I put all the mood boards into Adobe Colour and used that to create a basic colour palette for each, based on their bright or custom themes. In some cases these were adapted further when I worked on the design. The Colour Palettes PDF shows the initial colour schemes.

I then started a new set of sketches to work on the compositions. These were developed in Illustrator.

Abstract Cities – Stage three

Madrid

Abstract designs for Madrid travel guide

Madrid

Based on contemporary art in the city I tried to do the exterior of the Museo Nacional Centro de Art Reina Sofia but I was struggling with Illustrator and it started looking too fragmented. The second idea was based on a piece of public art but wile I like the idea it felt too derivative. I finished by using an aspect of the exterior of the Matadero, which I think captured the wider iconic arches in other parts of Madrid as well as the Spanish colours.

Managua

Four designs for Managua city guide

Managua

I had thought I would use some of the city’s public art but after more online research I found that several of them had been demolished. In the end I went with the iconic trees (although these seem to have mixed appeal in Managua itself!).

After learning how to make swirls in Ai I used Adobe sketch and transferred the result to Ai. I was struggling to make the colours work and was painstakingly using the pen tool to map areas and apply colour. In the end I used the trace function and decided to use a thick stroke to paint the curls. I was going to tidy the edges but decided I quite liked them a bit sketchy.

Marrakech

Four designs for a Marrakech city guide cover

Marrakech

Based on the exterior of the Marrakech Museum for Photography and the Visual Arts. It was one of the earliest sketches and I was happy with the composition so concentrated on the colour combinations. I used variations from the colour palette, which were evocative of the city as a whole. In the last two versions I added the drop shadows under the windowsills but I didn’t feel they really added to the design. (I have just read the Museum has closed while it seeks a new location so would have to rework this for a guide now!).

Manhattan

Four designs for a Manhattan city guide cover

Manhattan

This design uses the iconic interior of the Guggenheim museum. As with others I started with too much detail so after the two early attempts I decided to simplify it and make it more abstract. I didn’t like the all caps typeface and tried to find something that was stylish and cultured.

Malmo

Four designs for a Malmo city guide

Malmo

These compositions are based on the exterior and interior of the Moderna Museet Malmo (MMM) and the Malmo Konsthall (MK). I kept the exterior ideas very simple and abstract. The all orange example is from the interior of the MMM and plays with some of the architectural features. The MK interior is very minimal reflecting the perspective in the gallery. The typeface is modern and simple.

Manchester

Four designs for a Manchester city guide

Manchester

These designs are based on the exterior of the People’s History Museum and as with the other designs they incorporate colours from across the city. I was reasonably happy with the composition so worked on various colour palettes. The first two didn’t feel well balanced and the interaction of colours wasn’t working. I decided to use white for the background, which lifted the colours and made it more dynamic.

Mumbai

Four designs for a Mumbai city guide cover

Mumbai

Initially, I thought I would use the exterior of the Bombay Arts Society but when I started working with the shapes it wasn’t coming together. Instead I used the interior staircase design that is very distinctive. Once I had got the basic layout I worked with different palettes until the final version, which I felt was the most harmonious. Again I chose a typeface that felt in keeping with the destination.

Marseille

Four designs for a Marseille city guide cover

Marseille

This started with the night view of the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations (MuCEM)  but it looked too busy and fussy so I moved on to the aerial view and created something much simpler. The colours draw on the wider palette of the city and are not specific to the centre. I added some texture in the final version to evoke the amazing external structure of the building. I kept the typeface clear and modern.

Melbourne

Four designs for a Melbourne city guide cover

Melbourne

My initial ideas were to use the distinctive façade of the Australia Centre for Contemporary Art and while I liked these I thought perhaps they were a little too abstract. The second set of ideas take public art in Melbourne as their starting point. The colours are reasonably close to the original works but also encompass the sunshine, red earth, and blue skies.

Montreal

Four designs for a Montreal city guide cover

Montreal

This is the iconic façade of the DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art. The original building only has one red window but this has been extended to three in the final version to reflect the presence and importance of the colour red in the city. The overall palette was kept relatively muted to reflect the city’s architecture.

Final selection

Having done the original sketches and then working up the designs in Ai I selected the final ten which I felt were probably the most successful. Some are more successful than others but I think there is some sense of them working together as a series.

 

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Exercise: Understanding Colour

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12 two tone coloured squares exploring the relationship between different colours

Draw two grids of squares, filling one with colours you like and others with colour you dislike. Then put the two groups side by side and ask the question, ‘which one looks better?’

Next try experimenting with placing colours together as Johannes Itten did. Try and find different combinations of colours to illustrate the list of ideas (Graphic Design One: Page 69.)

Given the almost infinite variety of colours I wasn’t quite sure how to start approaching this exercise. For the two grids I started by using Adobe Draw as it is really easy to add blocks of colour; working fairly randomly I selected colours and filled the grids.

I then remembered I had a set of Pantone based postcards so spread them out in different combinations and took photos. Although the course text suggests most people find they prefer the colours they don’t ordinarily like because of the colour dynamics I confess with the drawn set I still preferred the bright and gawdy versions! With the printed versions however I agree that the more muted colours look better in relationship to one another.

I then went on to use the Pantone cards for the colour combination exercise. I spread them out so I could see all the colours and created a grid of all the terms. The Postcards are not accurate Pantone samples so I knew there would be some colour variation when I moved onto digital versions but it felt like a more manageable way to attempt the exercise. I probably made a bit of a meal of the task but it got me to the end point I needed. I went through several steps:

  • As I worked through each word I made a note of the Pantone number
  • Using the Pantone website I looked up a Hex number for each colour
  • I set up two artboards in Illustrator and added the squares which are effectively three squares layered (there was probably a more effective way of doing this using outline but I wasn’t sure how to do it)
  • I started adding the colour initially a square at a time and then realised I could highlight the outer and inner square and fill them at the same time! (it all helps with my Illustrator learning)
  • As I went I made notes on my sheet about any changes I made

Given that I knew the Pantone postcards were not true colour representations I had expected to make some changes, and when I did these were mainly based on seeing the outcome of the two colours interacting. I also noticed that I have a tendency towards warmer, brighter colours and would seldom choose browns or greens. The colour squares can be downloaded here as a PDF.

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Exercise: Seeing the Light

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Twenty different designs using three elements- a block of yellow, a light bulb image, the words light bulb

Using only an image of a light bulb, the words ‘light bulb’ and a block of colour of your choice create different designs that explore visual dynamics. Think about your composition trying each element at different sizes and cropping your photo. Create as many different designs as you can. Edit these down to about 20 designs that you feel represent the breadth of different approaches you have explored.

I did this exercise over several months as I could easily sketch different thumbnails as I travelled and as ideas came to mind. To start with I used a tablet and created random compositions as ideas came to me, this was followed by drawing thumbnails in my sketchbook.

Finally, I tried to be more methodical using a grid that I initially used for sketching and then collaging. I realised as I was collaging that most of my previous compositions had been portrait so I then worked in landscape for the final ideas.

In total I developed 64 designs and by the end, although they were more neatly contained within the grid than my thumbnails, they felt like they were getting looser in terms of composition. I also played with the notion of what the ‘block’ of colour meant, cropping it for different shapes and using triangles instead of squares or rectangles. I was surprised about the number of designs that emerged and I could probably carry on developing them for the rest of the course! The challenge by the end was trying to make sure I wasn’t duplicating earlier versions.

Twenty different designs using three elements- a block of yellow, a light bulb image, the words light bulb

Twenty designs

The final 20 designs I have selected show the breadth from hand drawn to collage. Some are quite formally arranged while others are more abstract with more random relationships between the three elements. It showed me the value of sketching a wide range of ideas before committing to a final design. It also reinforced the influence of composition when using the same three elements – how the interrelationships between the elements could convey weight, movement, light and so on. In some compositions I noticed my eyes were making a relationship between the light bulb and the colour as if the light was being cast by the bulb. In others the relationship was more random.

This felt like a very valuable exercise and followed well from my research into more minimalist design approaches. Having the constraint of the three elements was really useful in helping explore composition and showing it still leaves plenty of scope for creativity.

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Exercise: Signs & Symbols

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Bootprints on a globe with the top of the planet fading away

Exercise (pg: Graphic Design One): Signs & Symbols

Choose one of the following:

  • Danger
  • Movement
  • Love
  • Here

How does existing visual language represent these concepts? Research different similes and metaphors that are in common use. Document them through drawings, collecting examples and mind maps. Now create an alternative symbol to represent at least one of the concepts.

Looking through my sketchbook I seem to have worked through this exercise fairly systematically. Although I confess there were times I took time out to draw some lightbulbs (for a later exercise!) just for the variation. I started with mindmaps, which gave me the opportunity to explore the concepts and my understanding of them. For each of the concepts I did some of my own sketches of the visuals that came to mind, this was followed with online research and became an iterative process between my sketching and other examples.

  • Initially, the concept that interested me least was ‘Love’ and my research confirmed that the most common symbol used is that of the heart with the colour red.
  • ‘Danger’ tends to be bold, and eye-catching again using red or yellow. This is clearly related to the need to act as a warning in most cases.
  • ‘Here’ is locational, and seems to be mostly associated with arrows, although colour schemes and typography are quite varied.
  • ‘Movement’ was the concept that surprised me most in terms of the direction it took. To start with I thought of it in terms of physical movement but the examples then highlighted its other meaning in terms of ‘a movement.’ Graphic design in relation to activism is an area I have become increasingly interested in (see my recent pins in the sidebar and my Socio Political Graphic Design Pinterest Board) so the connection with movement was a useful one.

The initial examples of physical movement I found focused on sequences of images. Having looked at Krasnopolski, when I was doing my sketches I decided to impose a constraint on myself of representing movement using as few lines as possible which is how the dancing figures emerged. Some of my squiggles reminded me of the Op Art movement so I researched Bridget Riley and others.

I then got confused about the brief in terms of whether an alternative symbol meant something completely different (i.e. love might be represented as a chest of drawers) or whether it was my own adaptation within the existing symbolism of the concept.

I decided this was about my adaptation or development of the symbolism and having looked at the Op Art work decided to attempt combining both ‘movement’ and ‘love’. I wanted to capture the notion of the heart beating but that there may be some distortion – love is not always easy or straightforward. Following some very sketchy drawings in Adobe Draw I moved on to Photoshop and tried out different filters.

This was followed by some work on symbols I might create for the sustainability ‘movement.’ They are intended to capture a sense of the negative impact of our movement across the planet and how it may be slowly disappearing.

My preferred results are:

The heart was created with the wind filter in Photoshop and I like that is distorted and jagged. I liked the way the red in the centre almost looks like an ECG wave form. I prefer the smaller footsteps on the globe I think they convey better the idea of the actions of humanity walking us into a very uncertain future.

In working on the exercise I was intrigued about the apparent universality of symbols and how they become socially and culturally embedded. I had the opportunity to try an activity with the OCA Thames Valley Group, a group of primarily photography students at different stages in their studies that meets monthly. I asked everyone to do a quick illustration of their response to the four concepts. It was fascinating to see the commonality and some of the differences. I particularly liked the notion of the Ying & Yang symbol for love. I am grateful to the group for permission to include their drawings in  my blog.

 

 

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Assignment 2: Reflections on tutor feedback

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It was very useful to have my tutor feedback from Assignment 2 as it has reassured me that I am working in the right direction. Accepting that there are always areas for improvement I feel like my confidence is growing. If nothing else I am less worried about picking up pens or pencils and sketching out my ideas.

The comments from my tutor indicate that:

Overall, your response to part two has been very good. There are some excellent finished outcomes (fruit and veg) and you reflect on your process thoughtfully.

In terms of improvements he has highlighted the need:

To think about how you document your creative process more visually.

This is something I will address in future exercises and assignments. There is definitely a process happening but I recognise that I don’t always capture it as I go and am then confronted with a mass of uploading which becomes a bit daunting. It is also a bit of a personality trait that I do a lot of internal processing and then make what seems to be leaps of logic to others because I expect them to have followed my process! I know it is something I have to be mindful of and that it is helpful for me to be able to look back on the stages I have been through as my work develops.

This has made me reflect on my process and given the feedback I thought I might try and do something visual. I looked at a number of infographics thinking I would try and develop my own. Some of them looked complicated and I wasn’t sure I had the Illustrator skills I needed – then I found the Squiggle which seemed to cover it beautifully!

A squiggle on page to show the design process from messy and untidy to a single line denoting clarity

The Squiggle, Damien Newman (published under Creative Commons)

My process tends to follow a format that I think is reflected in the Squiggle:

  1. Key words – analysing the brief
  2. Mind mapping
  3. Sketching ideas
  4. Researching online/hardcopy examples
  5. More sketches
  6. Shortlisting ideas
  7. Finalising ideas developed
  8. Feedback
  9. Improving final ideas

Project feedback

It is very helpful to have specific feedback on the exercises as I have found that they need a lot of work and they clearly build towards the relevant assignment. Generally, I seem to be approaching them appropriately and my outputs are well received. I was particularly pleased that the HG Wells book covers and Point of Sale materials received positive comments as they both took a lot of time and effort but were also the two I probably enjoyed the most.

Your HG Wells covers were very good, making some intelligent decisions…

Your point of sale artwork was excellent…

In terms of the visualising ideas, it is noted that while I had presented the physical materials well I hadn’t taken this through to a final design. I confess this was a misunderstanding on my part as I had read it as being about the different formats of the leaflets and didn’t do a design as a result! This is a good lesson in reading and analysing the brief thoroughly – clearly a client would not have been amused!

As with the overall comments, the main critique of the exercises is that I have not shared enough of my process visually, including mistakes and variations, which I fully accept and will address in future.

Assignment feedback

It was good to have positive comments in relation to Assignment Two:

Your growing card was very good. It had a clean visual quality…

The snake card was a simple but effective idea

The Tattoo card is good but perhaps the most conventional…the inside phrase and type worked well

My tutor has included a number of useful development suggestions that could have taken the ideas further:

  • Making more of the lettuce photo and creating a better connection between the front cover and the fact the card transforms into a seed tray
  • Maybe considering a different style of Tattoo without flowers to make it less traditional looking
  • Developing my own ideas for the ‘Bake’ card rather than using the stock photo

Of the ‘Bake’ card the feedback says:

As you’ve reflected on, the stock photography of the final card fell a bit flat, especially in comparison with the thumbnails you’ve developed. The sentiment and ideas were there, but your resolution felt off the shelf.

For me the crucial sentence in the feedback is:

Have confidence in the work you are producing.

As my write up for Assignment Two suggested, I think I knew this but I was seduced by the image and should have trusted my instincts and put it to one side. This feels like a very useful piece of learning. I may develop some of the ideas further if time allows as I finish the course.

Further viewing/reading

A number of blogs have been suggested as well as the work of El Lissitzky, which I will now follow up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Exercise: A visual diary

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Collection of sketchbooks and notebooks showing different pictures

Start a scrapbook, sketchbook or use a blog to document the visual world around you. Find examples of visual language that interest you, these could be taken from anywhere (art, film, photography, illustration, design, craft, cinema, hobbies etc. Reflect on what you have been collecting:

  • Are there dominant themes emerging?
  • What does your areas of interest tell you about your own visual language and cultural awareness?

Make notes in your learning log.

This is an exercise I have no problem in undertaking, I have been keeping visual diaries and inspiration for many years. They are on my walls, hanging from the ceiling, in books, folders, scrapbooks, and online.

My areas of interest very much reflect my work and my photography. They focus on concerns I am grappling with such as environmental issues, food production and consumption, and identity. As I have moved through GD1 I think they also pick up on popular culture, identifying and working with messages in art and design and being playful. It is no accident I have a Pinterest board labelled ‘magical.’

I have yet to find the best way to manage all the material I collect but probably the most comprehensive is my Pinterest boards, 51 boards and thousands of pins give me a huge amount of flexibility to collect ideas and inspiration from all fields and genres. My Learning Log now also includes a plugin for my most recent pins so the two are becoming more connected.

I have noticed in recent years I am often more interested in visuals that are clean, clear, stripped back and quite minimal. They don’t have to have an obvious message and I enjoy conceptual work but I do like work that is very crisp and spare.

Interestingly, in the last few months Pop art has also become more of an interest, although it is a movement I was reasonably aware of I had never really connected with it in the past. Having seen the Rauschenberg show and documentary and recently watching the BBC’s ‘Soup Cans and Superstars…’ I am increasingly intrigued by the aspects of activism and political commentary the movement in part contained.

In addition to my Pinterest boards I have also started a visual diary as part of my Learning Log and while this is taking a while to get the hang of, and populate, it is proving useful as a repository of some of the direct influences on my exercises and assignments.

In my photography and design work I am constantly reminded of the Anais Nin quote:

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

I am no longer cautious about seeking feedback, as that is the best way to get a sense of how others see things; I enjoy the fact that other readings of cultural artefacts are different and sometimes surprising. It helps me reflect on my visual awareness and cultural references, and reminds me to be mindful of the assumptions I may be making in my work.

 

 

Assignment Two: Thinking of you

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The brief:

Create a set of greetings cards for sentiments or events that are worthy of a greetings card but are not currently catered for by card manufacturers.  The cards could be linked to other calendar events, obscure Saint’s days, sporting calendars or any other happening that is worth celebrating or commiserating. You may wish to explore some of life’s other landmarks that currently don’t feature in greetings cards, like getting your first grey hairs, being released from prison or any other personal landmark someone might want to share.

Design the cover of your card and the message inside. You may wish to include an envelope. Produce at least three finished cards.

Analysing the brief:

For me the key elements of the brief are:

  • Currently not catered for
  • Worthy of a greeting card

These were the starting points for developing my ideas.

Research and development:

My research process has been documented in my learning log, I worked through a number of phases:

  • Brainstorming ideas
  • Talking to friends and family for their ideas
  • Researching greeting cards and the greeting card market
  • Narrowing down options and developing visuals

Visualising ideas

Throughout the process I kept adding to my Pinterest boards (Swipe file, GD1 Exercises, Postcard Inspiration etc.) , I also developed sketches for a number of the possible ideas before I decided on a shortlist. I developed four cards based on different themes.

Card One: Nice Growing

Seven tumbnail sketches for a greeting card for gardners based on a lettuce

Good Growing sketches

This card was prompted by the lettuces I grew in the summer; with every lettuce I picked I felt a sense of achievement. I thought this would be a nice occasion to mark for anyone who has felt similarly – it could be for other gardeners, for allotment holders or even for windowsill growers. Rather than illustrate it I decided to use a photo. I then used brushes to add some dirt and make it look like the lettuce has just been laid on the card having been pulled from the ground.

In terms of the typeface I wanted something fluid and organic looking that was in keeping with theme. I envisaged that the cards would be bought by women, gardeners and possibly parents (whose children had grown something special).

Once I had decided on the cover I thought more about the buyer and imagined they would probably be practical people, possibly with an interest in environmental sustainability and as such there needed to be something else to the card. That’s when I came up with the idea of making the card do something more and using it as a planter in its own right. Inside there are faint markings for where to fold the card to create a small, environmentally friendly seed tray.

Card Two: Ssssnake

This card started more generally as a congratulations on a new kitten/pet idea and when I did some research it seemed like there were already quite a lot of these available particularly for furry pets. What I didn’t find was anything for reptiles and as a friend have given their son a snake a while ago it made me think this might be a better direction to take.

I did some online research and looked at photos and illustrations of snakes. Early on I decided that as this was likely to be a younger recipient it should be more interesting than a plain card so I wanted to make it a pop-up. Of the set this was the card that caused the most technological challenges in terms of my skills with Illustrator in particular. I did some sketching using Adobe Draw including the colour, which I was then able to transfer as a Jpeg to my desktop. Once I transferred it to Illustrator the colours were completely off, it looked the same in Photoshop but not in Illustrator and I was completely stuck about what to do.

Because I wanted to do the whole set as vectors in illustrator and I had set up the template I decided to persevere. Using the pen tool I then recreated the snake across the front and back of the card and added colour using fill and the brush tool. It was a laborious and at times frustrating process but it has helped me learn some of the features of the programme. Using a similar approach I created the inside of the card and the popup snake which I decided to leave blank so it could be coloured in and personalised to the recipients own snake. It took a little experimenting to find the right place to put the pop-up but in the end I was happy with the effect.

Card Three: Nice Ink

In America nearly one in four people have a tattoo, in the UK it is nearly one in five. They appear to have become more popular with younger people with one in three of 18 to 44 yr olds in the US having a tattoo (YouGov 2015). As an artform tattooing has also evolved involving more subtle and ‘watercolour’ type effects. As someone who got a Tattoo in her 30s I thought this was something to celebrate and while there are some cards available these seem to be mainly aimed at the Tattoo artist rather than the Tattoo recipient.

I wanted to create something that had a contemporary feel and was probably aimed at women. I therefore thought it needed to have a front cover with a more delicate Tattoo style.

I decided to add an internal border that had a reference to more traditional Celtic style Tattooing, also recognising that people tend to have more than one Tattoo. People tend to get Tattoos that are meaningful to them so I wanted the card to celebrate and acknowledge a new Tattoo.

The initial drawings were done with Adobe draw on my iPad, which I then transferred and developed in Illustrator. This took much longer than anticipated because I had to learn how differently the brushes behaved from those in Photoshop. After some consultation with my family members I decided to go with the two scrolls rather than a single central scroll.

It got a little busier as an image than I had intended, I was thinking along the lines of the rose Tattoo I found through my research (Tattoo mood board 2), but it seemed to need the balance of the additional Lilies and leaves   It definitely felt like something that I could keep adding to forever so I had to get to a point where I felt it worked well enough and to be disciplined enough to leave it alone at that point.

Card Four: When in doubt…

Six thumbnail sketches on the theme of baking

Bake Sketches

I was in two minds about whether to include this card as it was the simplest of the set and uses a stock photograph rather than one of my own.  I have a number of friends who work in the food industry and there is obviously a lot of food content on social media and TV so I thought a cooking/baking card might be fun. Something lighthearted, perhaps in the vein of the ‘Keep calm…’ themes. I did some early sketches, which I was reasonably happy with but then when I was looking online I came across this image, which immediately caught my attention.

I have used it in part because it posed an interesting debate for me in terms of being a photographer and being a designer. As a photographer I was uncomfortable about using someone else’s image, but as a designer I was looking for something that communicated a message. After all the brief doesn’t say ‘using only images created by you design a greeting card.’

It seemed to me it was too good an image not to use and it conveyed the idea of baking being fun; something you might do when things are getting tough; something to do with friends or your family. I experimented with using text inside and out and feedback suggested that having text on the front worked better. It was also an interesting experience in that sometimes simple solutions work as well as complicated ones as the section on Occam’s Razor in the course materials suggests.

 

 

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