Glass eye and Intense Ross; know that I was rootin' for you guys alright (even though I didn't snap a picture of your masterpiece) and Ollie/Will/Lauren; you cheat. Excellent.x
Friday, 19 December 2008
Typo Gateaux
Ok so the Christmas period has finally arrived, perhaps too fast for some? I mean it is the credit crunch after all don't ya know! Luckily for us students though the crunch is what it is all about with this deliciously festive cake competition about! With a big thanks to Amber 'Typogateux' is essentially a typographic cake competition that has to fulfill the requirements set within the rules and please the tastebuds of college Principle Edmund Wigan... tall order? Here are some of my faves...
Glass eye and Intense Ross; know that I was rootin' for you guys alright (even though I didn't snap a picture of your masterpiece) and Ollie/Will/Lauren; you cheat. Excellent.
x
Glass eye and Intense Ross; know that I was rootin' for you guys alright (even though I didn't snap a picture of your masterpiece) and Ollie/Will/Lauren; you cheat. Excellent.x
Letterpress Workshop
Alright then, something that I have been waiting a very, very long time for; the letterpress workshop! I have to say I am absolutely in love with old techniques and hand rendered typography; even if it is technically achieved by the means of machinery... but hey, better than a laser or ink jet printer right!? Anyway, the text is a passage sent to me by a friend who now works for the Leicester based design agency Un.titled (big up and check 'em out etc). Very spontaneous and off-the-cuff; you'll have to excuse the French but I'm still in my youth and I am allowed to say things like that now. I mean... I am over 18 and have heard worse? Haha.
So yes, printed my type onto an array of materials even though I only documented the tracing paper on here; it was my favourite I do apologise. The font itself was classic Times, you can't go wrong there really. Good idea as it was my first time experimenting with this method of print. In the words of David 'Glass-eye' Gasi I do seriously have to find an excuse to use this again... Next module maybe?
x
So yes, printed my type onto an array of materials even though I only documented the tracing paper on here; it was my favourite I do apologise. The font itself was classic Times, you can't go wrong there really. Good idea as it was my first time experimenting with this method of print. In the words of David 'Glass-eye' Gasi I do seriously have to find an excuse to use this again... Next module maybe?
x
Monday, 15 December 2008
What if...?
Given my previous research into the number 8, this week cunningly introduced the delights of working within a group in order to collectively research a common theme or interest. As a result of the very organic pin up process completed on Monday, it just so happened that I was teamed up with Chloe, Carl and Craig to explore in depth the topic of 'Melancholy'. This was due to Craig's original research into smoking and lung cancer, Chloe's presentation of sadness within a portrait and Carl's effects of clouds and the weather. (I think I'm starting see a re-occurring quality underpinning my course progress!)
Craig-Myself-Carl-Chloe
After a brief 30 minutes of intense discussion we finally settled on the idea of researching into the illness that goes by the name of Seasonal Affective Disorder; cunningly SAD. Fred suggested not to go anywhere near an investigation that related to the seasons, but we went for the rebel approach and got stuck in. 'Ave it. Amongst this we also looked into suicide rates and daylight hours within England.
Most primarily we identified the problem as being 'During the winter months people feel more depressed'. Therefore we subsequently decided that we needed to cheer people up throughout the snowy (joke) season of this fine and wonderful country! An excellent task.
In order to support these theories our collective body of research was mainly sourced from an array of questionnaires focussed on evaluating peoples moods in relation to the weather. This proved particularly useful in helping us pin point what factors of the winter people didn't like, but also what they did like. We felt that looking at both ends of the spectrum would help us to identify a more informed decision about what could make people smile throughout the given period. Logical, no?
Overall the top 5 words out of a very long list that people chose to describe winter by were as follows: Cold, wet, dark, miserable/depressing and festive. This was additionally supported by the fact that 60% of people preferred the months of spring/summer in opposition to the 25% who preferred autumn/winter. 15% stated no preference.
On the whole, the methods used to obtain various entities of information fell nicely into these four categories:
- Primary Quantitative: Tallied results from questionnaires.
- Primary Qualitative: Questionnaires asking people's opinions, face-to-face discussion.
- Secondary Quantitative: Research into pre-existing statistics on daylight hours, suicide rates and the number of people affected by SAD.
- Secondary Qualitative: Research into SAD, the winter blues, what makes people happy, Gap and Benetton advertising campaigns.
Particularly problematic in my opinion was the collection of secondary sourced research, something I am actually a little surprised about. Most significantly me and the rest of the group found it somewhat difficult to filter out the relevant and more informed pieces of information that would actually aid us in the progression of our project. I feel this may be a skill that increases with experience and plain perseverance? I'll get back to you on that one.
One issue that I felt may have been quite useful would have been to investigate what other creative design processes are available to effectively present a specific aim or purpose. Although I was really proud of what our final resolution(s) turned out to be, I was a little less enthusiastic of the fact that we went for a generic poster/billboard approach. I do not like generic; except for bold Helvetica that is tightly kerned and has an underscore after each sentence. Oh yes.
So, next time:
- Take our research into the public domain on a greater scale.
- Have a stronger sense of direction before going into the photography studio.
- Conduct further research into creative ad-campaigns.
- Choose a resolution format that is realistically achievable in terms of print and production.
- Not leave Carl, Craig and Chloe to their own devices with a camera...
And what did I learn about the design process?:
- Research definitely helps to produce a precision resolution.
- Getting the studio lighting right goes a long way.
- I'm not fond of communicating with general public as they get pissed off.
- Sharing the burdens of any given problem is a blessing.
- Unclear messages can be a big downfall toward the outcome.
Well then, to sum this week up in a nutshell I feel this experience has certainly been beneficial and a very big lesson in getting my head around the importance of informed research. I hope the group are as happy as I am about the final resolutions. I think we done ourselves justice although we just need a full scale copy to put up on a billboard frame somewhere. If you know of any cheap methods of completing this do get in touch.
As it's Christmas soon, here's some presents...
And of course some finals...
x
Most primarily we identified the problem as being 'During the winter months people feel more depressed'. Therefore we subsequently decided that we needed to cheer people up throughout the snowy (joke) season of this fine and wonderful country! An excellent task.
In order to support these theories our collective body of research was mainly sourced from an array of questionnaires focussed on evaluating peoples moods in relation to the weather. This proved particularly useful in helping us pin point what factors of the winter people didn't like, but also what they did like. We felt that looking at both ends of the spectrum would help us to identify a more informed decision about what could make people smile throughout the given period. Logical, no?
Overall the top 5 words out of a very long list that people chose to describe winter by were as follows: Cold, wet, dark, miserable/depressing and festive. This was additionally supported by the fact that 60% of people preferred the months of spring/summer in opposition to the 25% who preferred autumn/winter. 15% stated no preference.
On the whole, the methods used to obtain various entities of information fell nicely into these four categories:
- Primary Quantitative: Tallied results from questionnaires.
- Primary Qualitative: Questionnaires asking people's opinions, face-to-face discussion.
- Secondary Quantitative: Research into pre-existing statistics on daylight hours, suicide rates and the number of people affected by SAD.
- Secondary Qualitative: Research into SAD, the winter blues, what makes people happy, Gap and Benetton advertising campaigns.
Particularly problematic in my opinion was the collection of secondary sourced research, something I am actually a little surprised about. Most significantly me and the rest of the group found it somewhat difficult to filter out the relevant and more informed pieces of information that would actually aid us in the progression of our project. I feel this may be a skill that increases with experience and plain perseverance? I'll get back to you on that one.
One issue that I felt may have been quite useful would have been to investigate what other creative design processes are available to effectively present a specific aim or purpose. Although I was really proud of what our final resolution(s) turned out to be, I was a little less enthusiastic of the fact that we went for a generic poster/billboard approach. I do not like generic; except for bold Helvetica that is tightly kerned and has an underscore after each sentence. Oh yes.
So, next time:
- Take our research into the public domain on a greater scale.
- Have a stronger sense of direction before going into the photography studio.
- Conduct further research into creative ad-campaigns.
- Choose a resolution format that is realistically achievable in terms of print and production.
- Not leave Carl, Craig and Chloe to their own devices with a camera...
And what did I learn about the design process?:
- Research definitely helps to produce a precision resolution.
- Getting the studio lighting right goes a long way.
- I'm not fond of communicating with general public as they get pissed off.
- Sharing the burdens of any given problem is a blessing.
- Unclear messages can be a big downfall toward the outcome.
Well then, to sum this week up in a nutshell I feel this experience has certainly been beneficial and a very big lesson in getting my head around the importance of informed research. I hope the group are as happy as I am about the final resolutions. I think we done ourselves justice although we just need a full scale copy to put up on a billboard frame somewhere. If you know of any cheap methods of completing this do get in touch.
As it's Christmas soon, here's some presents...
And of course some finals...
x
Thursday, 11 December 2008
Helvetica
Before I even began to construct this post; in fact before I even came onto this site to post anything at all, I could already feel a sense of 'oh here we go again'. The mere title, Helvetica... A cliche. It's over-used, it's everywhere. Every street corner, every corporate brand, every tube station, every PC, every Apple Mac. Even my irrelevant pot of drawing pins, paper clips and rubber bands on my desk is emblazoned with 'Desk Tidy' in Helvetica. But never mind. I'm awake, I'm online and I feel compelled to express my feelings having just not only pulled off my first all-nighter since starting university, but also more relevantly watching the film 'Helvetica: A Documentary Film by Gary Hustwit'.
As penned on the website www.helveticafilm.com (and not to forget the blog of David Gasi):
"Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which recently celebrated its 50th birthday) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives."
In the wake of having watched such a movie I have to say I feel slightly enlightened; I won't lie. To me, it was more than beneficial to have received a whirlwind history lesson about the last 50 to 60 years of typography than getting my needy 4 hours of sleep. I feel like a complete geek, but it doesn't matter. That's the way it should be, in my eyes at least. I have to admit, there were some incredible quotes spilling out of the mouths of people such as Erik Spiekermann, Massimo Vignelli, Stefan Sagmeister and so on. I wish I'd had my pen and paper at the ready, but forgive me. It was 4.45am and I wasn't at my most alert that's for sure.
Anyway, I will probably watch it again today at some point; perhaps when the sun is up. All you need to know for now is that it's WELL worth a watch and Liam's DVD hire is now officially open if you wish to have a gander.
x
As penned on the website www.helveticafilm.com (and not to forget the blog of David Gasi):
"Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which recently celebrated its 50th birthday) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives."
In the wake of having watched such a movie I have to say I feel slightly enlightened; I won't lie. To me, it was more than beneficial to have received a whirlwind history lesson about the last 50 to 60 years of typography than getting my needy 4 hours of sleep. I feel like a complete geek, but it doesn't matter. That's the way it should be, in my eyes at least. I have to admit, there were some incredible quotes spilling out of the mouths of people such as Erik Spiekermann, Massimo Vignelli, Stefan Sagmeister and so on. I wish I'd had my pen and paper at the ready, but forgive me. It was 4.45am and I wasn't at my most alert that's for sure.
Anyway, I will probably watch it again today at some point; perhaps when the sun is up. All you need to know for now is that it's WELL worth a watch and Liam's DVD hire is now officially open if you wish to have a gander.
x
C is for 100
In what I thought for a split second might be a cheeky week of rest in fact turned out to be a week that required the capturing of 100 photographs covering the categories of textures, places, people, words and objects. No particular direction or focus, just so long as we covered each group to a certain extent. Time to go home and hit up the British seaside then, good times.
On my adventures back home I was slightly disappointed with the terrible weather and blatent cold conditions. Typical England ey? This didn't deter me however and so I present to you some of my favourite images from my travels.
I tried to avoid the stereotypical seaside tourist imagery and instead ventured to the more southern sections of Pakefield beach where the rusty ol' boats hang out with the rusty ol' chains and odd machinery etc. Ya know, the kind of stuff you don't see on the postcards.
Upon the return to the studio, we split into small groups of four and presented all of our 100 pictures together in a mass army of imagery across the tables. It kind of looked like this...
On my adventures back home I was slightly disappointed with the terrible weather and blatent cold conditions. Typical England ey? This didn't deter me however and so I present to you some of my favourite images from my travels.
I tried to avoid the stereotypical seaside tourist imagery and instead ventured to the more southern sections of Pakefield beach where the rusty ol' boats hang out with the rusty ol' chains and odd machinery etc. Ya know, the kind of stuff you don't see on the postcards.
Upon the return to the studio, we split into small groups of four and presented all of our 100 pictures together in a mass army of imagery across the tables. It kind of looked like this...
(excuse Tim's light-bulb head attire)
Once completed we gave it the ol' switch-a-roo and began to categorise and re-categorise other peoples photographs into possible themes that could be developed even further with more time or research. Luckily for me and Luke, we ended up with Sam's selection of 100 light bulbs...
We categorised them in terms of their brightness, need I say more. Cheers Sam.
Once this was complete and the dust had settled, I ventured back to the wall of fame to observe how my images had been ordered and categorised. In the end I concluded that the best two directions were either in correspondence to number eights in public places or WC signs; both of which I had obviously began to look at by coincidence within my travels to the seaside.
With the pressure mounting, I had roughly five minutes to finalize my decision in order to carry out more research over the coming week. I went with the number 8 vibe as I felt it had more of a broader based background that would in turn allow for a more diverse and hopefully more interesting body of information. Stay tuned, we'll see...
x
P.s I found it quite amusing that all the female signs that I came across seemed to have been... personalised in ways I don't really need to explain. That's Lowestoft for you. Out.
We categorised them in terms of their brightness, need I say more. Cheers Sam.
Once this was complete and the dust had settled, I ventured back to the wall of fame to observe how my images had been ordered and categorised. In the end I concluded that the best two directions were either in correspondence to number eights in public places or WC signs; both of which I had obviously began to look at by coincidence within my travels to the seaside.
With the pressure mounting, I had roughly five minutes to finalize my decision in order to carry out more research over the coming week. I went with the number 8 vibe as I felt it had more of a broader based background that would in turn allow for a more diverse and hopefully more interesting body of information. Stay tuned, we'll see...
x
P.s I found it quite amusing that all the female signs that I came across seemed to have been... personalised in ways I don't really need to explain. That's Lowestoft for you. Out.
Wednesday, 10 December 2008
Visual Lanuage Workshops
What better way to start a new module than with a few workshops dealing with the cutting and sticking of paper; a technique that I surprisingly got almost addicted to back in my youthful days of taking A Levels...
First up it was important to note that 'The Randomiser' was back in full flow and more than ready for a series of words to be plucked from its savage jaws of destiny. With this the challenge was revealed and required the creation of a pure image to represent each given selection. The restrictions were as follows: 150mm x 150mm composition size and nothing other than the provided colour paper to be used. Heres what I came up with...
[Image coming here soon!]
Left to right: Cold, Tall, Engaged, Something, Something else.
Next up it was time to do something that you should apparently avoid whilst on TV; working with animals. The idea was that we had to initially illustrate a verb and an adjective using only primary coloured paper and include one letter form or glyph - all within an A3 square format. Once that was mastered to some extent it was time for the bears, the worms and best of all the penguins. Don't ask. It was fun times though and also really good to see the ways in which people dealt with the restrictions whilst using some clever thinking and top crafting skills.
First up it was important to note that 'The Randomiser' was back in full flow and more than ready for a series of words to be plucked from its savage jaws of destiny. With this the challenge was revealed and required the creation of a pure image to represent each given selection. The restrictions were as follows: 150mm x 150mm composition size and nothing other than the provided colour paper to be used. Heres what I came up with...
[Image coming here soon!]
Left to right: Cold, Tall, Engaged, Something, Something else.
Next up it was time to do something that you should apparently avoid whilst on TV; working with animals. The idea was that we had to initially illustrate a verb and an adjective using only primary coloured paper and include one letter form or glyph - all within an A3 square format. Once that was mastered to some extent it was time for the bears, the worms and best of all the penguins. Don't ask. It was fun times though and also really good to see the ways in which people dealt with the restrictions whilst using some clever thinking and top crafting skills.
Noisy Spin.
Above is 'Sporty Bear' completed by yours truly and 'Cold Bear' completed by Phoenix. What a treat.
x
Above is 'Sporty Bear' completed by yours truly and 'Cold Bear' completed by Phoenix. What a treat.
x
Monday, 24 November 2008
It's All The Same!
As the title suggests really, it's all the same! Or at least that was the idea that I was trying to drive forward within this new and exciting 'Message and Delivery - Mail Shot' brief. No real restrictions this time except for a few minor things regarding colour and dimension. Two colours plus stock and I quote 'You can remake, modify or reproduce the envelope in any other media but the dimensions must remain the same'. Not bad, not badddd.
Again, as with the last brief I decided to illustrate a key figure within the relevant field of subject matter. This time it was media conglomerates and the lucky lad to be reproduced by my pen was Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and CEO of News Corporation for any of you that don't know who he is and why he exists within this world. The idea was simple really, illustrate him and all of the leading brands that he owns via their logos. I think many people would be quite shocked if they realised just how much of the world's media is owned by a very select handful of people.
On the down side however, I did break the rules a little and decided to use only one colour; black. I did think about trying to include some red within the composition but none of my arrangements seemed to work as well as the simple one colour approach. Perhaps I could develop this next time I have chance to breathe... Might happen?
Either way, simple and to the point. The way I like it, not that you'd notice given the size of my previous post...
x
p.s to find out just how much News Corporation infiltrates your life visit www.newscorp.com
Again, as with the last brief I decided to illustrate a key figure within the relevant field of subject matter. This time it was media conglomerates and the lucky lad to be reproduced by my pen was Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and CEO of News Corporation for any of you that don't know who he is and why he exists within this world. The idea was simple really, illustrate him and all of the leading brands that he owns via their logos. I think many people would be quite shocked if they realised just how much of the world's media is owned by a very select handful of people.
On the down side however, I did break the rules a little and decided to use only one colour; black. I did think about trying to include some red within the composition but none of my arrangements seemed to work as well as the simple one colour approach. Perhaps I could develop this next time I have chance to breathe... Might happen?
Either way, simple and to the point. The way I like it, not that you'd notice given the size of my previous post...
x
p.s to find out just how much News Corporation infiltrates your life visit www.newscorp.com
Friday, 21 November 2008
Advert I Sing
To get this brief off to a flying start it was at our discretion to select an engaging article from the September 15th edition of The Guardian and to develop a well structured body of research over what was suitably entitled 'Reading Week'. Relating to my Critical Studies inquiry regarding the text 'No Logo' by Naomi Klein and many other issues surrounding branding and advertising, I naturally selected an article that dealt with advertising head on and boldly stated that 'Adverts are terrible things'. What a swine. With this in mind my research ranged from television advertising to more conventional advertising you'd expect to see within the environment such as billboards and posters and subsequently visited the contrasting notions between capitalist views and communist views from the likes of Karl Marx.
In terms of deliverables it was required that we explored and developed a range of ideas in order to produce a series of three high impact posters at 2:1 scale; A3 format (one text, one image, one text and image combined). As a result, we were given a few warm up exercises that allowed for thoughts to be sprawled out onto paper in a quick-fire fashion. This helpfully prevented many people from having any sort of mind block which can often occur when gazing out of a window in deep thought whilst trying to muster some sort of ground breaking concept!
As you can see from the second picture above, many of my initial ideas surrounded the notion of money and how much of it is actually spent by media conglomerates to promote their brands and products. Getting into a bit of a struggle however, I reviewed my choice of direction and began to work upon the idea that the worlds media and advertising is often quite biased in terms of what sort of message it portrays in any given brand or world event; thus 'advertising can dictate', at least to some extent.
From here my immediate thoughts led to illustrative experimentation that portrayed well known dictators such as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. This in my opinion was the most effective and direct way in which I could convey the themes of dictatorship and link it towards advertising in a visual engaging manner. In juxtaposition with this, I also felt that to adhere to the restrictions outlined by the brief the inclusion of text could be made through some of the most popular slogans that are recognised throughout the world such as Nike's 'Just Do It' and Coca Cola's 'Always Coca Cola'. After a few experimentations though I settled upon using the captions 'I'm lovin' it' from McDonald's and 'I'd rather have a bowl of Coco Pops' from Coco Pops as I felt they suitably contrasted given the context of Hitler's fascist background and Stalin's communist background. One poster concept down.
In approaching a concept for the other two posters I deemed it relevant to try and house the theme of spoken jingles in relation to my selected slogans from McDonald's and Coco Pops. For my text only composition this was achieved by arranging the word advertising into sections to read as 'Advert I Sing' which in itself was accompanied by a small scaled swastika that mimicked the positioning of a trademark or copyright symbol.
Finally for a frame that was only allowed to carry its message through imagery, I began to draft up a list of popular songs that were about money; Abba being the one that sprang to mind first. With this I chose to illustrate a range of monetary icons such as coins, notes and gold bullion bars and selected a way in which I could try and get across to the audience the theme of the song title - 'Money, Money, Money'.
Within my final compositions I decided to use repetition via three cold coins as I felt it reiterated the relevant topic in question. Furthermore, my chosen colour resulted in red and yellow with both colours being directly selected from the packaging for both McDonald's and Coco Pops products. That's when I thought I was home and dry...
Given the final crit, it was suggested that I could perhaps lose the concept of money within the central composition as it didn't directly relate to the corresponding dictatorship idea that I decided to work with further and therefore this is something I would like to develop further should time allow for it.
But as I said before, always room for improvement dammit!
x
In terms of deliverables it was required that we explored and developed a range of ideas in order to produce a series of three high impact posters at 2:1 scale; A3 format (one text, one image, one text and image combined). As a result, we were given a few warm up exercises that allowed for thoughts to be sprawled out onto paper in a quick-fire fashion. This helpfully prevented many people from having any sort of mind block which can often occur when gazing out of a window in deep thought whilst trying to muster some sort of ground breaking concept!
As you can see from the second picture above, many of my initial ideas surrounded the notion of money and how much of it is actually spent by media conglomerates to promote their brands and products. Getting into a bit of a struggle however, I reviewed my choice of direction and began to work upon the idea that the worlds media and advertising is often quite biased in terms of what sort of message it portrays in any given brand or world event; thus 'advertising can dictate', at least to some extent.
From here my immediate thoughts led to illustrative experimentation that portrayed well known dictators such as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. This in my opinion was the most effective and direct way in which I could convey the themes of dictatorship and link it towards advertising in a visual engaging manner. In juxtaposition with this, I also felt that to adhere to the restrictions outlined by the brief the inclusion of text could be made through some of the most popular slogans that are recognised throughout the world such as Nike's 'Just Do It' and Coca Cola's 'Always Coca Cola'. After a few experimentations though I settled upon using the captions 'I'm lovin' it' from McDonald's and 'I'd rather have a bowl of Coco Pops' from Coco Pops as I felt they suitably contrasted given the context of Hitler's fascist background and Stalin's communist background. One poster concept down.
In approaching a concept for the other two posters I deemed it relevant to try and house the theme of spoken jingles in relation to my selected slogans from McDonald's and Coco Pops. For my text only composition this was achieved by arranging the word advertising into sections to read as 'Advert I Sing' which in itself was accompanied by a small scaled swastika that mimicked the positioning of a trademark or copyright symbol.
Finally for a frame that was only allowed to carry its message through imagery, I began to draft up a list of popular songs that were about money; Abba being the one that sprang to mind first. With this I chose to illustrate a range of monetary icons such as coins, notes and gold bullion bars and selected a way in which I could try and get across to the audience the theme of the song title - 'Money, Money, Money'.
Within my final compositions I decided to use repetition via three cold coins as I felt it reiterated the relevant topic in question. Furthermore, my chosen colour resulted in red and yellow with both colours being directly selected from the packaging for both McDonald's and Coco Pops products. That's when I thought I was home and dry...
Given the final crit, it was suggested that I could perhaps lose the concept of money within the central composition as it didn't directly relate to the corresponding dictatorship idea that I decided to work with further and therefore this is something I would like to develop further should time allow for it.
But as I said before, always room for improvement dammit!
x
Thursday, 20 November 2008
Visual Metaphor
A visual metaphor is used to transfer the meaning from one image to another. Although the images may have no close relationship, a metaphor conveys an impression about something relatively unfamiliar by drawing a comparison between it and something familiar.
In similar fashion to an apple representing New York, love represents Paris despite the fact that there is no direct relationship between the two.
In similar fashion to an apple representing New York, love represents Paris despite the fact that there is no direct relationship between the two.
"Does that make sense?" - Fred Bates.
x
x
Visual Metonym
A visual metonym is a symbolic image that is used to make reference to something with a more literal meaning. For example, a cross might be used to signify the church. By way of association the viewer makes a connection between the image and the intended subject. Unlike a visual synecdoche , the two images bear a close relationship, but are not intrinsically linked. And unlike visual metaphors, metonyms do not transfer the characteristics of one image to the other.
Much like the Eiffel Tower, mime artists often represent Paris but differ in the way that they can be found everywhere around that world. As a result, this means that mimed themselves are not something that Paris literally owns exclusively; thus they are not a visual synecdoche.
"Does that seem fair?" - Fred Bates.
x
Much like the Eiffel Tower, mime artists often represent Paris but differ in the way that they can be found everywhere around that world. As a result, this means that mimed themselves are not something that Paris literally owns exclusively; thus they are not a visual synecdoche.
"Does that seem fair?" - Fred Bates.
x
Visual Synecdoche
This term is applied when a part is used to represent the whole, or visa versa. Quite simply, the main subject is substituted for something that is inherently connected to it. This substitution only works if what the synecdoche represents is universally recognised and understood, rather than taken at face value for its literal meaning. The ability to refer to a group or class of objects through a visual device enables a designer to convey an idea in a clean and unfettered manner.
In this instance the Eiffel Tower is commonly acknowledged to represent Paris as a whole, but is in fact only a small part within the city itself.
"Does that seem clear enough?" - Fred Bates.
x
In this instance the Eiffel Tower is commonly acknowledged to represent Paris as a whole, but is in fact only a small part within the city itself.
"Does that seem clear enough?" - Fred Bates.
x
Monday, 17 November 2008
Blue Is Objectified
Well... here we are again. Another day another dollar and as a result of slipping beneath the radar for a while now it has in fact been a few weeks since the completion of this brief. This time I was required to complete a series of ten A5 square (150mm x 150mm) format resolutions that represented my given colour and over in this corner (as you may have guessed from previous briefs) my winning ticket landed me with the colour Blue; a joyful colour that is in no way shape or form related to sadness or misery. Honest.
With the stipulation of not being allowed to use type and image within the same composition (not that I broke the rules or anything) I ended up deciding to tackle my chosen theme through the means of collage; which to be honest is something I am quite comfortable with and enjoy doing rather a lot!
With the crit looming at the end of the week I was pretty nervous, mainly because it was a case of 'your work will be removed from the wall in the nicest possible manner' and put into a pile of shame if it is not worthy of staying up. Luckily for me however, my work managed to remain on the wall along with Ed's (Go TEAM:REP) and received some positive feedback which I was obviously very pleased about.
On the flip side however, one or two people commented upon some of the compositions having slight ambiguity or unclear meanings in regards with what they were supposed to represent.
Always room for improvement dammit!
x
With the stipulation of not being allowed to use type and image within the same composition (not that I broke the rules or anything) I ended up deciding to tackle my chosen theme through the means of collage; which to be honest is something I am quite comfortable with and enjoy doing rather a lot!
With the crit looming at the end of the week I was pretty nervous, mainly because it was a case of 'your work will be removed from the wall in the nicest possible manner' and put into a pile of shame if it is not worthy of staying up. Luckily for me however, my work managed to remain on the wall along with Ed's (Go TEAM:REP) and received some positive feedback which I was obviously very pleased about.
On the flip side however, one or two people commented upon some of the compositions having slight ambiguity or unclear meanings in regards with what they were supposed to represent.
Always room for improvement dammit!
x
Friday, 24 October 2008
Re: John Dyer Baizley
For those of you who that have gotten to know me within the past few months (or have at least managed to read my 'so what's to know' section like any normal person would have done in the first place), you will have probably come to realise that music plays a rather large part of my everyday life; be it playing drums within bands myself or just having a general mooch about the local music scene to see what's going on.
With this in mind, I thought I'd post this post about a particularly influential designer who's work I have really admired over the past few years and first came into contact with through my passion for music and in many cases the packaging that accompanies it.
Being a part of a band called Baroness, Baizley's work is often the subject of their packaging and merchandise designs and anyone who has had a keen enough eye will have noticed the Darkest Hour shirt that I have worn on a couple of occasions was designed by him as well. This goes for numerous other merchandise and packaging designs which are viewable on his website if you take the time to have a look.
For me though I just really love the fine detail that goes into the illustrations themselves and the way in which the texture of various papers play an active part in the finished product overall. Even if some of the content within his images are not ideally suited to your preferred taste, I hope you can still appreciate the skill and commitment that has gone into the work. I think it's increasingly amazing with every new piece that I see.
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Links:
John Dyer Baizley
Baroness
With this in mind, I thought I'd post this post about a particularly influential designer who's work I have really admired over the past few years and first came into contact with through my passion for music and in many cases the packaging that accompanies it.
Being a part of a band called Baroness, Baizley's work is often the subject of their packaging and merchandise designs and anyone who has had a keen enough eye will have noticed the Darkest Hour shirt that I have worn on a couple of occasions was designed by him as well. This goes for numerous other merchandise and packaging designs which are viewable on his website if you take the time to have a look.
For me though I just really love the fine detail that goes into the illustrations themselves and the way in which the texture of various papers play an active part in the finished product overall. Even if some of the content within his images are not ideally suited to your preferred taste, I hope you can still appreciate the skill and commitment that has gone into the work. I think it's increasingly amazing with every new piece that I see.
x
Links:
John Dyer Baizley
Baroness
Friday, 17 October 2008
2w + 3t = 1t + r3
Friday. Good ol' Friday. End of the working week and also the end of an on-going two week brief that has required me to design a typeface (A to Z including the glyphs ! ? £ @ : .) to represent the personalities traits of my given partner. This being the arguably unlucky Lauren.
After some initial interviewing the words that I felt described Lauren most accurately were cynical, devious, good-hearted, hard-working, indecisive, informed, messy, pessimistic, vacant and in a somewhat light-hearted manner; alcoholic. Naturally all of these words didn't fit together in a nice coherent and non-contradictory manner; so I divided them into separate groups that I thought would allow for the best outcome in the long run.
Working with the resultant notion of a "messy and vacant alcoholic" I got to work on some of my immediate ideas involving a hands-on approach with stencils and Indian ink. The base font I chose to develop my unique typeface from was Helvetica in it's boldest format. This was selected in order to convey the bold, out going and 'in your face' side of a happy alcoholic.
Although these results proved successful on many levels, I opted to continue the progression of my ideas through digital means. In doing so, I defined a series of brush presets that allowed me to create a more uniformed font; a font that achieved a sustained house style if you like. This is what I settled with...
From here I took my work into my crit session looking for some supportive feedback and ultimately some outside opinions on what needed to be improved and perhaps developed further. It was suggested that I needed to convey the sense of 'vacant' on the same level as the other two traits and to also experiment with what materials I decided to portray 'messy' and 'alcoholic' through. Back to the drawing board I went.
With this feedback in mind, I set out solving the problems raised within the crit. I got a coffee. I got a fine liner, and off I went; to the lightbox that is. I decided to see what could be achieved through contouring my pre-existing typeface as in my own mind this would directly portray a sense of vacant. The letter forms themselves would be empty inside and I would be left with a hollow shell. Perfect. I additionally wanted to make a conscious use of the negative space within the counters and bowls to distance my typeface from the norm and to also gain an even stronger correlation to the word messy via an abstract approach. This time I thought I had something that worked.
However, as I could only produce one finalised typeface design I opted to go with the contoured series of letter forms as I felt they worked more cohesively as a whole and would be much more readable in a bigger body of text. As a result, I spent the next couple of hours honing the presentation of all of the letters an altering some of the ones that I wasn't particularly happy with; i.e the J and the G which either looked awkward to the eye or were purely not legible enough.
Once completed my next port of call was to produce the deliverables stated within the brief; a name badge for my partner and an A1 sheet of trace that housed my entire alphabet in one uniformed space.
In regards to the name badge I chose to present Laurens name as the abbreviated and slightly informal 'Loz'. This was done in reflection to the alcoholic trait that has many informal connotations attached to it and also because it just worked. It sounded messy, vacant and alcoholic all in one.
Come the final crit, Lauren was largely pleased with what I had produced in regards to her personality traits and said that I had reflected her character well; despite the claims in front of our group that she was in no way, shape or form an alcoholic. Brilliant! On a more serious note though, it was pointed out that the outline of my letter forms could be weighted heavier as to stand out more from a distance. Alternatively I could produce my typeface as white on black in the future which would similarly give out a strong, contrasting finish. Not bad at all then!
x
After some initial interviewing the words that I felt described Lauren most accurately were cynical, devious, good-hearted, hard-working, indecisive, informed, messy, pessimistic, vacant and in a somewhat light-hearted manner; alcoholic. Naturally all of these words didn't fit together in a nice coherent and non-contradictory manner; so I divided them into separate groups that I thought would allow for the best outcome in the long run.
Working with the resultant notion of a "messy and vacant alcoholic" I got to work on some of my immediate ideas involving a hands-on approach with stencils and Indian ink. The base font I chose to develop my unique typeface from was Helvetica in it's boldest format. This was selected in order to convey the bold, out going and 'in your face' side of a happy alcoholic.
Although these results proved successful on many levels, I opted to continue the progression of my ideas through digital means. In doing so, I defined a series of brush presets that allowed me to create a more uniformed font; a font that achieved a sustained house style if you like. This is what I settled with...
From here I took my work into my crit session looking for some supportive feedback and ultimately some outside opinions on what needed to be improved and perhaps developed further. It was suggested that I needed to convey the sense of 'vacant' on the same level as the other two traits and to also experiment with what materials I decided to portray 'messy' and 'alcoholic' through. Back to the drawing board I went.
With this feedback in mind, I set out solving the problems raised within the crit. I got a coffee. I got a fine liner, and off I went; to the lightbox that is. I decided to see what could be achieved through contouring my pre-existing typeface as in my own mind this would directly portray a sense of vacant. The letter forms themselves would be empty inside and I would be left with a hollow shell. Perfect. I additionally wanted to make a conscious use of the negative space within the counters and bowls to distance my typeface from the norm and to also gain an even stronger correlation to the word messy via an abstract approach. This time I thought I had something that worked.
However, as I could only produce one finalised typeface design I opted to go with the contoured series of letter forms as I felt they worked more cohesively as a whole and would be much more readable in a bigger body of text. As a result, I spent the next couple of hours honing the presentation of all of the letters an altering some of the ones that I wasn't particularly happy with; i.e the J and the G which either looked awkward to the eye or were purely not legible enough.
Once completed my next port of call was to produce the deliverables stated within the brief; a name badge for my partner and an A1 sheet of trace that housed my entire alphabet in one uniformed space.
In regards to the name badge I chose to present Laurens name as the abbreviated and slightly informal 'Loz'. This was done in reflection to the alcoholic trait that has many informal connotations attached to it and also because it just worked. It sounded messy, vacant and alcoholic all in one.
Come the final crit, Lauren was largely pleased with what I had produced in regards to her personality traits and said that I had reflected her character well; despite the claims in front of our group that she was in no way, shape or form an alcoholic. Brilliant! On a more serious note though, it was pointed out that the outline of my letter forms could be weighted heavier as to stand out more from a distance. Alternatively I could produce my typeface as white on black in the future which would similarly give out a strong, contrasting finish. Not bad at all then!
x
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