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
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