OUGD102 Design Process Evaluation

What practical skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

Over the duration of this module I feel that I have learnt numerous techniques which have helped me to develop on both a personal and professional level. In terms of hand crafted approaches, the most valuable skill I have learnt would be the process of binding and creating a full-section, perfect bound book. Not only did this look professional and slick given the correct craftsmanship, it also helped to inform my design process whilst dealing with the question 'what is a book?' Furthermore, in working with digital design for a book it was more than useful being familiarized with the program Indesign. Overall this definitely helped me to accomplish an array of mock up publications as well as final pieces.

What approaches to/methods of problem solving have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

On a personal level, I found this module really beneficial in correspondence to keeping a blog and gaining feedback from ever evolving updates. In addition, the habit of keeping design sheets and visually communicating ideas was essential in being able to develop my design process and therefore advance with the multiple approaches I had operating at any given time. Group work was also good in sharing methods of approach whilst rebounding ideas from one person to the next.

What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

From my point of view, I am particularly fond of the resolutions created where I worked alongside the subject matter in question; Joker cards in this instance. Most primarily, the bolt hinged cards were of significant success and should the idea have lent itself to presenting 100 cards more appropriately I would have most definitely pushed this further overall. In addition to this, I feel my research for this module was well informed and therefore lead to stronger idea development and design progression.

What weakness can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?

Although contradictory to the context of the brief, I would have liked to have reached a more professional level in terms of the final resolutions that were produced. Furthermore, I felt that in some cases I only scratched the surface with some methods of approach and as a result I would be more inclined to limit the range of design processes that I try to deal with in any given brief.

Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

1. Limit the range of ideas that I try to develop and instead develop a more focussed selection more comprehensively

2. Engage with my blog posting even more than previously as this seems to be an ever more useful process of acquiring feedback and development suggestions

3. Im going to try and keep myself busy between one module to the next as letting myself out of routine has notably resulted in a lack of motivation in some instances.

4. Build upon my skills with Indesign as I have come to realise this is a very useful piece of software; especially in conjunction with designing for a book.

5. Yes fred, I want to manage my time better! I have the worst sleeping patterns at the best of times and this can often lead to idling about the studio.

Are there any things we could have done differently that would have benefitted your progress?

Take a more aggressive line on how constructive feedback should be given, and not to book out mac suites and print rooms on days where you are going to pen in mandatory crit sessions.

How would you grade yourself on the following areas?

Attendance - 5

Punctuality - 3 or 4

Motivation - 2

Commitment - 3 or 4

Quantity of work produced - 3

Quality of work produced - 3

Contribution to the group - 5

Revealing ey?

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Laughing Is Fun For Everyone

Sadly I can't embed this video onto my blog because the BBC is a letdown, but either way follow this link and you'll soon discover how good laughing is for your health. You might even feel a little better yourself after watching it, it's well worth the click of a mouse button.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7870141.stm

For me it kind of ties in with the 100 rips video produced by Jimmy in the third year. Seeings as I'm on a roll I don't seem to be able to get hold of that either, but the main thing to for me is how the context of laughter (as a development from 'Joker') can have a beneficial and contextual purpose.

A video of '100 Laughs' anybody?

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Status Report 2

With the ever increasing pressure of getting this module complete, I bring to you a late night whirlwind round up of what has been going on over the past week or two in regards to my book of 100. Don't get your hopes up though, I still intend to maintain a good level of communication to keep you all well informed; put the kettle on now if you were thinking about it within the last 10 minutes or so...

First of all, as planned I finally got around to revisiting my approach of working with a book that was crafted from one sheet of paper. In referencing back to the work of Deb Rindl, I gave his method a shot which involved a very structured way of folding and cutting to get an A2 sheet of paper down into a tidy 'book like' creation. From completing this process I found that the book itself was quite novelty despite not having a content or designed finish, but once folded out into its original form it became quite irritating and not very user friendly; at least not to hold up with your hands anyway. With this under my belt I still deemed it relevant to design a few mock up ideas of what would perhaps be suitable for the posters content given its format. In looking back to some initial research, I took slight influence from Asli Kalinglu's 'Post-graduate of Fine Arts Catelogoue' which used an array of bright colours and simple type to house a very effective stylistic.





From here I similarly revisited a previous idea that I felt needed further development due to the feedback received in various crit sessions. Most primarily it was noted that I should round-off the corners of my A5 booklet to give it a more card like style that was obviously relevant to its content. Even though this was more of a finishing touch to the re-designing process, I think the overall idea was very beneficial although I would like to have seen it done using a professional die cutting system as opposed to my crafty hands and some scissors.



In terms of page design itself, I additionally inserted a copyrights page for a professional looking aesthetic and also rounded off the corners of my imagery to enhance the playing card stylistic in conjunction with the corners of the booklet all together.




With the most significant of my developments now complete, I subsequently began to look at a few binding methods that made use of the playing cards themselves. First and foremost, I researched into a range of old Japanese techniques due to the fact that playing cards are thought to have originated from Japan and China. Traditionally however, this method of stitching used hemp as a form of thread but as this wasn't available to me at the time I used contemporary wool that you might see your Grandma making a scarf out of. I wish this idea would have lent itself to 100 playing cards more than what it did.



Another idea that I wish would have worked with 100 cards in one solid entity was this method of using a bolted hinge to form a slide-out booklet not to dissimilar to paint swatch testers you'd find in stores such as B&Q. In looking back, had this approach been more suitable to what I had planned then I would have most certainly developed it into a final resolution. Not only do I feel it is interesting, engaging and above all; accessible. I think it's novelty aesthetic helps to house the purpose and context more appropriately than any of the other processes that I have come across so far. Ten books of ten would have been an ideal way to take this further had I have been able to acquire ten identical bolts. Shame.





Last but by no means least, a more abstract avenue that I decided to take my ideas down was in the form of a hand illustrated joke book. In looking at designers such as David Shrigley, David Foldvari and Seb Jarnot in particular, I felt that a really loose and relaxed approach to the illustration would be more suitable for what I was trying to convey. Overall as a final format, I borrowed the idea of using pull out postcards at A5 scale to house my 100 collected jokes/things that people found funny. Although I didn't get to complete this idea to it's full potential either I would have like to have used a heat binding process that allowed each card to be accessable within its own right for the purpose of perhaps being used as mini posters. In looking at the most suitable way of completing this, I would more likely be inclined to produce ten books of ten that would act as a collectable series; thus maintaining a higher level of interest.




Over and out.

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Status Report

Ok, so before I begin to crack on with this post I feel that I have to submit a formal warning due to the fact that this is probably going to be a bit of a long one; I am intending to show a few ideas that I have been experimenting with over the past two to three weeks you see. First of all, as you should all be aware of by now, my focus of research fell within the realms of joker cards and their designs. I collected one hundred of these as previously stated and to start off with I thought a few visuals of these could be interesting...



As an initial idea, I was really keen to work with designing a book from one sheet of paper that would fold out into a bigger design, thus housing the format of a poster. I mainly focussed on trying to convey a form of colour swatch using the reverse pattern design of each card as I personally found them rather engaging. When put together into one solid composition I think that the idea is quite successful and does engage an audience visually on some level. Despite this though, if I were to ask the question 'Would I put this on my wall?' ...well, I feel I would have to say no. Revisions are needed I think. What's more, at the time of constructing this design I hadn't come across the work by Deb Rindl which is shown below in the post 'Book? What's that then...'. In looking at his approach it is in my own opinion that his work provides a very successful method of folding and layout which culminates for a better result. Hopefully in coming weeks I will find the time to re-assess this idea amongst other plans I have for a book of jokers.





At this point I felt in my own mind that I had a personal vendetta to produce something that was more 'book like'... on a stereotypical level at least. With this I aimed to produce an A5 scale, thirty-two page booklet that would be able to engage the audience from cover to cover. After a short seminar with Fred, I borrowed the idea of photographing my objects whilst arranged in a pile based on the order of their height. I would then remove a card each time a photograph was taken and therefore be left with nothing; except one hundred photographs to document the process of course. As well as this however, I wanted to incorporate a range of statistics that I had discovered within my initial stages of research as this would not only make the book more unique, but also give an additional level of interest whilst reading.



As shown, I decided upon re-using some of the design work that was originally intended for my poster layout for the front and back covers. This works particularly well although might be a little misleading due to the fact that the content of the book is based on the face side of each card; not their patterned reverse.







Overall the feedback for this booklet was very positive and some rather constructive suggestions were made to make the physical appearance of the book more like a joker card itself. These included such things as rounding off the corners of the book, stylize the page numbering to look like the commonly recognised corners of playing cards, perhaps design a casing along the lines of a card box, to use paper that is of a similar weight to a playing card and to finally opt for a rectangular image format as opposed to square. All in all, a set of trivial details that I think would make the book even more successful; can't ask for more than that really!

So that brings me to now, two weeks left and a whole bunch of ideas to plough on with. Check back very shortly for updates as well as a fresh batch of book research to get your graphical juices flowing.

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Book Binding Workshop

So here we are, another ingenious workshop from the man of the moment - (that's Roger for any of you that couldn't guess). I really can't comprehend his humor in all honesty, it's just too good. Make sure you don't come under the firing line though, he shows no mercy! Either way, as a result of very good tutoring I ended up making this little gem with the bare might of my own crafty hands. Think I done pretty well besides a minor glue leakage at the last hurdle. Burgundy with a sandy brown? I thought so too!






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Book of 100 - Statement of Intent

Focus: The general idea of this brief through the eyes of yours truly is how to document a collective of 100 joker cards in an interesting and visually engaging manner. Just how this will be done? Well, I'm not 100% on that yet. I'm really feeling the whole reverse pattern vibe and what sort of content is portrayed through the main 'joker' character itself. Countries of origin are also of interest as a variation of sizes have become increasingly apparent, as have shape and historical reference information. Perhaps an insight on how various organisations tend to advertise on the joker card could be of some interest? We shall see... Hopefully I can devise a more obscure and complex way forward with this brief. MUST.THINK.OUTSIDE.THE.BOX.

Research: At the time of detailing this post of intent, I currently have in my possession a vast array of 100 joker cards from all over the world. Origins include America, Spain, Egypt, China, Hong Kong, Britain and Japan to name but a few. I also have 24 extras, but that's besides the point. From these I have tried to systematically categorise them in many different ways. Size, shape, number of sides, the amount of text, the amount of imagery, how many actually state the word 'joker', how many advertise somewhere within the design, what the primary colour of the reverse is, etc etc. You name it I have pretty much been there. Where to go from here however? Possibly a few variations of designs from my own creative fingertips and a neatly arranged selection of illustrations would be a good way in which to continue from this point onwards. I would also be keen to somehow use the cards as a prop within a studio based photo shoot; the idea of a 100 card pickup is something I think could really work well. Hopefully it could be humorous too? Ideally I'd aim to get down to the very nitty-gritty details of the cards themselves. I believe that some uncommon yet slightly mundane information may serve as a good point of interest if portrayed in an effective manner visually.

Process: Returning to my favourite method of illustration, I'd most like to work within the realms of collage in order to produce a series of my own designs. This is as well as looking at pre-existing ones found within contemporary popular culture - i.e Batman: The Dark Knight 72 joker card designs picture gallery. (Special Feature discs are always a winner!) If possible however, a highly geeky representation of facts and statistics through illustrative design would be a challenge I'd be more than willing to take. If this route takes my intentions towards the digital side of design then Adobe Indesign would be a key feature when arranging my documents for print.

Evaluation: In order to evaluate my progress and methods of approach I am a firm believer of group conducted crits that obtain various sources of feedback; each of which I hope to be unique in what they say. This way a varied and particularly organic collection of ideas can be acquired which given an appropriate selection can assist in the development of any given task. My main area of purpose that I aim to evalaute against simply boils down to the fact of 'Does this idea make a simple and relatively dull subject matter interesting?' Although this might prove to be slighlty open ended and very vulnerable to personal points of view, I am confident that a general consensus would and could be recognised from a larger cross section of feedback.

Book? What's that then...

Well, where better to start some research into the topic 'book' than with a literal meaning of the word from one of the best selling publications of all time; the dictionary.

1. Portable written or printed treatise filling a number of sheets fastened together (forming roll, or usu. with sheets sewn or pasted hingewise & enclosed in cover); literary composition that would fill such a set of sheets (or several) if printed; (fig.) anything from which one may learn, also imaginary record, list, etc.

So without further ado, here are some of the more creative and visually appealing examples of a so called 'book' that I have come across since embarking upon this quest:

'10 Poems for Pandorra' - Victoria Bean.

'Catelogue; Post-graduate fine arts' - Asli Kalinglu.


'The Book Maker' - Deb Rindl.


'Tiling Books' - Pete Sampsom.


'Pile of Books' - Adriaan Mellegers.

At this moment in time the making of a book from one piece of A2 paper really appeals to me, perhaps even as a simple fold-out poster approach; not too dissimilar from Asli Kalinglu's catelogue?

Either way, I am sure there will be more discoveries to come. Check back!

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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...






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