Guest Lecture: Only Studio

Daniel and Matthew came in from Only studio and exhibited their work in an online portfolio format. I noticed how simple their designs where, with the use of san serif fonts and basic colour schemes.

In the lecture, they showed us the branding that they had produced for the festival the "lost village". I absolutely loved this as i am interested in festivals anyway, and this festival had a twist. The way Matthew and Daniel branded this new up and coming festival was very clever, and they defiantly thought of how the brand would be used socially. They created a very simple logo for the festival that would be easy for the general public to recreate. This will do a world of good in advertising the brand.

I like the logo for "lost village" as it is very simple and easy to replicate. It takes both the L and the V and used the typeface to create a logo with the letterforms crossing.

Matthew and Daniel also talked about how the they spent a lot of time creating the storyline behind the festival, which was to add character to the event and create a better experience for festival goers. The concept behind the back story is to give the feeling of the "woods coming alive". By adding this to the festival it may appeal to more people, or could be classed as a niche brand, as it has a very indie feeling about it.

The design of the website works well with the rest of the brand, as it embraces the handmade typeface that gives the festival an edge, with the crisp clean simplistic design that makes the website easy to navigate, and has a very nice aesthetic about it. The website acts as a hub for the brand, bringing all of the different elements, such as merchandise, tickets, and the story behind the festival together in one place. I like how they have made each characters backstory so accessible, and people can learn about their story, and then might see them when they go to the event itself. The whole brand as a whole works very well, and I am impressed with what Only studios have produced.

Animated Stig

For this session of process and production, we had to create a character in Adobe Illustrator, and used Adobe After Effects to animate the character. I also created the background in Adobe Illustrator. 


Animated Stig from Jack Pomfret on Vimeo.

I decided to add shadows to the illustration for the background, as I believe that this created more depth, and made the illustration more aesthetically pleasing. However, because of this, I had to add a shadow to the moving character that I have created.

This caused a problem, as I was not sure how to create a shadow in the shape of the character, which would also move to the movement. After struggling with this, i finally duplicated the character, and changed the colours to the same colour of the shadows. I then used effects in order to flatten the shadow to the floor. I believe that this worked very well, and I am pleased with the result of the animation.

Style

We started the seminar looking at the question "What is style?" The group came up with the definition; style is a group of things that are similar by sharing a common theme.

We watched a video, Moving on, Cornal West question and answer, focusing more on the style of clothes. However he says that clothes are not just clothes in their style, however it reflects a way of life. The way people dress reflects them, and what life they live. He dresses in an old style, dressing like an old jazz musician.

Henry miller gives a grounded explanation of his own style; "I invent, distort , lie, inflate, exaggerate, confound and confuse as the mood seizes me. I obey only my own instincts and intuitions."

Truman Capote claimed in an interview that a style is the "mirror of an artist's sensibility - more so than the content of his work"

Style vs Content: Can their be a content without a style? Can one act outside style?

Breuer believed in the "purposeful construction of logical designed objects" He believed that he was making logical decisions when designing the chairs, however he was designing them out of style in the time period.

Styles create an argument. There are style, style and more styles, and people may agree with some and not with others. Styles can be a form of opinion. What people like, and dislike. This can create an argument between two peoples opinions i.e two styles for example.


Structuring style; a style is a class which is made up of a set of attributes.

Drawing Objects

In the process and production session with John Kelly, we did inside drawing with objects. The first thing that we had to do was focus on perspective drawing with line. This was what i ended up with. It could do with some work, however it is in perspective to the objects that we were drawing therefore i believe that it was successful in that respect. 

We then had to focus on tone. For this exercise i was sat at the table with physical type. For the first experiment with this, i used a pencil and used different pressures on the paper in order to create the different shades. This was to create the 3d effect, with the shadows and light. 

I also had a go with coloured markers for this specific exercise. I found this difficult and it can defiantly do with some work. 

However the next task was to experiment with what we wanted, therefore in order to develop my marker skills i decided i would practice with that. I think that when using the grey markers i managed to produce a better result than with the coloured. 

Recap

In the seminar we had a recap of all of the things that we have gone through with James so far. This was very helpful as we went back over the key words and some of the areas that i had partially forgotten about. We went through these in a chronological order.

Firstly looking at ways to approach research. In this particular seminar we looked at the idea of 20 questions. This was so we are open to change with a call and response approach which would result in different aspects of research being looked into. This may help to develop a project further or help with experimentation.

We then recapped the convergence lecture. This was about different techniques and even practices, coming together in order to create something unique. This lecture was an exciting one, as it was more practical based. It included putting together different newspaper cuttings in order to produce a piece. However the main thing that i found exciting about convergence is the multi practice, with different create arts coming together in order to produce something unique.

Abstract and Intros was the next thing we recapped. This was about opening an essay in a concise and interesting manner. The main aspects of a good abstract is opening strong. These first lines are the ones that you want to draw in the reader with. An abstract should be concise and exact, with the use of clipped writing to do this. You should always remember your pace and ask the questions your reader needs.

Finally, we recapped the most recent seminar session. This was all about style. This asked the question; is there content without style? My answer to this is no. Style is a part of everything, it can be an opinion, a way of dressing, and a way of life. Even when someone says that it is styleless, that is a style within itself. Styles are made up of different attributes. It can be seen as an imaginary box and different attributes are added to that box in order to create a certain style.

We did not look at future genealogy again as this was covered in great detail at the start of the seminar sessions. Overall, the seminar was very useful and i believe that i understand the things we looked at a lot better than i did before the session.

Summary Seminar

We looked over the topics that we have already covered as a quick recap before finishing the first term. This helped me jog my memory of the things that we have looked at.

Style is one of the topics that really interested me when we looked at it the first time, and re visiting the subject made me think about the concept again and how style is such a huge thing in our lives, and people do not really notice it as much as we could do. The fact that everything could be classed as a style is interesting, and even styleless-ness could be classed as a style in its own right.

Narrative Design

In this lecture with Stephen, he explained how important it is to fit a narrative to design, as this is a way in which helps you as a designer to communicate an idea to the audience in a visual way successfully.

We were shown a diagram that is used to explain the different stages of a narrative. This was created by a man called Arther Quiller-Couch.

The diagram starts with Exposition and then moves onto rising action. There is then the climax which is the main part of the narrative that people remember. After this, there is falling action and then denouement.

I took AS Media at college and i remember looking at a diagram that resembled the one exhibited. I never really thought about applying this knowledge into design.

We briefly looked at a video on TOMS shoes. The video explained the story behind the shoes, and i was surprised by what i saw. The reason for toms being created was to help the children in Argentina who didn't have shoes. For every pair sold, one pair was given away to those in need.  Even the name "TOMS" is derived from "Tomorrow shoes" as this is what they were named, because they would be the shoes for the children in the future.

I think that this video is a brilliant example of how a narrative can help when designing, as it can tie a person into the product or service emotionally. The video exhibited below has been beautifully made and follows the narrative structure. I am defiantly going to look more into narrative when designing, as i think that this is something that could really help me to improve my design outputs and help me to reach a new level of quality that i have not managed to reach thus far in my design career.

Unlocking Innovation

The seminar started off looking at Albert Einstein as he is known to be an amazing thinker.  He once said that it is important how the question is framed. 5 + 5 = 10 however if you ask the question 'What two numbers add up to 10?" then this created a wider range of answers.

The task for the seminar was to create something that could be flipped in a visual way. We were asked to make a transformation from one word to the other in 9 stages. This could include using pattern, colour, type or imagery to merge the stages into a visual narrative.

This was the example used to show the stages from one animal to another. It was created by an artist called Ecsher. 

Guest Lecture: Territory Studio

Territory studios came to talk to us in a guest lecture, and I can honestly say that the work that was shown was absolutely incredible. The studio works on massive motion pictures with marvel for example. They created the graphic computer interfaces for The avengers Age of Ultron. Some of the UI's that they created for this film are absolute masterpieces, as can be seen below.


AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON [UI Reel] from Ernex on Vimeo.

They explained how illustrator, cinema 4D and after effects all work together in order to create this graphic and i was blown away by the amount of detail put into the designs. It is only a small studio, and one person would create an entire UI in one day. Starting on illustrator and cinema 4D in the morning to set up a framework, and moving to after effects for it to be animated later.

After looking at some of the things that Territory studios have produced, I think that i will take more of an interest in Cinema 4d, as i believe that this is a very powerful tool to learn hoe to use.

Abstract writing task

In order to create a new brand identity for Blackburn, which can be easily recognised, a number of elements need to be addressed which will come together to create the new image of the town. These will include; the colour scheme, typography and the logos for the different areas of focus; education, entertainment, council based documentation and advertising and religion. The different outputs will be exhibited, focusing on the different ways the new brand will be incorporated into the town.

I intend to create a booklet that maps out the brand guidelines, looking at what the brand should look like, how it should be used and where it should be used. This will include mock ups, showing the re-branding in the actual streets of blackburn. The desired outcome of the re-brand is to create a contemporary brand identity for the town, which can be easily recognised and will reflect the movement towards the future of Blackburn opposed to living in the past. 

Perception or illusion?

Putting design into a social concept. Understanding how we work as human beings. Convey meaning through visual communication.

We achieve meaningful communication through developing a deep self awareness and more importantly the how audience perceive things. Designing for a useful purpose that will work in the real world. Taking into account the things that you can't see. Looking at different perspectives of design and investigate things that aren’t as obvious.

The image that we see when it hits the eye is upside down, however our brain flips the image. This is a good example of perception, as the things we see are filtered into different parts of our memory. 

A touch can change perception, and the mood of someone. An example of this was on the video where a women went into a library. The women on the desk touched her arm and did not smile, however when the customer was asked, she said that she thought that the cashier women smiled however did not touch her. 

We skipped further into the video and watched a basketball being thrown between some players, having to focus on the ones with the yellow jackets. As i was focusing on counting how many times they threw the ba

ll between each other, i didn't notice a man in a gorilla costume walk through the frame.

We then looked at optical illusions. This specific one is a test for people who are colour blind. I was able to see all of the numbers, 6,12,68, 8, 10 and 74. However some people were not able to see the numbers due to not being able to see primary colours properly. 

This plays a trick with the bling spot in your eye. We all have a blind spot where our retina connects. We drew this on a piece of paper and put the paper at arms length. As we moved the paper closer to our face, we couldn't tell how far away the paper was and hit ourselves in the nose. 

Due to the contrast on this image, it make it look like the image is moving even though there is no animation involved at all. This is down to the eye attempting to make sense of the image. If you focus on one black dot, the image should stop moving. 

InDesign Interactive PDF

The third InDesign task started with looking into setting up a grid in pixel perfect. This was so it was easier to design the album cover for web based content, as when an object was nudged with the arrow key for example, it would move one pixel, opposed to a bit of a pixel. In order to change this we went into units and increments on InDesign preferences. I realised that it is very important to set up a document correctly before creating the design, as the small things such as increments and units, as well as having a baseline grid and workspace grid to help with alignment and composition creates a more professional looking graphic, and can help save time in the long run.

The aim was to recreate this album cover first, with help from the grid in order to place the shapes and type in the correct place. We went into more depth on alignment of shapes as the album cover was recreated, and I learned how to align multiple shapes vertically and horizontally to create a consistent gap between the shapes. This really helped to add to the aesthetic of the piece. 

We also learned how to create swatches. This helped to recreate the album cover more efficiently, as it allowed me to eye drop the colours from the original design and save the colours into a custom swatch. This allowed me to use the colours when ever they were needed. This made the process of deigning the cover a lot easier and efficient.  

This is my recreation of the album cover. I used arial black for the font as this was the closest i could find to the original. I created the Sutton logo on illustrator and placed it into the indesign document. At this point, paragraph styles were introduced. This was a very useful tool as it allowed for the colour of text as well as the font, size and even leading and tracking to be customised and saved. This is another way of saving time when designing a large document. 

We then created incorporated images, placeholder text and a video into the InDesign document. This would allow a button and a contense page to be added later on in the Interactive PDF setting. 

I used the 'basic paragraph' paragraph style for the placeholder text. The chapter headings were created with the 'chapter headings' paragraph style. This made it possible for a contense to be created. When creating the contense page, i selected the chapter headings paragraph style. This added the chapter headings to the contense. When each heading on the contense is selected in the interactive PDF, the user will be taken to that particular page in the document. 

Another feature of an interactive PDF is adding buttons. This also allows the user to quickly navigate to another part of the document by selecting the button. In this case we learned how to turn an object into a button, therefore we chose to use the inner blue circle on the album cover as the button. 

We added an drop shadow effect to the shape in the fx. toolbar in InDesign when the cursor hovers over the button in order to make it visible to the user. 

Overall, i learned a lot of new features and functionalities of InDesign in this session. I believe that i may use an interactive PDF in the future, especially if i want to show off an animation in a document format. It is very customisable, and creates a professional finish if done correctly. I will defiantly use swatches, paragraph styles and pay attention to units and increments in the future when using InDesign, as this saves a lot of time in the long run. 

Intro to abstract

In this seminar we looked at the introduction to abstract. After having a genealogy recap with James we were asked the question "what is an abstract?".  We learned that an abstract is a brief summary or overview of the context. An abstract is usually between 250-500 words, and its purpose is to give the audience an idea of what is going to happen in a short and sweet paragraph.

After talking about this, James went on to show us some clips. We had a task to split into groups, and each of us had to summarise 20 seconds of the clip. When each of us had summarised our short bit of the clip in one sentence, and added it to everyone else's sentences, we created an abstract. However it did not flow as an abstract should because everyone thinks slightly differently.



After watching the clips, we watched a clip from casablanca. This is not a film that i have seen before, however have heard of it. It is meant to be a good film and is classed somewhat as a classic. When watching this clip, i noticed that it was a very good example of an abstract. Each of the characters were asking the right questions in order for the audience to know what is going on. When one character says "two exit visa's" and the other character asks "why?", this introduces new characters into the scene, Questions like this in films are what keep the narrative moving, and allows the character to give an abstract.



Finally we were shown a had example. This was a clip from a film called "the room". I have never heard of this film personally, and after watching the clip, i never intend to watch it. In the clip, none of the correct questions where asked for the audiences benefit and things where shown that had no relevance to the storyline. An example of this is where the character pats the dog on the head. This brings attention to the dog, however it has nothing to do with what is happening in the scene. The speech isn't vey informative either, and nothing could be taken from the quick conversation that both of the characters had. This would be a terrible example of an abstract. I can defiantly tell the difference when comparing the clip from "casablanca", and the clip from "the room".



A tip that James gave about writing an abstract was to start off strong. This will set the tone for the whole essay, therefore you need to make it interesting, in order to intrigue the reader into reading on. I found this seminar interesting, and think that i now know what an abstract is and what are good things that i should do what writing an abstract, and bad things that i shouldn't.

Key Words

Objective - a thing aimed at or sought; a goal.

Contingency - a future event or circumstance which is possible but cannot be predicted with certainty.

History - the study of past events, particularly in human affairs.

Genealogy - a line of descent traced continuously from an ancestor.

Subjective - based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.

Establishing Chart - introducing a frame of interest rather than being an actual technique.

Perspective - the art of representing three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional surface so as to give the right impression of their height, width, depth, and position in relation to each other.

Pre conceived - something that has already been created.

Attributes - what makes up a style.

Intensities - how style works.

Style - a style can be a way of life, a way in which someone dresses and acts, however it is more than just design.

Stylesness - something without a style, however this is not possible, as something without a style is a style itself.

Influence - the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behaviour of someone or something, or the effect itself.

Opposition - resistance or dissent, expressed in action or argument.

Repetition - a style has the ability to come back.

Philosophical - relating to the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence.

Fears of the dark - Peur(s) du noir

Richard Mcguire - mapped a particular place over a period of time. Intersected other images into a main image which is in 1964, and added other smaller images that link with the main image looking at other time periods such as 1932, 1993 and 2014. 

 

The animation started with a figure walking through the snow as a silhouette, and knocking on the windowed door of a house aggressively. The screen goes dark and something smashes, then a light match is lit in order for the audience to see only areas of the screen at one time. This creates a good visual that links well with 'fear in the dark'
as silhouette images, with deep shadows creates an creepy effect. 

Loud and sudden noises are used in order to create a jumpy effect, and the man in the animation seems distressed in some parts of the animation. An example of this is when bats suddenly fly out of the darkness and scare the man. Silent moments are used to create suspense and anticipation before the sudden louder noises. 

The man looks through a photo album listening to a song on the record player which creates an eery feel. Some of the heads in the photos have been cut out which is not explained in the animation.

Their is a scene that is being repeated throughout the of the man pulling a spiders leg out of his hand, with it getting longer each time. 

A women is introduced which appears to be the figment of the mans imagination, as when she cuts him with a knife he is not hurt. It could be speculated that the women is out of the photo album that he had been looking at prior to the scene. 

The man is attacked by something in the dark with a flurry of fast paced images which created a scene that cannot be explained. He is hitting at nothing with a metal weapon.

The animation plays with silhouettes in the dark. An example of this is where flowers are made to look like a face coming out of the shadows before he moves closer and the extra light shows their true identity. 

The man is very cared and distressed at this point and is stuck in a room kicking at the door with a box falling down on him with a mannequins head falling out and distressing him more. He manages to hit his way through the outer wall so he can see the outside through a small crack, however the women appears with the knife behind her back. There is a sound of children playing outside the house, however the mans screams for help are taken wrongly and the children run away.

Intro and Abstract

The seminar started looking at key words from last week. We were separated into groups and James went round the room and got a key word and definitions from each group.

We then looked at 'What is the point of abstract?'. Ab abstract is something existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence. An essay will start with an abstract therefore it is a good skill to have. When writing a 5000 -10000 word essay 250 - 500 words will be expected for an abstract which is 1 paragraph or 10 to 20 sentences. It is important to keep the start of the essay clear and concise, and interesting enough to make the reader want to continue.

We then looked at a short clip called; Withnail and I. Each group had to write a sentence about 20 seconds of the clip. My group had the 20 - 40 seconds part of the clip. My sentence was 'A character who hadn't slept in 60 hours was very annoyed and quite aggressive, with the smaller character attempting to calm him down over the washing of dishes.'

What I took from this task was that I should be able to summarise something in one sentence without any access. This is called clipped writing. When putting all of the sentences together from the group, there ended up being a paragraph to summarise the clip.

We then looked at Casablanca in regards to where the dialogue take us and whats revealed. It wasn't to fast and didn't drag and introduced a relationship between two characters. The whole character profile was described in one sentence 'In a cynical shell and inside a sentimentalist.' It involved a lot of content which creates intrigue leaving the viewer wanting to watch more. What I took from this is that it is the same with the start of an essay. Ask the correct questions for the reader and summarise what needs to be said in a clear and concise fashion as clipped writing does not mean in has to be inconsequential.

Post-It Pixel Parlance Workshop

In workshop week I took part in a group task which consisted of creating the words 'work' and 'play' by using marker pens to fill in the post it notes in order to create a word on a board. The process helped me work as part of a team with people who I hadn't met before.

The word 'work' was constructed on the board first, and photos where taken each time another post it note was added to the board. This would a allow a time laps to be created of the process. Once the word was on the board, we then slowly started to make the transformation from 'work' to 'play'.

The transformation consisted of different coloured post it notes being added and the other word slowly becoming more visible. Overall I think the main task went well, however in hind sight I may have gone about the transition in a different way. Also there are people visible in some of the photos which in my opinion takes away from the still motion video effects. 

A small group of us decided to create a second post it note design, however this time instead of using words we created the classic game 'Snake'. We used the same process of taking photos after each post it note had been added and slowly made the snake bigger as it ate the food. The result of this was good. We concluded the game with a flashing game over after the snake had died. 

InDesign double page spread

In this process and production session, we focused on laying out type on indesign. 

This is the example that we were given, and had the task of recreating it. 

This was my recreation of the piece. 

I feel like i am becoming more confident in using indesign, and believe that it is a very important tool to have, especially as a graphic designer. I underestimated the need for the program before i came to university, however now i have looked into the program in a little bit more depth, I can see why the program is needed. 

Post-it typography

In the seminar, we were instructed to create our own type. These are a few of the fonts I created. Looking back at what I created, I think I could have produced something more interesting if i had taken into account the use of the post it note itself. If I were to do it again, I would experiment with 3D type, created out of the post it note. 

This is a short clip of the classes post it note letterforms at the front of the room.

Convergence

From this lecture, i took away that convergence can be explained in a number of ways. These could be things such as multi disciplinary, inter disciplinary, cross disciplinary, synergy, integrated and finally  hybrid.  However i took away from this session that different creative practices can come together and work on a project in order to create something spectacular, drawing upon other peoples strengths.

This is something that really interests me, as i have a number of design ideas that i would love to create, however may not hold the correct skills in order to complete the design to an adequate standard. This could be asking someone from fine art to draw something that i may want to animate, or to ask someone from photography to take some high resolution photos that i may wasnt for a magazine or look book etc.

Flew said in 2009 that convergence is interlinking of computing and IT, communications networks and social media, however others such as Grant,Wilkinson argue in 2011 that convergence is the relationship between media forms, not a transition from old media to new.

In my opinion, i agree with Grant, as i still believe that both new practices and old can be used together in order to create something, and therefore it is not a transition away from older methods of creatives, however bringing together different methods and techniques in order to create something unique.

Interior Space Drawing Exercise

For the second drawing workshop with John, we focused on the interior of the creative arts building.

I went on the different floors of the building in order to get different points of view. The main aim was to get the perspective right. I believe that I did this, however I did struggle and I had to spend extra time after the session to catch up on the work. 

Urbanized - Gary Hustwit

Urbanized is a documentary directed by Gary Hustwit, a director, photographer, editor, producer and book publisher. It looks into urban design of cities, revealing the concept of everything being designed in a certain way for a reason. Throughout the documentary; economic, social and environmental forces are taken into account when looking at how urban design is being used to address technological changes as well as innovation in transportation.

One thing that stood out to me whilst watching the documentary was the power of urban design and how the use of the environment can be a strong advertising alternative. An example of this is Tidystreets.org. This was a campaign in Brighton, England. Its purpose was to create a more energy efficient street, which was done through the use of using templates and spraying the streets energy usage on the road outside the residents houses. After interviewing the residents, it had defiantly had a positive impact on their thinking towards saving energy.

Urbanized also demonstrated how perspective has a large influence on how people interpret design. An example of this is Brasilia. It has been designed as a simple and rational city, and is easily accessible via transport. However the designer did not look at Brasilia in a number of viewpoints, and as a result, this has created a city that is a nightmare to navigate on foot. I could speculate that the designer did not take into account the people of the city, and did not look at it from their perspective, and instead, only focused on the aesthetic look of the place and not the usability.

Another example of this is Jane Jacobs opposition to Robert Moses, in his plans to overhaul her neighbourhood, Greenwich Village, in order to implement a new express way. Moses did not take the perspective of neighbourhood into account. He is perceived as one of the master builders of the era, however in this particular case, he was very insensitive in his plans, and did not take into account the consequences of building the express way on the residents of Greenwich Village. This specific story made me realise that design can be interpreted in many different ways, by many different people. This may be down to their personal feelings or even historic heritage of the place, however whatever the reason, urban design is perceived differently dependent on what perspective it is being viewed.

Huddersfields interview with Gary Hustwit. 

Game of thrones promo

I also made a start on designing aspects of the short 10 second clip that we will be designing on Adobe After Effects . I created this vector of House Lannister's sigil on illustrator. This is on a wide screen display in order to fit to the big screen when added to After Effects.

I am pleased with the way the lion and the stag turned out. I think the different layers add depth to the vectors, which makes them stand out. I used the catch phrases/ mottos of the houses, along with the houses name.

With these vectors, I took screenshots of different areas of the animals, in order to create different camera angles for the promo animation as shown below.


Game of thrones promo from Jack Pomfret on Vimeo.

I am happy with the way the animation turned out, as it is my first time using the program. however, i do believe that i could improve the animation with a bit more practice of how to use After Effects.

Exterior Urban Drawing Exercise

For our first process and production session with John, the task was to go out around Huddersfield and draw the things that we saw, mainly focusing on line drawings, and looking at perspective. This included looking at the gothic quarter, as well as Primark and the market.

I found this task difficult, as drawing is not my strongest skill. The drawing of the building below, as you can see is not to the correct perspective and this is where i struggled to begin with. By the end of the session this was the only drawing that i was happy to show, even though it is not entirely correct.

In my own time, i worked on this drawing technique and believe i have made a massive improvement. The perspectives in the next two line drawings are a lot better than the first. It took me a few tries to get these correct, however i finally got there. 

In the final drawing which i drew outside Primark, it made the task harder to incorporate people into the piece. As they were moving, i tried to remember what they had looked like roughly as they were stood somewhere, and then created a general shape of the person. I think that the end result looks ok.

Overall, i think that i have improved greatly from when i first attempted the task. However i still feel that drawing is a very weak point in my skills and could use considerable work. 

Post it note task

When we were first given the brief on 'sense of place', Richard set us a task to place two post it notes onto a board with our ideas of sense of place written on them. This got me thinking a lot about what sense of place actually was and what it meant to me.

I personally chose 'Family' as one of the things that reminded me of sense of place because when I am at home with my family, this is where I feel most comfortable. I also chose greenery and nature. This also reminds me of home as it is full of moors and fields, and is also a comfort to me.

It was surprising how many people said similar things, and as well progressed through the task, we started to put similar ideas next to each other in order to create small clusters of data. This gave me an idea! As I looked at the board, I realised that we we're mainly focusing on what was most similar, however there was also very unique responses that I stared to take into account. I think that something I will look at in the future is both the differences and similarities of sense of place, based on variables of the people giving information. This could include, gender, working class, and location etc.

Overall the task was very helpful and informative. It also gave me the idea to take an infographic approach, which I may pursue after my research has concluded. However one thing that I believe could have been improved is if people had to write one thing which made a good sense of place and one thing which made a bad sense of place. I think that this would have given a larger scope of information if directed in this way.

  This is a video of the class placing the post it notes on the board. 

InDesign Modernist Poster

In this workshop, we learned how to use the basic tools of InDesign, and focused on the use of a grid in design. Josef Müller-Brockmann is known for his use of grids in design, therefore was an artist that we used to practice with the tools on Adobe InDesign.

Original

Recreation

Original

Mid Creation

Recreation

I had only used indesign briefly before, and was therefore not very confident in using the program. However as I began to create the poster above, I realised that it is very much like Illustrator, as there are similar tools. This made the process of recreating the posters a lot easier, and my confidence with the use of indesign has improved. I am happy with the way the first poster turned out as I think that it is similar to the original. 

The second poster also went well, and I believe that it is similar to the original with my own twist. In order to create this piece, I used rectangles and lines, however the way in which I placed them on the page when originally creating the piece was vertical and horizontal. I added the angle to the design after the different aspects had been placed. 

I enjoyed creating these pieces, as I am a fan of Josef Müller-Brockmann, and think that his work is interesting. I intend to research more into him as an artist and may use him in future for inspiration on projects. I believe that the session went well in terms of using InDesign, and how to create a piece with the use of a grid. However personally, I would rather design with my creative eye than to a grid, as in my opinion the grid can restrict where things are placed in a design resulting in the final product being ridged and not as aesthetically pleasing as it could have been if the grid had not been used. For this specific exercise however, the grids worked well.  

Future Genealogies

For our first seminar, the focus was 'Future Genealogies'. The aim of the seminar was to think of potential future situations in groups and come up with something that could either aid or solve the situation. In order to do this we created a mind map, talking as a group and collectively deciding on what it was we would go forward with.

This is the mind map that we produced.

As you can see, we decided to look into vanity. This is something that everyone can relate with to some degree. With todays society and the media, it has become an important thing to most people to look acceptable in public. 

We decided that the situation would be if everyone became self obsessed and did not interact or socialise with other people. The idea of no direct contact with other people came from a game 'Second Life' where people have a virtual life. This has been known to take over peoples social lives and they become distant to society. 

With this in mind, we came up with some ideas for products that may be produced if people where self obsessed and did not want to be a part of society. As they would be vein, it is important that the person looked good to themselves. This is where the idea of vanity glasses came from. These would be glasses that made you look handsome/pretty when you looked at yourself in the mirror or a reflection. 

We also talked about the gradual move to social media opposed to speaking face to face, and the impact this has had on society as a whole in todays day and age. We manufactured a scenario of people only speaking online, and how this would impact life. for example, if people had no real contact, this would include sexual contact meaning that we couldn't reproduce. This is where the idea of clones sprang to mind.

Overall, I enjoyed the seminar, as it got me thinking of potential situations and allowed me to be creative in my way of thinking in order to produce a product/process that could potentially aid or solve the situation. 

Setting up the Blog and Vimeo Account

For the first Process and Production session with Sara, we all had to create a blog on blogger which will be used to showcase our work and theory throughout the year. This was easy enough to to and i successfully created the Blog.

We also had to create a Vimeo Account. This will be used to showcase the animations we produce in after effects workshops with Sara. Vimeo is a more creative version of youtube, and has a lot of interesting visual content. I look forward to producing some animations and getting to know how to use After Effects.