A Walk In The Woods

Mistakes...

War On Want

A couple of weeks ago a speaker from War On Want came to talk to us about the charity's current campaigns and to explain what they have achieved as an organisation and what they plan to achieve, for an upcoming brief. The talk was very informative and it was extremely saddening to hear about the conditions in which some people work and live. It very much puts life into perspective. We have not received the brief for this project although I suspect it will have something to do with the 'Love Fashion, Hate Sweatshops' campaign that is currently running. I will try to use this time between projects to research more into the charity and brainstrom some ideas...

We'll Know...

PPRD Text and Image

The Text and Image project as a whole has allowed me to think more about planning my work, considering alternative ideas before starting. The unit has also taught me more about typography and choosing the right typeface or image to fit the particular client and type of communication it is aimed at. I have learnt the importance of time management and how important prioritising is.

Final Hand In

So I'm all ready to go...I'm beginning to panic by everyone else getting panicked, I'm not sure if I should be staying up all night working too, but I'm pretty sure everything is complete. There seems to be a lot of spare time on this course, I had everything ready for the deadline but now I have tuesday and wednesday off with nothing to do... Hopefully once I've received this unit back I'll be given some advise as to how to use my time better and what to improve on.

I Would Have...

Visual Equations PPRD

This unit is to show everything that has been learnt so far about text and image so I tried to include a lot of the semiotic theories I had learnt, and also the lessons I had learnt in typography. I decided to look at different forms of communication throughout time. I wrote a list of many types of communication, and then mismatched these types to create each image. Once the mediums were paired this allowed me to think further into each image. The message I wanted to convey with these pieces is how each message only seems to make sense within its own context, and how this changes when it the context is changed. For example, when a text message takes days to be created in embroidery, rather than seconds on a mobile phone, an audience may take more time to think about what has been said. Given time I would have liked to look at other means of communication and also physically create some of these ideas such as the wax seal on an envelope.

Count Down...

There is less than a week left until handing in this unit so I'm currently trying to make sure my sketchbook has all my workings clearly shown and that I have included everything I have done in the last couple of months. I am also trying to use this time to reflect on things that have gone well and areas in which I need to improve. I think my time management has been good as I am not rushing at the moment to complete everything. However, I think I may rush into projects without planning properly, now I'm aware of this I will definitely work on it with the next unit.

Visual Equations Continued

This is another Visual Equation created using embroidery again but conveying a different message. I do like this piece and I had fun parodying the usual 'Home Sweet Home' embroideries, however, I mentioned this in a group tutorial and it was suggested this idea was too obvious. I am going to include it in my six images because it took a long time to make and does fit in with my other pieces. I have learnt though that I should not jump straight into creating images because it was a real set back receiving this feedback a week before this project is due.

Promo Booklet

The Crit for the Promo booklet was today. It was hard learning Quark and putting more consideration into the grids and layout. I think my booklet is clear and does show all the information that it needs to. However, it is not as visually interesting as I would have liked it to be. I have rotated the text on the front cover but every other page is quite uniform. I did play around with the layout however the more adventurous I was it seemed there was less point in having a grid.

The crit for this brief was different in that everyone gave an opinion on specific areas of the booklet, I think this worked well as people seemed to give more honest opinions and every detail was covered.

Promo Print PPRD

This unit allowed me to learn how to use Quark and learn about grids and layouts. Previously I had not put much thought into the grid or layout when I have decided on a composition so planning a double spread on paper before actually creating it allowed me to give much more thought into what worked and what did not work, as well as learning all the terms for each part of the page. Using a grid seemed to make it quite hard to make the book unique. It was also hard to keep the theme consistent without having a large amount of work to choose from to include. I decided to keep each page very clean and simple, using white space where possible. I think the book was successful although I would have liked more variety within it. It does not seem to catch the viewer’s attention although it is easy to read and successfully communicates the information needed.

Visual Equations

The first of my visual equations looking at communication, mixing old and new. This embroidery took far too long to do and I'm very glad its finished now. It is based on the old Nokia style text message so that it can be easily recogised. One down, only five to go...

Paula Scher

On Thursday I went to London to see Paula Scher speak at D&AD.
The full lecture can be seen HERE

It was a fantastic lecture and very inspiring. Her work varied greatly from record covers at Atlantic and CBS Records to identity and branding systems. In her own time she painted intricately detailed typographic paintings.

Spending the day in London also gave us a chance to look at several art shops, and a lovely book binding shop called Shepherds full of interesting types of paper.

Dada Poem

This is my Dada poem visual representation. This was inspired by random words that have been cut out then picked from an envelope. My sentence was; 'waterfall your lure or less kills smarter snow perfect addict'. After looking at several Dada artists I created this image using Photoshop trying to incorporate all the words that i had chosen.

Letterpress: Playful Type PPRD

This project allowed me to think much more about composition, as I was able to spend a long time concentrating on how an individual letter would look on a page and how, when put together, words could create different meanings by the way they are presented. Working with letters so intensely made me think more about their shape and variations in size and typeface. Mixing typefaces and sizes created an interesting miss-match effect whilst letters from the same set created a uniform effect; combining both resulted in an equally interesting composition. As well as thinking more about the way the letters are arranged it also made me think about colour, which colours worked well together and, through experimentation, which did not work so well. The pieces I am particularly pleased with are those that are most simple and convey a message clearly. I have only had three sessions working with letterpress, so with each mark I have made I am still finding out what works well and what does not. Given more time I would experiment in much more in depth and create many more images of what worked well, using a variety of different backgrounds. I enjoyed using letterpress as it was unlike anything I have done before. I also loved the work of other artists who used letterpress; Alan Kitching and David Carson particularly stood out. I think letterpress can be very effective giving an almost vintage feel to text.

Final Letterpress Session

Last Thursday was the last chance to use the letterpress for the text and image project, and I'm really glad I signed up for it. I managed to experiment with newspaper, maps and other types of paper getting some really interesting images.

Glyph Crit

Today was the critique for the Glyph Project. The glyphs were made using Illustrator, a program I've not used before. I presented two glyphs, a bollard and a boat, and one icon, 'Poole Printmakers' text. I had made others but this selection were the most recognisable and had the most interesting shapes.

Letterpress Crit

We have just had the critique for our Letterpress, Playful Type project. The pieces I chose to display was one on the word Sequence, where I had repeated it again and again to mimic its meaning, and the word boundary, where I had used a large upper case B to keep the other letters away as a boundary and then mirrored the word against itself. I have signed up for another letterpress session on thursday to experiment further, using different paper, like maps, more newspaper and also looking into the words meanings deeper.