Category: TY1DP1

Work by Part 1 students as part of their ‘Design Practice’ module.

Obsession

I had chosen the theme of obsession. In this theme, tells a story of a woman frantically looking for a rat in a room. This leads to her dismantling the bookshelves piece by piece, stripping the wood off the wallks and the carper off the floor.

In my project, I wanted to get across the point that the rat was the torment of the woman in the story, as this was the way i had depicted the story.  Therefore, I included the silhouette of a rat behind a disfigured, frantic woman. The idea was that this placement of the rat figure towering over the woman would symbolise the power the rat holds over her. This influence is evidential when the woman ‘dismantles the bookshelved piece by piece’.

 

Love/abuse

In this project we were told pick a contrasting topic with the word provided and create a poster this displays this contrast e.g. in a gif format.

I was given the topic of love. I felt as though the term ‘abuse’ was contrasting to this topic. In my final product, I included figures of a newly wed couple as i felt this represented an act of ‘love’. In order to contrast this and refer back to my contrasting tem topic of abuse, I included subtle give away signs that a relationship is abusive.

On the second slide of the gif, in contrast to the happy figures of the couple, I added dark bruises on the womans arms, shoulders and chest. Looking closer, i included a blue tear on the face of the figure too represent the emotional side of abuse. Further down the poster, i dropped red paint to symbolise blood.

Light at the end of the tunnel

My chosen theme was labyrinth , in order to emulate that theme, i drove to make my book appear as if it has travelled through a vortex, a journey that can be seen throughout the layers of the book itself. To create texture i shaved down the sides of the  pages and carved a whole all the way through to the other side . Furthermore, i singed and burned pages to represent the journey the characters of the book go through . It is distressed with a sense of hope , as there is light at the end of the tunnel i created with a torch , this is able to shine through the book as a whole as creates an interesting aesthetic . I would like to make some altercations such as removing the text of the book from the front cover to create more ambiguity  .

‘Bookception’. Like Inception but not as big of a budget…

For todays brief, we were asked to find an unwanted book to manipulate. We were then given a sample of different blurbs that we had to choose from. With the blurbs we had to identify interesting features in it, so that we could manipulate our books to visually interpret them. I decided to go with the theme of ‘Loop’. its blurb depicted a man getting sucked into a book to witness a murder. I started to highlight interesting words, so I could see what I could recreate from the blurb. I decided that I wanted to play with the man originally getting sucked into the book, and the victim reading a book before he’s murdered. I realised that they are both reading books which I could use to link them. I had researched some examples of artists manipulating books and found ‘A Passage’ by Buzz Spector (1994). I liked how he had ripped each page out, creating a ragged and warp line for each page. The pages also descend in hight, creating  a landscape in the book. I thought I could create this effect but cut out a ragged whole in each page, so it would create a portal like effect. I decided to respond with this idea as it suggested whoever picks up the book, takes on the role as the man (in the blurb) who gets sucked into the story, to watch the murder take place, they would then get sucked into the victims book, taking them back to the initial stage, thus creating a loop. I did this by sketching out a distorted shape on the first page, slipping the cutting matt under it and then cutting it out. I then slipped then next page onto of the matt so I could use the first cut out as a template for cutting the second page. for each page I used the one prior as a template, slowly cutting smaller and smaller shapes to create a sloped effect. I also played around with distorting the shapes more by weaving in and around the previous cut out, creating a wave like effect which looks like a portal.

Covid in Britain

With the design brief , Britain in mind, I thought , as opposed to depicting Britain in a traditional sense, such as with big red buses and telephone boxes, i would display Britain in its current climate during the coronavirus pandemic. This image is a recreation of the British £5 note , with a covid 19 era Boris in place as the key figure on display , using a Great Britain facemask. As a famous landmark, always featured on notes , Big Ben can be seen , this is also to further familiarise the audience with its setting on Britain .The base on Big Ben transitions into the chart for infections on the rise. Further alterations to the original £5 design are the , 2m instead of £5 , in referance to how people had to keep a 2 metre distance from each other during lockdown. The rule of six text replaces, the Bank of England.The final element of text ‘ DOnt go to work ‘ has colour to emphaise how the quote can mean either do or do not go to work , a reflection of the confiusion caused by the Prime ministers speeches.Colour i used sparingly as a display of the dark times we are living in , however, some colour shows that there is still hope . A final addition i wished to have made was to feature a map of Britain in the background behind Boris and Big Ben in the upper half of the note .

Christ or the Antichrist?

For todays brief, we were given a word to respond to. Mine was ‘Religion’, and with this I had to create an image or composition that clearly represented the word. I started. by drawing a spider diagram, writing down any words or ideas that related to religion to see what I could use as a subject. I liked the idea of using a crucifix as my subject as its shape is quite graphically symbolic and well known. I wasn’t sure on the tone I wanted to convey so I started writing down different questions, theories and ideas that people commonly had with religion. I liked the idea that god might not be this perfect image that he’s portrayed to be, and could actually be something sinister. I had this result after questioning why such tragedies happen in the world and why an all powerful being such as god would let them happen. I started questioning if he truly is god or the devil. I wanted to take this idea and inject it into the second image, which is supposed to change the tone of the first by adding an element.

Firstly I started photographing a crucifix that I borrowed. I used this as it was a large enough ornament that also had Jesus on it, making the first image represent the religion christianity, and the pain and suffering Jesus endured. I decided that the most universally understood message of the opposite of god was by turning the cross upside down, I felt that this would be a good way to show how God may in fact act more like the Antichrist. I pinned the cross to my dorms notice board, allowing the cross to be upright, and still have shadows falling down in the correct direction. I knew that I couldn’t just flip the image as the shadows wouldn’t be in the right direction, so I photographed the second image with its bottom sellotaped to the board so it wouldn’t fall forwards. I then uploaded the images to photoshop. I wanted to erase the pins and the sellotape, just to show the cross, which I did through using the clone tool in marked off areas via the section tool. I felt that this symbol and idea of God was very old fashioned so I wanted to replicate that feel. I increased the contrast and turned the images black and white to create an old illustration effect, whilst cleaning up the background. I didn’t want to overcrowd the images so I left them on white backgrounds and liked how the negative space became apart of the cross, suggesting purity. I thought that I could show resentment to the idea of God being the Antichrist through some sort of relic effect, as if someone had scratched and abused it in spite after reading it in a book. I found pngs of scratch marks by pens on paper and selected the outlines and and pasted it onto of the second image, putting the blend option as divide, which broke up the marks and made them distorted and more authentic. I decided to target the face and the script on the cross to emphasise a rejection of the identity and ideals of christianity.

Typography iSpy in UoR

During the 2nd week of mini-projects I was honoured to meet Eric Kindel who presented me with the brief, that, unlike many others, involved going out and exploring real-life examples of eye-catching type around us. These could have been photographs of logos, singular letters/numbers, 3D type etc. Quite luckily that day the weather was quite good, hence providing us with good lighting and subtle shadows that accentuated any raised type.
While outside I focused on finding hidden type, one that wasn’t visible straight away, or its features weren’t as obvious from the distance, as opposed to up close. I also tried photographing these examples of type from different angles, especially if it was raised, to see whether that affected how we see it. After we have taken the photos in the given amount of time, we were asked to produce visual collages based on the common similarities between the typography we have taken photographs of.

Beforehand, I edited any images I wished to use in this mini project via Adobe Photoshop, which allowed me to emphasise some of the features, and make sure that all images within the collage look visually similar to one another. In some cases, I have also straightened up the photographs, making sure that they have some logical perspective, and are overall pleasing to look at.

Working outdoors really reminded me of what it means to be a graphic designer. Having spent a year in London last year, I learnt that working from home is a challenge, as the best and easiest source of inspiration is the world that surrounds us. During this activity, I also consolidated my skills as a Typographer, as it taught me to explore and type that I haven’t paid much attention to in the past.

Monograms – Illustrator design task

So far Kim’s project was one of my favourites as it allowed me to explore something that I’ve been putting my free time into – Illustration design. Although the task asked us to design a monogram using our initials, it felt a lot more personal and therefore really allowed me to express the way I work and approach tasks.

As mentioned previously, the aim of this task was to create a monogram – a combination of two letters, using either Garmond or Futura typefaces. I personally chose Futura, as I am more attracted to the ‘orderly’ aspect of sans-serif typefaces.  Initially, I started sketching out some ideas on my iPad, however, I then decided to go back a step and start designing on paper. Personally, I found this a lot more helpful as I noticed that I was generating more ideas while working on physical paper. After generating some sketches in pen etc, I then decided to go back to working digitally. As we were designing monograms (logos for our initials essentially) I decided to use Adobe Illustrator for this task. I first began recreating some of the sketches I have done previously to see what works best alongside the Futura typeface. The first ideas were quite simple and straightforward, a either one or both letters were upright and looked like two letters put together (literally). It wasn’t until I started looking at more abstract versions of my monogram, I began designing monograms that had some interest to them. The 2nd photograph on this page presents the design development process based on one of the more abstract ideas I have created previously. First I started by rearranging the orientation of these letters, seeing what works and what doesn’t, and then once I was satisfied with the result, I began rotating the monogram in order to see if it looks different/more effective when looked at from a different perspective. My hypothesis was quite right, presenting the monogram at a slight angle made it look more stylised, almost like a logo.

Lastly, I added some colour and drop shadow to the monogram I liked the most. I chose mint green as the primary colour and then matched it with a purple tone that I chose using the colour guide tool in Illustrator. Besides the overall look of this monogram and its colours, I personally like how the letters complement each other, without masking what they are; both ‘n’ and ‘b’ are completely readable but have a more abstract aesthetic to it then.

Stairs

For todays task we were given the freedom to let our creativity flow in this Broken narratives activity. We were given the choice of four themes. I chose the theme ‘stairs’. As stated in the brief a man has been hospitalised for an unnamed disease, the hospital has 7 floors for people like himself, the lower floors are for the more ill patients. He is moved the lower floors as the day goes by he moves further down along the way he reaches a state of hysteric and therefore begins to hallucinate. He eventually reaches the lowest level and therefore death.

Throughout my work I wanted to portray images of illness, death and doubt. I think I did this pretty well and I really enjoyed this task. I wanted to tell the story through a series of different ways and techniques and feel like I achieved this relatively well considering the short time frame.

Some of my techniques failed but it was all about the creative experience. I tried to create stairs going deeper and deeper as every page turned but I couldn’t seem to get it. However i do think the stairs on the front cover are effective. I did the painting of the Earth because i wanted to try and make it as if he was moving further and further away from earth as mentioned in the brief but i didn’t end up finishing this. The black pages with the cut out lines is what i imagined the man would’ve been thinking in the dark times during the storyline because i wanted to make it more emotionally evoking.

Money

My word was Money so I was thinking about making something which represents money and the current situation of  (Covid-19 ). My first page  I had  a bank and then I have  made  money floats outside which then connects to toilet roll.  For my second Illustration I have created a wight scale which shows that toilets rolls are more important now then money.