Audiences & Context

GDYR2

Audiences & Context

Martin O’Neill

As a class Martin O’Neill gave us scrap pieces of newspaper and asked us to try and create a phrase or sentence out of letters from the newspaper, once we had all made a phrase or sentence we looked at them all and picked the best one.

We was then given individual letters from the phrase which we was to create to help form the phrase. The letter I was given was the letter I.

We then had a couple of hours to collect waste and objects from around the univer-sity and create our letters to form the alphabet.

This is some of the rubbish that was collected from the class to create the phrase.

Whatever we found floating around the campus we threw on this pile so that any-one who wanted to use it to create their letter could do so.

This is the letter that I created. I made it using empty bottles and cartons to create the top of the I, some tubing that I found to create the stem and two pieces of wood that I nailed together to form the base.

It was really difficult trying to get the I to stand up by itself, I originally used sponge and sticks to create the base of the I however it was not strong enough to hold it up.

Once we had all made our letters we found somewhere big enough to display our phrase.

If I was to do this task again I would hope for a more interesting letter that I could have a bit more fun with as I felt that the letter I was not very fun to work with.

The Phrase in full, Edit by Richard De Cazalet

Manifesto

I was asked to write down 5 things about Graphic Design that interest me, I wrote:

- Branding- Logos- Typography- Image Manipulation- Print

I was then asked to join a group with people that also share the same interests with myself. As a group we was to design a Manifesto relating to our interests about Graphics.

I came across some quotes about Graphics whilst surfing the web and thought it might look quite good to put all the quotes in a manifesto style poser.

There has also been a lot of confusion in the past about what graphic design is, therefore I decided I would find a quote that I thougbt would best suit the definition for graphic design.

I quite enjoyed making the Manifesto with the quotes and will take these further by possibly creating a set of manifestos for each quote.

Martin PawsonBadges

Martin Pawson came in and showed us some of his work which I thought was really good, he then gave us a badge template to work on in the afternoon to create our own set of badges.

I started off by making a series of check shirt badges as I like to wear check shirts, I then thought these had no meaning and they were not very cool, I then created a set of badges for my mood (Happy, Angry, Excited, etc). I also created a set of football badges which I thought about having made as I could of handed these to my friends who supported the teams.

I wanted to create a series of badges that would be humerous and stand out from the crowd, I took the well known and popular TV series Celebrity Juice and used some of the famous sayings used in the show to create a set of badges using bright colours.

I really liked the way the badges come out, If I was to do this task again I would not change much as I feel these were very effective and I had a lot of good feedback however I may change the colours used and maybe mess about with different ef-fects or picture qualities.

Household Workshop

We brief was to, in a group design something out of paper that would get other people to interact with. Myself, Nick, Chris and Koorosh choose to design something that could be made out of the paper, we then started looking at Origami and combining the two together. We decided that we would design a box of cut up shapes that could be used to design different costumes. We choose Fashion Designers as our target market.

Once we had made our interactive package completed we placed it in a busy part of the campus so that people would notice it as they walked past.

These are the four outfits we originally made and cut out, we shuffled them before putting them in the box and then let people figure out the puzzles to creating the costumes.

Not many people figured out the correct sequence for making the outfits however below are some examples of what people made from the outfits to create their own. I think that some of these are better than the original outfits. Someone even created an outfit using every piece of the paper in the box.

I really enjoyed this project and it was great to get other classes respond and take part in our work, we had great feedback from fashion students who said that they could use something like this to create an outfit before actually making it. If I was to do this project again I think I would make the package more simple as I feel a lot of people looked at it and thought it looked like a hard challenge, I also think the outside of the box was not very attractive and eye grabbing so would change this to stand out more and grab more peoples attention.

After having feedback from fashion students saying that they could use something like this to create an outfit before they make it I decided to make a computer generated version of the box. It is similar to the box as you do create your outfit however in the online interactive version you can dress a model in an outfit and choose the colour you want it to be. You would be able to click and drag items onto the male or female body to create your outfit. I think if this was made and put into ac-tion there would be a lot of responses from fashion students. I feel that it could work well and be a fun and interactive way of working.

If I was to create this game and get it to work online then I would create it in a lot more detail and make a lot more items of clothing for a better range and variety. I could see it on the UCA website for students to use as they please.

The Girls

In this task we were to form a group and write down what characteristics we have and what our personalities are like, as a group we all said we were:

- Bubbly- Fun- Out going- Immature

Then when the girls came over to us the first thing they said to us was “Its the Boyband” which straight away gave us the idea of doing a parody on boybands.

We researched boybands and parody boybands to get some ideas for our own parody boyband.

We wanted to have some fun and do a parody of other boybands, for example how boybands pose showing flesh as it attracts the gay society aswell as other target audiences. We did a parody of The Backstreet Boys when they posed with their trousers down. We also looked at other aspects of how boybands pose and a common pose is the serious look as they walk towards the camera. The Wanted do this in a lot of their photos so we also did a parody on them.

As a group we really enjoyed this project and had some fun making it, I think it is one we can always look back on and even develop at a later stage.

We went with the name of The Unwanted not only because we wanted to do a parody on other boybands but also because we was originally a group of 7 and three people decided to do their own project so we felt unwanted and left out, this is where we got our name from. Other names we came up with were:

- Eastlife- Frontstreet Boys- The Jackson 4- S Club 4- Men II Boyz

As a group we had a lot of good feedback and was called ‘The Boyband’ across our class for a number of weeks after the project, I thought I could take this further and contiune the parody as I enjoyed the project and it was an oppotunity to play around with it on my own.

Above are some examples of possible icons for the band for t-shirts, gigs, branding of the band etc.

Gig tickets to be sold to see the band.

I decided to take the project even further and create a Cd cover for the band, I got the sizes of the CD case off of an old case I had at home and used a template to make the actual CD, I then printed the covers and CD and placed the covers in a cd case and cut out and stuck the cd cover to a Cd-Rom.

I made up some funny and non realistic song titles just to continue with the parody and to keep it fun and not take it too seriously.

Making Do

In a group we was given a magazine print and given 6 pages each, we then needed to cut it up and change it using only what we had in front of us which was differ-ent coloured sugar and tissue paper. We decided that our target market was young children so we made the magazine as simple and colourful as possible.

Our feedback was not great as it was meant to be a chil-drens book and it did not turn out very simple, it looked very attractive and eye catching for children however the contents were too much for a child to read, there was too much text and not enought imagery.

If we was too do this task again I think we would change the target market as it did not work very well and try to work better as a team as we just took our 6 pages and got on with it, there was no pattern or theme to the end result and think that if there had of been a running theme and colour scheme then it would have worked better.

‘Charity’

We was asked to pick a word at random and create a video that repre-sents the word without giving the word away in the video. The word we picked from the hat was Charity.

Our original idea was to film a charity shop and the ongoings around it however that was too obvious and would have been very easy to work out, we then started thinking about what you give chartiy for and who you give it too.

Our final idea was too have people go up and give money to someone who is poor and living on the streets. We tried too make the video look sad by having parts of the video in black and white, slowing down parts of the video and playing a song in the background from a charity shops advert.

http://vimeo.com/24230288



Aphorism

Cherish Each Moment of Every Day For it May Never Return.


In this project we were asked to find a Aphorism and create a video that represented the Aphorism without mensioning it to anyone else.

As a group we were unsure what an Aphorism was so we did a bit of research as to what an aphorism was.

Definition:1. A tersely phrased statement of a truth or opinion.2. A brief statement of a principle

Once we knew what this meant we all picked out a Aphorism and then as a group picked the one we liked best. We came up with a few ideas about things we cherish throughout the day and what we remembered came up quite a bit, we chose to have conversations going on in the background as we remember most of what we say during the day and we thought we would try and give our Aphorism away by having empty space in a room as if you have left your conversation behind as you will never get that time back again.

We was lucky enough to invite friends and family along to the Epsom Playhouse to watch each others Aphorisms, I think this went very well, it was a good turn up and is a different way to produce and show work to other students.

I enjoyed working in this team as I was working with students that I do not normally work with, this was a change for me as I like to stay in my comfort zone and work with people I know I can work well with. I would like to come out my comfort zone more often and work with people that I dont normally work with on a more regular basis.

I feel that this brief went really well and I would not change much about it, we recieved good feedback and the group worked really well together and met up when we said we would meet up to do the work.


Paperco

When I was told we would be involved in a project for a company in the industry I was really excited to be apart of it. Myself and Nick looked at the briefs carefully and went with the advertising brief for Paperco however after two days of looking for another group to join us so that we could advertise their product we changed our brief as all groups had been formed already. We then decided to create a Graduates program for Hendersons.

The brief was to create a medium to high end piece of direct mail that would sell the Henderson graduate scheme to students, it needed to sell the program better than other programs on the market. We had to think of a direct piece of mail that would engage with the student and want him/her to read on.

Pop up mail is something that you do not find very often in mail, It is very fun and suprising when you open the envelope. The student would not expect anything to happen. We knew that if we could get something to pop out of an envelope we would automatically engage the student and he/she would interact with our pop out mail. It would also be mail that you could keep and not throw away.

This is what the direct mail piece would look like as it comes through your letterbox.

We wanted the envelope to have a question on it for graduates to read and think that they want to know the answer to that question.

We used a brick falling effect on the top of the envelope using the colours of Hendersons Pie Chart. This was too be linked to our solved Rubix Cube when you open up the envelope.

When the inside of the envelope is pulled out the side there is a answer in front of you. ‘Problem Solved’ meaning that the graduate does not need to look any further. This is also supported by our Pop out solved Rubix Cube.

As you slide the letter out the pop up cube pops out in your face giving the student a surprise and shock.

The cube is under pressure in the en-velope being held by an elastic band so as soon as the letter is pulled out the cube pops into its 3D position.

The colours used to make the Rubix cube is the colours used by Henderson, it contains the Henderson logo so that the graduate does not forget where it has come from at a later date and it is also something that you would not throw away and is something different you can have on your computer desk.

Design & Investigation

Unfortunately I was unable to get work experience for the two weeks so decided to find out if graphic design companies had been affected by the recession in recent months.

I started by emailing people from RBI, Angel, Big Cat and Eye Magazine. I sent the same E-mail to all of these companies.

Hi, I am currently studying graphic design at The University for the Crea-tive Arts (UCA Epsom) and was wondering if you could answer the following question, would really appriciate your time.

Since recession do you feel that the design industry and the budgets and margains to work with have been affected?

Many Thanks

Ricky

(UCA)

I was told before I started sending e-mails to companies that it was a waste of time as I would not have any responses, however I was quietly confident. A week went past and I was gutted that I had no responses. I then come across a business card at work for a company called MediaPlanet. I called Tom Latham from MediaPlanet and he refered me to LinkedIn which is a website you can join and connect with people in the same field or business as yourself.

I joined up to LinkedIn and created a profile for myself as a student studying graphic design.

From here I was then able to message anyone who was in the graphic design industry on LinkedIn. I searched in the search box for graphic designers in London and from here picked out some contacts which I thought sounded interesting.

Some of the E-mails I sent to contacts I got off of LinkedIn.

I was really happy I finally got a response, and was even more happier that he had studied at Epsom. I was given a grate response and was really glad he had taken his time to reply to my message.

I was given some really good information that said that the graphics industry had been affected by the recession and a lot of the work is being produced digitally. For example I did not know that the QR codes were ap-pearing everywhere to save money on advertising and print costs.

I spoke to Tom at MediaPlanet and managed to arrange for me to come and visit the office in London, I met up with Tom and he saw my camera and said that I was unable to use it, I was not very happy about it however had to respect what he said as I was lucky enough to have a tour of the office.

Whilst at MediaPlanet I could not leave without taking at least one picture, I was never going to get away with using my Canon however managed to take a couple with my Phone, Hence the poor quality with no flash.

The print area was very messy and did not look like it was used for much however found out that most of the work they did was sent elsewhere to be printed.

The office was not how I imagined, I was expecting lots of fancy equiptment, lots of staff and lots going on. When I arrived it looked very laid back, the office looked standard and there was only about 12 people in the office. I was very surprised however it look like a good working environment and a good place to be working.

Next time I have any oppotunity to do something like this I will try and get some contacts to possibly find me some work.

If I was to continue my Investigation in the future I would go a lot more in depth and look at different aspects of graphics that may be affected by reces-sion. I would also look at other means of contacting people in the industry for information. I would also try to get work experience as I was gutted I was not able to find any.

The Lab - Make Me ThinkThe Lab was a two week brief that involved both the first year and second year graphic design students in a collaboration to decorate the whole of the second floor with our art, we was able to do whatever we wanted as long as the studio could be returned to normal at the end of the two weeks. We was able to work on previous projects or something completely new and different for the two week brief.

Above are some picture I took of work that was posted around the graphics floor that I really liked and took interest too.

After seeing some of the work that was being pro-duced by people working together I was search-ing for ideas to join in, I was talking to Nick about Japanese Art as I noticed a Koi Carp on the wall and then we started talking about a Japanese Stencil.

We researched Japanese art and decided to free-hand a picture of a pretty woman with long hair and mount it to the wall. We also got a slogon that we thought went with the picture. “Everything Has Beauty, But Not Everyone Can See It”. When you looked at the image of the woman close up it was hard to make out however when you took a step back you could make out the image. We felt that this slogon went well with the image as it is a beau-tiful woman however you can not always see it.

Using a scalpal to carefully cut out the Japanese Woman.

Once we had cut out the woman and the slogon we found a spot on the wall right by the doors for everyone too see as they come up the stairs, we held the work together on the wall with masking tape and put everything in place, when we was happy we removed the masking tape and held our work up with Blu Tack.

We covered the surrounding walls with newspaper so that we got a clean finish to our work, we then decided on painting the woman in red paint as it would be very bright and attractive, we wanted the text to be bold and stand out just as much as the woman so did this in a black paint to make it look strong and meaningful.

We let the paint dry for a couple of hours before we pulled off the stencil and newspaper.

When we first started putting the stencil on the wall we was arguing about what colour to use to paint the Japanese Woman, I think that in the end the red was the best colour to use as it came out better than expected and looked really good on a plain white wall.

After we had done the stencil I thought I would see what it may have looked like in other colours so played about in Photoshop to create some different colour stencils.

I think The Lab was a great success and went really well, I think that if we was to do another Lab then we should get other classes involved and take the work elsewhere for everyone too see it and not hidden away on the second floor. I think that the 24 hour lock in was a very good idea however was a very bad time for myself and probably others in year two as the CS essay was due in that week. I would have really liked to take part in that so hopefully there will be another one that I can take part in.I think if I was to be involved with another Lab brief I would try and work with one of the first years as I feel that I need to come out my comfort zone and work with someone new and meet new people. Overall I think that The Lab was very successful and we should take part in something like this in the future.

Independent Practice

Last semester I was looking at Photo Manipulation and different ways it is used, I looked at magazine covers and how people on the front covers are manipulated to look good. I also looked at manual manipulation like breaking pictures apart and taking objects away from their original form and making them look like something else.

One think I did last semester which I got very good feedback on was editing images using bleach. I decided to develop this and during this semester I have been taking pictures of colourful things like flowers and fish. I remebered that the bleach burns through bright colours better than it did with black and white or dull photographs.

Last semester I just used bleach to edit the pictures, this semester I have mixed the bleach in three quantities giving three different effects. I used:

- 25% Bleach, 75% Water- 50% Bleach, 50% Water- 75% Bleach, 25% Water

I put the pictures in the bleach for different periods of time to get different effects and outcomes.

A collection of bright and colourful pictures taken from around town, places I had visited over the Easter holidays and some pictures from The Lab.

Before

After

25% Bleach, 75% WaterEach image left in the solution for 20 seconds.



80% Bleach, 20% WaterLeft in the solution for 5 seconds.

As you can see the solution was so strong that it burnt the whole image leaving nothing left to see.

I saw this pyramid of boxes stacked on top of each other in a shop displaying different images on each side and thought it might be good if I created something similar with the pictures that I Bleached.

I got two boxes from the local supermarket, I pieced them together and glued them together, I just painted them black to get rid of the marks that were left on the boxes, I then used the stencil that I used in The Lab brief for the top of the box and covered the rest of the box and he box below it in a collage of blached photographs.

I think that the boxes have come out quite good and it is a really good way to display my pictures, its something I can keep and look back on and develop at a later stage.

I have really enjoyed bleaching the photographs and have enjoyed watching them unfold in the solution, you never know what end result you are going to get until you rinse off the bleach.

I feel that this is something I can continue to do and take further by introducing new ways of manually manipulationg images, I could use a different chemical to try to create a different effect or even use a different method to bleach the photos.

EvaluationI have found this semester a lot more enjoyable than last semester, I feel I have engaged more with the course and have enjoyed working in groups and independently. I have always liked working in groups as it motivates me and this semster I have had lots of oppotunities to work in groups and have found that this has made me engage more with the course. There has been briefs that I have not enjoyed however there has aalso been briefs that I have loved taking part in. I did not feel engaged with the Making Do brief and did not like this very much as the group I was working in worked more individually and came together at the end to produce the work. I really enjoyed taking part in The Lab and watching other students work in progress and I really enjoyed being apart of the Parody boyband as it was a fun brief to take part in.Overall this sememster I feel I have more confidence in myself and my work that I am producing however still feel that I have more to give and can still push myself harder as I feel in some projects I know I could of done better.I am very nervous however excited to see what the third year brings, I have spoken to some third years who have said it is great so I am really looking forward to getting involved.

Bibliographyhttp://designwashere.com/80-inspiring-quotes-about-design/

http://www.graphicdesignblog.org/graphic-design-quotes/

http://www.gaysports.co.uk/famous_musicians/b/backstreet_boys/image_pic1_backstreet_boys_pants_down_001_jpg.php

http://thewantedmusic.com/

http://grammar.about.com/od/ab/g/aphorismterm.htm

http://www.henderson.com/sites/henderson/uk_pi/home.aspx

http://www.popupmailers.co.uk/index.php

http://www.mediaplanet.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/

http://www.worldgallery.co.uk/m/Japanese-Art-Prints-39-1.html

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Audiences & Context