CollideJumanah Nessa

The briefAfter reviewing the brief I came up with a few notes to help me to structure my work.

The main aim is to “create a contemporary piece for personal promotion and the Collide exhibition”. We are to create both a physical and digital outcome which explores one or a combination of the following themes; Happiness, The internet and Your future self.

We should include research and development, experimentation with materials, techniques as well as other fields such as photography, fashion, music etc. Prototyping, a final outcome and also keep our blogs up to date with ongoing process and production tasks and studio work.

Formative assessment: 22nd FebruarySummative assessment: 16th May

HappinessDuring the lecture about the brief, one thing that stuck with me, was, the idea that Stefan Sagmeister pointed out in a talk, where he said people do not care about your own personal happiness and that the answer is to evoke happiness through your work not convey happiness. This can be done by finding common themes that make people in general happy.

Some initial ideas I had for this theme was, portraying the concept of happiness in music, fashion and art as a graphic outcome.

My next idea was combining happiness with your future self. For example I could combine what makes you happy now and what would make your future self happy.

These are just my initial ideas and I will expand on these later.

Your future selfSome initial ideas I had for this topic was to explore society as a whole in the future, looking at future technology, music, clothing, etc. One example of future technology is “The Void”, a virtual reality game which is currently being trialled in the U.S.

Another idea, was to think about what I personally will be doing in the future and what I would like to achieve etc. I could include topics such as family and career aspirations. However, similarly to the idea of happiness, no one cares about your personal life as it is irrelevant to them, and so I doubt this will be successful.

Artist researchJon Contino - Illustrator

Nuno Da Costa - Fashion Illustrator

Kara Walker - Illustrator

Natalie Lines - Illustrator

Andy Gellenberg

Gellenberg is a German illustrator and graphic designer. He graduated in communication design and has since gained prestigious clients including; Nike, Powerade, Ministry of Sounds records and Brand Jordan. Gellenberg has also met with LeBron James after James posted his artwork on Instagram in search for the artist (Gellenberg).

Gellenberg’s work varies widely, however, the majority of his work is extremely colourful and eccentric. One piece that stood out the most to me was the playing card style piece. I really like this simplistic, illustrative style, as well as the actual subject matter, as I personally am interested in Hip Hop and so connected with it more. A lot of his work relates to Hip Hop and so I found him more relative to me than other artists. Furthermore, his illustrative style is exactly what I was looking for, the clean, bold lines and geometric shapes create an almost abstract effect.

Concept ideasAfter some brief research on the two topics, Happiness and Your future self, I decided to look at these in more details. I have leaned more towards the concept of Happiness but with some elements relating to Your future self.

Some words I found that described happiness were, contentment, satisfaction and care-free. These allowed me to explore a deeper meaning of happiness. For example satisfaction in my life so far.

One possible concept was the idea;1. “The pursuit of happiness”. The idea that everyone in the world has a goal that will make them happy, this is different for everyone, for example family, career, etc. However, as it is a universal goal, I believe it is relatable and would therefore be successful as a concept.

I could also link this with ‘Your future self’ as happiness is something which we all strive to achieve in the future, although I think this is wrong in my opinion, as I believe you should make your own happiness everyday, the pursuit of future happiness is a common goal.

My next concept was;2. The idea of happiness with life as a whole vs. day to day happiness. This can also be seen as long term vs. short term happiness. I think this concept is interesting, however, I also believe it would be difficult to portray in a way that it is relatable, as everyone’s happiness varies vastly, both long and short term, due to personal factors.

3. Happiness through the media; How happiness is portrayed through existing media such as, fashion, music and art. Fashion designers such as Emilio Pucci and Moschino evoke happiness through the prints and designs they use. I believe the bold and colourful prints create a happy atmosphere, as bright colours, for example, yellow, are associated with happiness.

4. Personal happiness; I could also explore my own personal happiness, although this goes against what Sagmeister said, I believe a personal touch could add a sincerity to the piece. I could include things such as family, career, hobbies and things that make me happy, including food.

Outcome ideasThe brief requires us to create both a physical and digital outcome. Here are some ways I could present my outcome:

1. Posters (Physical and digital)- Typography based posters.

2. Clothing (Physical)- Print designs onto t-shirts/sweatshirts and model at exhibition.

3. Playing/Tarot cards (Physical)- “See the future” - relates to Your future self concept.

4. Photography (Physical)- Photograph models holding my designs and frame photographs for the exhibition.

After brief research I have decided to create clothing, most likely sweatshirts,

as my physical outcome. These would be based off my designs which I will also present digitally as either an animation or ‘making of’ video.

Final conceptMy final concept idea is, “The pursuit of happiness.” Exploring the idea that everyone in the world is trying to find happiness, regardless how different we all may be, this is one thing that is universal.

I would like to create a series of designs that I could present physically as “playing cards”. Along side this my digital outcome will be, either an animation based on my designs or a ‘making of’ video.

Going back to my concept idea, I will be creating designs that represent things that make people happy throughout their lives, including; school, family, marriage, careers, having your own children, holidays, music, food etc.

The ‘playing/tarot cards’ factor will relate the idea to the concept of Your future self,

as it is as if you’re predicting your future and seeing what’s “on the cards” for your future.

I will be using a simple illustrative style using mixed media. Much of my inspiration has come from Tumblr, which you can see at: jumanahnessainspiration.tumblr.com

Further researchAfter deciding on my final concept I began to research further into stylistic tehniques that could inspire my work. You can see these below.

“Sketchy Stories” in particular, interest me. The combination of detailed drawings and geometrics shapes I find very unique and I would like to experiment with this style in my own experiments.

I have continued this stylistic research on both my contextual portfolio and creative inspiration blogs. These are: jumanahnessayeartwo.blogspot.com and jumanahnessainspiration.tumblr.com

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ExperimentsHere I began by creating some illustrations, I then played around with various effects and adjustments to explore what I could create.

I thoroughly enjoyed using the minimalist illustrative style and so will create my final piece in this style.

I then experimented with the actual card design. I started by trying to keep the traditional theme by using a thick border and traditional scrolls. However as this wasn’t fitting with my minimalist theme I further developed my designs to create the final 5.

Next I experimented with design for the back of the card, I kept these minimal to fit in with the front designs.

Following this, as I knew I was going to

create an animation, I experimented creating a short stop motion animation using the backs of the card as that was all I had printed out at the time. This can be found at: https://vimeo.com/163248208

Tarot CardExperimentsHere is my experimentation for the front of the tarot cards. As mentioned previously I began by keeping a traditional theme which I quickly realised wasn’t what I liked or looked aesthetically pleasing. I then moved on to creating a minimalist theme which I stuck with.

I wanted to expore all stylistic possibilities so my final outcomes would be attractive and modern.

After creating the minimalist designs I then experimented with stop motion animation as it was something I was considering for my final outcomes.

Overall I am pleased with my designs and with further these.

Here is some of my experimentation with stop motion animation.

I really find stop motion and animation in general extremely interesting and would like to keep playing arounf with it to see what I could create.

The final animation can be found at: https://vimeo.com/164458931

Back ExperimentationHere are possible designs for the back of the cards.

I have tried to keep with the minimalistic theme, however I did briefly experiment with other styles.

Again I tried animation using my chosen design for the cards which can be found at: https://vimeo.com/163248208

I will now create my physical and digital outcomes for the exhibition/assessment.

Physical OutcomeHere are my physical and digital outcomes. As stated in my aims I have created physical cards and an animation to go along side this.

I am really proud of my outcomes and how they have come out. Especially the animation, as I had never created a full stop motion video. I believe it was very successful and will work well in the exhibition as it is short, playful and efficient.

The physical outcome I will be presenting in the exhibition as a pack, like playing cards.

Digital Outcome

EvaluationOverall I have enjoyed every step of this project. I found this brief to be the one which has related to me the most as well as the one I connected with straight away as there were no limitations and so I could go wild.

The idea of evoking happiness was the most important thing I had kept in mind. I wanted people to feel happy by what they were seeing. I feel like the jumpy/glitchy effect of the animation creates a playfulness which would evoke happiness, furthermore the background audio complements this.

In conclusion I am pleased with the outcomes and look forward to the exhibition.

FINAL DIGITAL OUTCOME: https://vimeo.com/163675369

2nd DIGITAL OUTCOME: https://vimeo.com/165066675