Visual thinking book

Visual Thinking Alistair Robert Koh

Academic Year 2013 – 2014 BA (Hons) Graphic Design: Level 4 Unit title: Visual Thinking

‘Visual Thinking’ focuses on extending your visual awareness, individual creative language and understanding of contemporary practice while examining the fertile and complex semiotic and aesthetic nature of word, image and object. You will examine these relationships while engaging with broad and experimental creative processes through a series of workshops, demonstrations, seminars and critiques provided across the courses in the School of Visual Arts; Fine Art, Graphic Design, Illustration and Visual Communication. This unit has been designed by the Course Leaders across the School to give you a unique opportunity to test and expand your range of skills and to combine materials and processes in different ways.

You will undertake a short diagnostic exercise to evaluate the skills and knowledge that you have acquired; skills that you desire, skills that you feel would enhance and complement your practice and those that would challenge your thinking. Your evaluation will indicate which of the workshops and seminars on offer you will undertake so that you are able on completion of the unit to be able to understand your practice through a trans disciplinary experience. You will present a body of work enhanced through an understanding of a broader visual context.

Through studio practice this unit introduces you to the symbiotic and expansive relationship that exists between theory and practice in the visual arts. You will develop an awareness and understanding of the related key themes and issues, placed within relevant social, historical and cultural contexts. The unit will provide you with a strong foundation for your studies by enabling you to develop research and study skills within relevant critical and theoretical frameworks. In this unit you will become a proactive learner, working both independently and collaboratively.

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Task 1: Typography as a Semiotic Resource

“i” Font Exploration

i i i i iii i i i i ii i i i i i ii i ii i i i ii I I I II II IIII II I I II I III I I I I III

Chosen Font for letter ‘i’

iI Blackoak Std. Font.

Blackoak Std. Font.

“i� for Ink?

3D model that will be made.

General idea

As you can see the serifs have been pulled down by manual edit. The reason for this is so that when i drop Ink into it, the ink will slide down it instead of it settling on a flat surface.

Planned Net for Tank

Ready for Lasercutter.

This is the net of the water tank we were going to make out of perspex. The blue outlined boxed are the sides of the box, They will be a cloudy white coloured perspex and the red outline is the face of the tank which is a clear transparent sheet.

However this entire idea went a flop as the task myself and Harry Murr set for ourselves was unrealistic in the time we had to do it, and there was also a complication with the induction on the lasercutter so it wasn’t possible for us to do this. So we played around with a few new ideas and then set to work on our new plan which was a little more successful. Although i still would have much prefered to do this idea as it was quite cool.

i FOR INVENTORY?

Just a thought when we were thinking of new ideas for the letter 'i’ and we kind of liked it for a short while and thought of ideas to develop it, but which required other people giving us their things to do it, so we thought it was too impractical so we ditched the idea all together and started on our new idea...

Task 2

Produce an A6 postcard with the image on one side and a brief description of word on the other.

Resources: InDesign, Photoshop, Layout and pre-print specification

This is the final letter ‘i’ outcome. ‘i’ for Island. It was quite good fun making it infact. Harry and used paper mache to form the body of the island and then once that was close to setting, we went and got some sand from a close by lake and sprinkled it over the top of it and added moss and stones that we found lying around near the house. We were very pleased with the outcome.

As a whole, the overall design of the island was great success i believe, as it’s clearly defined as a letter ‘i’. However, we encountered a small problem once we had finished everything. The graphical representation. We had no idea what it was we were trying to communicate. We got so caught up thinking of ideas for the letter that the reason why we were doing it went completely over our heads.

We then thought about it for a while and realised that ‘i” could also represent independance, which is entirely true!

1

Final Outcome of Island

2

Post Card of Island Front

dance. n e p e body. d o n I N : . s d e i n t i a l l i s b I i i: o respons N . m o d e e r f f A place o and I. f l e s y M , e Just M

Back

The stamp goes here

Task 3

Camera Used: Nikon D90

Letters in the landscape - A lexicon of urban typography This unit begins with a visit to Poole where you will identify, collect and photograph, examples of vernacular letterforms in the town. Your images could be literal interpretations of details of road signs, hand painted signs, neon signs, fragments of words, individual characters, manhole covers, gravestones or shop-front signs. Documenting these typographic havens is crucial to rebuff the constant threat from planners and councils that choose to subvert local history and ignore the rich traditions of vernacular heritage.

Alternatively, you could choose to record a slightly more challenging abstract collection of ‘hidden signs’ drawn from architectural forms, found objects, and unintentional typographic structures.

You will be working teams of two and planning which letterforms you each photograph in order to create a lexicon of vernacular letterforms. Remember, you will need a full alphabet It is important that you keep accurate notes for each of the pictures: ie Photographer, Location, Date, Description before returning to AUB and uploading your pictures to hard drive.

You will then go through a process of picture editing and retouching in readiness to prepare layouts for the book they will be published in.

Photographs that I took on the trip to Pool.

And this is what happened to them...

French Folding.

Putting it simply, It’s a method of book binding that we had to do where you print each page on half of the paper and then fold down the middle to create each individual page.

Then stick together.

We repleated this process for the entire photographic alphabet we shot in poole to create this beautiful book you can see here in these pictures.

FOR THE

LOVE OF GRAPHICS MONDAY 17TH FEBRUARY GRAPHIC DESIGN STUDIO UNIVERSITY HOUSE ARTS UNIVERSITY BOURNEMOUTH FREE ADMISSION

A one day exibition that aims to explore our love of graphics through a spectacular display of graphic artefacts, text and collections collated and curated by students and staff from the BA ( hons ) Graphic Design course at the Arts University Bounemouth.

This exibition aims to investigate how we consider, position, love and cherish examples of Graphic Design.

Exhibitiion For The Love of Graphics Curated by: Alistair Koh (Myself) Sophie Taylor Ben Gilpin Nina Labartkava

The idea of the exhibition was to show case pieces of graphic design that you appreciated enough to show others. It could have been your own work or literally just anything you wanted that you believed to by graphicically/ aesthetically/ visually pleasing.

The outcome was so much better than we thought it would be. It was great!

Posters

Typography at its best Tins and Packaging

Vinyls + Vinyl Player

Small things like match boxes...

Boardgames

Comics, Magazines, Books

Something awesome to look at.

The Exhibiton space was brilliant. We didn’t actually didn’t plan it. We thought (as a creative bunch of students) that we could improvise on the spot on the day of set up.

We thought correctly. It was brilliant and looked awesome!

BERLIN TRIP 2014

Galleries...

Whilst in Berlin we got the chance to look around some beautiful galleries/ exhibitions. On this page you can see photos that i took from Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum of Contemporary Art. It was fantastic, basically the entire place was dominantly instalation art, HUGE pieces of work. magnificent to behold.

Typography

The Buchstabenmuseum was a brilliant place to see different type face that used to be on the front of a shop or hotel or whatever but up close. I definitely appreciated it more.

Museum.

Sight Seeing!

Brandonberg Gate

Memorial

Jewish Memorial

Some of the Group Check Point Charlie

Great Architecture.

Lectures Transmedia This lecture focused on the storytelling within Transmedia, a lot of the attention was on the interpretation and adaptation, specifically within books and films (eg. Interpreting a book and turning it into a film). That is Transmedia.

Monomedia – The written and spoken word Multimedia – A combination of mediums working together.

An example would be a song (Spoken word = Monomedia) and a music video (Spoken word + Visuals = Multimedia) I did enjoy this lecture and it was quite easy to grasp relatively quickly, however, I struggled to find the relevance to graphic design. Admittedly it was interesting. Just not really what I was hoping for.

Propaganda and Persuasion Propaganda definition- ‘(organizing promotion of) information to assist or damage the cause of a government or movement’ ‘the spreading of ideas, information, or rumour for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person’ ‘ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause; also: a public action having such an effect’ Variety of propaganda techniques to influence opinions and to avoid the truth.

Often these techniques rely on some element of censorship or manipulation, either omitting significant information or distorting it.

False Flag “False flag terrorism” occurs when elements within a government stage a secret operation whereby government forces pretend to be a targeted enemy while attacking their own forces or people. The attack is on false blamed on the enemy in order to justify going to war against that enemy.”

REPETITION- is the best propaganda method.

Digital Materiality Play has changed history- Play is an act of pure repetition. For example, gaming. Leveling up a character is pure repetition. And all gamers know (but just don’t care) it’s a laborious task because its ‘fun labour’ its easy to become caught up in it.

The Playground is the factory floor (Labour) What we see as relaxing, sitting in front of your computer, surfing the web is in fact a form of labour.

We think that play is labour. When in fact, labour is play.

Cory Arcangel – Vimeo.com Jacquard Loom – Automated System – Binary System creator.

The Internet emerged out of warfare. Developed by designers who were working under a militant contract.

Warfare Technologies • The internet was an idea that sprang out of anxiety concerning nuclear attack – to find a way of sustaining communication in all eventualities-thus the notion of packet-switching-of breaking messages down into discrete ‘packets’ that would be reassembled at the destination.

• The first desktop computer utilized a wartime RADAR screen.

• In the 1980’s, protocols known as TCP (Transmission Control Protocol_ and IP (Internet Protocol) were developed and included with most UNIX servers, allow cheap, ubiquitous connectivity.

• With the advent of digital computing, protocol refers to standards, like everything.

The term protocol is most familiar in a military context for code of conduct under a chain of command. In Internet, the meaning is slightly changed.

• Stanza Lifeforms (c.2003) Bruno Latour: Latour developed actor network theory (ANT) Whereby agency is acquired through becoming part of a larger system or network.

An algorithm, according to Galloway, is ‘a machine for moving parts’ Lacan suggests that some features of language and behavior are already algorithmic, in that they are automatic and predetermined.

Some artists, deploy algorithmic processes- for example, Sol LeWitt claims, “The idea becomes the machine that makes the art”.

Sol LeWitt art work was considered to be very algorithmic.

Fortunati • A woman’s own non-material needs are seen to exist as her desire to satisfy the non-material needs of the male worker and children; thus whilst being herself labour-power she is a ‘mere machine in the continuous cycle of non-material production. In this sense the female house worker is capital’s greatest technological innovation’.

Cyberspace and Virtuality • “The broad availability of V.R Systems… Will alter our perception of time and space and free us from the limitations of distance.” (Coyne quoting Sullivan-Tranor 76) • Is this cyberspace a truly egalitarian realm or is it merely shorthand for the American and thus capitalist much-vaunted ideals of freedom and choice?

I found this Lecture to be the most interesting out of the three that I attended. The Lecturer spoke with such enthusiasm and she had the entire auditorium captivated by her words the entire hour through. Plenty of questions at the end too.

Workshops

Explosive drawing The Brief was,“Explosive Drawing workshops are designed so that students have the opportunity to respond to a narrative or story, but in a more ambitious and carefree way, so they are not precious over what they make. They work over the top of each other’s artwork and collaborate. For those that are maybe a bit hesitant to collaborate with new people, we find that nearer the end of the day we end up with a collective consciousness, and everyone is usually working together.”

It was so much fun as I haven’t picked up a paintbrush in over in a few years so it was really nice to get painting with the smell of acrylic in the air.

Silkscreen Workshop In this work shop we were shown how to prepare/ make and print with a silk screen. Although I have been using this process since AS level, I have never seen or have been able to see how they make the screen, as it was always done for me. However through taking this workshop I have learnt how to use it well.

The person leading the workshop showed the process in a controlled and enthusiastic way which made it very clear and easy to follow. Very enjoyable.

Finish.