LAB WEEK Tim Ellis
I gained a lot from the workshop with Tim Ellis. He showed me how it was the quality of the line, which decided how an illustration would look. I spent the day experimenting with different tools, and different pressures. He picked my work out at the end to discuss and mentioned that I’d been successful in relating the line quality to the content, as well as the context it was in.
LAB WEEK Alexie Sommer
The workshop with Alexie Sommer was interesting in the fact that it’s not often I would work on something without much knowledge on the subject. There wasn’t much time to research the Marine Conservation Society, so it was almost purely aesthetic, which I was apprehensive about, but actually really enjoyed.
LAB WEEK Alexie Sommer
The idea of distancing myself from any kind of attachment to ‘brand values’ or even background information was exciting to work with. So rather than going off and finding out more and digging deeper as I normally would, I let myself work without that. I would still question whether the work would be suitable enough for use by the company, but it was on Alexie’s recommendation that I let myself work without any restrictions, and that not feeling the need to answer to anyone specifically would enhance what I produced, which was completely right.
LAB WEEK Alexie Sommer
I felt a pull to work toward child-like illustration and ideas, which initially I ignored and put to the back of my mind, because I didn’t think it was appropriate. But when I let go of that, the images I produced with were really successful. It forced me to think about whether previously, I’ve been missing out on a lot of great work because of the mentality of - I have to make something that’s ‘right’. Perhaps letting go of that ideology would actually open up more creativity than I realised.
LAB WEEK Thomas Thwaites
I found myself frustrated during the workshop with Thomas Thwaites. We were asked to find a solution to a problem that we’d created ourselves, and we chose addiction to video games. In terms of a ‘solution’ we had to work through a lot of different ideas. What I found to be difficult was finding something that felt ‘creative enough’. We came up with several solutions that were perfectly valid, but it took a while to work out what would actually impress the client, and when we presented our idea, he was. The idea was to have a contact lens that would blur out your addiction.
LAB WEEK Ben Freeman
Ben Freeman asked us, to get as much attention as possible by the end of the day. We set up two fake profiles on Twitter, and started a rumour that Justin Bieber had gotten engaged. What led us to that point was that we knew that the internet was an access point to a huge number of people all at the same time. And we chose a celebrity that we knew their following would want to hear gossip about and that we knew would spread it with us. Because we had worked with Ben before, we had some basic ideas about what he liked and what he wanted to see from us, which is exactly why we worked online rather than just going in to town, where our responses would be limited. I realised after the workshop that this is just the same as industry- once you’ve worked with someone once, you already have base knowledge of how to impress them and deliver what you know they’re going to want the next time you work together.
directed by steven spielberg
pg
don’t go in the water a special screening of JAWS Saturday 2nd august, 8pm brighton beach
starring
roy scheinder robert shaw richard dreyfuss
LAB WEEK Mark Hopkins
We were forced to work under pressure just as we would have to do in industry, just before the deadline, we were given something that our client wanted us to change, we were limited to three colours because of budget cuts. We edited the work we’d done so that there would only be three colours, and then suggested to him that if we changed the paper stock, our client would only need to pint in two colours, and save them even more money. Mark was impressed with how we handled it, and awarded us all a prize.
COMPETITIONS Veronica Heaven
For the Heaven brief, Chloe and I worked together. The three ideas that we pitched, were, a games app, a poster, and a short animation. Veronica Heaven gave us feedback after our pitch, and reminded us that we needed to take ourselves out of our own personal position, and think about the consumer/customer, which made us think about whether the app was actually appropriate or not. The feedback helped us understand what needs to be developed.
COMPETITIONS Veronica Heaven
However, she praised us for how well we had kept our work visually in line with the brand guidelines, and that our two other ideas were strong and that they could be merged together some how. It was good to have the opportunity to work for a client who was able to give us feedback, so that we can work on it again before the final submission.
COMPETITIONS Design In Sight
Design In Sight asked for us to identify a problem with our chosen brand, and to find a way to solve that. I chose Fosters, and the problem I saw was that the product itself is heavily aimed toward men in its advertising and packaging, but that women were also consumers that were essentially just being ignored. My solution was to make the packaging seem a little classier, not more feminine, but just more accessible to women drinkers.
F o sFto er st s ers r a drlae d rler
F o sFto er st s ers r a drlae d rler
F o sFto er st s ers r a drlae d rler
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COMPETITIONS Design In Sight
This particular competition was heavily research based. They asked us to really get to know the brand and understand it before we started designing anything for them. Which made sense to me, and I enjoyed researching it, I went and spoke to people who were buying it in the pub or in the super market, asked my friends about it, interviewed people in Australia about the brand and asked landlords and bar staff about who was consuming the product. And it enabled me to work from a perspective that understood what was needed.
COMPETITIONS RSA
Chloe and I worked together again for RSA, because we’d gotten to a point where we have worked together a lot and it always seems to work well because we have similar views in terms of design and solutions. We chose the Innovation in Giving brief, this brief in particular helped me to understand how my own mind works in terms of idea generation.
COMPETITIONS RSA
We wanted to come up with something that meant the public wouldn’t have to donate their own money, instead they would just give their time. Our idea was called ‘Play to Give’ and meant that when people played games from the app store, the creators of those games would donate money on the player’s behalf depending on how long they spent on the game. We needed to think it through, and we realised that there would need to be something in it for the creators, so we came up with the idea of a ‘Top charitable chart’ that the games would climb up, depending on how much they donated per minute.
We thought everything through from start to finish, how people would find out about the system, and the chart, how much would be donated, how would the player know how much would be donated etc. It wasn’t an easy brief, it took a lot of time, and a lot of thinking, but we both felt really confident in what we came up with. And because we had a big chunk of time to work on it, which meant that we could get really stuck in and think about it thoroughly.
P U B L I C AT I O N MIKA VAAJOKI
Laurel and I wanted to purposely take work that didn’t have a running theme or an obvious link, and put it together so that we were giving ourselves the challenge of finding a way to make that work look right, and feel comfortable together. To do this, we took three steps. Firstly we made all of the images black and white, so that immediately eliminated any colour differences that were setting them apart. Secondly, we cropped them so that they were all the same sized square.
We had originally thought that this would be enough to connect them all, but when we looked through, it wasn’t. So we dropped a yellow strike though each of the images, we weren’t too sure when we looked at it on screen but took the risk and also created a cover that would tie in. We still aren’t sure whether it was successful and worked well, or whether it only looked good because of the context we were seeing it in, alongside other publications with similar covers and images.
P U B L I C AT I O N MIKA VAAJOKI
When we were given a book to re-publish, we wanted it to be changed entirely, but still looked like it belonged together. I was interested in cropping the pages to see what we could gain from taking something away.
P U B L I C AT I O N MIKA VAAJOKI
We also wanted to challenge what we think counts as a ‘book’. We questioned amongst ourselves, did it need to be something that opened right to left, did it need to even open, did it need to be stapled exactly in the middle, did it even need to be stapled... It was interesting to break down what we assumed something needed to be or even what we thought it ‘ought’ to be like, and to then work towards the opposite of that assumption.
P U B L I C AT I O N MIKA VAAJOKI
One of the four words I chose from my independent practice was ‘Concept’ because I’ve been trying to find a balance on how much of design is about concept, and how much of it is about just being visually pleasing.
P U B L I C AT I O N MIKA VAAJOKI
The production side of the publication was where I learnt the most. There was about five of us who really got involved from printing covers, cutting down paper, printing with the risograph, and binding. I’m glad I threw myself into the process, things went wrong and we learnt how to rectify problems, I would feel confident if asked to in the industry to work with a risograph printer, and see a job through to print.
INDEPENDENT Where I’ve been looking at work that can be seen as visually pleasing, rather than having a ‘deeper meaning’ I’ve focused on how that stands with the traditional craftsmanship of graphic design, specifically mono print here. To achieve this technique, I folded paper into the shapes of letters to get an x-rayed effect.
INDEPENDENT This work was also done by mono printing. One element of the traditional craftsmanship I’ve been looking at is autography, of which I have spent time questioning the value of, and asking questions about why we feel differently about hand lettering than digital typography and where the differences lie.
INDEPENDENT Again continuing with mono prints, I looked at modular type, only using two shapes, and for this I only used a roll of sellotape and a ruler to press onto the inked plate. I also used a gradient of red to pink in the centre to get the lighter effect running down the middle. I’ve been questioning whether some of the value of mono printing is in the fact that it’s a one off print that cant be repeated, or whether even that has now been lost because it can be reproduced digitally, as it has been above.
INDEPENDENT Another method of traditional printing, which I’ve been working on, is screen printing with an open screen rather than exposing an image onto a screen. I tried using tape to cover over the exposed areas to create some imagery, but it was hard to achieve any thing where the tape peeled up when I pulled the ink through. So instead, I used tip-ex to draw into the screen and block the ink from flooding through.
INDEPENDENT Another element of autography I have questioned, is whether letterforms need to be produced by pen and ink, or is it just the delicate feel that is what makes it valuable. To this, I created a response of tiny letters made out of thin greenery.
INDEPENDENT Dungeness
The trip to Dungeness turned out to be interesting in a way I hadn’t expected. We realised as we were walking across the beach that we were surrounded by fish bones, So I took the opportunity to photograph them.
INDEPENDENT Dungeness
It’s often difficult to think about using different materials in my work, and I can sometimes feel myself falling into default thinking, but this trip broke out of that mindset. I used the technique that Mika showed me to bitmap the photos I took, it changes the feel of them.
INDEPENDENT Dungeness
Before I found the fish bones, I had been looking for typography on signage that had been worn down. But it didn’t feel inspired or excited by anything I found. When I found the fish bones, I hesitated about doing this - my peers thought it was gross... and it was. But I could visualise what I would achieve by picking them up and sculpting them into letterforms.
INDEPENDENT I was fortunate to get a ticket to a lecture at St. Brides library, and whilst I was there I was inspired by the print studios and artwork that was there. I spoke to the technician working there and he spoke passionately about type and it was fascinating to me that he’d spent his whole life learning about typography and how well he knew the letterforms. I spent time after that, working on some hand lettering.
INDEPENDENT These were inspired by my visit to the St. Brides printing studio. I practiced with different brushes, inks, angles and applying pressures.
INDEPENDENT This was a quote from when Jack Hollands came in for the workshop on sign writing, and I’ve been considering it throughout all of my independent and studio practice, and have been comparing it against another statement.
INDEPENDENT This is the alternative quote from Ben Freeman. These two ideas is what sparked the idea for my independent practice, where I’ve been thinking about whether design needs to have a message, or whether it’s enough to just look good now. I hand lettered both of the quotes with the thought in my mind, that it counted as just making them ‘look good’, and it was purely aesthetic, but I then challenged myself and I argued whether that was true, when the words themselves had meaning
INDEPENDENT I carried on with hand lettering lots of different quotes, but this one specifically I chose to include because there was a change in scale, rather than working on paper as I had been, I moved to a much bigger size of A0, which I had assumed would make the letter forming easier, but in fact it made it ten times harder. There was less opportunity to rest my hand in one spot, and the imperfections became more visible. The quote itself came from some of the reading that I had done from my Independent starting point of branding, There is arguments over whether branding is just logos, personally, I think there is a lot more to it, however...the logo is still king of branding.
INDEPENDENT A third year Fashion Promotion and Imaging student approached me to collaborate with her after seeing some of the hand lettering I had been doing. What she wanted was a bit different to the things that I had previously been doing, but I felt really ready to be pushed out of my comfort a bit, and it felt right to be exploring a different area of lettering. It has been interesting to essentially work ‘for’ someone, it has helped me understand how to respond to what a client wants. Once I had finished lettering the model names for her, and her project was complete. I took the style forward on my own. On a personal level I found it hard to understand why she chose the lettering that she did, but rather than discard it once we were through, I forced myself to use the styles I didn’t like. I found some styles garish, so I worked with them in a way that was particularly bright and showy, where I felt that they belonged.
INDEPENDENT After attending talks at St. Bride’s, I heard about the Pen to Printer Seminar, and knowing that it would give me an opportunity to dig deeper and find out more about hand lettering, I arranged sonsorship to go. Over the weekend there were talks from different speakers, demonstrations of lettering, and a lot of opportunities for networking. There was a lot to take in and there is still so much that I don’t know, but I came away with a much broader knowledge and understanding about the letterforms themselves, and there was also opportunity to learn about calligraphy. I asked for advice from two demonstrators, Colin Dunn and Gaynor Goffe, about how to start doing what they were doing, and they both advised me to pracitce with two pens held together, to help understand the weights and forms of the letters.
The seminar opened my eyes to the fact that hand lettering, calligraphy, and letter carving is a highly skilled craft, that realistically takes years to perfect. I know that hand lettering is something that I want to continue with for a long time, and I’m curious about the relationship of the lettering and it’s context, which has started to spark ideas for a possible final major project next year.
SUMMARY I’ve spent a lot of this semester thinking ahead, and mentally trying to place myself in the design world, where I want to be, what do I want to be doing. I’m still yet to come to a conclusion, but I’ve been able to eliminate certain elements of design. Although I have tried to keep myself balanced, I feel that I’ve had a bigger focus on my independent practice, and I have tried to tailor workshops and studio practice to my independent, I can feel the two units pulling together and merging into one body of work. The competitions have helped me refine my processes of generating ideas, and I feel relatively confident to be going into my final year mentally equipped to solve problems and work out design solutions. I have needed to push myself past what I would usually accept to reach a higher standard, I’ve almost forced myself to a struggle, so that I’m aware of how different things need to be answered to. It’s also meant that I feel more confident with evaluating my work with a critical mind, it’s made it much easier for me to pick up on things that aren’t working.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Reading
Talks
Exhibitions/Other
Andrew Johnston. Go West Young Man. (April 2014)
Chris Elsey. Letter carving. (Demonstration)
Colin McHenry. Giving the boys and girls a book of tips on getting that first job in Design. (April 2014)
Colin Dunn. Calligraphy. (Demonstration)
Berger, J. (1972). Ways of seeing. BBC Bignell, J. (2002). Media Semiotics. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press Curedale, R. (2013). Design Thinking: process and methods manual. Edition. Design Community College Inc. Dennis, Tom. (2014). Power Up Your Portfolio, Perfect Portfolios. Computer Arts, Issue #227. Printed in the UK. Flusser, V. (1999). The Shape of Things: A Philosophy of design. London: Reaktion Books Ltd. FL@33, 2011. The 3D Type Book. Edition. Laurence King Publishing. Gregory, E. (2012) Reinventing Lettering. Edition. A&C Black Bloomsbury Academic. Ingledew, J. (2011). An A-Z of Visual Ideas: How to Solve Any Creative Brief. Edition. Laurence King Publishing. McLuhan, M. (2008). The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects. London: Penguin. Middendorp, J. (Edited by) (2012). Hand to Type: Scripts, Hand-Lettering and Calligraphy. Edition. Gestalten. Papanek, V. (1985). Design for the Real World: Human Ecology & Social Change.Chicago, USA: Academy Chicago Publishers Poynor, R. (1998). Design without boundaries: visual communication in transition. London: Booth-Cibbon Tschichold, J. (1992). Treasury of Alphabets and Lettering. 2nd Edition. Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd. Wotzkow, H. (1967). The Art of Hand Lettering. Softcover Ed Edition. Dover Publications. YCN Student Annual 13/14
Fred Deakin. Wynkyn de Worde conference, St. Brides. (March 2014) Gemma Correll’s Pug Party. Pick Me Up, Somerset House. (April 2014) Jessica Das’s Cat Carnival. Pick Me Up, Somerset House. (April 2014) Oliver Chapman. Wynkyn de Worde conference, St. Brides. (March 2014) Paul Bowman. Wynkyn de Worde conference, St. Brides. (March 2014) Paul Shaw. George Salter, Phil Grushkin and Calligraphic Book Jackets from 1930 to 1980. (April 2014) Sam Roberts. Ghostsigns: Painted Signs, Fading on Walls. (April 2014) Will Hill. From snuffbox to surfboard: the typographic ligature. (April 2014)
Gareth Colgan. Lettering with ink and quill. (Demonstration) Gaynor Goffe. Calligraphy. (Demonstration) John Nash. Hand painted lettering. (Demonstration) Pick Me Up Festival, Somerset House. (April 2014) Richard Deacon, Tate Britain. (2014) Seb Lester. Foil blocking and guilding. (Demonstration) Sue Hufton. Hand painted lettering and fabric patterning. (Demonstration)
Independent Practice Throughout all of my graphic design education, I’ve always put branding, packaging and advertising to one side and ignored it because I believed that it didn’t give enough room creatively. So my starting point with independent practice was branding, packaging and advertising, because I wanted to take a look at what I’m missing and work out the opportunities that are there within this area. Where I can, I usually choose to create work by hand, illustrating, sewing, drawing type, sculpting, just generally making physical work rather than working digitally, which is perhaps what’s made me almost anti-corporate in my choice of work. It’s appealing to me now because since being at UCA, I’ve looked into a wider world of graphics and seen that just because brands exist, doesn’t mean that designing them needs to be boring or dull, and doesn’t mean that I cant incorporate the styles that I already have into those brands. Throughout the independent work that I’ve been doing this term, I’ve felt a strong lean towards typography and hand drawn lettering. I didn’t resist it, or try too hard to stick with branding, packaging and advertising, because the pull felt natural and I’ve enjoyed researching and creating lettering. Independent practice and studio practice are starting to blend into one unit this semester, it feels like I’m steering different opportunities around typography. As I’m starting to think about the final year of my degree and what I want to focus on, I feel myself revolving around type, specifically hand crafted letterforms. I want to take the two main themes of my independent practice this semester; hand lettering, and branding, packaging and advertising, and explore the two together while I have time over summer, in the hope that when I return in September there will be some mental clarity about where I want to go.