Research and Process book by Daria Solovyeva

BOOK RESEARCH

E OC

Daria Solovyeva SOL12377772 d.solovyeva1@arts.ac.uk BA (Hons) GMD yr. 3 Major Project Cultural Identity Crisis

Contents Project Statement..................................3 Research Which aspects form cultural identity.............................4 Motivating people to understand the history........................9 Visiting Edinburgh................................15 Identification of traditional values.......................................................21 Analisys Theoretical concept development........................................25 Naming....................................................27 Brand & Logotype concept............................................... ....31 Event concept.......................................37 Campaign...............................................39 Design applications Poster design........................................45 Use of After Effects for web animated prototype.................................................51 Bibliography...........................................56

Project statement Modern civilization is going through an acute crisis caused by the man himself, his needs, contradictions of the spiritual world, illogicality of social existence. As a designer, I have powerful tool to make an impact on the formation of public consciousness and I want to believe that the civilization of the 21st century, in spite of the problems, would be able to come to the community of nations, provide a high degree of cultural identification and integration, rise the creative potential and creation of conditions for the development and enrichment of nations and nationalities, for their gradual convergence. My goal for this project is to contribute to this process. From the professional point of view Cultural Identity Crisis project gives me opportunity to be a part of initial brand development and its strategy, to shape its character and give a unique personality. Engagement with this project will fully demonstrate my creative potential, and involve professional aspiration such as: naming, visual identity, and campaign creation, which are crucial for strong graphic design portfolio.

Which aspects forms cultural identity?

religious beliefs sexuality nationality language Walker, H. (1894–1971) ‘A small child in Texas wearing a dress and holding an American flag with her left hand and a long gun with her right hand’

race location gender history ethnicity art aesthtics food

Searching for the new ways of indroducing ‘some boring staff’ The culture could be boring for person who unfamiliar with history. It would seem that with appearance of the Internet we would be more knowledgeable and erudite, despite that fact we become more superficially educated. The level of interest in the study of culture is rapidly declining. The question is how to increase the interest back? In this case we need to find new ways of presenting traditional cultural values, in order to inform and educate the audience. The book ‘Slovenian Demons’ by Patrycja Podkoscielny (p. 6), designed to raise awareness about forgotten Slavic demons and mythology. The way in which it’s presented is very interesting, because it’s adapted to the needs of modern world. In other words to draw peoples attention to the history and culture, it has to be in the ‘modern and beautiful packaging’. Another great example is project by Sasha Vinogradova (pp. 7-8). She did a series of posters to show different styles of Russian folk painting. It’s immediate catch your attention, because it looks fun and new.

Podkoscielny, P (2014) Demony Slowian / Slavic Demons

Vinogradova, S. (2013) ‘Styles of Russian folk painting’

Motivating people to understand the history A recent trend has emerged in which people take old photos of themselves and pose in the same fashion (or have adults comically imitate other people’s baby photos) decades later. But a few years ago, before it was a thing to recreate some part of people’s personal histories, photographer Seth Taras shot at a few locations of major historical significance — including where the beaches of Normandy were stormed during World War II and the spot of the Hindenburg explosion — and blended them with modern-day images as part of a History Channel campaign called “Know Where You Stand.” (pp. 9-10) The point of the campaign, according to MyModernMet.com, is to “motivate people to understand the history of where they live by watching the History Channel.” The effect of the photos is cool and eerie at once — especially when you take a moment to consider the impact of the history of some of the places you’ve probably visited.

City choice In order to make the right choice I did research on a few cities. I was inspired most by Edinburgh. The city got a massive castle, great art galleries, and active cultural life with lots of festivals during the year. One of the biggest is Edinburgh International Festival, which runs between the end of July and early September and Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival that takes place in February. Scots honored traditions, their national costumes made of tartan fabric and bagpipe music are known worldwide. On this stage of my project development, I did not have any idea regarding my final outcome, and I thought that Edinburgh would be a good choice in order to not be limited by culture of the city in the future.

Photo (p. 12) www.disrupts.co.uk (2016) Photo of Edinburgh

Edinburgh map

Planing field trip to Edinburgh … with primary concept in mind. Message: to broaden public understanding of Edinburgh architecture. Primary propose is to inform and educate. The concept for the brand is based on the idea of constellation.(p. 14) The squares, positioned to reflect the location of each architectural monument within the Edinburgh map. Each square will contain icon of architectural monument. Further adaption of the logotype for other cities will be rearrangement of squares according to city map. I was inspirited by White Studio work ‘The new identity for the city of Porto’. I like that it’s presented in a very clear manner, which emphasize the origin of the city, its culture and art. They create a visual system, a visual identity that could organize and simplify communication with the citizens. Also, it represents Porto as a global city, the city for everyone.

White Studio (2014) New identity for the city of Porto

Prime Edinburgh

Feedback The feedback I got says that I should simplify logotype. Some good suggestions were made regarding naming. For example, I really like Edinburgh 6, where six could match the number of architectural monuments to explore.

Visitign Edinburgh Once I have selected a city, I have done online research in order to explore history, culture, and art. However, it’s totally different impression to explore when you actually being there. It develops a completely different view and helps to generate more deep and unique ideas. The first thing I have noticed is Closes (the small and narrow alleys p. 16), which lead to the Edinburgh Old Town. I have never seen something like this and I was truly surprised by the atmosphere of these narrow streets. Being there helps me to think outside of the box and consider Advocate’s Close (pp. 14-15) as a potential place for the fist venue. Moreover, it perfectly fits the definition ‘place that have had previous life and function’… unusual architectural environment’, which was stated in the design brief. Closes were made because of the need for security within its town walls against English attacks in past wars, Edinburgh experienced a pronounced density in housing. Closes tend to be narrow with tall buildings on both sides, giving them a canyonlike appearance and atmosphere. Many have steps and long flights of stairs.

The Royal Market The Royal Mile Market is located in the Tron Kirk, one of the most historical Edinburgh’s architectural landmarks. It’s very interesting fact, that nowadays it hosts Edinburgh’s Royal Market, allowing all to explore the beauty and history of the building while meeting local artist and makers. Visit to this place helps me to better understand the project brief, as this is a great example of interaction between the venue and its content. The history of Kirk dates back to 1636, when work was began and completion was reach in 1639. Church’s design displays a blend of Gothic and Classical features. It was design by John Meyle, Royal master mason. The most dramatic event is the kirk’s history, however was the Great Fire of Edinburgh, which ravaged the city on 16th November 1824. In 1828 Tron become the traditional gathering place for the city’s Hogmanay (New Year) celebrating which continued right up until 1993.

Identification of traditional values Something that attracts me most is that Scottish traditions are not something sterile under glass and steel in a cold museum. I have visited tartan weaving mill (p. 22) and Edinburghâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s whiskey experience (pp. 1314), which holds larger collection of whiskey. The culture is very vibrant, living things and evolving, and every generation adds the thumbprint of its own particular Scottish culture to the whole. I have notices, that it becomes interesting when you immerse yourself in the culture and understand where are the roots. I wondered how to immerse young people with the culture? That it becomes exciting and interesting for the new generation? Because more you know past better you understand present, and more effectively you build your future.

Theoretical concept development Cultural crisis and the preservation of traditional values. The concept of cultural crisis is socio-historical. In world history there are not only the state of crisis, but also the destruction of entire crops. My research led me to the idea of creating a brand that aims to preserve and develop the national identity of each nation, city, and person. The brand that would cause strong growth of the interest in the protection of traditional cultural values and moral norms, customs and other forms of self-determination and the functioning of the ethnic group as a sociocultural integrity. The special role such brand will play in the context of globalization. My target audience is young people, as the main engine of progress. The aim is to help them build their future more effectively, through the understanding of past and the culture as a whole. Culture is the unique social mechanism by which the process of succession is made, transmission of values, accumulating spiritual and practical experience of previous generations. This process has a vector direction and, consequently, the future of culture depends directly on

how much the value of previous generations will be interpreted by subsequent. The main subject of social and cultural continuity, therefore, is youth. This fact largely attaches special importance to research on the processes, phenomena associated with the perception of youth culture values. The alienation of youth from the valuable foundation of culture can lead to disastrous for most of this culture Thus the goal is to give this brand a cool and modern vibe while drawing the audience into culture.

Naming My early involvement in the creation of this cultural brand, allow me to take the initial decision of naming. One of the brand name, which comes to me mind was Cultural Box. Where box is a box of knowledge. Slogan â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Open it yourselfâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; demonstrates the idea behind. The X would play a role of unknown, like in math. (p. 28) The formula is: boX + CULTURE = Edinburgh So, you need to find out X to understand the chosen city. X is unknown. However, a lot of people consider this name is a very straight forward and old fashioned. I moved forward. Other suggestions were: Cultura and Design (CD - like compact disk) Flash Edinburgh Cup of Edinburgh ( Try it)

Sketches / Idea generation for Cultural Box

Name

Slogans

Hello Edinburgh

Be there to reveal

Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Go Edinburgh

Be there to know

Go Edinburgh!

Base the future

lOOk Edinburgh

Find the base

Glimps Edinburgh

Reveal the past, see the future

Cultura and Design

Live now

Base Art

Fill the baze

Bazar Art

Find the basics

Bazart

Reveal the basics

Basart

Open up the past

ArtBaz

Hold time back

Cultural Box

Back to basics

Sketches / Idea generation for BAZART

Brand concept The BAZART is a cultural event brand aiming to young people, where they can experience local traditional art technics during particular workshops. The goal was to give BAZART a cool and modern vibe while drawing the audience to the basics of modern art and design. The key proposes of brand is to explore ideas, concepts, questions, and practices that examine the past, describe the present, and imagine the future, that is why logotype has strong connection with time. The name came two words BAZAR and ART, each event will take place on the streets that have had a previous life and function.

Logotype concept BA:ZA:RT = 00:00:00 (timer) BAZAR - each event will take place on the streets that have has a previouse life and function. (For Edinburgh, its Advocateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Close) ART - Aims to experience local traditional art and design 00:00:00 - One of the main proposes is to turn the clock back during exciting workshops and reveal the basics of modern art and design.

Color choice and typography usage Color choice for the first venue in Edinburgh has been generated from tartan colors. (p. 34)

The idea was to take simple typographic approach, and not to making something â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;tooâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; designed, because this logo will be used for different cities with its own spirit. Also, I took to account my audience. It has to be understandable for young people. I left place to create micro community for each venue with in one logo. (pp. 34, 36) Also, I try to make it bold, robust, and authoritative. In oder to cover my ambitious I have chosen sans serif Montserrat Regular typeface, which was designed by Julieta Ulanovsky in 2014. It has 8 styles and good readability. For this reason loved by many web and UI designers.

Montserrat Regular

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 0123456789

BA ZA RT

1X 3X 3X 1X 3X

BA ZA A RT T

e d i n b u r g h

4X 3X

1X 3X 3X 1X 3X

Glass making

Adoption of identity for other cities Logotype is adaptable for each event. To emphasis immediate locality of each city, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;ARTâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; has to be changed according to particular event (p. 36). As my brand is connected with carrying out different workshop about traditional art and technique, in Bristol it will be workshop of glass making (blue colour). In London is going to take place workshop of calligraphy. Finally, Portsmouth could be related with shipbuilding.

Calligraphy

BA ZA RT b

BA ZA RT l

BA ZA RT p o r t s m o u t h

Event concept Events organized by BA:ZA:RT are carrying out truly exciting workshops for young people, where they have opportunity to reveal the basics of traditional art technique, to meet new people and spend a great time. The aim is to make it dynamic and informative, in order to hold people attention. For the fist venue I have chosen two workshops one day each: tartan weaving experience and whiskey experience (18+). The location for the fist venue is Advocateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s close. Visitors will have opportunity to feel the atmosphere of the city and enjoy the great view of Edinburgh. The close has ability to accommodate a large number of people, its biggest advantage that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going up just like amphitheatre. It makes the selected location perfectly suited for workshops and lectures. Other excellence is that there is no rental cost to occupier this place; it gives opportunity to avoid admission charge in the future

Campaign For the campaign I had two objectives to reach: 1.To reflect the philosophy of the brand 2.To attract the audience attention Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s why I came across the concept of pixelated image. (pp. 40, 42) This concept aims to intrigue and motivate (p.41) The centre of the image is pixelated and you wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t reveal what is behind the pixels, until you come to the workshop. However, from the other hand this concept call up to zoom in and think deeper, wider and out of the box. Pixels were created in the Adobe Photoshop, using mosaic effect.

REVEAL

THE

BASICS

Pixels generated from the image using Adobe Photoshop

Stationery For Stationary has been applied logotype and has been used pixels generated from previous images. Ideally to communicate the nature of the brand, Stationary should be made of craft paper with some wooden elements as shown on the picture above. To demonstrate this visually, I made use of psd mockups, which was downloaded from graphicburger.com

Main launch poster design For the main launch poster I decided to use just pixels, with out an image. I consider that main launch poster is something more general. Pixelated image Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m going to use for specific poster event. As you can see, I tried to save the visual connection between launch poster and specific poster event. Also, later this poster system could be applied on other citiesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; events. On the page 46 you can see my experimentations regarding composition, hierarchy and content of the main launch poster.

Main Launch poster / Experimentation

Specific workshop poster design With these posters I was aiming to attract peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attention and to make the information on the poster clear. Here are the most successful posters, which I have designed (p. 48). As a final outcome I have chosen the second one, because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more balanced and focused. And if to think further, this design will be applied on different images. So it has to be flexible and adaptable for each city event.

Specific workshop poster design experimentation

Final main launch poster, A1

Specific workshop poster example, A2

Concept behind bag design BA:ZA:RT is very tight connected with different kind of creative activity. I decided to interact with the audience by giving them opportunity to design them own bags. For this proposes I have created rubber stamp. Bags will be available on the event and everyone will be able to make a stamp on them own bag. Any offered color, any place on the bag, and stamp unlimited times.

Use of After Effects for Web animated prototype Prototyping interfaces with After Effects is a great way of exploring complex animations. Nowadays, it’s a very popular approach, and I found a lot of project on Behance, which have been made with After Effects. I decided to communicate my ideas using this app. I believe these skills that I got doing this animated presentation, will be extremely useful in my future carrier. First of all, I made a sketch of an idea (p.52), I wanted to present and then I started to work in After Effects (p. 53). The idead Behind the web concept is to unite people from different places, and spread the world BA:ZA:RT. Thus, at the end of homepage and event listing an option to ‘report your visit’ via social media. The final outcome can be viewed on USB stick, which is included to my final submission. OR online, here is link: https://vimeo.com/164914219

Web design sketch

Working in After Effects

Screen shot of Final outcome

Bibliography Bulgakova, O. (2009) Cultural Crisis and its interpretation in P. Sokokin’s works. Avaliable at: http:// cyberleninka.ru/article/n/kulturnyy-krizis (Accessed 4 May 2016) Bruce Mau design (2011) OCAD University Visual Identity. Available at: https://www.behance.net/ gallery/1407795/OCAD-University-Visual-Identity (Accessed 4 May 2016) Edinburgh (2016) Culture. Avaliable at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh (Accessed 4 May 2016) Edinburgh Festival City (2016) Festivals. Avaliable at: http://www.edinburghfestivalcity.com (Accessed 4 May 2016) Grapheine (2015) Saint – Etienne Opera House- Brand design. Available at: https://www.behance.net/ gallery/26146543/Saint-Etienne-Opera-House-Brand-design (Accessed 4 May 2016) List of closes on the Royal Mile (2016) High Street. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_closes_ on_the_Royal_Mile (Accessed 4 May 2016) Lynda.com (2016) After Effects. Available at: https://www.lynda.com/After-Effects-training-tutorials/150-0. html?category=beginner_337 (Accessed 4 May 2016)

Seth, T (2004) ‘Know where you stand’ Worldwide Campaign. Avaliable at: https://sethtaras.wordpress. com/know-where-you-stand/ (Accessed 4 May 2016) Tuaeva, B. (2008) Cultural Crisis and preservation of traditional values. Available at: http://www.naturalsciences.ru/ru/article/view?id=10371 (Accessed 4 May 2016) Tuts+Web Design (2014) Using After Effects for UI Animation prototypes. Available at: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=w67z1YhPFKM (Accessed 4 May 2016) Vinogradova, S (2013) Styles of Russian folk painting. Available at: https://www.behance.net/gallery/11972453/ Styles-of-russian-folk-painting (Accessed 4 May 2016) Visit Scotland (2016) Things see and do. Avaliable at: https://www.visitscotland.com/destinations-maps/edinburgh-lothians/ (Accessed 4 May 2016) White studio (2014) Visual Identity for the city Porto. Available at: https://www.behance.net/gallery/20315389/New-identity-for-the-city-of-Porto (Accessed 4 May 2016)

London, 2016