Personal Development Planning Journal (2016/17) 2nd Year BA (Hons) Graphics UCC by Fangni Hu Lu

PDP JOURNAL

FRANCISCA HU LU 2ND YEAR GRAPHICS STUDENT ID 1464398

INDEX

Trip I : Brain Waves 01 Lecture Poster 13 Gee Vaucher Exhibition 25 Detournement 35 Trip II : London Illustration Fair 47 Trip III : The Design Museum 55 CV & SWOT 63 Reflective Journal 69 Review of the Year & Future Plans 73 Conclusion 82

TRIp i - BRAIN WAVES

Trip to London: Brain Waves

27.09.16

After getting lost in our way to the Central Saint Martins’ Lethaby Gallery in Granary Square from the British Library we decided to skip the House of Illustration and thus just take our time to go to the ‘Brain Waves’ exhibition. At first, I was surprised by the size of the buildings and how everything looked, the aesthetics, the buildings, the benches facing the river with its green (a really bright green), the sculptures at the entrance and the decoration and overall aesthetics of the inside, both modern and traditional.

The outside, before arriving to Central St. Martins

A BIT OF HISTORY A few years ago, in 2011, the London’s institution decided to relocate to King’s Cross. ‘The area, however, although certainly dramatic, could never be described as beautiful – and right now it’s anything but peaceful. The college is reached via an unspectacular new bridge over the Regent’s Canal […]. Join all the students scurrying across Saint Martins’ public square – still very much under construction and so vast it’s like a stone prairie – and you start to wonder why one of the world’s most highly regarded art and design colleges would ever choose King’s Cross at its new home1’. ‘But there are plenty of compensations, not least the chance to study in a piece of contemporary industrial architecture with great presence. Once through the forbidding gateway – formed by Lewis Cubitt’s restored 1852 granary building, a brick and iron colossus whose upper floors house a library – you find yourself in a huge lobby facing a massive enclosed street. This is 110 metres long and 12 metres wide-with, 20 metres above your head, a translucent vaulted roof: it’s a dramatic and powerful space, set between three-storey ranges of studios framed by two Great Northern Railway goods and grain stores. The sheer scale of it all is wholly unexpected – as if a stretch of street as long and wide as Oxford Street had been roofed over within a building2’. ‘The Granary Building itself has been restored as the main ‘front’ of the college, facing a new public square that steps down to the Regent’s Canal. The building was designed in 1851 to receive grain from the wheat fields of Lincolnshire, unloaded here from railway wagons onto canal boats for onward transport to the capital’s bakeries. It comprises a solid, six-storey cubic mass, with an unadorned, 50-metre wide brick elevation, extended to 100-metres by office additions flanking the building. To the north, located one to each side of the Granary Building, are two parallel 180 metres long Transit Sheds. The design strategy retains the Granary Building, adapted to include functions such as the college’s library, while the Eastern Transit Shed behind is converted to create spectacular workshops for the college. Within the street-level openings of the Western Transit Shed, new shops and bars will add further life to the area. The historic horse stables below the Eastern Transit Sheds have been transformed to new cycle stores for students and staff’3. But it were not the new additions what most caught my attention since I was not able to go inside but the old looking, original building, which reminded me of the ‘Matadero’, in Madrid, a place that regularly hosts art and design related exhibitions and events. 1. Jonathan Glancey: ‘Central Saint Martins: inside the Art factory’ 13th of December 2011. As seen online: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/dec/13/ central-saint-martins-review 2. Jonathan Glancey: ‘Central Saint Martins: inside the Art factory’ 13th of December 2011 . As seen online: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/dec/13/ central-saint-martins-review 3. David McManus, ‘Central St Martins London : Kings Cross Building’ updated 15th August 2016. As seen online: http://www.e-architect.co.uk/london/kings-crosscentral

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The remodeled parts of the building are interesting enough as they make possible the union between students of different degrees to interact and look at what others are doing (through the glasses) 1). http://www.e-architect.co.uk/images/jpgs/london/central_saint_martins_s191011_h13.jpg 2). http://www.e-architect.co.uk/images/jpgs/london/central_saint_martins_s191011_h1.jpg The remodeled parts of the inside of the building, library. 3). http://www.e-architect.co.uk/images/jpgs/london/central_saint_martins_s191011_h3.jpg 4). http://www.e-architect.co.uk/images/jpgs/london/central_saint_martins_s191011_h11.jpg The left side (5, 7) is Matadero and the right side (6, 8) is Granary Building 5). https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Nave_16.3_Matadero_Madrid_(11).jpg 6). http://app.resrc.it/s=w460,pd1/o=80/http://www. arts.ac.uk/media/arts/colleges/csm/csm-innovation/venues/the-crossing.jpg 7). http://saltaconmigo.com/blog/wp-content/ uploads/2015/03/Matadero-Interior-Nave.jpg 8). http://www.e-architect.co.uk/images/jpgs/london/central_saint_martins_s191011_h8.jpg

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Maybe after a side-by-side comparison both buildings may not look that much alike (5, 7, 9 VS 6, 8, 10), the overall feeling I got the moment I got in and looked back reminded me of ‘El Matadero’ in Madrid, the blocks, the old part, the darkness of it (just the moment you go from the entrance to the inside, where reception is), the feel that you have been transported to a new dimension, a different era.

Again the left side (9) is Matadero and the right side (10) is Granary Building 9). https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Nave_16.3_Matadero_Madrid_(5).jpg 10). https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2011/12/13/1323802602572/ The-Central-Saint-Martins-001.jpg?w=620&q=20&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&dpr=2&s=99aa5bef48d63b49a7e44e20edb8170d

‘El Matadero’ (12) was originally a meat market composed of 48 buildings and 165.415 square meters that had other functions over the years, as a potato storage place or a greenhouse. Its construction started in 1911 by the architect Luis Bellido but it was not inaugurated until 19244. Resuming with the comments about the exhibition in London, I should say that there were no leaflets for the exhibition (since I always like to keep some kind of record of an exhibition I am always on the lookout for one) even though there were visit cards from the different members that took part in the exhibit as well as the inside of the building of the UAL Central Saint Martins had, in neon letters, the name of the exhibition, which is a visually appealing way to attract the attention of a passerby.

The inside of the Theatre of ‘El Matadero’ which reminds me slightly the King’s Cross building. 11). http://veredes.es/blog/wp-content/ uploads/2012/05/CH+QS-matadero.jpg

You can see the advertising of the exhibition on the installations inside (13), which made it confusing to figure whether the exhibition was actually held in there (that was actually the opposite building once inside), since we got in from the University’s front door, instead of the exhibition’s front door… Which was clearly marked as ‘Brain waves’ in those 4. Matadero Madrid- Centro de creación contemporánea. Historia. As seen online; http://www.mataderomadrid.org/historia.html.

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Matadero from the outside http://www.tublogdearquitectura.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Matadero-Madrid-6.jpg

characteristically eye catching bold neon colours, which was just next to the main entrance. http://www.arts.ac.uk/csm/whats-on-at-csm/brain-waves/ This is the website of the exhibition, with a brief description of it and some good images. Brain Waves is a different, diverse and innovative project by graduates which I found really interesting. Once inside the exhibition, you could see different panels of text with an explanation, all following the same aesthetics. Colourful neon display titles, eye-catching and nice contrast between the different panels and the elements exhibited. They are all nicely displayed, organized and well explained and except for a few that felt confusing, the concept and ideas were really creative, varying from textile, ceramics, jewellery to multimedia, interactive programs, innovative food or even bigger projects.

The inside of the building but not the exhibition yet.

So these are a series of drawings by Zhiwen Tang (14) that are part of his graphic novel titled â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Chinese Dreamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; that portrays the story of his father, who worked at the construction factory. I found this piece very interesting graphically, with the detailed and well-drawn pencil illustrations, but I was especially drawn to a series of huge three-dimensional blocks that, more closely looked like Chinese characters.

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Me, as a Chinese girl born in Spain, I have always been interested in the Asian aspect of my life, the history of my background that I never learned and that I know I should learn someday as it is part of me, every time I see something Chinese or related, I sense curiosity towards it. This was one of the examples, but I was already interested before knowing that it was about China. The period depicted on the Graphic novel corresponds to my grandparents youth years, were my grandfather saw how Communism took away all personal properties, leaving them in the streets asking for money, and at the age of 13, he found himself having to earn enough to support his whole family: both his parents and his 2 younger brothers. That was over 70 years ago, and now China has changed drastically and that book depicts that change, which, I would very much want to know. Another thing that I liked was that the actual book itself was on display so you could flip the pages and look the content, but what I felt is that the book was quite short as I do not recall there being any text, just images, but quite time consuming ones, really nicely shaded and detailed illustrations that kept me wondering how he could remember or depict such detail and accuracy. There were quite a few parts that were quite innovative and kept me thinking. For example, ‘Photosympathise’ (15) by Freya Morgan which explores the idea of what would happen if plants and people switched places so while they were doing some daily human typical things like sleeping or bathing, human people were observing them from their pots at the windowsill or at different places they were stored at. This series of drawings and instructions made me think of how we treat other beings in general, not only plants, but animals too, and during that switch, I do not think many would feel too happy with the change, which just shows how humans feel a sense of superiority towards the rest, and having the rest: animals, plants, insects… be at their service but we never think if we were the ones intruding their lives and environment. Moreover, this piece made me think of our position in the world and the importance of plants and trees in order to survive as they produce the oxygen we need to live, and that can be translated to the massive deforestation because of the massive use and throwing of paper. Although the graphic style is simple, with a limited colour palette that works well with the message that it wants to convey, the graphic style used for the drawings did not quite suite my tastes as I would not consider them beautiful but technical and interesting. ‘Tesco collection’ (17, 18 ) by Stacey Huang explores the idea of fast consumption and the universality of the language of SALES in supermarkets and stores. I like the idea of the way she used the packaging as part of the container for the product in the ring example and also a way of promoting the object. Also, I noticed that there is a necklace and a bracelet made of those elements made for holding the object but instead of making them of cardboard, they are made of a metallic material with a golden colour coat, giving them an added value, a more luxurious feel that could easily be turned into a jewellery piece. On the description of the pieces exhibited, there was an example explained, where the buy one, get one free depicts an earring and its reflection, which is what you get for free. Sometimes the sales are just a way of making people buy things they do not need, to encourage them to feel like they have come upon a good deal and buying something for less than what it is actually worth. Sometimes, even if the price is so reduced it seems crazy, if it is not something you may want to use, then it would still be a waste of money.

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There is also an â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;out of stockâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; product, which made me think that it was interesting as it makes customers think that may give out the feeling that that product sold out really fast or has good popularity when in reality it did not, so next time if you saw it, you may feel the need to buy it. I always found it funny that they would

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be ‘Sorry’ that a product was temporally out of stock, as if a product is out of stock it means that is sold well and the store would have nothing to feel sorry about. Also, sales are usually well marketed in bold colours making it as if it really were a bargain when sometimes it is not. An example of fake marketing sales could be the ones often seen at supermarkets were customers’ are lied to, by saying there are buying food at reduced prices when the product’s price had only been lowered by one cent, which does not really make a difference or increasing the initial price so the new one feels like a bargain. Also, the psychological 1, 2 or 3 pounds rounded numbers give out the feeling it is cheap or the ending in 0.99, which is essentially 1 makes it feel like it is cheaper than it actually is. ‘Depth of Light’ (16, 19) by Orla Lawn explores the idea of textiles used as a three-dimensional architectural entity, like a wall where you could still see through and it casts beautiful shadows. The moment I walked into the exhibition I was amazed by the superposition of the different textiles that combined both textile and solid elements like wood blocks which made an interesting object with varying shadows and views when you changed the perspective, depending from where you were looking from, you could see different compositions. This is a project or rather an installation that needs to be seen in place to be able to judge and that a picture does not even come to show how inspiring and interesting it is. Lawn made an excellent combination between solid and flexible, which is an innovative way to portray it all. Another project with textiles is the one titled ‘Illusory Kinetics’ (20) by Zhengke Jin, where the combination of solid elements and textiles again serve as a medium to create another object that seems versatile and flexible, with different patterns that seem in constant movement. The combination of both materials seem a good choice for the union. I like how the rayon is a quite reflective material while the Perspex is so transparent it is see-through, seeing it displayed like that makes me want to touch them and get to play with them. ‘82 Years of Testing Screens’ (21) by Felix Steindl is an interactive installation that allows the visitor to take part into changing the different screens by changing the different buttons and changing the colour, saturation, lines… It is the kind of thing that once you discover you want to tell others: ‘Look what this does! ‘, ‘See that?’ It does not come with any kind of instructions so visitors are allowed to play and change the dials by themselves. There were other interactive activities, like for example the one about types that explores the possibility of the type to become angry (24), if they would be able to express protest or become autonomous, gain their own entity. Whether there would be a separation between what the designer had done and the work itself taking over. The installation consisted of a computer where you could input any text that would be morphing and changing its original form, deforming itself as if it were angry or were victim of a few technological glitches. Unfortunately I forgot to write down the name and the title of the installation. Another interactive project, named ‘The Maul’ (25) by Gareth Wrighton allows us to immerge into a digital world shaped like a videogame where we can explore the inside by running and jumping. The characters in that ‘world’ all wear different clothing featuring the fashion collection from the creator of this game. It is an interesting and fun way to promote one’s creations and designs, although the graphics may reminisce that of an old videogame, it is an innovative approach and it is not an easy task to do. If the main aim of the project were to be a videogame, then there would be quite a few aspects lacking, as the characters and environment seemed a bit stiff, but as a way to promote and showcase fashion, it is definitely an interesting way to do so.

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Another project that caught my attention hugely was a documentary (22, 23) about production in China ‘Made in China: The production of assumptions and prejudice’ by Biying Shi, which explored the idea that usually, the ‘MADE IN CHINA’ tag referred to low quality cheap mass productions, which forged an image of China that is not the only one that exists and this documentary is about the people who produce quality or unique products in China, like an artisanal factory of furniture, where hundreds of chairs and other products are produced every day, being the carving and building all done by hand with quality checks. The salaries are low and most of them barely get to see their families but they are content with their job as it requires skills and having been an apprentice before. Another one was a production for electrical supplies, such as parts of a light bulb or electronical parts that were then exported worldwide. The owner had a company in the United States because then it can increase their price and the pieces are assembled in Germany, but all the different components are made in China, but if it said ‘MADE IN CHINA’ it would have that low quality feeling that a lot of the cheap products that have been sold worldwide made of the impression of China. But overall, probably my favourite project of the exhibition without doubt was ‘Per Inciso’ (26, 27) by Giada Giachino, which is a beautiful and creative project that uses discarded elements from the food like the lobster, mussels and shell-lips to create jewellery. The result is a colourful and interesting jewellery piece that makes a beautiful and unique collection. There were also a few things that I did not know what it was about, some scientific experiment about transferring knowledge to the vein through the computer. Another one that I found quite interesting but I did not have any photograph of it is one that implemented a new way of using the transport card by implementing a chip in the nail art so that people (mostly girls) would not need to carry the oyster card around. A map would be included too. Another proposition from the same student was the possibility of the cleaning foam to be shaped as a ring, so that it could be used as a cleaning tool while still wearing it. I felt a bit unsure about the chip part as I think it seems a bit taken out from a science fiction film, but maybe in the future it could be made possible. There was another project that I found really appealing and that I did not really understand until I read the description as initially it just looks as pieces of meat, like one you would find in any butcher’s with the only difference that it was not actually meat but made of a vegetable alga. So it was then shaped like a pig’s leg and stuffed inside. The colours and the texture resembled hugely to the meat in real life, which could be a revolution in culinary industry in the future. There were other projects like the mix of British and Icelandic wool (28) or some clothing design. As I probably mentioned before there were quite a few projects that left me thinking. The following is an example of that. It is called ‘Contemporary Fragmented Vision’ (29) and it is a project by Nils Braun which made me think of the way things are shared online or what we actually know about certain events or objects. At first sight, it just looks like an incomplete sculpture of the David by Michelangelo. Behind it, countless of pictures from the internet from different users that posted a picture of themselves with the statue. The sculpture is a reconstruction of the sculpture after the images found on the internet about it. It comes to show that it is really detailed at the front but it is incomplete at the back. It makes me think of how sometimes we only have one view or perspective of an event and we think that we already know it, or how people are content with seeing part of something: the front, which is what is used to recognise the whole element but not the entity in its completion, which is important to build the whole element but not to recognise it. To conclude, there was a part of the exhibition were you could leave your own contribution on the site which consisted on ceramic ostracons (30) on which we left our own message (with a word that we thought would break boundaries) and placed them alongside the messages previous visitors had left.

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lecture poster

LECTURE POSTER: Pop & Conceptual Art

Nov.

Each one of us was told to do a poster for a lecture of this year, either for the first years or the second years, which were our ones. I chose to do the pop art and conceptual art one because I was particularly interested in the topic and I thought that pop art and conceptual art are really different, not only in the graphic expression but in their concepts and realisation. Another reason was that I did not feel as confident at trying to design a topic that I was totally unfamiliar with, which is the case of situationism. You could also say that I prefferred to choose a poster for the first year students as I felt embarrassed that my classmates would see my design. Although both topics were really interesting, I did not realise how difficult it was to make a poster that could represent both ideas on the same piece, so I did some research first. Although I was already familiar with both topics, I read some articles on the internet about pop art and conceptual art, discovering some more pieces that I did not know about before, like the Mickey Mouse that Andy Warhol did or the text with light tubs from Joseph Kosuth. Since this research was mostly visual in order to gather visual inspiration, I gathered plenty of images that are going to be shown following this text. Unfortunately, I forgot to keep the source of the images, but some of them can be found in my pinterest folder (actually two) https://es.pinterest.com/ fanihulu/pop-art/, I wonder why I did not add more as I am sure there could be more found in pinterest.

1. Damien Hirst. ‘The physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living’ (1991). 2. Damien Hirst. ‘Flock’. (1994). 3. Josepth Kosuth. ‘Box, cube, empty, clear glass’. (1965). 4. Joseph Kosuth. ‘Three chairs’ (1965).

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5. Joseph Kosuth. ‘Clock’ (One and Five) (1965). 6. Joseph Kosuth. ‘Words are deeds’ (1991). 7. Cilde Mereiles. ‘Insertions into Ideological Circuits: Coca-Cola Project’ (1970). 8. Sol Lewitt. ‘Corner Piece no. 2 (from Cube structures based on nine modules).

9. On Kawara. ‘Today series’ (1966-2014) 10. A piece featured in Mobstr Exhibition, as seen in Sabrina Andron’s page: https://sabinaandron.com/tag/urban-art-london/ 11. John Baldessari. ‘The pencil story’. 12. René Magritte. ‘The Treachery of Images’. (1928-1929)

Inspiration in Conceptual Art Although I am not particularly a fan of animals being encapsulated in boxes immersed in some kind of liquid (1, 2 ), I have to say that these kind of pieces have my attention. I do like the look of it and the general aesthetic, and that is why I prefer Kosuth’s boxes (3). Each of the boxes have different names that represent a characteristic of the box. It seems that in conceptual art, the cubes are a recurrent topic as it can be seen in Sol LeWitt’s Cube estructures (8). One artist I was not aware of is Cildo Mereiles, which added some text and annotations on Coca-Cola’s bottles before reintroducing them to circulation (7). As for a piece that I never saw from Kosuth, is ‘Words are deeds’ which is actually an installation (6). The reason I included this image was because I liked the text made out of light. More well-known pieces of Joseph Kosuth are the ‘Three chairs’ (4) and ‘Clock’ (One and five, (5) meaning there is actually one actual clock but the other elements refer to the clock too). The concept for both pieces are really similar and are essentially a single object that is also represented in different ways (but probably surrealist Magritte would disagree with it as a definition of a chair does not make a chair although if we know what a chair is, we can recognise it from the picture and the definition, even to the point of not really knowing if the actual chair displayed at the exhibition may be a photograph too (now that we have the picture of the exhibition but have not been to the actual exhibition itself). As for the images on this page, I have always thought On Kawara’s work to be quite interesting (9), not just graphically (they are usually numbers painted on a canvas) but the concept and how each date shown depends on the event he chose to portray (which is represented by the newspaper with the event of that day on the back of the canvas) and the way the dates are shown depends on the place he was, as different countries have different ways of showing dates. At a first look, the canvas look more like if they were actually printed rather than handwritten. The image on its right (10), is actually part of an exhibition titled Mobstr, and although I do not know the name of the author or the title of the piece, I felt it was oddly similar with On Kawara’s today series although the concept resembled more that of Joseph Kosuth’s boxes. His stile of date was hinted in the way I tried to use it to show the date on the poster. I also added another image of another artist that I have not heard of previously, John Baldessari, who explores an interesting idea where basically anything can be art (11). I think it is a critique towards what art has 16

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become today and how flexible its boundaries have become, to ever embrace ‘Conceptual art’ as a form of art. Although I know that this pipe from Magritte is not a conceptual art piece, it did, actually appear during my search of conceptual art, probably because it has something behind it, it is conceptual in some way, but it is a surrealist piece. This ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’ (12) is about how that is not an actual pipe but the representation of it. At first, it makes you wonder how that is not a pipe, and then slowly you start to realise how a painting of something cannot the actual thing, not even a photograph, and it is the concept of that piece that makes it so interesting.

Pop Art inspiration So after looking at some conceptual art inspirations, now it is time to see some Pop Art references, and when talking about pop art, the first person that comes to mind is Andy Warhol, so I started by looking up pictures of his.

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As it can be seen, from the images below, the colours are all really bright and really ‘pop out’. All the pieces were already familiar to me except for the Mickey Mouse one, which I did not know he had one which is the reason why I wanted to feature this piece in some of the versions of the poster that I did.

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And of course, another indispensable representant of this art is Roy Lichtenstein, with his famous comic like paintings that are still popular today, with people using his artworks as inspiration for makeup and dressing up. As it can be seen on the images, it is representative of his art the use of dots and how he elevated the comic style, how he made comic, something available to the masses into a piece of art that would be featured in museums. Although the first one (19) and the one on the bottom left (22) are not actually pieces of his but done after his pieces just comes to show the relevance of his work. After looking for some examples of both concept art and pop art, I started looking for posters of those exhibitions, to see how a pop art exhibition would (23) be represented, and here are two examples of Lichtenstein: one about pop art (22) with a remake of his work and a Tate retrospective of himself (23) are clear examples of combining an illustration with text to make a poster. Also, in order to make the poster to have a pop art and comic feeling, I downloaded some free vectorial elements like speech bubbles and colourful dotted background to help constructing the image. In the following pages there will be examples of pop art inspired posters, as well as conceptual art related posters (which I was extremely curious about, as to how a concept could be represented seems interesting) as well as posters in general.

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Pop Art inspired posters

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Conceptual Art inspired posters & Poster examples

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There seems to be quite a big difference between the pop art themed posters or related and the conceptual art ones, not only on the colour, which are livelier on the first ones but also the elements seem to be more fluid and the later ones seem to be more geometric. Finally, to conclude are some of the posters with the different versions that I came up with. In each of the posters there have been the intention to include several artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s elements on it, and maybe there were too many ideas on the same poster that made it confusing. Although I had those (A, B, C) different versions of the poster, each one with different variations I felt that those were the most representative ones.

A1 B1 C1 A2 B2 C2

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On the first version (A) that I came up with, there is the idea of using the Campbell’s Soup can that was represented by Andy Warhol so many times that has become an icon of pop art but as how Joseph Kosuth would represent it, or as how he represented a chair: with the actual object (in my case an image of the actual product), a representation of it (Warhol’s painting) and its definition, side by side. I also wanted to add a comic strip feel, and this is why there is this colourful vignette as the background. Also, for the word ‘Pop’ of Pop Art, I used a font that has been widely used in comic, called BADABOOM. A1 and A2 are essentially the same except for the lecture’s title, being the second one (A2) having Pop and the Art of Conceptual Art both in the same Badaboom font so that it could make a connection between Pop and Art, as ‘Art’ here follows Conceptual.

On the poster in the middle (B) it is essentially the same idea of the soup can as three with a comiclike backgroud that put emphasis on the whole piece. This time the Pop is the only word that uses the Badaboom font, although in the later version (B2), I added a speech bubble in front of the can with the question ‘Art?’ in this comic style font to question whether a can can become a piece of art and also, whether the concept of the can being represented three times would make art as well. The intention is to make the audience think and question what has been traditionally set and what they have been told, to think and raise questions about what has been learnt.

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Finally, the last one, which is also the simplest one and probably the least confusing one (C) features a piece by Andy Warhol which has a speech bubble added to Mickey Mouse that says ‘Pop’ in that previously mentioned font. This poster plays with the concept and meaning of pop not only as part of Pop art but also with its own meaning, to pop out or an onomatopoeia, a representation of a sound ‘POP!’ It also plays with the repetition of the word ‘Pop that appears as the title of the lecture. The only difference between these two versions of the poster (C1 & C2) is that the second one (C2) the way the date is shown is different, making a playful link to On Kawara’s today series, where he draws dates differently. If you pay close attention you would possibly notice that the word ‘Pop’ in the first poster (C1) has the letter ‘P’ cut. That is actually due to a glitch of my exported pdf that it would make it that way. It was fixed in the second one when I saved it as a jpeg instead of a pdf and the glitch was accidental, not intended.

gee vaucher exhibition

INTROSPECTIVE 14.11.16 Today we went to First Site to visit the Exhibition of Gee Vaucher, which is an influential artist born in Essex, especially for her work for the anarcho-punk band called Crass who I did not know about before (both artist and group) but after that, I realised her name came up in several lectures and whenever there was a chance, she was mentioned in class as an example of relevant artist, which comes to represent the influence she had on British culture, but possibly, important worldwide. An example of that is the use of her Illustration/ painting ‘Oh America’ (1) on the cover of Daily Mirror the day Trump won the elections (10th of Nov.) of the United States of America, which playfully shows the Statue of the Liberty covering her face with her hands as a way to wonder or cry for what they have done as the media have shown the way Trump acts and thinks that are not ethically or morally correct. This piece was also featured as the cover of the exhibition leaflet, although in the regular First Site leaflet featuring the exhibition as a current event, it was another piece that was featured, the inside of a single of Crass called ‘Bloody Revolutions’. I was impressed by how realistic some of her paintings were, to the point of not distinguishing between an image, such as a photograph or a drawing as she often combined illustration and collage in her pieces. It was interesting to see the red rectangles hanging in on the ceiling. The image (2) shows a close-up while the one at the bottom (3) is an unfocused image of everything. The exhibition was divided in different parts:

1.- NEW YORK & 2.- Illustrations ‘New York’ or as it was displayed on the Exhibition site: ‘New York and commercial illustrations’ consist on a series of photographs taken in 2013 in streets of New York and they document the disappearance of cobbled streets. The photographs (4) were accompanied with a soundtrack of the Manhattan streets, which in my opinion made it messy and sometimes uncertain as to what was going on (having in mind that we were in a closed space, inside a gallery) but it was an interesting resource as it made me think about how it could have been if I were in the place the pictures were taken, even if they are not from the same place, it is undeniable the need to associate both: visual and audio, as we can contemplate both as seeing and hearing happen simultaneously and at the same time in real life, but we more than often pay more attention to the visual stimulus, as if it were stronger (an probably it is) than others, such as heard ones.

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The Illustration refer to the characteristic Illustrations of Gee Vaucher, realistic representations with gouache that were done for the New York Times, New York Magazine, Ebony and High Times. With time, she started including collage in her paintings as a way to save time and keep up with deadlines. This would become her trademark style. ‘I like the fact that collage uses material that is already there, has already been in print and the fact that there is nothing that people have not seen before.’ (From the Exhibition explanation of her work provided on the exhibition site). An example of it is shown here (5, A photograph of the exhibition. ‘Bee Gees record review’ Rolling Stone, 1977. Watercolour, gouache and collage) , which strongly caught my attention as I found really interesting the way she drew the different characters in monochrome colour (characteristic of her paintings) with gouache but they looked like pencil illustrations rather than paintings due to that greyish tone, so at first I was convinced they were pencil illustrations but it was gouache what she used. It is interesting the way the faces of the main characters look like paper that have been pasted on it and it has an effect of peeling off, and the part that has been pasted is in colour while the rest of the facial features that can be seen behind it are monochromatic, just like the rest of the painting except the part of the collage. It may be worth noting that the background, which is the part that has the most colours in this piece (including the cyan uniform background that I assume to be the sky) are constituted by different scraps and cuts of people and characters that, despite their disparity and difference in size and styles still make a uniform and coherent background. Looking closely, there are some figures whose faces have some crosses, as if they were not supposed to be part of the painting, rejections that were included.

3.-EXIT ‘EXIT’ (6, 7) is a performance group that Gee Vaucher formed with Penny Rimbaud. They toured universities and galleries with combinations of music, theatre and installation. There was even a newspaper cut framed were it described the performance all the while not understanding its purpose. This is a close-up of a picture on the upper left side of the wall that caught my attention. It features a human figure, probably a young man with his head and hands covered, well, wrapped in what could be toilet paper (like a mummy), with what would possibly be a chair attached on his back. What I liked about that picture, apart from the black and white,

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that gave it unity, was the white paint that surrounded the main figure that I find interesting, all the background is covered except for the part that nears the figure and it looks as if someone had scratched the paint to reveal the centre and I think that would be an interesting graphic resource to use or apply in the future. From the 1st and 2nd to the 4th part of the exhibition there was a big block of glass (8, 9) on the floor with some text on it, and I am not sure to which section of the exhibition it belonged to. I really liked the contrast of the glass against the brown wooden floor and the lights reflecting on it. Actually I took quite a few pictures of it. Maybe it was part of First Site, as it was stuck on the ground. On a closer view, it can be seen through the glass, at certain perspectives that there is an intricate mosaic beneath it.

4.- THE SOUND OF STONES IN THE GLASSHOUSE It was created as a response to 9/11 and the United States’ ensuing foreign policy showing its 20th Century military interventions. Developed in collaboration with Christian Brett, the greenhouse has the names of each invaded country with its respective panels for the different US presidents through history. It was interesting to see how this project was updated with the current events, creating a new panel for Donald Trump, who recently won the presidential elections. The project was thought to be interactive with the audience so that the greenhouse (10) would serve as a real greenhouse in which seeds would be planted by the visitors. Also, on the first day of the exhibition, white balloons with envelopes with encouraging messages and seeds would be released. Although I was not exactly interested in the presidents of the United States or their military interventions, I did find something quite thrilling the huge difference of deaths between George Bush’s presidency to Barack Obama’s (both being 8 years) going from 6,653,470 to 522,782 respectively. Let’s see how it will go with Trump. (8) Image of a big block of glass on the floor with some text on it. It said: ‘Give us justice which is not the searing spite of revenge, peace which is not the product of war nor dependent upon it. Give us freedom where now there is only servitude.’ (10) Greenhouse featuring the names of the countries invaded. 28

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5.- CRASS International Anthems (11) is the name of Gee Vaucher’s own newspaper that she used to showcase her own political imagery as well as others’, including Penny Rimbaud’s writing, who alongside a friend created the anarcho-punk band Crass (12). As her illustrations were becoming to be less accepted by mainstream magazines, she decided to return to produce covers and posters for Crass. With Gee Vaucher’s collages and Rimbaud’s writing they stablished Crass’s aesthetics and Manifesto. After going to New York in 1977 and returning two years later to Essex, Gee Vaucher faced an ambient of discontent and dissatisfaction among the people. Most of Vaucher’s political artwork for Crass is influenced by the new establishment of Margaret Thatcher’s conservative policies, highlighting the human suffering of the time in different situations. Although it was frequently assumed to be collages, they were all intricate and extremely detailed gouache paintings. I leave a few examples below as one would not make justice to her work. This was possibly one of my favourite parts from the exhibition along with the political posters. (13) Photograph of a few paintings made for Crass. In this example it can be clearly seen how detailed the city in ruins looks, and it is impressive the amount of time and skill taken create such an image. (14) Probably the reason why it looks like a collage, it is so well drawn that they look like photographic images rather than realistic or almost hyper-realistic paintings. (15) Interesting side-to-side comparison of different people on the same situation after it has changed. (16) This would be an example of collage usage with the juxtaposition of newspaper cuts and what seems like coffee or watercolour. The superposition of different layers of text of different sizes and fonts remind me of the imagery used for the Sex Pistols.

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11 10 ANOTHER SECTION: interesting

typographic compositions. Something I would like to adopt for my own practice.

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6.- POLITICAL POSTERS Quoting from the exhibition ‘Vaucher’s work with Crass cemented her anti-war views, which can also be found in radical Political Posters installed opposite on the curved wall in the style of underground tube train adverts.’

mensional looking, fully shaded paintings, these ones are simple line drawings that depict different situations.

8.- ANIMAL RITES

‘All humans are animal but some animals are more human than It is interesting to see how she others.’ This part of the exhibition used traditional imagery of fashows the animal-human relamous paintings and sculptures in tionships. It includes from animal which she recreated adding a new sculptures (18) (dogs, birds…) that message and a completely diffehave a human face (a critique of rent meaning. That would make a the human tendency to attribugood example of détournement. te anthropomorphic features to animals), with these creatures Especially interesting is the appro- featuring a human face or a baby priation of part of Michelangelo’s doll face. Those strike as bold and ‘The creation of Adam’s hand’ (17), sometimes as uncomfortable as a world-wide recognised piece and it seems that in some way, the putting on top also famous Walt animals have taken property of Disney’s Mickey Mouse’s iconic the human, as if they have approgloved hands showing a rather priated their face (the part that is interesting exchange: money, used to recognise another human which makes us wonder what that and distinguish from another, their money had been exchanged for, sign of identity), but when it is the and makes me think of corruption. opposite, humans using animal fur or dissecting animals for decoration, most of the times they 7.- MUCH ADO ABOUT are not even frowned upon. Also, SOMETHING another similar concept was also done with photographs (19), where A play of metaphors: collage and it shows animals with humans in drawing. Part of the Innocence which the animal’s face had been of Children, it is a critique of the swapped by a human’s. Those strict upbringing of children and images are both bold but at the religious education. This part of same time captivating, you cannot the exhibition features a series of tear your eyes away from it, it atillustrations that look like drawn tracts you and makes you wonder by children (20) and although interesting, I did not quite unders- about their history. tand it but I cannot deny that they At facing sides of a big wall there are quite expressive. As opposite are two big paintings of a Cow and as her other realistic, three-di-

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a Bull, both depicted with an empty glance, without personality, as they are animals that are often in servitude for the humankind. I like the concept, but not the painting itself as it makes me feel uncomfortable looking at it. In 2003, ‘Animal Rites’ was conceived as a book.

9.- A WEEK OF KNOTS It is an ongoing group of work from Vaucher’s collages. It is inspired by the artist Max Ernst and the poet R.D. Lang. It started with the will to illustrate Lang’s Knots, a small book of prose based on his patient’s experiences, but after failing to obtain the publication rights she decided to do her own interpretation, and that is how ‘A week of Knots’ started (21).

10.- PASTELS, FIGURES AND PORTRAITS During the 1990s, after intensely focusing on politics and global issues with Crass, she then took her work to a more personal level, in which she explored the psychological and physiological impact of personal relationships by painting portraits of her loved ones (22). Also, in a few portraits there is the usage of collage as a way to produce uncertainty, to portray ‘a sense of mental dislocation through the physical dislocation and dismemberment of her female figures’ as read at the exhibition.

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(17). A photograph from the exhibition that depicts some of the political posters. (18). A dog with a baby face, sculpture. (19). A series of photographs that show the relationship between animals and humans in which the animals features have been exchanged for human ones. (20) A photograph of one of the Illustrations featured at Much Ado about something. (21). A photograph of one of her collages, which were produced with illustrations from the Victorian pulp novels and encyclopedias, it makes a beautiful combination of different illustrations onto a new one. (22). Some personal paintings alongside some unsettling collages of females.

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THE INNOCENCE OF CHILDREN 11.- ICONS It is a series that was inspired from the ‘Portraits of Children Who Have Seen Toom Much Too Soon’ in which the sexuality of children is explored with a series of collages. These consist of an image of a child’s face whose body has been removed to be substituted by an adult’s body (23), so it would look like a child face on an fully grown adult body, which expresses a contradiction of sorts: between young and old, immature and mature, developing and completed…

12.- CHILDREN WHO HAVE SEEN TOO MUCH TOO SOON Lastly, ‘Portraits of Children Who Have Seen Toom Much Too Soon’ is a series of paintings of Children whose faces bear traits from different children, based on small-scale collages, they are huge paintings (24, 25) that intimidate the viewer as it makes their expressions and suffering more apparent. Their eyes, even if they may not be looking at someone in specific, seem to be looking at you intently, sometimes in fear, sometimes in disconcert. It makes you feel uncomfortable and wonder what children (generically, as they are each of them are constituted by a few) have had to be through despite their young ages. The red walls comes to reinforce that anxiety.

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25 (23). This collage is also a depiction of contradictions: from the purity and innocence of a child (with a veil, that reminds us of Virgin Maria) and the boldness and the bold exposure of her intimate parts of the body. Even if the body and the face are not from the same person, both pieces work together quite well, creating confusion and shock among the audience. (24). An image as reference to know the size of the paintings.

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detournement

DETOURNEMENT

29.11.16

After having a lecture about detournement and its meaning and uses (29.11.16) we were suggested to develop this concept graphically. Although this is a clear concept that consists in using an element and completely change its meaning or use, change the way it was supposed to be so that the ending result can either be shocking or surprising (in a good way), I found it particularly hard to come up with some interesting imagery. It broadens the way you think as well as making it clear that there can be no limits as to what creativity can lead to. So I first started by looking at some existing detournements to see what other artists had previously done. Most of them seemed critiques to capitalism as well as the contradictions that are present in many elements of our society. Fast food= Fast food. I just thought of this now, that if you get rid of the ‘S’ in ‘Fast’ you get ‘Fat’ (1, 2). So I looked on the internet for images representative of detournement and in between the McDonald critiques I found an artist that did high quality photographs of detournements that I decided to include in my research as well, that is, Chema Madoz.

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The images that I found on the internet that are about a critique to fast food and capitalism include detournements of brands such as Pepsi, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s. For example, there is an image of a photograph that was wrongly interpreted and used as an image of the violence of the war, which shows an official shooting an innocent citizen but it was actually the leader of a revenge gang that killed dozens of unarmed citizens that day1 but in this case, what the gun fires is not a bullet but coke, which also kills (3), or substituting the names that Coca-Cola used on its labels so that it had a more personalised feeling if you bought a bottle with your name (4) that in this case has been substituted by the symptoms that drinking Coke may produce: ‘Cravings’, ‘Cavities’, ‘Obesity’, ‘Diabetes’ due to its exaggerated amount of sugar… If you thought Coke’s detournement were strong critiques, then the following ones of Pepsi are even stronger. It just comes to show how the logo could backfire as it is used to represent an overweight man that can barely hold his Pepsi drink (4) or the man that is so rounded that cannot reach the Pepsi that is on the floor (5). All this imagery can easily be created, by just adding some details to the already existing logotype. As for McDonald’s, which I realised were the most aimed at chain, has some rude takes on the logo (9), and once flipping the M to become a pair of ‘Manboobs’ (8) or, referencing the weight gain ‘I’m gainin’ it’ instead of the famous ‘I’m lovin’ it’ (10). After those aimed against certain brands, there are some ordinary objects that can be found in everyday life that has been given a certain twist: a prohibition signal that seems to defy its own ban by picturing a man trying to steal the white bar away (5), or the dotted lines on the motorway that look like the instructions of a piece to cut out (12), an advertisement for contraceptives that refers to the Olympic games, but not in the way you would have thought of: ‘Usain—not every man wants to be the fastest in the world’ it reads (13). Other examples include the Painting of Edvard Munch, an expressionist painter whose painting ‘The shout’ has become such an icon that there is even an emoji of it! And then, here is a happy emoji on that painting, which surely references that emoji that was created after that painting (14), some skateboard that became a toilet paper dispenser by substituting the wheels (17) or a Star Wars figure using a violin as its spaceship (18). Worth mentioning on this section is the bicycle which has one wheel made out of the London Eye (15). The author of this image is Rich McCor that goes by the name of @paperboyo on instagram, a British artist that combines different papercuts with photography to create a new image2, usually from famous landmarks or different buildings. I have seen some of his work previously featured on some online articles before, so when I saw his work as example of detournement I was greatly impressed, so I decided to at least include one. On the next page there are a series of detournements done with LEGO figures, as well as a ‘The Beatles’ CD cover detournement, which instead of the for men crossing the road in line, there is a police office spraying what I believe is pepper spray, disrupting the apparently peaceful procession (25). Mike Stimpson’s photographic detournements3 are recreations of iconic photographs and events with what is considered a toy, which in some way it takes off the seriousness of the whole situation in a playful way, almost like looking down on those feats, almost saying: Look! Even some toys achieved this!’ But I believe all this is more of a series (20, - 24)that he wanted to do without any evil intention and all is but a guess, although the accuracy and similarities from the scenes reproduced are probably quite rewarding for him to make.

1. ‘Saigon execution: Murder of a Vietcong by Saigon Police Chief, 1968’ As seen online: http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/saigon-execution-1968/ 2. ‘British photographer uses paper cutouts to cheekily transform European landmarks’ As seen online: http://mashable.com/2015/10/22/rich-mccor-photography-paper-cutouts/#zHPRBQAMyZqb 3. ‘Mike Stimpson’s photo détournement’. As seen online: https://yamanika.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/mike-stimpsons-photo-detournement/

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Here are some images that represent a detournement of quotidian objects that I gathered together from different sources on the internet from various artists but they all seem to share some common characteristics, they all have some traits that make it unexpected and they are all set in a colourful background, mostly with soft pastel colours. This series of elements would make an interesting contraposition to the following images of Chema Madoz, also using daily objects that have a clever gist to them. Chema Madoz is a Spanish photographer that is well known for his black and white photographs, classified as surrealists4. He seems to be a very relevant figure in the art and design field, and I remember some teachers in Madrid being particularly interested in mentioning him, but it was not until I was researching for some detournement imagery that I got to know some of his work and came to realise his importance, as before this, I knew he was important and that he did some really good book covers (my teacher said so). I am glad that I decided to further look for his works and at the end, ended up at his website http://www.chemamadoz.com/a.html and soon became more curious of his work: I needed to look for more of his works to see what unexpected changes he could have added to basic objects. This lead me to save the pictures that I liked the most and I soon realised that most of the detournement images I already had were his. I also had this reaction when I first discovered McCor, going on to his Instagram to look for more pictures of his to satiate my curiosity but now I can understand why so many people admire and love his work. I only wish I had made better use of my curiosity back then and looked for him earlier. Only then I would have had another way of looking at things: not the ways they are presented but what they can manage to become, or better said, what we want them to become. There are no limits as to what can be done, but as to what you can imagine. I will not be describing these images as they are self-explanatory and quite graphical.

Chema Madoz

4. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Chema Madozâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. As seen online: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chema_Madoz

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So now that I have shown most of the examples and the visual inspiration that I used, it feels that my own outcomes pale in comparison. I had some ideas at the beginning for which I chose two to develop at the end, which are marked with an asterisk. Some ideas and concepts were: A) Painting with coffee. Coffee is a drink, it is expensive. There are people dying of hunger every day yet some people seem to be mocking others. *B) A coin rain. It is a rain that hurts (physically) but people would accept the pain in order to receive money. It raises a question about what is truly important now: health or money and how money has become such an essential part of our lives: some bits of metal and paper, are those more important than our own lives? But we cannot live without money. It wants to express that contradiction. C) A hamburger is drinking soda in order to be able to become a BigMac. Here there are various concepts: the will to become a bigger hamburger to be sold by at higher price, how sodas make people gain weight, (especially the bigger ones that are sold alongside the super size menu, which has an alarming quantity of sugar) and finally, a fast food aliment (burger) drinking from another aliment typical of fast foods (soda). D) A corn peeling trying to become popcorn so that it becomes white. (Some failing and ending up burned). *E) Trump Carrots. At the moment of the talk, the United States presidential elections were taking place, in which Trump won. There was a lot of controversy going on and his victory was strongly criticised. It was also made known around that time that he was quite racist, not letting some people participate in his races due to their skin colour, so I thought that there could be people not willing to be associated with him. Also, he is often represented with an orange looking skin tone, hence the anthropomorphic carrots painting themselves in white paint so that they are not associated with Trump. F) Milk and black chocolate showering in custard in fear of being discriminated. A chocolate bar complaining about having being made fun of in class by white chocolate. This is based on real events that happened in the USA following the elections, some Mexican people suffered verbal abuse from their classmates. G) The M of McDonald’s becoming a pair of lips that say ‘Eat me’. Gross. The note is a reference to Alice in Wonderland where she finds things that said ‘drink me’ or ‘eat me’ and I always wondered whether it would be safe to eat or drink something you were unsure of what it was. Similarly, we are not really sure about what is actually used to produce the fast food we consume today. H) McDonald’s now free for rich people. A representation of the things that are considered normal but actually lack logical sense. I) Vicious cycle I: working for money to spend it /to use it (and it starts again) J) Vicious cycle II: live to study to get a job to pay for student loan to live (and it starts again) K) Vicious cycle III: regarding the similarity of the dollar sign with the infinite symbol: always poor. The symbol of infinite is also a cycle, a never ending one. It comes to say how most people never manage to get out of poverty, it is an infinite cycle of poverty, of lack of dollars (money). L) Using virtual reality for a realistic experience instead of living that experience in real life. M) Pretend you are having fun virtually (video games) (it can also be applied to posting online) instead of actually living it. N) Coke=Choke. Play of words. Both are equally harmful. One you notice the pain, another one you do not. What I found out with my first ideas of detournement were that they had too many simultaneous concepts going on that made it complex and hard to understand and as I started simplifying them, the meaning became clearer. Also, my lack of will to expose myself to controversial topics or blaming others made me wary of whether I should carry on with some of the proposals I was doing as I felt that it may not have been politically correct and I did not want to risk criticising too harsh as I am used to accept what I have been given so sometimes I find myself without my own opinion, which exists, but often gets toned down unconsciously.

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DETOURNEMENT OUTCOMES

Second attempt on trying to visually represent a detournement. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Trump Carrotsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; shows a series of carrots painting themselves white.

First attempt at a detournement poster using a meme style and stick figures.

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(own) trip, ii - LONDON ILLUSTRATION FAIR

Trip to London to the London Illustration Fair at Bargehouse in OXO Tower Wharf, Southbank

03.12.16 1

At the beginning, even if I bought the ticket for the event in advance quite quickly (2), all the time I was hesitant of doing so since there was a part in me that was not feeling satisfied. The pieces I had seen showcased on the media did not really appeal to me and if it was not because someone recommended me going there (a friend of mine was even told not to spend too much money on that event as more similar events were going to take place soon) but they also told her that the place was spectacular. Nevertheless, the pieces showcased on the internet and on their facebook page did not match what really was going there, they were not making justice to the actual event as there is a

limitation as to how many examples they can showcase but even so, there were so many artists and so many stands that no matter what kind of illustration was your style, you could still find one that suited your tastes.

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The moment I entered the first room (1) I knew that even if at first I was not feeling really convinced about going, I was glad I always had a part in me that pushed me to do things that I was not 100% sure about since my gut instinct was telling me that if I missed that chance, I would be regretting it for some time and I was right.

casing their pieces, some really willing to give out their business cards, others trying to save them for later; animatedly talking about their artwork: the name of the piece, what inspired it, which programs or techniques were used; how they workedâ&#x20AC;Ś There were some people who did not have their business cards available which was a pity since there were some really interesting artists but since they were selling either prints or big pieces of original artwork, it was not made for all budgets and it would have been interesting if we could have gotten their contact details.

The ambient there was really nice, with 4 floors full of people show-

Some artists were really engaging, trying to invite you to sit down

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with them, offering you fruit or explaining how the artist forgot the pricing at the studio but if we had any questions we could ask them. What I found interesting was how the payment was done: the moment you had decided on a product, they gave you a piece of paper with the description of the product and the price and you had to go to the till to pay, so this way, each stand did not have to worry about having spare money or to handle the money at all. On each floor there were clearly signalled tills, and once you had paid, you just needed to come back with the stamped paper to the stand and they would hand you what you bought. (3-14) ----------------------------------------Just right at the first floor, we noticed there was an artist whose name was the same as the friend who I was going with: Marina FernĂĄndez (15, 16) . That was the first thing I noticed while I was looking at the artists there as none of them sounded familiar to me. While we were looking at her stand we learnt that the artist, who just went on a break but her friend was on her place instead, explaining her pieces, was actually from Seville, Spain (we found her friendâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s accent familiar while speaking in English) but she is based in London now. Once started a conversation, the fact that my friend shared her name became the main topic and when the artist came back she seemed thrilled to have met someone with the same name as her, Spanish too! Her illustrations are made using

printmaking, which make each of them unique. The colours are really vibrant and the stile is quite unique. Her website: www.marinafdz.com and Instagram www. instagram.com/marinafdz but it seems she is not very active. Just opposite Marina was another stand that greatly caught my attention: (17-20) it was the stand for Jolly Awesome and really, her products are awesome! If it were not for the elevated prices and the fact that it is hard to bring back prints with a suitcase (I mean bringing back to my house in Ibiza) I would have definitely bought a few of her prints/ cards. While looking at her cards, I realised that some of them were registered. She also had other kind of merchandising like pins and mugs. She did not have any business card outside, but I did see her handing a few to some interested customers but my friend and I felt bad to ask for any, as she was running low of them. Another thing we noticed is the personal touch she gave to her products: the prints came in a clear plastic folder/case, kind of like a cellophane paper in which she put a personalised sticker and packed them with a free card. Her drawings are both beautiful and clever, sometimes digital and other times with watercolours. I can say that she is one of my favourite artists there. Looking around the internet I found her website http://www.jollyawesome.com/ where she also has a shop, oh that is good news

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for me and her Instagram www. instagram.com/jollyawesome What I really like about her paintings is how the colour combinations are so well done, the sentences are cleverly put alongside the drawing and they match perfectly. Especially the watercolour illustrations are the kind of paintings I would like to achieve with watercolours someday. Next comes Ingrid Tsy (21, 22) , who the moment I saw her greeted me smiling and while I was looking at her pieces, or better said staring in disbelief, I asked her how did she do those pieces and she said she uses 3D programs, I think she said ZBrush. Her illustrations are so colourful and so full of movement and dynamism I did not know where to look at first! I may say that I was never really interested in 3D art as I always found it too hard for me since I always struggled more than the rest to do some simple figures but ever since I saw her creations I realised how limited my views about 3D art and design was. In the future I will probably look more into this field and try to do some things myself, and even if it may seem hard at first, I do not want to give up as I want to be able to achieve something like that. Seeing her pieces on display ignited some passion in me, it woke something on my inner side that was asleep until now. I should also add that I bought some postcards and stickers as I found the price to be really reasonable.

original drawings and prints but it seems that I am wrong. Showcased there was also a big work in progress of a lion, which I thought was made of biro pen but his work is done with extremely sharp pencil. Website: http://www.benrotheryillustrator.co.uk/, instragram: www. instagram.com/brillustrations

Here is what I bought (22). What I really like about these creations is how vivid they seem, they seem alive, flowing but also, the different textures they have, the colour combinations: they are beautiful compositions of shape, colour and texture which makes me want to stare at them and lose myself there. Her website is www.ingridtsy.com and she also has Instagram www. instagram.com/ingridtsy and behance https://www.behance.net/ ingridtsy Mia Hawk’s wall (23), the moment I came into that room, the first thing I saw was that pink pineapple. Lately this year it seems like drawing pineapples has become a trend, and even after the hundred different versions of pineapples, I can say that this has become one of my favourite ones (after the golden coated pineapple, whose

artist I forgot), I was so amazed by that pineapple that I did not even realise the beautiful painting of three seals next to it, and I did not even pay attention to the necklaces shown and sold there… I did ask for the prices of the sweaters as I really liked the design on them…

Knight (26, 27) said that while drawing the other side (as she had to manually draw both sides) and they were not an enlarged print but an original, she flipped the page and roughly drew it before trying to copy it from the other side. These two pieces took over a month each. and are over two metres long. Her website: www.kateknight.org

Since there were different rooms in each floor, after going to the fourth floor we realised that in the first floor we only saw one room, Her website is www.miahawk.co.uk, so we decided to go back, but facebook is Mia Hawk Art and then thought that maybe on the Instagram www.instagram.com/ first floor there was just one room, MiaSkyHawk and just when we were going out we saw there was another room at Other artists that left me speethe back, a small room a bit hidchless are Benjamin Rothery (24, den that hosted pieces of one ar25), with his extremely detailed tist: Guido Iafigliola (28). Even if we anthropomorphic animals and did not get to meet the artist, his Kate Knight’s huge biro original girlfriend explained his work and drawings, about three metres long. we learned that, he did colourful Her patience seemed endless digital paintings with soundwaves although she claimed to be a very or after some photographs, with a impatient person. conscious use of the glitch. I must say that I was almost sure that I took pictures of his big

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His website is: www.iafigliola.com

23 24 25 26

28 29 30

(29, 30) These were the business cards and postcards that I got collected from the Illustration Fair. (29) Front. (30) Reverse.

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Trip iii - the design museum

London Design Museum

28.02.17

7 9

On our last trip to London we visited the London Design Museum in its new location, which featured a series of design related objects that are worldwide famous, from the iconic chairs to famous inventions throughout time. The building itself feels very modern, all

in an elegant light shade of wood with several floors and an open centre in the middle. Right on the top floor, there is a colourful wall made of stripes that kept moving showing ‘DESIGN’, ‘MAKER’ or ‘USER’ depending on the time (6). On the middle floor there are

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some photographs of the building and it also features some of the finalist projects for their design contest in schools (also 6). On the upper floor there is a huge yellow wall (8) that features important moments in design as part of hexagons as well including the

year, an image and some details about it. The exhibition is about the relationship between ‘designer’, ‘maker’ and ‘user’ and how everything we use has been designed, some things may have been so common that we forget someone designed it for us. There was also a section for typography (9), in which this poster caught my attention: I think it is a poster in Arabic which makes me wonder how difficult it would have been to design a typography such as that, and that also relates to another

question I had for some tim:¡e: how long would it take to design a typography for the Chinese language with its thousands of characters? I suppose that is the main reason why fonts in Chinese are limited, since there are characters that are completely unique, they are symbolic and they are not made with different letters to form a word, each word is different, although they do have parts that are repeated in certain words. I also realised in the exhibition the efficient use of space, with plastic shapes of logotypes hanging from the ceiling (10) and I remember

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trying to see how many I could recognise: the Olympic Games, Levi’s, Woolmart, IBM, the British Heart Foundation, National Rail Barclay’s, Frigo, Yves Saint Laurent, The Rolling Stones, Shell, Penguin Books, Toyota, Puma, Intermon Oxfam, McDonald’s, Nike, Google… Besides plastic logotypes, there were also hanging on there bycicles, a Vespa (11) and even a wheelchair (12). All that made me feel uneasy as I was afraid some part of it would fall at any time.

There is also a reconstruction of the Frankfurt Kitchen (13), originally designed in 1926 by Grete Schutte- Lihotzky. ‘It was the motherof-all fitted kitchens, used in all Frankfurt’s council flats for more than a decade.’ 1

15 16 17 20 18 19

1. ‘The Director’s Guide: the Design Museum, London’ . As seen online: http://www.telegraph. co.uk/luxury/design/inside-the-new-design-museum-london/

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There were also a lot of inventions but there was a part that was my favourite: the part that features typing machines as ever since I was a kid I loved to type and learned how to type by myself. The main reason why I wanted a toy computer as a child with a QWERTY keyboard was to be able to type properly. Back then I remember my parents buying me a Barbie toy laptop that was extremely expensive. Years later, I found out there was a toy typing machine too, and I was sad I did not know before. Whenever I have time I like to do some typing exercises and this may be one of the reasons why I write so much: because I like typing So alongside the typing machines (15, 16) which were shown covered in some cylindrical clear structures were their promotional posters in the back, which is an interesting idea and way to show both elements.

Nevertheless, what I found poorly coordinated all throughout the exhibition was how the elements were named and labelled: they were all put together on a list somewhere but since there was not any reference on the object itself, I could not know which object was which, which made it confusing for me (an example could be 17, 18, 19, 21). And, as a good design museum, there could not be missing the iconic design object: the chair. I became particularly excited when I saw myself recognising Alvar Aaltoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stool (14) as I went to an exhibition of his last year in Madrid and it made me particularly happy that as a person who lacked general knowledge, especially in design, is improving little by little. I also recognised Thonetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s chair (20) which proved to be a revolution for its time as it made curved wood possible by wetting it and using a mold to give its curved

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shape. They also made a bicycle that way. On our way out of that section I noticed some quotidian objects (18, 19) in which one caught my attention (19): on the upper right part along with other objects there is a new (now the older one is already not accepted in many places but at that time it was still okay, so I guess it was fairly new) 5 pound note. That kept me wondering if it would be one of the first ones that came out, the AA series but after zooming it (because its position was so high that it was difficult to make out what it wrote) it was an AK something, so it was just a regular five-pound note.

If we return back to the exhibition, before the 5-pound-note part, on that same floor there were some interactive activities that let the visitor take part in. One was a screen with a camera (22) that simulated a phone where you could get a prop and it would detect it and change your clothes (over imposing some images to your body). Although I tried it and it did not detect me holding the prop (which consisted on objects made of cardboard, such as a phone, a cup…) I knew what the result was after observing other people doing so. Other interactive activities were design related with some interactive features of selecting which kind of cup would suit different people: a baby, someone who had some kind of disease, normal… and also it made people become part of the graphic design process with a simplified task of selecting different features to design a magazine (23) such as font, colour and image. Although it was really simple, it was interesting to see the difference a good choice makes. On another side of the building, there were featured some pieces by the artists in residence as well as some books and a table with some activities to do.

The special thing of that section was that all the chairs there were of design. That made it possible for me to sit on a Wiggle Side Chair by Frank Gehry, which I have only seen on books and magazines before. I wonder why I never thought of taking any picture of it. (I never remember to take pictures when I am too excited for something…).

good thing? To reuse discarded elements and give them a new functionality? As a graphic design student, I also noticed the icons that were on the walls of the museum (25, 26) which I found to be quite interesting and sophisticated as they were not their usual black and they were not printed on a signal, they were almost like sculptures put into a wall, although with a Going back to the artist in resitwo-dimensional look, they have dence there was a piece featured volume. I also found the white there that particularly caught contrasting against the natural my attention (24): which consists wood colour of the walls nice looof clothing made of human hair king. The icons (25) of two people recollected from all over the world. reading are elegant and give a The reactions of people were all of sophisticated look with the fine disgust and it made them uncom- line of the book and the way their fortable to look at it. It also had legs cross and also the placing of some samples that allowed you the two figures: one on top of the to touch them to feel the texture. other diagonally. Before knowing that it was from human hair, I thought that that To conclude, last but not least, is was an interesting piece and had the shop that has several intea nice colour. After knowing it was resting products and books that I from human hair, it made me have would have wanted to buy if not a different opinion. This makes me for their heavy weight and elevawonder why human hair makes it ted price (a really small replica of a gross whereas animal hair is fine? design chair went up to hundreds Why sometimes it is acceptable of pounds). There were also chair to use animals but not humans? necklaces for 40 pounds (27). Even when it does not represent any damage to them? I sometimes think if the hair that falls every day or the hair from the hairdresser’s could become something, not only a wig but another useful object, would it not become a

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23 25 26 27

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FRANCISCA HU LU cv and swot

Francisca Hu Lu - PDP Journal 16/17

SWOT STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES > Respecting deadlines > Not giving up > Never stop learning > Using various resources available: e.g.: library, mac room... > Good at expressing myself in writing > Not wanting to lose, thus very competitive (not satisfied with a low mark) > Hardworking, although could be more > More or less responsible > Doing things that I think will make it harder for me but it will be more helpful for me in the long run (e.g.: choosing a typography brief over an illustration one with little knowledge of typography or when the illustration is clearly easier; not wanting to lower the quality of a project so always using real content over fill-in text but it takes three times more time because real text may not fit and you cannot cut it out as it would stop making sense) > Starting to realise it is more important whatever supposes a better learning experience rather than a better grade > Paying attention in class > Humbleness > Curiosity > Love for books and reading > Like of collecting graphically relevant elements (brochures, books, magazines, cataloguesâ&#x20AC;Ś) as visual inspiration > Interest in typography, advertising, vector drawing, illustration, editorial design and photography > Strong mindset

> Being worried all the time > Learning by myself >> lack of looking for more resources, sometimes lack of initiative, lack of independence and needing guidance to start although this is starting to change > Bad organisational skills at times > Pushing things back due to laziness, leaving it to the last days > Getting stressed easily > Trouble expressing myself in public > I should improve research and broaden research sources, not just online > Need to be more proactive and start things by myself > Taking part in more exhibitions, be more conscious about my surroundings and activities taking place > I should not take design critiques personally and use that opportunity to learn > I should not be afraid of making mistakes > Lack of self-confidence > Lack of graphic design knowledge > Lack of proper drawing techniques > Lack of 3D and video editing software skills > Need to work harder > Getting distracted too easily > Laziness > I should not feel ashamed of asking questions if I do not understand or get tired of asking them.

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THREATS

OPPORTUNITIES

> I enrolled myself in an internship program and I plan to apply for some positions next year > The contact I made last year and which I made a logo for wants me to keep doing some projects for them > I want to update my behance and create a dribble page as I believe that will give me more exposure > There are some courses online in DOMESTIKA and Skillshare that I want to take part in > This summer I want to look into some local design agencies (Ibiza based) and ask for possible internships > Not giving up drawing and slowly updating my online stores: Society6 and RedBubble which are unnoticed now but I need to create quality content > Slowly rebuild my Instagram and facebook pages, focusing my Instagram to illustration and facebook more for graphic design as it is proven more efficient to focus on a topic only > Finishing my last year of degree in Madrid and look for a job

> Not being able to take part in internships this summer > I still need to look for accommodation in Madrid for next year but the year after that is unsure where I will be as I first planned to do a Master in Barcelona but there are not enough economic resources. I first need to wait for my brotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s University choices confirmation to know if we are going to rent for one or two. > Not being able to find a job straight out from the University > Not being able to save enough for the Masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Degree > Not having enough grades to have any opportunities to get a placement (the places are limited, 1-5 per opportunity and there are over 200 students that can apply, so it goes by highest grade) > Losing focus on my main goal > Deciding that maybe I am not suited for Graphic Design > Giving up > Not being able to set up a clear goal to follow > There being too much competence for me to fight against > Not being qualified enough > Not having learnt enough after graduating > For my eyesight condition to worsen > Letting laziness overcome me

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REFLECTIVE JOURNAL

CRITICAL AND THEORETICAL REFLECTION Personal Development Planning is a module that I did not fully comprehend until the last two months of the course. It is, as its name says, about our own personal development, what we have done during the course, what we have learned and how we have grown as students and graphic designers. It is also about our growth as individuals but it also covers our future planning, what are we going to do next year and once we finish our degree the year after. At the beginning, I did not really understand this module and all I could think was to write down as much of the lectures as I could, recording them and waiting for the script to complete them. Some lectures were harder than others, and some interested me more than others, but that did not stop me from trying to get as much information as I could. I remember seeing people writing down some sentences or adding their own information and comparisons, but I always felt uncomfortable letting information out by my own accord as I always think that what I may think of as irrelevant, may be an essential piece of information, and what I may have overlooked today, I could need it tomorrow, you never know. Maybe the teachers may want to quiz us about the lectures and I would feel unprepared. This working method of trying to write as much as my own abilities let me has proved to be quite useful for me in Spain, where at the end of the semester we would possibly have an exam or the teachers would tell us beforehand that what he/ she explained in class is information that we were going to be tested on. Here, what would have been the best idea would have been to write down some essential information and then try to research on that information that I found particularly interesting to further develop that idea. Also, concepts that I would have a hard time understanding could be developed in this way, so that I would have a broader knowledge at the end and it would cover both points:

the ones I liked and enjoyed, and the ones that did not interest me as much or I could not understand. What I did, instead, was to complete the lectures and adapt the lectures closely to what the lecturers shaped them. They have my own views and some added information that could make 40-50% of the notes, but they are in the topic of the lectures. If I were to re do this year, I would probably not stick so much with the given format and let myself add and take out information suiting my needs. After all, it is more about our own personal growth than becoming a recording machine. This made me realise that in the future, if I go to an exhibition or a museum the most important will not be to try to read and look at every single element there, but to find a few really intriguing ones and carefully learn them, as most of the times there is no time to fully absorb the exhibition in its entirety (the Science Museum in London, for example) but if it is a small exhibition (Brain Waves in Central St. Martins) then it may be possible to understand all the pieces shown. It all depends. Possibly the reason why I would not want to leave anything out is due to the fear of missing something important and to regret it later. Through this year, I have realised many things that I am lacking, such as lack of initiative and lack of passion for what I do. The lack of initiative is something that I have not realised to be missing until this year, where I found myself not asking enough questions about the things that I did not understand and also, lack of initiative to start doing things and trying to learn things that I would like to learn, but I always push it back, always thinking that I will do it later. Also, thinking that the degree is to study what I am told to and to separate the class with what I really want to do, instead of using the classes as a tool for what I want to achieve has been a major error that I started changing once I noticed. Maybe because even since we were small we were told to abide to some rules and to study what was going to be in the exam and not what really interested us that I keep doing the same, with the only difference that now

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I am in a path that I chose myself. The lack of passion has been something that I found out last year, were I could see some of my classmates being really passionate about their projects, and they did it as if it was their favourite thing in the world, even their eyes were shining. As for me, I did the project because I was told to do it and I needed it to pass the class, it was an obligation not something I did out of my own will. It was during that time that I decided that just getting something done without any more implication of myself would not be enough so I started to be more careful with my sketches and started to do some research. Not only those people were passionate about their work, you could see they had put a lot of time and effort into it, and the result were obviously good. I have always found myself lacking in graphic design and in the design department in general, especially in the craft part but I think I did things just because I was told to do them, not because I genuinely wanted to do them. I thought of the degree as part to getting to where I wanted to be, not as part of the journey I was in. I should also say that I was not very good at it, and although I spent a lot of hours, the outcomes were always lacking somewhere and it was hard to reach the standards imposed by the best ones of the class, and I felt a lot of pressure to be able to keep up with them. That made me feel discouraged and made me lose motivation. Now that some time has passed and I have done more graphic design related work, I can say that I have grown. Although I still struggle with keeping my developmental research book and all the PDP journal up to day, it would have been great if I had done it at the time I was supposed to do, but I have this terrible habit of leaving everything to the end (I am glad I still had most of it done, so I only had to correct it and change the whole layout). During this second semester, there have been a lot of bank holidays on Mondays and I stopped doing most of the activities I was doing during the first semester, so I had a lot of free time, which made me have the false security of having enough time to finish everything, so my outcomes became slower. I also faced some personal hardships that slowed my whole process

and made me lose focus. Moreover, that coincided with the time that I had a personal crisis in which I was no longer sure if I was on the right path, as I did not feel qualified as a second year (in my case, third year) design student and I felt that there was still a lot of graphic design that I still did not know. It is surprising how every day we learn something new, and how I never realise how much I have learnt after some time has gone by. I think that when health issues (both physical and mental) have been fixed, everything seems a lot easier, and I am glad that I managed to clear my mind in the last two months of the course so that I still have some time to do all I need to. Had the course been finished two months ago, it would have been filled with regret. Now I finally found the way to do my best for every project, to truly enjoy what I do and not to submit something that I am not truly satisfied with. I have also learnt that what I want to do is important and that if I want to learn something that is not taught in class, I can still look for a way to learn it from books or the internet and that teachers will always be there to help, that I should not be content with what is given to me, but trying to get the most out of it. This year has been decisive for me to figure out what was lacking in myself as a graphic designer besides my confidence and how I will not always have someone making sure I do all my work in time as once I finish my degree, I will be there on my own, so as soon as I start becoming responsible and planning my time better, the most it will benefit myself. One of the reasons why I found it extremely hard at the beginning of the course to adapt was due to my lack of will to face something unknown, to go out of my comfort zone. Now that I have finally faced that challenge, I will keep looking for new ones instead of running from them. Before, all I wanted was to graduate as fast as possible as everything was so difficult but now I do not want to graduate as there are so many things I still want to learn before finally graduating.

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REview of the year ANd FUTURE PLANS

REVIEW OF THE YEAR AND SET PERSONAL GOALS AND DEVELOPMENTAL NEEDS FOR THE FUTURE I would say that my reflective journal sums up pretty nicely my year and how I realised I do not like doing things that I am not good at, but never thought of that as a chance to make myself improve at the things I am lacking. I always complained about having to do a PDP journal and the developmental research as keeping those two meant certain responsibility to write down on a regular basis. Doing so in Microsoft Word made the typing faster and it also underlines the words that are wrongly spelled but including images makes the whole file heavy and it takes time to load. Directly making it in InDesign makes the whole process slower and it generally takes me 3-4 hours to finish a page. Usually my journal entries are between 5-10 pages long which takes me several days. That plus the usual homework of the main module and the support module makes a lot of work to do, so the journal entries are only a few. That is also another of the reasons I do not like to keep a journal. If I had a printer here I would print it, but I am sure I would grow tired of pasting the images although I like having the images printed (I did print the research for photography). If it were a normal person, (any other student from my previous university) they would not have such a hard time doing the research as all of them already did, but I often found myself not even doing the research and not even sketching at times (in previous years), just directly doing the first thing that came into my mind. That is also a lack of initiative. Why did I not try to do my best in the best way I could? Why did I not think of the school projects as real life projects? Why did I not try more options? The more I work on something and the more I do, the more I find myself improving and if the grade is not too poor, the resulting satis-

faction is also great. So why was I not doing all that? Nobody was truly telling me what I was lacking and it was not after coming here that I realised how important keeping a sketchbook and a research and developmental journal is. For someone who never saved the images that I found on the internet or barely ever kept records of useful ideas, doing a research journal was a huge step. I still struggle with making it as writing all the sources from the images feel tiresome. It all comes up to me being lazy and wanting to do the least but at the same time hoping to get the most out of it. Such thing is not possible. All the things I thought: InDesign being slow, not having a printerâ&#x20AC;Ś it all feels like excuses. Everything takes time. Maybe I write too much, maybe I am not sure if I should include everything I do, or if I should include moreâ&#x20AC;Ś The more uncertainty there is, the less convinced I am to do it. I believe that with time, it will become faster. I have also realised the importance of keeping things up to date as with time, you forget your intentions. It is not easy to build a good habit, it is even more difficult to change a bad one, but at some point, we need to start the change, and I believe, this course has been my turning point. It is never too late to change, but the sooner, the better. After this, I will be going back to Madrid and I will have to face the dissertation, which I am terribly afraid of as I am not sure what is that I exactly need to do. I hope I know more details soon. The enrolling and choosing of the subjects also make me nervous as I am worried that I will not make it to the subjects I want to. But before all that, I still need to sort some things about the ERASMUS exchange and my grades need to be sent to my university in Madrid. The following months will become a few ones of change, in which I will have to look for accommodation again. After that, I also want to look for an internship and already signed myself up in the internship program. I still need to update my CV and make a new one to look for jobs during this summer. I want to also try to look for some design agencies and maybe look for some internships on my own if possible. The sooner I can get some experience the better. I should stop being afraid of doing things that I am not familiar

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with. After finishing my degree I think I will take a break from my studies as I think that I need a change and also, I need to save up money to be able to pay for a master’s degree. I have always been afraid of growing but it is time to accept reality. I should also start looking which master’s degree would interest me or what courses I would like to do, as having a clear goal helps going towards it.

One of my main goals for next year besides keeping a sketchbook is to be consistent in updating my work online, not only on béhance, which I should not neglect and use for my best projects, also instagrama and facebook, in which the posting is irregular.

Finally, things are starting to go back to place and the person that asked me to do his logo contacted me again after months of silence saying they were very pleased with my work and that they would want to work with me again. Things are starting again. One of the things that I want to work on this summers is my online portfolio. I always knew how important keeping an updated portfolio is, but even more, to have it presented online. Here is an image of the portfolio I did last year, which is a pdf uploaded on issuu (a platform to upload magazines online and view them). Besides this one, there are other online pages such as Béhance and dribble that I want to both update and make respectively, as they are aimed towards the design industry. As for the internships, there is a page on my University in Madrid which I enrolled and I still need to update my CV. As I have seen, some internships are available to apply for a short time, so having it updated as soon as possible would be helpful for the time I am ready.

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Around June of the past year, I started both Society6 and Redbubble shops, but I did not upload anything on RedBubble, which was a mistake, because RedBubble has more affordable prices whereas Society6 is really expensive. Also, another problem is that I should create more good content more often, so that I can use them for those purposes. After this course, there will be a series of illlustrations that will be able to sell there and I plan on including them.

My drawing style went from messy traditional doodles (1) to messy drawings digitally with a lot of strokes (2) to simplified vectorial drawings (3) which has been something that I have been planning to achieve all along, but never really had a chance to start. I think that this year I have been able to produce more graphic design related work instead of more illustration oriented. I feel like I have grown a lot from how I used to do layout at the beginning of this year and how I can lay everything now. I will be showing some examples in the next page.

1 2 3

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2016/17- Graphics First Semester Outcomes

(3, 4) British Library logo design (5, 6) British Library Bradsheet (front and inside), comes folded only showing the title from the front (7, 8) British Library Private invitation (front and back), comes folded showing stamp it and the BL logo. On the back it shows the red 100 (once folded). (9) British Library Guided Walks

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SAME PROJECT PROGRESSION 10 11

BEFORE

NOW

12 13

C-Clef Definition A clef (from French: clef â&#x20AC;&#x153;keyâ&#x20AC;?) is a musical symbol used to indicate the pitch of written notes. Placed on one of the lines at the beginning of the stave, it indicates the name and pitch of the notes on that line. This line serves as a reference point by which the names of the notes on any other line or space of the stave may be determined. Only one clef that references a note in a space rather than on a line has ever been used. There are three types of clef used in modern music notation: F, C, and G. Each type of clef assigns a different reference note to the line (and in rare cases, the space) on which it is placed. (G and F clefs are placed as treble and bass clefs, respectively, in the vast majority of modern music.)

G-clef >> G4 >> passes through the curl of the clef C-clef >> C4 (Middle C) >> passes through the centre of the clef F-clef >> F3 >>passes between the two dots of the clef

NOW

This is actually my last project brief for my main module but since I left one previous exercise unfinished this one became my second last one in which we had to choose everything about something. It started as something more like a PowerPoint slide presentation (10) and with time I slowly made it change so that it looked more sophisticated (11, 12, 13). I carefully selected the font for the title and changed the colour palette. I also made some illustrations and redesigned the C-Clef although this was a typography brief. To also include a typography part in this I designed some acetate clear covers to go on top of the illustrations of the selection of the instruments that use C-clef that were made as a typographic illustration (the C-Clef was also composed of the letter C. I also made some acetate A6 postcards with all the illustrations (with three variations each) to go along the booklet. Before all this would have been unthinkable for me, as if the brief was about typography I would have stuck with it, I would not have been able to do more than what it was said on the brief, but that turned out to be really satisfying although some processes like making all the instruments coincide with the white circle was challenging and many fixing and revisions were needed

Francisca Hu Lu - PDP Journal 16/17

viola

(14, 15, 16, 17) Are pages of the actual booklet printed. (15) Shows the new C-Clef and (16) shows how the acetate works on top of the page and how the page looks on itself (17). Next to the actual photographs are some mockups of how the acetate on top of the illustrations would look (18-20). 14 18 15 16

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Francisca Hu Lu - PDP Journal 16/17

FIRST VERSION I think that besides my enthusiasm another thing in which I have improved greatly during this year is how to do the layout for the pages. Although this PDP journal is a bit messy as it is really long, the first graphic brief we had for this semester, which in my case was a really long interview for whichI struggled with the layout design, but after reading a few books of layout and carefully studying other magazinesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and bookâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s layout, I have made an idea as to how improve the overall project months later. Here I will have side by side comparisons: being the ones on this page one of the first layout designs, really simple and mainly text, which made it boring. It was also thought for an interactive epub format, so this is why the pages are so long as I was still designing it as facing pages. The images in the middle (the ones that are on top of a red background) have a similar layout but this time it is an A4. As the interview was really long and these are only the first questions, I decided on a way to number the questions and put them on a red page with highlighted clue words so that the reader can scan across the questions to read what interests him/her more. That also makes locating the questions easier and breaks the information down. Since it is still a work in process, there are still some mistakes that have not been corrected. The difference from old to new can also been seen graphically. The reason there are more pages on the new version for the same content is due to the breaking down of the questions, that are repeated on the page on red. 80

Francisca Hu Lu - PDP Journal 16/17

OLD A4 VERSION

NEW A4 VERSION Francisca Hu Lu - PDP Journal 16/17

CONCLUSION

lacked somewhere. I did not know what was wrong, but I could sense it was far from perfect. Slowly, with some patience and more projects done, one starts to To conclude, I would say that this year, although see the little changes that one can apply to a design having faced no little number of hardships during to make it look better and how, most of the times it the course such as studying in a foreign country is better to go for a minimalistic style (‘less is more’) with no one that I knew previously, it has also been rather than filling the whole page with elements. As a a really productive and fruitful year as it has helped person who liked to fill every space available, I have me grow as an individual and as a graphic designer. I realised the importance of leaving blank space as the have learned to improve by accepting my low points pages need to bread. and by working harder each day, trying to transform what I do into something I could love. This year has To sum up, I am really grateful of having been able been decisive in confirming that the doubts I had to live this incredible experience and sincerely thank about graphic design were only temporary and that all of the teachers and staff that have helped me the choice of becoming a graphic designer was not during my stay here, as well as the classmates and a choice made out of nowhere. After hours of trying friends that I made during this year and also Colchesand changing things to make it look better I started ter Institute (and my own University Complutense remembering the old times were I tried to make in Madrid) for granting me this opportunity to learn my school project look different, although I had no and grow. I will not forget what I have learnt and I will knowledge of design, I liked to try all possibilities and continue learning every day, and I believe that as time always found new options to explore with the little goes, I will be able to be more honest with myself and possibilites that words processor’s software such as recognise more mistakes in order to improve more. I Microsoft Word could offer. Sometimes changing will try to keep research and reflective journals in the the layout and adding background images or diffefuture as possible. rent titles and choosing different fonts or designing a cover took me more time that the actual project, Kind regards, but I always enjoyed ‘decorating’ it. That time no one was judging the appearance of my work so I had total Francisca Hu creative freedom to do what I wanted and I had no one to judge me whether it was rigth or wrong. Studying graphic design and wanting to become a graphic designer makes it more complicated as you can no longer do things that do not look good or are good looking but not legible (and one does not want that either, one does not want to do a project that looks kitsch or ‘lame’). Legibility and functionality takes part here too. I want to do good design and I was frustrated that all the things that I came with

Francisca Hu Lu - PDP Journal 16/17