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I feel as though I have progressed well over the course of BA1, having been taught a range of new skills and I think, more importantly, a way of thinking. I have been able to learn to not be quite so precious with my work and that it is better to have a range of ideas rather than simply focusing on one. Although there has been a lot to take in over the past first weeks, I think it has all been beneficial; all of the tasks, workshops and lectures have helped me to inform my design decisions and ultimately create final outcomes that I am really pleased with. In terms of individual projects, I feel as though the One Word Poster was my strongest piece of work because of the way it communicated the word. I also think it is the piece that has
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been the most developed and changed over the project and in using feedback from tutors and my peers I have been able to create a well communicated piece for my portfolio. Although I am happy with the idea for my typographic collection, I feel as though I could have thought about the format a little more. If I were to develop it further, I think I would change the layout or the materials used; I think it may have been more effective on a different kind of paper stock. Overall, I am pleased with my progress on the course and I am looking forward to start the next unit.
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After visiting Great Yarmouth, as well as working on our booklets, we took part in a workshop where we worked in groups to ‘build an image’ based upon our trip to Great Yarmouth. Our group looked at the images we had taken and thought about how they could be used to produce a 3D piece. We wanted to embrace the whole feel of the place through the imagery and materials. The image we based our piece on was of signage for a place called Silver Slipper. We thought about the key points to draw from this image and Great Yarmouth as a whole; silver was obviously key but we wanted to represent how tacky the town was so we decided to use tin foil in some way.
It wasn’t imediately clear what we were going to create , however as we progressed we used the word ‘Slipper’ to form the image by sticking each letter to foamboard and wrapping the whole board in foil. The result actually looked rather good, but the materials really got the message across that just because it shines and sparkles doesn’t mean it is particularly valuable. I really enjoyed this workshop, even though we were a little pushed for time. I loved the outcome we produced as a group and I think represents the town well.
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Having only been to one other lecture so far this term, I don’t have much to compare this lecture to, however, I found it really inspiring. Bambach started talking about designing for a purpose rather than just designing for the sake of it; personally, I think this is something really important because it raises questions over the purpose of design and if it sometimes gets a little lost during the process. I am really interested in designing things for a purpose and resolving issues not just creating something to look good. People appear to think that all serious issues need to be represented by something equally as serious, however this isn’t always the case; Bambach showed us a campaign called ‘Cats Save Tigers’ which used various
internet famous cats in a humorous video with the intention of saving Tigers in the wild. Although you can easily laugh at the comedic sense in which the video is presented but it really does communicate the cause brilliantly and ultimately gets more people to engage in not only watching the video but spreading the word about the cause too. I was very impressed with the work that Bambach is doing and her lecture has inspired me to continue to try and do something worthwhile.
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At the end of BA1 we were given a directed study project called The Medium is the Message where we had to spread a message of goodwill across the distance of 50 metres. I teamed up with Alys, Leanne and Krystal and we quickly began to form ideas about what we would like to create. We considered something political or something light-hearted, it was difficult to choose, but we liked the idea of people failing to observe little things. As the week progressed, although we had ideas, we were struggling to put it together and make decisions as to what methods we would use to film or create our piece. It think perhaps
we could have been better at making decisions and planning. We created a short film about observation being a gift and therefore perhaps by looking you may just get a little more joy from life. We did this by taking something so obvious (bright yellow rubber ducks wrapped in tinsel) to see how many people actually observed and saw them. In theory this was a good idea, but I think we struggled as to what we actually wanted our message to be that it got a little lost somewhere along the creation of the video which I think is a shame but we still got to learn a new skill in the form of video creation and editing.
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I really enjoyed this TALK lecture with Craig Oldham for two distinct reasons; his somewhat casual approach to talking and his focus on the process of creating things rather than just showing off the final outcomes which you can’t really learn an awful lot from. Craig’s lecture taught me a few things – it’s okay to make mistakes and you should learn from them, which is often something I struggle within my work. I find it hard to let myself try new or other things because I’m worried I will make a mistake. He also reminded me that being observant is such a key skill for any creative person, not just looking but really paying attention to the details in terms of design and just generally making life a little more interesting; we can learn from our
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surroundings. As a designer I think this is something really important because without being observant or paying attention, we can miss things, which may even lead to mistakes. I found this lecture really entertaining and insightful and I think I will learn just as much from making mistakes as I will doing the right thing first time.
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Dave Law is one of the founders at SomeOne, a London based design agency which specialises in branding. The company isn’t huge; there are around 30 workers but it is able to provide a brilliant service and different way of thinking to clients. In his presentation, Dave talked about something called ‘BrandWorlds’ which is a useful tool for creating a brand identity rather than simply a logo. For example, when the London 2012 Olympics logo was revealed back in 2007 there was some confusion over it and a BrandWorld has to be created around it to give it a bit more meaning and impact. SomeOne worked on creating pictograms for the Olympics to support the logo which would be displayed in the run up and during
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the games all around London, on merchandise and signage. The clever thing about these pictograms is that they played on the idea of the London underground map taking inspiration from the bright crossing lines of the underground making a real connection to the city.
One of the final slides on his quite humorous presentation were ‘SomeOne’s eight steps to success’ which included the following;
1- Create BrandWorlds, not just logos 2- Be Social 3- Give your brand a purpose 4- Discuss, don’t broadcast 5- Give more than you take 6- Be coherent not consistent 7- Weird works 8- Have fun I think each of these has a real purpose in the process of design and I will certainly taking some on board in the future.
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I was really looking forward to visiting the ‘John Jarrold Print Museum’ for a few reasons; firstly, I had no clue where on earth this wonderful place may be in Norwich, secondly, since starting college a couple of years ago, I have developed a real love for traditional printing, paper and in particular typography and thirdly because I think it is important to remember the roots and traditions of graphic design. Even though technology has moved on a lot over the years, I still believe it is important to understand where certain terminology and processes have evolved from. Stepping into the museum, we were greeted by a couple of the volunteers
who were going to take us around in small groups to different ‘stations’ around the building, which was crammed full of beautiful machinery. One of the areas we went to, the volunteer talked to us about the process of putting books together, something that really made me think about the value of books nowadays; they don’t seem to be treasured as much anymore which I think is a real shame because I believe that books are really beautiful things both on the inside and out. After seeing this process, I would love to try putting a book together myself, however, I think I would need a bit of practice because its a little more complex than it looks!
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On the website for the museum I found their key objectives;
• To preserve historic printing machines and equipment • To practise the ancient crafts of printing and bookbinding • To produce good work • To pass on the skills of the craftsmen to others • To keep alive the heritage of the past in order to better understand the impact of future technical developments In particular, I think one of the most important objectives listed here is ‘To pass on the skills of the craftsmen to others’ because without it, the heritage
will be lost. This is something I was thinking about while walking around the museum; if these passionate volunteers weren’t here, would the processed still be practiced? It’s not that technological development isn’t important, it’s just that sometimes remembering and learning from the past can be just as essential. One the areas that really stuck in my head was where we were shown such a complex machine used to melt, mould and cool metal to cast letters and characters to be used in the printing process, I believe this is a Monotype Supercaster. The dedication to get this machine put together and working years after it had stopped being used is astounding.
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A Trip to The John Jarrold Print Museum
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Not only did I enjoy my visit to the museum, I found really inspiring and it has made me really think about the way in which it is now so easy to just click a few buttons to design whereas it used to be so much more complex. Although technology has helped to make things a little easier, perhaps we have just become lazy or stopped caring. Especially when it comes to typography; how many people now actually think about the kerning, point size or tracking of type when it is just so easy to let technology do all the work. In some respects, I feel a little disappointed, because I know I am part of the generation that perhaps does and has forgotten about the roots of design; even if things have moved on, isn’t it still important to remember
and practice older but perfectly functioning techniques too?
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A Trip to The John Jarrold Print Museum
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Kate Moross is a London based Graphic Designer, Illustrator and Art Director who has a passion for creating very vibrant and bold pieces of work for many different kinds of clients. This book is all about her DIY approach to a creative career and provides some pretty important information about developing your own style and promoting yourself. Before getting this book as a gift for Christmas, I had never heard of Kate Moross but I really love her colourful approach to design and I admire the way in which she has the confidence to go out and get what she wants. A section in the book talks about learning on the job and not being
afraid to learn new things. I think this is such a good point because as a graphic designer I often feel as though I cant go into other areas such as illustration but I have realised that I could if I wanted to and I’m not constrained by design. I am a creative person, not just a graphic designer. Morros also talks about freelancing work and the benefits of doing so. In one section she talks about how her enthusiasm for doing the work often helped more than the actual work itself. I think sometimes just doing work for the enjoyment is more important than the money. I really love the vibrant illustrations throughout and I will continue to take advice from the book.
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Snask is a Design agency based in Stockholm, Sweden. They have dine work for clients such as Microsoft, H&M and Samsung. They don’t appear to be afraid to use colour in their practice, for example this series of beer bottle labels which feature some interesting typography and bright colours to create a very exotic looking package. However, Snask don’t just focus on packaging. They have also created some promotional films for Swedish beer, Pripps Blå, which shows a real talent for video shooting and editing. Other projects include campaigns, political party promotion, editorial and web design. Throughout all of their work, I have noticed how vibrant and
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bold it is. It’s fun and you can clearly see that the people who work for the agency take pride and enjoy what they are creating. They may be a little unconventional but I think it works well and since when did good design have to be black and white just on paper. Why not on other formats? This is what I really love about Snask; their ability to take an idea and make it their own.
mistakes of others. - Talk with clients like you talk to your family, friends and pets. - Social skills are as important as being good at setting type or knowing how to spell. - See people as people, not as target groups. - Having enemies is a good thing. It proves that you stood up for something sometime in your life.
On their website is a little manifesto featuring 10 things they design by. A few of them caught my eye and I think are important within working in the industry;
I think a lot of these are important things to remember and I like their approach to design.
- Always achieve greatness yourself before pointing out the faults and
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Bulletproof gave a lecture recently that I really enjoyed, but in comparison to some other design agencies that I have looked at, they are quite different. They focus on packaging and branding and have done work for some really big clients such as coca cola, Sainsburys, Nivea and Cadbury. They also have offices around the world in Singapore, London and New York; no wonder they have been working for such big companies. Bulletproof have a really interesting structure because they really pride themselves in everyone working equally in the sense that they have mentors who work with junior members of the team. On their website they say;
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We shun the notion of experts and choose instead to be intelligently naive which we believe makes the world more interesting; this allows us to be more open in the way we think and ensures our creative work is unrivalled.
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I think this quote is very true of a lot of their work, for example, during the lecture they gave us, they spoke about Cadbury’s Marvellous Creations and the process they went through before even getting to the final package. They drew a few very different designs; some a lot more obvious than others but this allowed them to develop it into an effective design. It is fun not serious but perfectly captures cadbury as a company. In comparison to Snask, I think they work in a very different manner and style. Obviously, Bulletproof works for much larger clients, however, I think this may mean that they produce more commercial looking work, whereas Snask appear to be a lot more open to
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different formats, however this may be due to the change in projects they work on. For example, they work on a lot of campaign projects which I think you can develop a lot more in comparison to a chocolate bar packaging. They both produce great outcomes for their clients, it is just a question of what suits the brief I think.
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I have found BA2 an interesting unit because it has challenged my way of thinking and I have been able to learn some new skills along the way. Stationery Design, Packaging and Advertising aren’t areas which I have previously explored a lot and so I found it quite challenging at first diving into those projects. My favourite project and the one which I think I have produced the best work for is the stationery design I created for ‘The Letter Box Study Group’. Having some experience in creating identities, I think I found it easier to get stuck into this brief and therefore I was able to create a much more effective piece of communication design. Based
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upon feedback from my previous assessment, I have tried to do more experiments and use tools other than just a printer to create work. During this particular project, I tried out using foiling on type on a business card. It created a really clean looking image, however, I decided not to use it in my final design as it didn’t fit with the other pieces of stationery and it would create difficulties with printing. I also had issues with finding paper to print on and general printing problems, but trial and error eventually led me to the final printed versions of my designs. Generally I think I worked well on this project, but I think perhaps I could have looked into the other organisations on the brief a little more rather than simply focusing on one
outcome because I could have found a better solution even if I am happy with the design. I was really looking forward to starting the packaging brief because this is something I have a particular interest in; I often find myself collecting bits of packaging which I think look interesting or has a nice texture. However, I did struggle a little with where to start with this brief. I understood that the brief wasn’t about packaging a product, instead about packaging ideas and emotions but I did struggle to understand if it needed to be functional or if it had to just make a point. Looking back I think there just needed to be a balance between the two to express an idea. I think I chose
the idea of representing a statistic in the form of packaging because I found it easier to visualise in my mind and therefore easier to translate as a functional piece of packaging. The way I think in terms of design definitely favours function and this comes across in my design. Despite trying to experiment a little more this term, I still find it difficult to explore a range of different ideas instead of playing it safe with something I know will work but it may not be the only option.
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On the third project of the BA2, I felt a little daunted because advertising isn’t something I really knew an awful lot about, but I felt a little better in the knowledge that I would be working is a group with the roles of art director and copywriter. I chose to work with Leanne, someone I know well and who I know I work well with. However, we were also joined by Olly which initially I was a little unsure about because I knew he hadn’t worked well in groups before. The first day of the project we all worked together to come up with some ideas eventually focusing on the spread the word brief. I was quite happy that we had already got some promising ideas and we each agreed to work on slightly different ideas so we would be able
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to present three for our interim crit on the Friday. Unfortunately, I was unwell the following day and for most of the rest of the week but I kept in contact with Leanne about ideas and what we were going to present on the Friday. I was quite disappointed to hear that Olly had not come to the studio to help Leanne while I was ill and although he had been working from home, it seemed as though he was completely missing the point of working in a group. During the second week of the project, Leanne and I had begun to refine our ideas based on the feedback from Friday’s crit but again Olly only came to talk to us about it for about one day during the week. He missed out on two other sets of feedback we received from different
tutors and unfortunately we eventually made the decision to remove him from our group because of a lack of communication and cooperation. We thought this was the most sensible decision as the majority of the work in terms of the final idea and the back up work had been done by me and Leanne. I think it is such a shame because I was really hoping he would be able to commit and work well with us but I’m not sure if it was our group or if he just has a different work ethic.
an important aspect in design and obviously not every group is going to get along perfectly but I may think more carefully next time about who I choose to work with.
Despite the challenges we faced within our group, I am still really happy the final outcomes and I think they communicate the idea of getting new words into popular usage well. Working as part of a team is
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Print To The People launched their new print studios on Saturday 11th of April and being a big fan of print methods, I went along. I was a little nervous when I got there because I wasn’t sure what to expect but I was soon relaxed at the sight of smiling people and the helpful vibe they encouraged. The new studios have a downstairs printing area and an upstairs which is more art based and houses a lot of artist work too. For the day of the event, the downstairs area was used for screen printing onto both fabric and paper and the upstairs for badge making and swede letter block printing. Unfortunately as I got there a little later, I wasn’t able to print onto fabric
but I did later get to screen print two different coloured designs onto paper. However, before this, I ventured upstairs, to look at some of the beautiful art prints laid out. Also in the centre of the room was a table with trays of ink and swede letter blocks. Before I knew it, someone handed me an apron and I had joined the group of mostly small children stamping the letter blocks onto paper. Although the method may seem somewhat childlike, I think you could actually get some really lovely typography from it. I also think it was amazing that these children seemed to have a genuine interest in the letters and being creative which for me was pretty inspiring in itself.
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After getting covered in ink, I went downstairs and got to try out some screen printing, which is only something I have done a couple of times before so it was a relatively new experience. I first got to print in orange and then after letting that dry, printed over the top in blue. The studios also allow people to use their printing rooms and this is definitely something I would consider in the future.
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I visited Norwich Zine Fair recently and was really inspired by the range of different kinds of zines that people had created. I spoke to a couple of different zine creators including Owen Mathers who had created a lovely little zine called ‘On the Line’ which is basically a collection of illustrations and thoughts about commuters on the London Underground. He told me that he always keeps a little sketchbook with him so he can be constantly doing little doodles. I think keeping a sketchbook is a really good idea because creativity and inspiration can come from a lot of different places and it is good to keep a record of it. Although I am not an illustrator as such, I think it
may be something which could benefit me and my drawing skills. Another reason I wanted to visit the zine fair was because myself and a group of graphics students are planning to create our own zine based on the things we discuss a lot, so it was really good to get some inspiration and look at the formats of zines. I have come to the conclusion that a zine can be photographic, illustrated, completely text led or a combination of these. I really enjoyed the fair and I hope to go to the next one later this year.
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When the opportunity first arose to go to Barcelona, I was instantly interested. I have never been to Barcelona, or Spain for that matter, so it was an exciting prospect. Arriving in Barcelona, something I noticed immediately was the difference in architecture. The buildings are incredibly tall and stand in blocks; I don’t think I saw a small building anywhere in the city. A lot of the stonework on each building was very ornate and detailed, for example, many were patterned or coloured. Quite a few of the paving slabs on the streets had a carved design on them, one of which was designed by Gaudi displayed in La Pedera.
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We visited three Gaudi buildings while in the city including La Sagrada Familia, La Pedera and Park Guell. La Sagrada Familia is a very famous cathedral, designed by the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi. It is such a beautiful piece of architecture and its complex design is something I haven’t really seen before. La Pedera is another Gaudi building which holds a lot of interesting architectural aspects. On the outside of the building, the railings are probably one of the most striking areas; they twist and spiral around each other. However, on the inside, the most prominent aspect is the view looking upwards. The walls are beautifully painted and little windows
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spiral around each level of the building, getting higher and higher towards a huge sun terrace covered in sculptures and mosaic pieces. I feel as though Park Guell was the most different out of the three places, because it was architecturally beautiful, it really focused on the mosaic artwork along almost all of the surfaces. The park is right at the top of a hill; a wonderful outlook over the rest of Barcelona. I had never considered using mosaic in design work before because I never really knew how to do it properly or how to make it work, but looking at the designs at Park Guell, it may be something I attempt in the future.
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Some people question as to what looking at architecture has to do with graphic design; I disagree with this because you can easily take inspiration from the shapes, the colours and the ornate patterns within every aspect of the architecture. I think it is important to remember this because we often just get stuck looking at the same graphic designers and forget that inspiration can be found anywhere.
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One of the exhibitions I visited in Barcelona was at Centre d’Art Santa Mònica; a free to enter exhibition space with four floors of artwork. The space downstairs was taken up by a photography exhibition called 1 Dia 1 Foto which was a collection of 365 photos by 31 photographers. The images were really beautiful and captured daily life in Catalonia. One image which particularly stood out to me was one which represented depression in Catalonia; the caption reads ‘a couple kissing on the board of the university. Behind there are those who drowns sorrows with his head bowed .The crisis has increased by 19% cases of depression in Spain. 350 millions people worldwide suffer’
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For some reason this image really struck me, perhaps because of the talented photography or because of the deeper meaning, but this has remained my favourite from the exhibition. Another piece i really loved was an image of a busy road in Barcelona where all of the bright lights are blurred and it’s very colourful. I think this just represents perfectly how Barclona felt; the busy feeling, the colourful streets and the fact that it never seems to sleep!
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We visited The Design Museum on the last day of our trip. I was really looking forward to this because I wanted to look at the graphic design section. When we arrived, we were given a little guide booklet, however, they were anything but little; they were large format booklets around an A3 double page spread which was rather difficult to carry around. A nice idea, but not so practical! There were 4 floors in the design museum that we could access which included product design, fashion and decorative arts. However, the section I was most interested in was the graphic design floor.
of editorial design. There was such a range of different types of work in so many different formats, but what shocked me the most was that a lot of the pieces that I really loved and remembered were actually quite old pieces of design. This just goes to show that looking towards the future of design doesn’t necessarily mean we need to always be looking forwards, but also back into our rich history to inspire ideas.
There was some really inspiring work in the exhibition, especially in terms
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I really enjoyed the collections workshop; at first I wasn’t really sure how it was helping but by the end I understood. It allowed me to look at my items and then edit them down into something more interesting or more effective which is exactly what I needed to do with my event magazine because I had a lot of material but it all just needed organising. I think this workshop helped me to see how easy it was to edit down collections. I began the workshop by organising my objects in size, colour and into lines. However, I started working with Kieryn by making faces from our objects. Although it was a little bit of fun to begin with, we realised this
was just as much a valid method of presenting information as just putting them in a row. We got more creative with our placements of objects and ended trying to re create scenes from movies. We worked well and quickly together and we both understood each others vision which I think really helped. I am really please with my outcomes for the collections workshop because they aren’t just presenting objects, they are creating interesting images.
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One thing I have always been happy with while studying at university has been the friends I have made and how well we work as a team. Roughly at the end of BA2, we were inspired to create our own zine together as a team. At the time we were a little unsure as to what to base our zine upon and we gathered some ideas. Most of these ideas were based upon things that we all had in common, or things that we talked an awful lot about. Something we realised we talk about a lot was food; always discussing new things we had tried or where we had been out for food recently. The idea was to create a zine which would make use of our creativity and love of food. We each thought of something we could put into it and
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settled on our own recipes which we thought other students would benefit from looking at. Trying to organise it all was a little more challenging than I thought it would be, but the use of social media to discuss our plans and share our ideas was particularly helpful. Having never put together something like this before, it was pretty daunting and if I’m honest, I wasn’t really sure how we should go about it. We did a little bit of research into zines and established that they could either be incredibly organised and flow very well from page to page, or they could also be incredibly different from page to page. As each of us was creating our own double page spread, we decided that the flow would not matter too much. However, after meeting and looking at how different
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each spread was, it was clear we would need some kind of order. As a team we set up some guidelines including margin sizes, amount of columns, bodycopy typeface and size etc. We also made a series of icons to represent the different sections of the zine; Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. Each page would have a little information tab including difficulty, time, servings and the section icon. The colour of these was determined by what was in the recipe, for example, one of them was green to represent the apple crumble. I agreed to put everything together in Indesign and also create the front and back covers, contents and any extra title pages. It was a challenge to make everything work together as a whole but I think we worked well as a team and suceeded in creating something
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to be proud of. I would definitely consider doing another similar project in the future with my friends, even if sometimes it makes it a little more difficult to give critisism and feedback. I don’t think any of us are afraid to tell each other what we think of their work, but it can be a little difficult mixing friendship groups and working as a team.
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Earlier this year I heard about and took an opportunity to go to Amsterdam with the UEA Art Society. I visited for a couple of days with entry to the Rijk Museum included in my ticket to the city. I went with two other people from NUA but it was rather daunting meeting new people and visiting a new city. After arriving in Amsterdam in the afternoon, we went exploring around the city. I loved the architecture in the city; every building was different and a lot were leaning due to the soil they are built on. We got to explore even more the next day on a bike tour of the city. One of the places we visited during our stay was the Rijk Museum which holds artwork by artists such as
Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Vermeer. We were a little short on time and so we only got to see a small part of the museum but it was wonderful and inspiring to be able to see even just a little bit. I loved the building itself; it had high ceilings and the windows were beautiful stained glass pieces. After this, we found a small temporary art exhibition close by; there were some lovely contemporary pieces in there. In particular, I remember one artist had created portraits using pen and ink but looking closer had illustrated over the top, picking out shapes from the ink to create animals or faces. It was such a wonderful way of making an image so much more interesting
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I also found a little gallery in the city which housed many artworks by artists such as Damien Hirst, Banksy and Keith Haring. I really loved a lot of these pieces, especially ones by Banksy because of the clever messages they communicate. They are more than just artwork, they provide a message too, which is very similar to what we do as graphic designers. I am going to use my trip to Amsterdam as my event for my event magazine I will be creating this term. I want to capture the quirky and busy nature of the city which I experienced while I was there.
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I got this book out of the library when doing my info graphic project; I liked the look of this book because it didn’t just show a final stage of an info graphic but the rather the drawings and workings out beforehand. I love to see the process rather than simply the final outcome because I think it shows a lot more thought. It is also encouraging to learn that not everyone has to be wonderful at drawing to create a beautiful info graphic. One of my favourite pieces in the book is an info graphic of a book. Not only is it informational, but it is also really beautiful. It spirals out into flowers like formations; each colour and size represents a different character or section of the book. I
love this idea, it’s so inspiring. Another piece in the book I found really inspiring was the use of tableware as a data platform; the designer used plates to map out cities in a geometrical fashion. In some ways this is very similar as to what I wanted to do with my own info graphic because I was trying to re create a map without using a map as a base. I really love the idea that they are all relative to each other and it really makes the point that all information is relative, you cant always just pick out one piece to focus on.
Raw Data: Info graphic Designers Notebook
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BA3 feels as though it has gone a lot quicker than the other two units, but I think I have learnt just as much about design for publishing. The first project was based on things I wish I had known or done at the beginning of university. I struggled to think of ideas for this project, as there aren’t actually many things I wish I had done throughout the course of this year. My first crit showed that my ideas weren’t very strong but my sentiments were good. I managed to improve upon these by thinking a little more about the materials I used for example, for one of my posters, I created text out of washing up liquid which I really enjoyed doing and I think it looked really effective. Another point that
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was made in my crit was that I could play around with the physicality of my posters. I am particularly happy with my ‘It’s OK to make mistakes’ poster because I think by ripping it in the middle, it is allowing the materials become part of the meaning. I feel that another challenge was creating the Info graphic because I found it hard to find a way to represent my data which would be clear to others. However, after some guidance and advice from tutors, I found a simple but effective way to show my data. This really made me think about the importance of going to crits and accepting advice from peers and tutors. I think the most difficult part of creating my info
graphic was actually inputting all of the data into excell! I am really pleased with my final outcome and I think it would be interesting to create another. The final outcome I produced for this unit was my event magazine which I really enjoyed putting together. I understood the brief well and I am impressed with my outcome. I think I managed to balance my typography and layout well and I also learnt a new skill; sewing my magazine together. This is probably my favourite piece from this term because it was quite personal to me and my trip to Amsterdam and because of the new things I tried while making it. I have never been particularly happy with my illustrations but I think in my event
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magazine they work well and add another layer to the format. I really enjoyed the workshops this term and also, I think I was able to learn from them; collecting is just as important as being able to edit material and having that skill is important for editorial design. I don’t feel as though this has been my best term, but I have certainly learnt a lot and gained a few new skills.
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In reflection, this first year has been wonderful. I have learnt so much, gained a lot of skills, taken up opportunities that I would otherwise not have the chance to do and I have made some amazing friends. I feel as though I have improved on certain weaknesses throughout this year and I have gained new skills and learnt new processes such as book binding, foiling, type and image layout, editorial design, packaging and communicating ideas. I think this year has also taught me a new way of thinking in terms of ideas and creativity. I have learnt to focus on the ideas and concepts and that the materials and format can have
just as much impact. One project I remember in particular has been the One Word Poster which I am still very fond of because I think my idea was very much key to the design. The word was written in blood, which perfectly depicted the meaning. There are other aspects that I feel have helped me not just as a designer but as a person such as, becoming a student representative, PAL mentor and Student Ambassador for graphics because I think they all help to build confidence which is something really important to me. Speaking and listening to people is just as much an important skill as is being able to design so I am glad I have had the opportunity to improve upon these
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skills. I recently went to a networking event organised by the university and I was able to go up and talk to people easily because I had improved upon my confidence. Next year, areas I would like to focus on are my timekeeping skills, learning new methods, working with new materials and continuing with ideas generation. I am really looking forward to the next year and I hope I can succeed in my chosen pathway of graphic design.
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HANNAH WARD