Visual Thinking
Visual Thinking Holly Hand
The Brief Visual thinking focuses on extending your visual awareness, individual creative language and understanding of contemporary practice while examining the fertile and complex semiotic and aesthetic nature of word, image and object. You will examine these relationships while engaging with a broad and experimental creative processes through a series of workshops, demonstrations, seminars and critiques provided across the courses in the School of Visual Arts: Fine Art, Graphic Design, Illustration and Visual Communication.
Learning outcomes: - Demonstrate your ability to conduct visual and contextual research and communicate your findings effectively. - Demonstrate your developing critical evaluation of your practice, appropriate theoretical knowledge and related audiences. - Demonstrate an appropriate range and level of technical competence in the production and of coherent visual solutions.
Task one
Destinctive Characters: Working in groups of two choose an initial letter from the following set and based on the terminologies and glossaries contained with the brief develope a word that is related to the unit - you can produce it in Caps or lowercase. After careful planning design and make a three dimensional initial character that communicates it's meaning. The model can be made of found objects but must finally be wallmounted. My teams leter is G and needs to be
300mm high.
G Go Gum Geometric Gun Germ Galaxy Gothic Ginger Gift Gimp Gammon Garlic Glew Gate
Initial Ideas:
300mm
Goldfish Gaterade Glow (stick) Guts God Genitals Grain Grapes Grate Grass Green Grid Groovy Gold
Goat Gravey Gangster Gastric Gonarrhoea Gay Gas Gaudy Glitter Gnome Gravel Grapefruit Graffiti Gloves
Gum
Grid
Grass
Geometric
Gift
Gothic- Encient German Gothic
Graffiti
Gothic- Century Gothic
Mock Ups
We decided to experiment with the word ‘Glitter’ to see what the out come would look like. We cut a helvetica G out of foam using a hot wire. We chose helvetica because it looked like it could stand up be it's self, which you can see from the picture it does.
We then sprayed it with spray mount and covered it with glitter, but you can see from this picture the outcome doesn't look very good or professional.
G
We then decided to experiment with the font Century Gothic. This time we made our 3D letter out of MDF wood so the end result will look more professional.
To make this G we had to cut it out using a laser cutter which easily cuts through the wood. We wanted the G to stand up by it's self so we cut out four G's and stuck them together using wood glue so the base would be thick enough to support it's self.
We were very pleased with this outcome so do decided to use this as our final 3D model.
Photo shoot
148 mm
105 mm
Task Two Postcard:
Size for postcard
Layout Ideas:
Produce an A6 postcard with the image and brief description of the word on one side. You need to include around 50 words.
I want to use a landscape image for my postcard as traditionally they are landscape. These are my two favourite layouts I have made for my postcard, so I will create both in InDesign and see which one looks best.
Century Gothic is a geometric sans serif type face based on 20th century design by Sol Hess. It was released in 1991 for the use of monotype imaging.
Idea 2: I think that this idea works much better as uses the space better. Im not too sure about the text though, I made it white so it could be read over the image but not sure if it is clear enough. I tried making it thicker but that just made it look messy.
Century Gothic is a geometric sans serif face based on a 20th century design by Sol Hess. It was released in 1991 for the use of Monotype printing, which is a corporation that specialize in
Idea 1: I don't think that this uses the space very well, and because I am trying to fit the text above the image I am having to make the text smaller which is making it hard to read.
typesetting and type face design.
Task Three
Letters in the Landscape: This initial brief begins with a visit to Poole where you will identify, collect and photograph examples of vernacular letter forms in the town. Your images could be literal interpretations of details of road signs, gravestones or shopfront signs, etc or slightly more challenging abstract collections of 'hidden signs' drawn from architectural forms, found objects and unintential typographic structures. You will be working in teams of four and planning which letterforms you each photograph in order to create a lexicon of vernacular letterforms. Remember you will need a full alphabet.
Here are some of the photos I took.
We put all our photo's together and went through them deleting the bad one's and selecting one's we would like to be in our final book. Then divided up the alphabet between the four of us, i got the letters: STUVWX We then set off editing our pictures in photoshop, here are the pictures that I edited:
Making the Book After the pages of our book had been printed , we then had to fold the pages in half lining up the crop marks so that they align. To make the book we are using a process called Perfect Binding with the lundbeck Press Next we had to put the binder upsidedown on the table, making sure it was flat, then open it up and put our pages inside and align them up. Then the next step is to pull the sides back up and tighten it so the pages cannot move and you can see if they are all straight. Image from http://apps.webcreate.com
Next step is to loosen one side and push the pages down on the same side then put some glue along the edge of the pages and leave it for a short while to dry. You then tighten up the sides and and loosen the other and do exactly the same on the other side. Then you tighten up both sides agian and put some glue along the top, this time you do a couple of layers. Then you need to allow the glue to dry.
Finished Book
Workshop: Screen printing The screen is made from a fine mesh attached to a wooden frame. To get your design onto the screen you first need to print your design in black and white then cover it with oil so the white areas become clear. You then put your design in a vaccum with the screen on top and this process transfers it on the screen. After it's finished in the vaccum, you then hose off the screen to reveal your design. After you have left your screen to dry, it is then ready to use. You place some paper down and put your screen on top and secure it in place. You need to tape around the edges of the screen so no paint can escape and also block off any areas you don't want to be in that colour. Next you put a generous amount of paint at the top of your screen and use a squeegee to drag the paint down over your design. You need to use a firm even pressure so the paint covers your design evenly. Image from http://www.dalesway.co.uk/vastex-uv.htm
Then you lift up your screen to reveal your design underneath. After using the screen you need to rinse it thoroughly to stop your screen from blocking.
Lectures: Notions of Taste, Aesthetic Judgement and consumer Culture - Our relationship with objects and how we respond to give value to 'things' - How our aesthectic judgement and purchase relates to consumer consumption. coolhunting.com A daily update on ideas and products in the intersection Names - naming something helps you love your object e.g clio car Alluring advertising to seduce, persuade Neomania Taste - metaphor for judgement Cultural Consumption Different tastes in different countries cultural preferences, social too designbridge.com Mass production - profit aeration of standardised goods Redundancy is designed into industry Prestige - status - luxury James Twitchall - notion of luxury
Here are two designs I printed in the screen printing worksop.
Buying objects to show off your wealth How do we judge design? subjectivity objectively
experience influence education fashion aesthetics Form follows function Function and form use ergonomics, size, handling, storage, recycling, shape, colour and style Materials, production process, manufacture, cost, target audience, competitors and marketing Less is more - Mies Van Der Less is not more, it’s a bore Have nothing in your home that you do not believe to be useful or beautiful William Morris 1834 1896 Kitsch Visual pleasure cheap, mass produced non functional superficial, copy, fake vulgar sentimental, souvenir personal Taste - a matter of class David Ike
Cinematic Bodies:
Propaganda: - The spreading of ideas, information or rumour for purpuse of helping or injuring an institution, a cause or a person - Support or damage Index on censorship -colours -magazine
adbusters.com Distort the truth
The camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis Muybridge 1878
Professor Jerry Kroth - youtube
Barbara Kruger - abortion
Alien 1979 Ridley Scott
Noam chomsky Jowett and O’Donnel - propaganda and persausion
Use of national icons, flags, national anthems, jingoism - exaggerate patriotism
Francis Bacon 3 studies for figures at the bast of a crucifixion - what alien is based
John Taylor body horror
Delusion - false idea alternation views not aired/broadcasted
main character originally a man no love interest strong female character
Propagate - grow and spread Three forms of propaganda Black - comes from source that can’t be identified - artificial lies White - reliable Grey - some facts, but source can be questionable Censorship - being controlled, people watching you Four basic varieties 1 - big lie - adapted by Hitler and Stalin 2 - it doesn’t have to be true 3 - tells the truth but with hold the others point of view 4 - most productive - is to tell the truth, the good and the bad, the losses and the gains Propaganda can be a targeted emotionally
False flag - “false flag terrorism” occurs when elements within a government stage a secret operation whereby government forces pretend to be a targeted enemy while attacking their own forces or people. The attack is then falsely blamed on the enemy in order to justify going to war against that enemy - Sandy Hook Distraction and denial - don’t look there look here Imitative learning - imitating others Negative imitative learning - Grand theft auto? films? hip hip - hate speech with a beat Repetition Demonise the enemy Why does propaganda work - people want to believe the best of our nation
Jacques Locans model of the psychosexual development The real (need) 0-6 months: closest to the pure material of existence and nature imaginary (demand) 6-18 months: mirror image, recognition of coherent self Symbolic order (desire) 18 months- 4 years: acquisition of language The mirror stage refers to a screening in which we miss recognise ourselves as fully constituted object Julia Kristera “powers of horror’ the abject: human reaction (e.g horror/ vomit) to a threatened break down in meaning caused by loss of distinction
Archaic mother figure Alien offers a representation of a human in a sterile community confronted by a physicality it has rejected Judith Butler - Gender trouble 1999 gender is performative performativity is not a singular act, but a representation and ritual Kafka’s story about a working man who wakes to find he has been transformed into a giant beetle, invokes many meanings what is it that undermines this masculinity but the threat of abjection - of giving birth to the self? Moon 2009
Exhibition: For the love of Graphics For this we all had to donate something to a one day exhibition held in our main studio. We ahd to donnate things that we love about graphics which could be anything, such as packaging, posters, album covers, books etc. I chose to donnate my book "The Art of Punk" by Russ Bestley and Alex Ogg.
This is a book that I have used to help inspire me for a couple of my previous projects as I really enjoy the rawness of this style of graphics and like to portray it in my own work. I also like this book as it takes you on a journey through punk from the late 70’s to modern day.