A Conversation Sketchbook

APROJECT

CONVERSATION IQRA BIBI

BRIEF INTRODUCTION During the introductory brief lecture we where asked to look at a newspaper to see what the most important conversation of the day was. On 24th September, I came across a very interesting article in the newspaper. I was, at first attracted by a picture of a baby elephant next to the article. I started to think what the article could be about and after having some thoughts I was very eager to know what the article actually stated about the baby elephant.

Once I read the title of the article I could not see any links between the article title and the elephant picture. The title stated “Streak of nastiness that shames Britain”. By reading the title I felt as though there was a lot of harshness and bitter towards people of Britain and made me wonder why the title was written like this. I became very curious to read the article, to find out what the article is really about and how it relates to the picture of the baby elephant. After I had read the article, it became clear to me why the title was written negatively. This article was about a man who stole a bar of chocolate from a client’s house while the estate agent was showing him around and for this reason the estate agent named Mr Charter got the man sacked from his job. Because of this incident the man had difficulties getting a new job because of the given circumstances of the notice, so he was not got off lightly.

I found this article very strange as the situation that occurred was not handled positively.

Due to the man breaking the estate agents trust, Mr Charter decided to take action instead of talking it out with the man but I think there was no need for the state agent to go so far with this small incident, the two men could have worked it out together as this was a very sensitive case. Regarding this article I had a discussion with few people about what their thoughts where towards this and they all had the same view as me. There was no sign of communication between the two men, there was no conversation at all. Conversation is the biggest part of everyday life, it brings people together and connects one another which and if a conversation tuck place in between in this matter, the situation would have been handled better.

TRANSCRIPT First Person: Is this today’s newspaper?

man lost his job over a bar of chocolate but I don’t think Mr talked it out with each other instead of being childish.

Charter should have gone further with this case.

First Person: I understand now why the heading was so Second Person: Yes it is. The picture of a baby elephant on this article is very eye catching. What’s the title of this Second Person: Yes, It wasn’t even a big deal, all this straight forward, when it stated “forgotten how to forgive” I fuss over a chocolate bar. I kind of feel sorry for the man; it thought it must have been a difficult situation or a serious article? must have been very embarrassing for him to have gotten case but clearly from this chocolate bar case it shows that kicked out of his job over a small incident like this. I don’t people can’t forgive even over a small incident just like First Person: “Streak of nastiness that shames Britain” think he will be able to get another job now that employees this one. have lost trust in him. People should really consider Second Person: How is this related to an elephant? thinking twice about doing something to another person Second Person: But one thing I don’t understand is that as it can affect their life. And how can this case possible why is there a picture of a baby elephant used with this First person: Yes, that’s what I was thinking article. go any further?

Second Person: What’s the article about?

First Person: Yes I know, Mr Charter should have been First person: I think the baby elephant is used as a hidden First Person: It’s about how people in Britain forgotten lenient with him, I mean the man must have just taken message as its calling people thoughtless about their lack the chocolate bar by accident without any intention and of forgiveness towards another person. how to forgive and act nice to each other. because of this one little mistake; the man had lost so Second Person: How can people forget how to forgive? much. Mr Charter should been practical and sensitive with Second Person: Oh now I see, this whole article was Here, Let me have a look... “an estate agent who, while this case but no he takes it future by reporting this incident put together very wisely by giving one side of the story in showing around a prospective buyer, stole a bar of to the police and putting the security footage of the man words and another through pictures. I thought the picture was used to grab the reader’s attention, well that’s a whole chocolate from a client’s house”. Hmmm I see, well the stealing the chocolate bar on social media. new different side to this picture. man must have been hungry…

Second Person: I understand that what the man did was First Person: Yes I know it doesn’t sound like a serious bad as he had broken Mr Charter’s trust even if it was by First Person: Yes there is. case but it was about the matter of trust. The state agent accident, but I still think Mr Charter should have let the named Mr Charter reported this incident to the man’s man go with a warning and an explanation about what employer and just for that reason he got the man sacked. he did that trust is irreplaceable therefore it should not be Date of conversation: Thursday 25th September 2014.

Mr Charter wasn’t even aware about this; if he wasn’t broken. I mean, this is what Mr Charter should have done, Time: 4:20pm trying out the security cameras that day. Fair enough the like you said it was a sensitive case, The two men could Title of newspaper: Daily Express

CONVERSATION IDEA After reading and concluding on the article I decided that the topic talked about in the discussion would be a good topic to focus on for this project. This is because, I think this subject has got a lot of interesting elements that are worth exploring and creating visual outcomes around.

For this project, I have decided to focus on how thinking positive can make it easy for people to be able to act positive and interact with others. I want to show that if people see things in a positive way it will show in their action and their conversation with others and in order to do this I will use proverbs about conversation / positive thinking and create illustrations around it to visually how important it is to stay calm during situations. Throughout this idea I will use the colour theory to represent emotions within the illustrations in order to make the content interesting.

I had few thoughts before going forward with this idea but I think if I take this idea further, the development around this would be very exciting, consistent and simple. I decided to go ahead with this idea after I had the discussion with my class fellows about the decision Mr charter tuck about the man, the estate agent from the newspaper article. This is because Mr charter made his decision in anger, but if he stayed calm during the situation and tried to be positive, the whole case would have been completely different and more legible because his emotions got in the way of allowing him to think positive.

MARTHA VON MAYDELL

“Martha Von Maydell is a paper cut illustrator, who specialises in advertising and illustration.� http://www.illustratoren.de/de/illustrator/Martha-von-Maydell/3503

GAIL ARMSTRONG

“Gail Armstrong has been creating paper sculptures for over 20 years. She finds inspiration in contemporary art and, not surprisingly, the huge Paper chase outlet on Tottenham Court Road in London. hough finally rendered in pieces of paper that have been carefully cut and glued together, each image Gail creates begins as a series of drawings. As she explores the composition and various concepts, she focuses on creating something that has both style and substance to it. The result is usually a photograph of her artwork, which viewers love to see more than once, poring over the textures, colours and patterns in the final construction. Paper may seem flat to most of us, but Gail sees in it the potential to create new worlds with their own look and feel using a gamut of stocks, textures and colours.� http://www.illustrationweb.com/artists/GailArmstrong/view

CHRISSY LAU

“Chrissy’s pen and ink skills are even more impressive. She’s been a freelance illustrator since 2002 and has developed a bold-yet-intricate style that’s perfect for fashion, beauty and lifestyle work.

Her compositions are quite fluid but she usually starts with a focal point and from there it’s an organic process as she adds line upon line building up the image and its textures.

Dashes of colour are added in Photoshop.

Chrissy’s work is full of detailed patterns and intricate line work, and often includes a lot of hair. The black and white line work is brought to life with a dash of red or gold. Her Chinese heritage inspires her, but there’s also a twist of surrealism, and quirkiness.

Some colour – usually red or gold - rounds off the image.” http://www.illustrationweb.com/artists/ChrissyLau/view

RAPHAEL VICENZI

“Hi, my name is Raphaël, I am an illustrator and I live in Brussels, Belgium. This is just what I do. I hope that you’ll enjoy what you see. I am represented by Colagene.

I have been featured in Taschen 100 illustrators, Taschen Portraits, Illustration now 3, The Beautiful, The New age of feminine drawing, Advanced photoshop, Digital arts and many other publications, books and on the web.” http://www.mydeadpony.com

COLOUR THEORY “Colour theory is a body of art that is used in visual arts towards practical guidance to colour mixing and the visual effects of creating different colour combinations. There many different definitions and categories within the colour theory. The colour bases are defined and visualised on the colour wheel, primary colour, secondary colour and tertiary colour. The tradition of colour theory officially began in the 18th century, initially within a partisan controversy around Isaac Newtons theory of colour (opticks, 1704) and the nature of primary colours. Although considering the beginning of this tradition, the colour theory principle actually first appeared in the writings of Lenone Battista Alberti and the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci.”

“After the colour theory was presented to the art world, from there on it developed as an independent artistic tradition used by many artists for so many decades.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_theory I will use this colour theory through out my designs as my main element because I will be able to convey my message effectively by using this. The colour theory will give me the guidance to bringing emotion to my work and visually express the presented information.

By looking at the colour wheel, I know that my main colour focus will be on the colour red, purple, orange, yellow, blue and green which will convey their own specific message within my designs. Even though these colours are a mixture of cool, passive colours against worm, active colours, they will still fit in properly with the content.

COLLAGE TYPEFACE DEVELOPMENT

These are some of my collage development using similar typography techniques as Raphael Vicenzi. I cut out letters from magazines and collaged different letters to spell out the quotes that I decided to use for my design. I have used these 2 quotes because they fit in perfectly with the concept that I am focussing on and will also allow me to move on to the next stage of my idea which is to create interesting illustrations that visually express the quotes. I changed wording of one my chosen quote so that it is a little more appropriate for the concept.

I decided to use this technique because I really like the way the letters compliment the portraits as the colourful cut out letters make Vicenzi’s drawing stand out. It is simple yet interesting which is what I want to achieve in my final design.

ILLUSTRATION DEVELOPMENT

“

Nothing Compares to a Beautiful Conversation with a Beautiful Mind.

”

After developing the collage typography, I moved on to experimenting with the illustration that will visually expresses the quotes. I started with the quote “Nothing compares to a beautiful conversation with a beautiful mind.” For this quote I decided to use Martha Von Maydell’s camera collage piece as inspiration because of the way this piece visually tells a story and I really like how the photos are flowing out of the camera to show what it has captured. In the similar way my illustration for this quote will show what goes on in a positive mind and how that positivity is captured in a conversation.

I decided to create a portrait with long flowing hair so that it has two side of the situation. The left side of the portrait will have positive words written around it to show what goes on in the mind and then how those words are used through action. The hair flow represents the words flowing out of the head which are used verbally through the action. Each icon represent an element of positivity that are most important in a good conversation.

“

Communication is the Master key to Unlocking the Door of Happiness.

”

I then moved onto the second quote “Communication is the master key to unlocking the door of happiness”. For this quote I have used a side portrait as I will place the collaged quote in a way that the quote is spoken by the portraits like a speech with only a lock icon used to represent the word ‘unlocking’. This will be then created into a concertina book/ time line form so that each stage is seen clearly and that it is presented in a interesting way.

ICONS AND QUOTES The Power of Positive Thinking

Let your Words Bloom in the Best way Possible

Practice what you Preach Conversation can solve many Problems

Free your Mind and have the Courage to Follow it

Love

Blossom

Happiness

Knowledge

Key

Peace

Communication

Attitude

Freedom

The icons that I have used for the hair each represent an element of positive thinking. I then used the same icon layout and colour scheme to create small quote cards, each quote is linked with an icon so that it makes it easy to understand the meaning of these icons. All the quotes are positive and inform how important they are towards positive thinking. These will be then used on my final illustration alongside the icons and I will also make them so that they can be read easily as they will be scaled small on my last illustration. These quotes are very motivating as it will inspire people to be more positive.

Here I collected different positive quotes from the internet which I found relevant to the icons.

Here I have looked at few creative concertina book’s to help me with presenting my first idea.

I wanted to put together a creative concertina in which I could use papered colour with my illustrations and I found some of these books very interesting.

OUTCOME 1

Polly Lindsay “I am a Design graduate from the wonderful Falmouth University and have been exploring and combining graphics with hand crafted design, illustration, and typography. Most recently I have become fascinated with paper craft, there’s something magical in transforming a flat piece of paper into something tangible. I like to use design as a way to inject a bit of fun into peoples lives!.” http://www.pollylindsay.com

OUTCOME 2 After completing the concertina book, I went onto creating the icons.

I decided to present my icons in a card form with the description of the icons written underneath it so that they are more recognisable for what they represent. The icons are not easily understood in the concertina book as they do not have the description written on it therefore this will make it easier to see them a bit better. I wanted to make these cards a little more fascinating and interesting, and not just 2D print outs.

I looked at Polly Lindsay’s designs and I was really inspired by her paper craft work, I especially liked the tea time card as the layout of it is very simple yet intricate and it is presented as an icon with the description displayed with it. I had taken this idea further and interoperated it to fit my card idea and I am very pleased with the final outcome. The cards now have some depth and a lot of exploration in them even though the graphic is very simple. By making these cards using the layering technique has transformed the flat surface of the icons into something more physical and real.

OUTCOME 2 I then used the same technique as the previous cards and created a new set of cards that have hand written positive quotes written on them. Each off these cards are a descriptions of the icons which have also been presented in the concertina book. I decided to do these as the quotes where not readable in the concertina book as they are too small, so these cards are presented in the right size to be read and understand. These are also used with the icons to show how each icon can be achieved in everyday life.