Research and Development
James Thornes
A Conversation
What is it ?
Brief At first glance the Brief is about a conversation with technology and if what about technology you would talk about, the breif gets you to look at many different areas of technology these been the past, future, good and bad. I really like where this breif is going and what kind of freedom it is giving me to look in to. The brief wants me to consider some great areas these been: • How will the conversations be heard ? • Who will my audience be ? • Who will Benefit ? For the brief i am told to show my work through the application of my chosen practice and asked to do this through the use of a research documnet and a final visual outcome that centres around the idea of “A conversation”, it also wants me to look at different ways that i can produce and show my work using differnet applications of presentating may this be posters, book, advertising campaign, photography, social media or a magazine. I tihnk that using these different mediums i will be come up with some great first ideas before taking a couple of them and creating final pieces.
What is it ?
Questionaire I think for the first areas of research im going to look into is how people use the internet and technology throught their normal day to day lives. I think that this will really help as then i can look deeper into the areas that come out most possitive. For this i am using a questionaire that i willl give to as many people i can. I will promote this questionaire on as many social platforms and through word of mouth, i think that this will be the quickest and easist way to get the most views and filled questionaires back in the short allotted time frame that i have given for this questionaire to get completed.
The questionaire is only going to be short and it is going to be very vage, the reason for this is that i want to gather a wide range of information so that i can use it in many areas of my research. I also want it to affact how i promote my final piece and how the final piece is created. Through the project i want to involve the public as much as i can, i think that this will be a good idea as it incorporates a conversation to get the public input and so using the brief in the research as well as the final piece.
What is it ?
Questionaire I left the quetionaire up for one day longer than i wanted to, i did this because i didnt think i had enough respnoses from the first two days. The results that i collected from the questionaire are shown below in various charts.
As you can in every question there is a diverse range of answers and even though this is true there is still an out right winning from every set. As you can see from above the first question was very close between the two highest answers, these were 20 hours and 30 hours or more. I think that reason for this is that most of the people i asked were from people who i grew up with and these people are all in the age range where technology and the internet was created so they have been using it all their lives and so it is normal for them to use it as a every application that is there for anything that they could possibly need. For the second question i decided to add mobiles as i think they are now a peice of technology which out ranks some of the other peices of technology and also what most people use more regularly than some other peices of technology that they may also know. From the results above you can see that the mobile has out won easily with a percentage of 92% of people using one with laptops following up behind on 71%, i think that the reason for the laptop percentage been so high is because most people work on
their laptops now because they are so portable and powerful. Another reason for this is because desktop PCs can cost alot to buy or build and so because most of my friends and people i know are students they cant afford big PCs. For the last questions there are lots of answers in a very diverse range, i think that the reason fo this is because social media these days is very reachable like i have metioned above with the potrabilty or the mobile and the laptop. As you can see there is still one winner and this is Facebook. Facebook has such a range or applications on it these days that it can basicaly be used for any sort and job that needs to be done may this be gaming, communication, media, advertisments or travel. I think that this is the main reason why people keep going back to the site even though it has been updating and changing since it first arrived as one of the first social media platforms in 2004.
What is it ?
My daily use As so many people now use mobiles in day to day life i want to focus on this for my next peice of research to see why so many people are using them and see what people are doing to keep the mobile world up to date and in front of any other peice of technology. I want to view to mobile world from the view of a regular person to see what they do with it and how they use the mobile in every day life. For this i am going to be logging my day on my mobile to see
Youtube: 23% Spotify: 17% Facebook:12% 2048:11% Messenger:9% Candy Crush:7% Yik Yak:4% Home & lock screen:4% Top Eleven:3% Mesages:3% Siri:2% Two Dots:2% Snapchat:2% Instagram:1%
what types of things i am doing and how often i am checking it. I think that this will give me a clear understanding of what other people do and how intergrated the mobile is to our everyday lifestyles. To do this i am going to be using the Battery Usage App under the Settings in my iPhone, this app lets me look at what apps have been used the most and what % of life of battery they have taken up.
What is it ?
First ideas From the research that i have done do far i have seen that people including myself spend way too much time on internet and on mobile evices, Because of this i think that all of my ideas i going to focus around what i can do to stop or reduce the amount of people that are using their mobile devices all day. My first idea is very detailed and starts with a person stood in the middle of a street with people moving past in a timelaspe way, as they past bubbles come off them showing what they are doing on their phones. It then slows down and the camera rotates 180 degrees and into first person looking at the phone screen of the person who
was the focus of the time lapse. A message then comes up showing some kind of inspirational quote like “Slow down and unplug from society. Enjoy life to the fullest.”, the message then gets larger and moves to your phone. This is then followed by “Will you follow in the movement.” My second idea is to do something with the name “Technology with emtions”, this idea would be to show emtions in illustrations. It would include many differnet emtions and each would have a background colour that represents what each of the emtions is and then within the illustrations would be a piece of technology and how it is used within that certain emtion.
What is it ?
Radiohead - Just When looking for similar ideas to mine i was asked if i had looked at Radiohead’s song “Just”. this song is about a man who goes and lays on the pavement to see if anyone notices him ben different to everyone else. I think that this video looks into public realations and how people react when you start doing things differently frm what the “normal” is, i think that this video while been a music video is also showing a problem that is going on around us now. I think this as people are becoming robots and doing whatever anyone else would like them to be and because of this everyone is becoming one and so becoming one culture all over the world.
As the video progesses people start to realise what is going on and this only start when someone falls over the man, i think this is suppossed to show how the person can do anything but as soon as it start affecting one person it can roll out of hand and then more and more people come affected by the one man. Throughout the video he tells people that they wouldnt want to know why he is laided on the floor but people keep presuring him. At the end of the video he is seen telling one person, as soon as he does this more and more people are seen laying down on the floor. I think that this shows that when the normal changes people just start following ever though they may not know what the reason is to do so.
What is it ?
The Foundations -Millicans The foundatoins is a short film that shows how Millican Dalton changeed his life in becoming a man of life and not a man of following. Millican Dalton was a normal man with a 9-5 routine in London. He quit his job to pursue a life in the open in the english lake district. he lived in his own way, chasing romance and freedom from his cavve on castle crag. Millican Chose experience over material gain and inspired the Millican team to do the same. They made the film to share the story that changed their journey for good. I really liked the films and how each of the scenes were there own thing showing diferent parts of the lake district and how they are all different from each other. I really liked the use of slow motion throughout the film, i think that this shows how life works when your not
in a boring routine and how you should be living life. I think that the films are suppossed to show what the meaning of slowing down are and leaving the following to do whatever you want and tne only way to do this is to break away from everyone and enjoy your own life. i really like how throughout the films somebody was speaking voer the top of the shots skeaping about what lfe is like without people, without following others, During the film he say “People are closing their eyes to the foundations of the universe” i think that here he is showing what people are doing that are following others and putting their faces in to technology, i really like the idea of this and so i think tht i am going to use it in one of my ideas.
“Freedom I am as the buzzard mewing by day or the own hooting by night -freedom is everything” Millican Dalton (1867-1947)
What is it ?
Portlandia - Social Bankruptcy Portlandia is a sketch comedy TV eries ser and filmed around the city of Portland Oregon. The producers began collaborrating on the series in 2005 and the sketches were a hit straight away, they are currently in the filming stages of the sixth series which is due to premier in early 2016. Social Bankruptucy was a sketch from series 4 episode 3 and was about carrie and how she had had enough with been bombarded with so much “social media rubbish� that it was taking over her life. At the start of the sketch you can see where the notifications are taking over and how the designer has used a mixture of film and illurations to show this, i think that using this is a very good way to show notifications and because of this if i am going to be using these tw otechniques i will use
it like this. After this she goes to see the human bandwidth manger who is there todelete your social media accounts making you a nobody, she then signs the form and goes to a library to get books. In the next scene she goes to see a friend who is sat in a internet cafe, he doesnt remeber her and so goes to look at her on social media to remember who she is and because she has just deleted herslef nobody knows who she is and he just thinks that she has lost it. i think what the producers are showing here is that people have become so in touch with social media that they dont remember friends if they are not connected. It has become so bad that it seem like its part of their brains and without it they feel disconnected from anyone and everyone.
What is it ?
Eric Pickersgill - Removed Eric Pickersgill is a photographer how works on projects that are very high in the public eye. This project focuses on something which i think is very close to how i want this project to work out. As you can see on the left the photos look like they are missing something, this is mobile phones. He talks about how we use techonology too much in our lives and that we should disconnect from the technology. He got the idea from this
project when sat in a cafe in New York, he said that in front of him sat this family all of them barely speaking each fixated on their screens. Throughout the project the colours are kept to a minimum only showing black and white, the reason for this he says was because it was sad that nobody was tlaking and that it was killing the enviroment and atmosphere, i really like this idea and i might use this throughout my project if i get the chance.
What is it ?
Erfan Talimi - Iconography Throughout my work i like to look at many different techniques, at the moment i am very much liking vector inconography. This is a very good designer by the name of Erfan Talimi, he is a creative director from Berlin Germany and he does tons of work on the photography and branding and of course when working with branding logos and iconogrpahy is a big thing. To the right is some of this work that he has done for various companies, i really like how he has created these differnet logos and even though each one is for somebody differnet they all
stick within a sort of boundery so that they can all be used in the way that you can see them. i dont think that i will be using this type of iconogrpahy as it is very conplex and so when put on top of video it will look very cluttered or unprofessional. i tihnk that for my icons i am going to be using very simple icons so that the video can still take the main view of the audience and not the icons. For this i think i am going to be using vecotr line icons on some type of background maybe like a speech bubble.
What is it ?
Graphic Burger - Iconography After searching for a while i found two iconographers who both create vector line icons, i think that these are very cool and something that i want to use in my work in some way. On the left you can see some line drawings, these are by designer Graphic Burger, i found these icons through Pinterest and then Behance, i realy like how easy it is to find work via these platforms and how quickly you can find out about anything that you could possibly need to know. Graphic Burger is a UI designer from Romania and most of his work invovles vector icons and branding. I
really like his work and where he is going with it, most of the work is just line drawings but some of it adds colour in small amounts like you can see below. This is some of his work from companies Goodmans and The Coasters, the comapnies are both situated in London and are both under the Food and Drink category, i really like these logos and i think that if i can add a little colour then it will give something else to the design which i had not thought about.
What is it ?
Eugene Maksymchuk - Iconography Eugene Maksymchuk is a freelance designer from kiew Ukraine and is one of the people that i started to look at back in july whne i was looking to start producing some of my own icons, I found him by looking on Behance, i really like his work and it seems to be plastered all over Pinterest too. Most of his work is very modern and minmalistic, i think that this type of design is very good at the moment and i think that because of this most of my work of the year will look or at least have these context in them somewhere.
I like how he has presented his icons and the colour scheme that he has used. I think that i am going to follow this when i am presenting my work at the end of my project, i think that this will be a good way as the icons may be going in a video and so will be needed to seen in a different media afterwards. I think that the icons will be a big part of my project and a large part of this years projects as a whole.
What is it ?
Casey Neistat - Timelaspe Casey Neistat Started out as a amateur director taking videos with his brother after he gave him his first camera in 2000, he then spent the next few years gaining experince and becoming more known in the industry. In 2008 HBO bought one series of videos from Casey and he became a hit in the video world and after it had been premiered 2010 he was invited to show his video at every film festival all over the world. He then went quite for a year only creating contnet that he didnt confront to the public. He then moved to create content for the masses as he moved onto Youtube creating more and more content for people to view, in doing this if anything he became more and more popular and in this time he has created some geat viral videos that have a silly amount of views all over the internet. He now owns a comapny called BEME, this company
is like Snapchat but focuses more on the video rather than the edit and changes that you can create with Snapchat. While he produced this compan he didnt wnt his content to suffer and so instaead of just focusing on his company he started creating VLOGs so that he could show the progession of his company and how it was coming together and also what he does in his day with work, friends and family. With his VOLGs he likes to follow a certain video template, in this template he starts with a timelaspe. This timelaspe is normally in the morning and follows the whatever music he has over the top, he then large text to give the video a name. He then cuts in on the timelaspe and starts talking like he is talking to someone or a group.
What is it ?
Ben Brown - Timelaspe Ben Brown is also a Youtber and he is somebody that started by creating short films like Casey Neistat also did. These two designers live of each other using each others work to get new ideas to create better and better short films. During theshort films he doesnt use any if much sound and if any it is normally some calm music allowing for the images to speak for themselves. On his website he says that “I create short films, some of which I like to call Visual Vibes.
There’s not much talking in these videos, the emphasis is on the images.�, i really like here how he has used more of the images to create the films reather than using sounds from the surronding and i want to kind of do this with my video and timelapse as i think it shows the audience what the people who are using their phones here and see and once you turn off your phone then you see more and hear what is all around you.
What is it ?
Kristof Luyckx - Character Designer Kristof Luyckx is a Illustrator and animator from Belgium. I really like his work and the type and variation of a styles that he works on at the same time within one or more projects. The work that you can see here is from some work that he did for Sonic Branding in 2013. This project was put to him as a explainer video for
sound studio Roundhouse, this studio is well known for the music that it producers and the people that record there. The character design here that he focuses on is really what i was looking for and i think that if i was to start creating some of the second idea then this would be the design style that i would model my own designs from.
What is it ?
Rewrite of final idea As i have done more research since i started looking at the first ideas i have changed my final idea quite alot. Now my first idea is to use the timelapse to make up the first 10 seconds of video, i think that this is a very good way to start off the advert as there is many things going on throughout and so it catches people attention so they look at it. Throughout the timelapse there is going to be icons popping up showing what is going on within the timelapse, i think that this is going to be the best way to show what is going on and what is going on wherer the timelapse cant see.Once the timelapsee finishes the camera is going to pan 180 degrees into first person, the reason for this is that you will be able to see the screen of the phone that the main character is using and
what they are up to. Then the charater is going to open a different app and in doing this they are going to be shown an advert. This advert is going to show some sort of message that gets the character to turn off their phone. The advert is then going to pop up on your screen and show you the same message, it is then going to move to the right and there is going to be the question “Will you follow in the movement�, these adverts will be in black and white as i think that this will allow for the feelings to get through to the person allowing more than a message to change them. The video will then just end with the mesage left on the screen to allowing people to show others, this will hopefully get the message around quicker and allow for more expression.
What is it ?
Icons first ideas For my icons i want to create some that use a mixture of reall icons and some that i have created. I want to use the design style of Eugene Masksymchuk within the icons and have a simple black line icon with a background colour of the website that it comes from, i really like this idea and i think that if i can pull it off it will look very good and will be one of the best parts of my work. Here i have used some of the real icons to create my own.
What is it ?
Experimental Timelapses At the start of my final piece i am thinking about doing a timelapse. Before this i have never before filmed a timelapse so i need to spend some time creating some of them and seeing what different styles and ideas i can get. I am going to be using lots of differnet places and lighting set ups to get the best views of a timelapse just to see how they all work. I am also going to be using two different cameras to capture the difference in filming styles.
For this i am going to be using the techniques or filming a timelapse and then speeding it up and i will also be using the most time consuming technique which uses taking lots of interval images and then putting them all together using a frame speed of 25 or more. As this is a print out i cant add the timelapses here so i am just going to show captures of the timelapses and then upload the timelapses to my blog.
What is it ?
Message fonts/ colour scheme For the message font i want to use something that is very simple and readable, the reason for this is because i want as many people to be able to read it and for as many people to complete the request. For this i have chosen to look at three different fonts, these i have shown below. Im going to use a black background to my work as i think this will look good on a phone and will make the
message look like its different and bold. I also think that it will give it a dark feeling just like the entire base of the project is, Because i am doing this i am going to be using a whote font as it will stand out. I will try many different white combinations to see which is best but i think i will just stay normal and go with a 100% white.
What is it ?
Final message ideas For the end of the final piece i am going to have it so a messgae comes up on a phone screen telling the person to shut off their phone and look around at their enviroment and not to be stuck in a cybernetic enviroment, i think that this is a very good idea and if i correctly film and produce the piece correctly it could be a great piece that is very different from anything else i have ever done and
from the research i have done differnet from anything anyone else has ever done. For this part of the final piece i will need two messages at the size of a phone screen.
Dont cut become a robot, stop and turn off your phone Cut out the cybernectic world and live in the real world Stop. turn off your phone and look at your enviroment Dont get stuck in a different world, open your eyes. Dont hide from confrontation, look up from your phone screen Slow down and unplg from society. Enjoy life to the fullest Will you follow in the trend and turn off your phone Will you be joining the force and turning off your phone
What is it ?
Other ideas Due to problems that i have found when creating the adveert i have decided to stop creating the advert and focus more on the other side of adertisment. When creating the advert i found many problems which meant the advert wouldnt be finished in ttime if i had continued with it. These problems including camera loaning schemes and my lack of knowledge with the equipment i was using. I know that these problems are mostly
my fault but i think that if i do something else not involving multiple camera locations and filming techniques then it would be easier. I have lots of other ideas that i could look into including an app, stcickers, posters and location branding. I think if done correctly these could reach a larger audiance than what the advert could ever of done.
What is it ?
App ideas For the app i want to stick to a simple layout and simple app, i am going to do this so that it one doesnt take ages to load and also so that it is easy for people to navigate around the app. I am going to stick within the same design idea for my advert as i think this will be a good idea amd will make it so both piece look connected and will remind you of other part of the project just by looking at it. Hopefully this will be good as it will get also get the trend around creating a better
community. Within the app i am going to have a way to add yourself to a group of people that will use a day to collectively turn off their phones and focus on the trend together. It will also have a Twitter hashtag and Facebook Viewer so you can see what people are talking about within one simple app. i think that if i can create this properly i could create something which is very professional and could be used for real.
What is it ?
App Icon For my app icon i wanted to create something that was very simpel and had many different uses, that been within the app and also on the front cover. I think that these first impressions are ok and i will not refine them and chose one that i like the best. As you can see below i have added a first draft at what some of the icon for the app could look. I really like some
of these and other i really cant stand. Some of the ideas that i relly like are the two padlocks and the plug socket. The padlocks have two different meanings, these been unlocking from a cybernetic society and the other locking yourself out of cybernectic society. i then have the plug socket, this one is like you have unpluged from society.
What is it ?
App page layouts I now have an idea of how i would like to have my design for each of the pages. like i said the app is not going to be massive and will only have four pages. I think that this will make it easier to create and also quicker. i am keeping th elayout to a simpl emodern theme. The reason for this is that i dont want anything very big that people wont want to go through and look at stuff. I
think having a small app will get more people to look at the app and so creating a bigger better group of people to use. One the next few pages i am going to show and talk about each of the pages. I think that each of these will look very good and will be very easy to use as myself the admin and the public as customers.
What is it ?
App page layouts - Front page For the font page i wanted you to see the sign up page, the sign up page will sign you up to the trend and you will be emailed times and dates of events happening and also what the day is that the unplug will happen. As you can see for the page layout i wanted to have it so it was very easy to navigate and see what you are supposed to
do, i am going to try and have this on every page so that the app is very easy to use and this wil then enable the app to be used by anyone and everyone from kids to adults.
What is it ?
App ideas For the other pages i wanted to involve social media so that people can see what people are seeing without using lots of different apps, i think that this is a good idea and will hopefully work well and many people will hopefully use it rather than going on different social media. As you can see i am have added a Twitter page, this
will use a hashtag to show different messages and if you use the hashtag when tweeting it will show up on this page. I really like how this page is working out and how it looks, i think that the page is very easy to navigate and use without getting confused.
What is it ?
App page layouts As you can see i have also used the same style and theme for this page. I really like this theme and so using it for a page that is very similar is very good and i think that if i was create a different theme it wouldnt look as good and i think that this works well as it is. The only difference that have made to this page is that instead of linking it to the
Twitter page i have linked it to the facebook page. Anything that people post on this page will show up on the page and so showing people what is going on without having to leave.
What is it ?
App page layouts For this page i used a different theme. as you can see i have used a sqaure theme, the reason for this is that the pictures on Instagram are sqaured and so the image wouldnt look right if i had large boxes. As you can see i have used two pictures per layer. I really like this page and i think that it is going to come out good if i was to create it myself.
As you can see below this is what happens when you click on an image. I really like this page and what information they show. This is the pnly page that is a deflection from the page itself as the main app is all on one page and you swipe right to get to the next part and on this page you have to click on one of the images.
What is it ?
Poster ideas For the poster i want to stick to a simple layout just like the rest of the work that i have done on this project, if i was to stray away from this theme now i dont think that it would work together. As you can see these are my first ideas and they are really bad, i know this and i am working to improve my freehand designing style. As you can see i have created
two poster designs, i really like these designs and now i am going to use these to create a digital view of each of them.
What is it ?
Sticker ideas I now want to expand the amount of people that are seeing the app. For this i am using stickers. The idea is to create a simple sticker that advertises the brand, this sticker is going to involve the logo that i have used throughout the work. I think that this is all that is needed and anything else would make it too complex and there would be too much information. i think that if
people dont know what it is then they will be more intrested than what they would be if they had seen all the information without any searching. I am also going to stick with the same colour scheme looking for a grayscale look using black and white as the main colours.
What is it ?
Stickers Here i have inverted the logo that i have created before now as i am going to be printing it onto white sticky back card. These stickers i am going to be giving to people and letting them stick them everywhere. I am going to look afterwards to see where people have stuck them and to see what i can get back from it.
What is it ?
Stickers Here i decided to give out my stickers to see what people would think of them and to see if they would understand what the sticker were for. To do this i gave stickers to people and told them to put them anywhere and any time they saw any new stickers message me with an image and what they thought of the stickers. I got many responers, more than a thought i would.
As you can see on the next few pages, i have littered many pictures of these showing what people found and lucky they found most of the ones i found. I printed 30 stickers and gave out 24 stickers, i know this because i have 6 left and if i calculate it right as a group people have found 15 and so there are 9 ou there that people have either not found or have not stuck up.
What is it ?
Development After putting my stickers out in the public eye for 2 weeks i have found that people look at them at see them so this at least give me the idea that the colour scheme is working well and that the idea is good and working, the only problem i have about them is that when asking them what th esticker was about most thought it was about security or some sort of survaliance. This is not good and i dont think that the lettering is working how i thought it would do, beause of this i have changed my mind on how the logo should look and what the advertising should look throughout the
whole project. As you can see i have chnaged the logo by changing the lettering from a simple S to a icon. This icon i think works well and shows off a group of people and when linked with the open padlock i think it makes it look like you are unlocking from the group. For this logo i have also created a logo which is the same just in the opposite colour scheme, the reason for this is that the some of the advertising for the project is in black and so the padlock would blend in and you wouldnt be able to see it.
What is it ?
Locations After looking at many areas for somewhere to host events and talks within the local area that i live i found a few, below i have created a list of some of the places. • • • • • • • •
As you can see there is lots of places that could host events and talks without the place beem overcrowded or not up to a stardard of a growing charity.
Slug and Lecttuce ST Georges Sq, Huddersfield Huddersfield Art artium (Students only) John Smith stadium 3M Buckley Innovation Centre The Media Centre Odeon Huddersfield Storthes Hall Park
What is it ?
Event poster ideas Here i am going to create some small ideas for posters that could show off the events and talks that are happening soon. For these posters i want the branding to keep going. For this to happen the logo needs to be presnet on all posters, the background needs to be black and the text the opposite. I am doing this so you can tell all the posters are relatable and means that the audience can look at all the posters and figure out what is going on without having to read into it that much.
I also want to include on a large amount of the poster the location, times and admission prices to get into the event. i think that there should be two talk a event one in the day and one at night, this allows people who work to also vist these events. I also want the admission to be free or donations welcome as it is a charity thing and so you wouldnt be asked to pay much.
What is it ?
First draft