Focuses on extending your visual awareness, individual creating language and understanding of contemporary practice while examining the fertile and complex semiotic aesthetic and nature of word, image and object. I will examine these relationships while engaging in a broad variety of techniques used throughout the “School of design� as well as a serious of lectures and seminars.
Visual ThinkingBRIEF
N After choosing a random letter “out of the hat” we were left with the letter “n” and a size of 300mm to create a wall mounted piece of typography using the brief as our guide. We now had to decide a type face style that would form the foundation of our letterform.
We decided to go with the word “Neon” to create a letterform for this project, as we had a fairly good idea of what we could do with it and what style of outcome we could end up with, We plan to create a physical neon sign to form the letter “N” and photograph it in various locations that ordinarily you would not see any kind of neon sign, places like, fields, the beach, the park,
a castle Made from flexible neon lighting that we have ordered from ebay, we will bend into shape on some sort of frame or board to give its form, We now need to look at what style of typeface we are going to create the letter into, a transitional serif would be near impossible as we would be unable to bend the lighting into such fine angles on the serifs, a bold serif font would work best.
RESEARCH Here is a small selection of N’s that people have found in nature that we just quickly researched from google. I think that if we were to go down the path of “nature” that this gives us a good basis to start from, instead what we are going to do is cross the topic of nature with our chosen subject of neon, with the main focus being on the neon sign, but the natural backgrounds giving it some depth.
Sketch & Digital VECTOR
We sketched out some rough ideas as to what style of letterform we would actually construct and once we had done that, we recreated the letterforms on illustrator in a digital form in an attempt to see if we could come up with a more clear design idea in terms of the typeface we use for the letter.
The Outcome
We have two ideas for mounting out neon lighting we mount the lights through a hollow box made from black mountboard or card, or something similar which we could attach the lighting to using cable ties or some sort of hot adhesive, as long as it does not damage the lighting itself. It would be relatively inexpensive to create this, although it could be more time consuming, It would also be easier to decide on a type face using this method, as we would be able to draw on the letterform before we commit too it.
Another way we could mount the lettering is using a wire frame and clear cable ties to attached the neon lighting to it, I think that this way of doing it would work much better than the box idea as it would give us the freedom to include as much of the background as possible, which is something that I think would make the letter itself stand out even more.
Neon - comes from the Greek “neos,” meaning “the new gas. Visually styled to reflect that of vintage Soho and American Diner signage and based on the uppercase N from the typeface known as “Futura” to make the letter be as bold as possible. Photographed in an environment that it would otherwise not be seen to give more emphasis to the letterform itself rather than its surroundings. The glow from the neon light helped to give the letterform a rounded ended and soft visual effect, which helps to show informality within the font and make it somewhat playful, as these signs tend to be.
Neon - comes from the Greek “neos,” meaning “the new gas”
Visually styled to reflect that of vintage Soho and American Diner signage and based on the uppercase N from the typeface “Futura” to make the letter as bold as possible. Photographed in an environment that it would otherwise not be seen to give more emphasis to the letterform itself rather than its surroundings. The glow from the neon light helped to give the letterform a rounded ended and soft visual effect, which helps to show informality within the font and make it somewhat playful, as these signs tend to be.
We decided against the previous three typefaces for our ‘N’ above. Initially the layered effect made the letter look 3D but almost childish, we wanted a cleaner finish to the letter in general. Modeled on the Futura, sans serif typeface, we aimed to get the letter to look neater and thinner. Instead of wrapping the neon lighting to the wire using cable ties, we used tape and string to hold the shape of the letter firm. Without this light distortion we began to photograph defined neon lines without too much glow or background noise.
Neon - Light Visually styled to reflect that of vintage Soho and American Diner signage and based on the uppercase N from the typeface “Futura” and given a neon twist.
We changed the typeface for the blurb from ‘Caviar Dreams’ to ‘Helvetica’ to make it more legible. We were pleased with the final choice of setting to hang up our letter, ultimately simplicity was the best option. The same goes for the ‘N’ itself, we feel having a fine line ‘N’ is much more aesthetically pleasing than our previous attempts.
The Postcard
Once we had created the letterform it was a simple enough task to photograph it, the hardest part we found was because of the light pollution given off by the letter itself we had to be very careful with what camera settings we were using, so that you could still clearly see the letter without it being a complete blurry mess, although the blur was something that we wanted to include very slightly.
Lettersinthe
Landscape
A Lexicon of Urban Typography
Poole Shoot Like the brief states, we sorted ourselves into groups of four, In my group there was, myself (obviously) Max Lom Bor, Will Curtiss and Ali Koh. We wondered around Poole photographing the typographic rich streets as well as the area in and around the dock, these are some of the photos that I took myself. I think the shoot itself went well although if I was to do it again I would of made sure that more of the letters were perfectly focused, as this became a problem when sorting through the photos for printing prep.
French Fold is a book creation style for which Individual sheets of paper folded in half and bound together at the open—rather than the creased—edge are called French folds. Sheets folded this way can either be glued together or bound with a coil, posts, or stitches. This method is useful if you want to avoid double-sided printing. •
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As well the normal 3mm bleed don’t forget to add an extra 10 mm gutter for perfect binding , Japanese stab binding and French fold binding
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For french fold binding (below) if using a picture across a spread you must use two exact copies of the image and place them on consecutive spreads.
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Don’t forget to tick the crop marks and registration marks boxes on the InDesign Print box before making the .pdf file. For good quality videos of demonstrations of binding techniques: Japanese style stab binding http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9WL3C9rItg&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poDYEZDg6M4&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5_ESTZNwMQ&feature=related
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Below you can see a screen shot of the page set up that we had to use in order to print the images correctly, with a 3mm bleed the whole way around as well as a 10mm gutter on both the left and right hand side of the book, this is because when the book is bound, some of it will be glued together, so it is better to make sure that an important part of the image is not missing.
French Fold Book Binding Preparing the artwork for the document we had to convert the image files to 300dpi CMYK TIFF files in order for them to print correctly, to start with we used photoshop to do each image separately, but then I stumbled across a program on the app store called “Easy Image Converter� which as the title states converted the images to our specifications automatically. We also used the batch setting available in photoshop.
The most confusing part of this project was at the very start of putting the artwork onto the indesign document, as the page spread that you see on the screen, in reality will be the front and back of a page, as the black line in the center is actually a fold line. so in order to create a spread, the left hand image (of the spread) would have to be on the right of the previous page and the other on the left side of the following page.
This also meant when creating a spread that featured an image that would go across two pages of a spread, we had to duplicate the image, then place both of the images the same way you would do for a spread, being careful to make sure that the images will line up correctly when printed and bound.
Book Binding
We bound the book using the “Perfect” binding technique. Perfect binding puts all the pages and flattens the edge, then a flexible adhesive attaches the paper cover to the spine. Paperback novels are one example of perfect binding.
After collating our images into the indesign document they were then printed on to A3 sheets an after sorting through them to double check that they were infact in the correct order we then had to go about folding each page in order for the images to line up we had to match the cropping marks on each side of the page by holding the page up to the light. Then using the “Bone” tool to fold the page to help give it a more pro-
fessional look. The book was then placed into an industrial guillotine which cut the edge of the book that would be bound to make sure that it was perfectly flat. We then transfered the pages into the “Lumbeck” press, which tightened the pages together and after assuring the pages laid flush to the top of the press we used scrap paper to cover either side of the press so that our book did not stick to the press. We then applied the first layer of PVA
glue along the spine. After waiting for 15 minutes for to dry we then opened up the top half of the press so that we could move the pages side to side, and then
we could apply glue so that it not only bound the outside edge but also some of the inside of the pages that would be what we left as gutter, This will make the bind stronger overall.
The red signifies where the glue is, starting with just the spine then moving it side to side to get glue down in between the pages.
THE BOOK Here is the finished product, I think that it contains a variety of inspirational vernacular type successful collected on our day in Poole. If we were to revisit this project, I think I would tried to come up with more abstract letters and less use of actual typography made
for communicating. As far as the physical construction of the book goes I think that it was a fairly simple and easy process and a skill that I would like to try again, possible creating a series of books containing my own work. I think the best part of our vernacular type
book is that the imagery on each page isn’t too similar, which helps to keep the viewer engaged when they are looking through it. Below you can see the paper wrap cover that we created to place around our book for its final bit of presentation, we wanted to keep it very minimalist.
LetterMpress WORKSHOP LetterMpress is a creative environment that lets you design beautiful compositions with vintage wood type and art cuts on a virtual hand-driven printing press.
As it is completely digital it gives you the opportunity to make plenty of mistakes without the cost implication of wasting ink, paper and time.
LetterMpress gives you the experience of producing your designs on a letterpress — placing and arranging type on the press bed, inking, and then turning the hand crank to make a print.
I had downloaded the application a few months previous to this workshop so I was already fairly proficient in terms of how the program works and its controls.
As it is completely digital the whole process is so much quicker and cleaner.
I was hoping to further my understand of the program (theres always something you don’t know).
We were given the task to create a design featuring a quote of our own choosing, and then visually representing this quote using LetterMpress and then transferring it over to indesign or illustrator, then using google, select an image to place in the back ground of the quote that is associated with the quote itself. I chose a favourite quote of mine, not specifically said by anyone but more of a popular saying among surfers. This image is by a favourtie surf photography of mine, called Mickey Smith. In terms of the typographic structure I think that the design is a little unbalanced off to the left, to rectify this I would simple make sure everything lines up on the left and the right have side.
Although not a particularly insightful quote, I think this as more as a joke design. Even though I do think that it holds some meaning the arrangement of this image in my opinion works much better as everything is more successfully aligned as well as this I think the positioning of the image behind is in the correct place, although the type colour needs some editing.
Letterpress TEXT&
IMAGE
Similar to the task in the digital letterpress workshop, we were given the task of coming up with a short quote or statement and then we would come up with, and carve out of lino, a simple image to go with it.
This workshop started of with taking us through some of the fundamental ideas and terminology around typesetting, a lot of which cross over to modern digital techniques, for example terms like, “Leading” is called that because lead is used in the composing stick to control the space between each sentence. I found this very helpful as it gives me a physical process to imagine as a way to remember what specific terms mean.
We started by using a composing stick to write out our short sentences being careful to make sure we had got it written the correct way around as because it will be printed the type itself is all back to front as you look at it. This process was a very messy one as the mental type wasn’t very clean as well as being sure to wash your hands once you were finished as the “dirt” from the letters could be potentially poisonous.
In previous attempts, I have never had a talent for lino cutting, but I think that this cutting went very well, I think it helped to have had a very good idea of what I wanted to create before starting cutting which is my usual problem. I think it is very clear to see the connection between the quote and the image that I chose to print. The fact that the type slightly overlaps the bottom of image is something I actually quite like, as it helps to remind the viewer that this was handmade and gives it a slightly more rustic aesthetic than you get with other digital processes. I would like to try and incorporate this process into my work in future projects, even if it is just as a form of experimentation of an idea. It has helped me to broaden my own personal skills set as well.
RisographPRINTING
Risograph printing is a process in which a design is printed a single colour at a time, essentially a digital version of screen printing. This means that the colour’s used for the printing process are able to be far more vibrant that in a conventional printer. The process is also one of the fastest ways to print bright colourful designs in bulk quickly. As well as this it is also a lot less labour intensive than screen printing. Because of the way it uses the colour drums in order to create lighter and darker shades of the same colour it prints in dots, the closer together the dots, the darker the image appears., and vice versa. This gives the printed design another texture that other printing methods just cannot replicate.
We were offered an animal out of the hat as well as two colour’s, I chose a hummingbird and Red and blue (obviously) To set up the design and to give us an idea of the colour’s that our designs would come out like we used the Pantone Solid Uncoated set of colour’s, although when it comes to printing you only need a grey scale filed of each layer of your design.
The same way you do in the screen printing process, each separate colour layer has to be separated into different layers and in this case because the colour of the image was controlled by what colour ink drum was in the printer the files had to be turned into a greyscale PDF file.
Starting with the lightest colour first the design is printed. Meaning that in terms of this design the blue layer would be printed first then left to dry and then the red layer would be printed over the top. The advantage of this process is that I could of printed a lot of copy’s of the blue layer very quickly. If the design had less block, bright colour it would of been a much faster process. I think that the quality of this printing process simply cannot be matched by other printing techniques. The intensity of the colour’s are much more vibrant than that of a laser printer or ink jet printer. I think I will definitely be revisiting this process for future experimentation during projects.
the
OF DEFInition > »»
pOWER
pROPAGANDA LECTURE
Information to assist or damage the cause of a government or movement
»» The spreading of ideas information or rumour for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution a cause or person »» Ideas facts or allegations spread deliberately to further ones cause to damage an opposing cause also a public action having such an effect.
prOpagate > »»
To grow and spread (information) Reproduce, Breed and grow
Three Types of prOpaganda > »»
WHITE: ReliaBle, can Be identified.
»»
BLaCK: Comes from a unidentifiable source, No Valid source or its unreliaBle.
»»
Grey: A Bit of Both.
Censorship:
»»
1. Big lie - adapted by Hitler and Stalin, the state controlled Egyptian
press has been spreading a Big lie, saying the world trade center was attacked by Israel to embarrass Arabs »» 2. It doesn’t have to be the truth so long as its plausible »» 3. Tell the truth but withhold the other sides point of view
Transmedia LECTURE This lecture explores the concept of transmedia and its application to a range of visual media and practices. it examines the way in which the term is currently defined and used by a range of contemporary theorists, and how the concept builds upon previous notions such as intertextuality, remix culture and postproduction.
Monomedia: Father, book, spoken word, the image i.e. Traditional media forms. No medium really exists in isolation. Kristeva/Barthes and others recognised the extent to which all texts are inter-textual and draw upon cultural experiences. Barthes recognised that most images exist in relation to the written word, the title to an image for example that anchors its meaning.
Interpretation and Adaption: Remaking one media product into another i.e. Book to film. Consider the continuing success of adaption - LOTR/ The Hobbit, DC/ Marvel. Whilst seemingly popular many are critical of such an approach; Alan. Moore: comic book writer: Youtube
Multimedia: Combination of mediums working together; Whilst the illustrated book may count as multimedia, we tend to think of multimedia in terms of rich content (films/animation) or interactivity I.e. internet pages with images, sounds, video and hyperlinks.
Multimedia or Multimodality: (Kress and Van Leeuwan) is a common place - sound and image have been working together for approx 100 years (although even silent cinema was designed to be seen in combination with live music) and theatre/ performance long before. Multimedia was a catchword of the CD-ROM era.
Adaptable Transmedia relies on culture of convergence “as consumers are encouraged to seek out new information and make connections among dispersed media content� (Jenkins, 2006 p.3) However the convergence is not limited to the social sphere and we see media convergence occuring rapidly - IPhone, Xbox, Playstation, Digital TV However Fagerjord 2010 argues that the case for media convergence is not so simple, suggesting that in Jenkins model, divergence is subsumed within convergence. Fagerjord comments that technological divergence is common, as are platforms for content, suggesting that instead what we are really witnessing is simple.
Unique contribution of each medium is key. Each medium is key. Each medium has its own affordances, potential, communicative ability; but also potentially audience differentiation and accessibility. For example Ryan 2003 discusses the relative narrative potential of radio, its distinct ability to communication through dialogue and sound effects, bringing about the genre of the radio play and radio can be accessed almost anywhere.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03pdhkn Connection of multiple texts between each other - stories develop between and across texts. The universe becomes expansive but interrelated and intertextual. Collaboration important aspect of the success if the matrix transmedia model.
Ohhhh Ahhhh Mmmm
This session aims to explore our relationship with objects and how we respond to and give value to “things” and how our aesthetic judgments and purchase decisions relates to consumer culture. This session considers the phenomenon of consumption and notions of style and aesthetic taste.
Our relationship with objects and how we respond to and give value to “things” How our aesthetic judgments and purchase decision translate to consumer culture Neomania Taste - derives from old French term to touch or feel
Function and form Use Ergonomics Size, handling, storage Recycling Shape Colour Style
Cultural consumption Different tastes in different countries - Cultural preferences, social tabboo
in 19th century - development of taste as an idea and as an aesthetic parallels the rise in popular expectations which grew with the increase in spending power The rise of consumerism. How do we judge design? • Subjectively • Objectively • Experience of objects • Influence – eg. media, exhibitions • Education – knowledge of objects… • Fashion, styles • Aesthetic judgement - taste • Lifestyle preference
Less is not more, Less is a Bore
For the Love of GRAPHICS We were set the task to collate work for and curate an exhibition led by a team of four, I was one of the four left with the task of managing the event, along with, Sophie Taylor, Ali Koh and Ben Gilpin. It was our job to make sure everyone was contributing work, organise where it was all going to go, how we were going to layout the studio, promoting the exhibition so people actually turned up to see it as well as setting up and taking down the exhibition on the day.
I started by creating an excel document using a register of the people on level 4 graphic design, and then using the private facebook page that we have asked people to give me an idea of what they were going to bring, this would enable us to get an idea of what kind of areas of graphic design that we would be covering with our exhibition as well as allowing us to plan so that we can fully utilize the space that would had available.
This was the poster that we chosen to promote our exhibition Designed by Charles Rodriguez
FOR THE
LOVE OF GRAPHICS MONDAY 17TH FEBRUARY GRAPHIC DESIGN STUDIO UNIVERSITY HOUSE ARTS UNIVERSITY BOURNEMOUTH FREE ADMISSION
A one day exibition that aims to explore our love of graphics through a spectacular display of graphic artefacts, text and collections collated and curated by students and staff from the BA ( hons ) Graphic Design course at the Arts University Bounemouth. This exibition aims to investigate how we consider, position, love and cherish examples of Graphic Design.
For the Love of GRAPHICS Overall I think that the exhibition was a big success, we got some very positive feedback from the people that came to view our exhibition, including feedback from level 5 and 6 students, as they have previously done this exhibition when they were in level 4, stating ours was “Leagues better� than theirs was. Layout wise I think the exhibition was reasonably clear and led people from one exhibit to the next fairly fluidly. If we were to do this again I think that I would of tried to organise the students better, as we were left with not much time to put the stuff up due to people not bringing it in till the last minute. My favourite exhibit has to have been the collection of vintage boardgames, I think this capulates graphic design throughout recent history in a fun and interactive way.
During the exhibition I was asked by lecturers to create a blog documenting and advertising the exhibition. I used wordpress to essentially make an online gallery of photos that I were taken by a proffesional photographer, Ellen Miller.
The blog is still online and the address is www.4theloveofgraphics.wordpress.com I considered giving the log in details to our lecturer so that the next group of level 4’s next year could continue it on with their exhibition, so that it is being update periodically every year.
My Journey Home Level Four Mapping Project Josh Wainwright
Jos -h Wainw -right