BRIEF 13_THE COLLECTED WRITINGS OF ROSY LEE THE BRIEF
THE COLLECTED WRITINGS OF ROSY LEE The truth, even more, is that life is perpetually weaving fresh threads which link one individual and one event to another, and that these threads are crossed and recrossed, doubled and redoubled to thicken the web, so that between any slightest point of our past and all the others a rich network of memories gives us an almost infinite variety of communicating paths to choose from.
DITTO brief:
Think of a way to collect/archive/ display your research. There is no point in research if it doesn’t lead to a useful outcome. Everybody works in a different way, we want you to find a methodology that works for you. For example: a hard drive full of weird photos off the internet is an asset, not an incidental factor. Find a way to celebrate it, present it and make it work for you.
NOUN ROSY LEE (UNCOUNTABLE) (COCKNEY RHYMING SLANG) TEA (THE DRINK). I’LL PUT THE KETTLE ON AND MAKE US A CUP OF ROSY LEE.
As this brief was quite broad in terms of what you could collect and how you could present it I wanted to do something with a visually interesting outcome. I wrote up a small brief guideline in order to present my idea: Context Capturing stories and memories are important. Rosy Lee is cockney rhyming slang for ‘cup of tea.’ ‘The very act of preparing and serving tea encourages conversation. The little spaces in time created by teatime rituals call out to be filled with conversation.’ Brief The brief is to design a publication that aesthetically depicts various stories through the use of interesting imagery and appropriate text. The brief is heavily reliant on the use of photography and the relationship between type and image. This book should give an insight into interesting snippets of imagery and with the use of lyrics, poetry and other written pieces allow the audience to picture part of a story.
*I thought this would be a way of archiving specific images and memories and connecting them with books, quotes and peices of writing, this would be something I could refer back to in terms of imagery and text but also tell segments of stories and memories.
BRIEF 13_THE COLLECTED WRITINGS OF ROSY LEE CONCEPT & RESEARCH
CONCEPT / PLANNING
PHOTOGRAPHY / DEVELOPMENT
EXPERIMENTING
The plan is to make a publication that includes my photography and selected passages/lyrics/poems to accompany these visuals. Its looking at particular events and memories and displaying them with text, collecting research and displaying it in a way that I can make reference to. My concept is to display the photographs in teabags to get a certain affected photograph and call the publication ‘the collected writings of Rosy Lee,’ which is cockney rhyming slang for ‘cup of tea.’
After collecting some images that I thought would be interesting to show in some way I then scanned them. Unfortunately some images worked better than others, it definitely depends on the lighting of the image, which effects how much of the photograph you can make out when the material from the teabag is layered over it.
After scanning in the selected photographs I wanted to use I was having trouble displaying the image inside the actual tea bag, it would only work with some images, depending on the lighting, clearness of the image and also the material used on the teabag. I thought about ways of trying to make some of the images that didn’t seem to show through as much more clear such as natural lighting. I firstly tried using a lamp which did actually make the images shine through more so. However I decided on using a window to try and best display the set as this could work as a nice back drop. Although the original photographs can now be seen through the teabags and created some fairly interesting photos I still have a problem with how I will display them in the publication as I would prefer to use scan ins then photographs of the images stuck on the window.
BRIEF 13_THE COLLECTED WRITINGS OF ROSY LEE DEVELOPMENT
R E S E A R C H F R O M B O O K S T O A C C O M PA N Y I M A G E S This is the initial page layout for the book. I wanted something quite simple with some white space and serif typefaces. I feel this will fit more with the general feeling of the book and the aesthetics. I think depending on the particular image with the tea bag, it could make the images look slightly like impersonated digital polaroids which is not the type of aesthetic I want to communicate with it. I like the use of polaroid photography in design, however if done digitally to try and produce the same effect I feel it can sometimes cheapen the overall quality of the design, as photo editing is so easy these days in terms of various filters and film effects that you previously couldn’t do.
After experimenting with different ways of trying to get the image to show through the tea bag clearly and most visibly, I decided the most effective way to try and do this would be digitally, by scanning the first layer of the tea bag seperatley and placing it over the image on screen and lowering the opacity. Although ideally thats not the technique I wanted I feel it allows the best outcome.
BRIEF 13_THE COLLECTED WRITINGS OF ROSY LEE EXTENDING THE BRIEF / DEVELOPMENT
MOCK UPS For the ‘Tea in Paris’ booklet i used a hot dog fold technique as it was only a small publication, it was important to do some mock ups in order to see how it would work and whether the images would suit that size and scale.
After completing the collected writings of Rosy Lee booklet I thought about extending the brief further and just making an additional booklet as I have recently been to Paris and thought some of the photographs from my trip could be displayed interestingly with the tea concept. I wanted to look specifically at Parisian buildings and architecture and the general feel of the city without including a load of stereotypical tourist photographs.
The layout is similar to ‘The collected writings of Rosy Lee’ using the same typefaces and general layout, I thought it was important to keep the design consistent as the concept is the same. When selecting the images of Paris I wanted to either square in on one detail of the subject or use photographs that obviously displayed Paris, but perhaps not in such an obvious tourist way. The images ended up all being within quite a similar colour scheme of beiges and creams, with the odd contrast of flowers and graffiti in selected images. I also found a poem that fits the context of the publication perfectly, by T.S. Eliot, with both the mention of tea and Paris, which I thought could tie the whole thing together nicely: Portrait of a lady: II Now that lilacs are in bloom She has a bowl of lilacs in her room And twists one in her fingers while she talks. “Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know What life is, you who hold it in your hands”; (Slowly twisting the lilac stalks) “You let it flow from you, you let it flow, And youth is cruel, and has no remorse And smiles at situations which it cannot see.” I smile, of course, And go on drinking tea. “Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recall My buried life, and Paris in the Spring, I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world To be wonderful and youthful, after all.” This has been an effective and interesting journey in displaying collected imagery and text and ordering it in a publication that is relevant to me and easy for me to reference. This can be used in reference to other bits of design work I may do in the future or for inspiration and quotes.
BRIEF 13_THE COLLECTED WRITINGS OF ROSY LEE FINAL B O OK
BRIEF 13_THE COLLECTED WRITINGS OF ROSY LEE FINAL B O OK