Independent Practice Laetitia Le Meillour
Reusing my camera to take my black and white photographs proved more challenging as I managed to break it, fix it and ended up with two canisters with half of my photographs in each. The process of mending something broken, teaches a lot about the object, its strengths, weaknesses and how it works in general. The journey was undoubtedly frustrating but definitely as interesting as the end result. Not having remembered the exposure times, I chose to experiment, by leaving the shutter open as long as I thought it needed it, and wait to see the outcome would be. It was also about challenging myself, to not control the process so that I would end up with exactly what I wanted.
I was interested in how signs (such as traffic signs) were like a visual esperanto, instantly recognisable and understood. Whilst researching to understand the foundations of symbols etc, I came across a book called "Pictograms, Icons and Signs" by Rayan Abdullah and Roger H端bner. It is a depthful encyslopia of this universal language we see everyday. I also looked at the meanings behind the differences between all shapes and colours of signs, and its impact on the audience (wether on foot or by vehicle). I came to understand that a lot of the time the writing within these signs are irrelevant because it visually speaks louder.
These drawing were purely experimental. I am still not sure whether they are proving the point that we do not read signs but rather look at them and automatically understand or if I just was challenging their seriousness.
So I decided to use the concept of bullying and created my own pictogram fo it. I wanted to expand on it so I played around with ideas and layouts, as well as colours, techniques. I also experimented, with how I could represent the same subject with different impacts.
More experiments. I thought of adding a biblical reference in relation to the pictogram. I wanted to include the psychological concept, that words can be read with the letters muddled up, as long as the first and last letter stay in the place. Instead of mixing the letters around I thought it would be more interesting to remove them and see how well the text could still be read.
Different ways to portray bullying. I did these drawings on Post-it notes, because I drew them whenever and wherever I could, from memory and looking at the human body.
I thought it would be a good idea, to get over the fear of not knowing how to use Adobe Illustrator, by pushing myself to stick at it for these drawings. It was more complicated and took a lot longer then I anticipated. Despite the difficulties, I feel I used the appropriate program and it paid off as it was purely experimental and about the process more so than the final result.
Following from the one day Collage brief, I decided to take it further as I was interested, in how you could use shapes to convey particular words. The most fascinating part was the range of responses, that each student came up with for each word. By starting to abstract a word I discovered one way of creating a linking between abstract shapes/ marks and readable/ understandable words. Going back to the black squares I thought of a new way, only this time I attempted to create a whole sentence. The concept is simple in the way that I translated each word, just like I had done in the studio workshop, and guessed how they could be represented using only 3 squares. Putting them all together I ended up with my sentence. Pushing myslef one step further I turned my work 3 dimensional. I wanted to add texture and even use the properties of paper to my advantage.
Screenprinting Workshop.
I attended Mary ikoniadou's workshop. I not only found her talk very interesting, in terms of how she and her co-editors have established their reputation, and their lack of fear of being different. Every issue of Making Do (the publication she co-edits) is very different in its presentation, not only from the previous issue but from every magasine I have ever come across. Issue 3 was an envelop was filled with loose articles, photographs, a net to make a hat etc. This magasine was never about money, but experimenting with things each of the editors were passionate about. For the workshop, we were asked to do whatever we wanted with a copy of the Making Do. In a group
we decided to take inspiration from Keri Smith's "Wreck This Journal". Where the supposed audience takes ownership, and is almost working in partnership, with the author in finishing this book by wrecking it. We picked the pages we liked the most and thought had the most potential in encouraging the reader to engage with it. All we did was cut, rip, stick, write, draw and we had completed our "Re-Making Do" edition of the Making Do. Althought the pages are in a particular order, the book is not bound because we had not all agreed on one way of doing it. I must say working in a collaboration on a publication is hard work to come to an agreement, compromise, have patience and realise it is not all about what you want anymore.
Whilst putting together this portfolio, I realised that I had more work that I had thought, and came to the conclusion, that as art and design students we are constantly creating, and some of the time without realising it as it becomes a second nature. Nothing is worth throwing away. The most obvious lesson learnt from doing this project, was learning to work independently, and testing how far I was willing to go to achieve something. I do not believe I will ever be fully satisfied with my work, as things can always be improved, but I do think that I have pushed myself well, seen as it is such a big gap from the expectations of college. Through this project I have a better understanding of what is required of me, which is to let my love for graphic design be portrayed through my practice. I guess the pressure of how much independent practice is worth towards this year'ss final grade, has pushed me to stop procrastinating. With the pictograms project I simply wanted to play with relationship between images and text, and its effect on our eve-
ryday life. I wondered whether I could use the same components (bright colours, bold simple text but including the unexpected), as street signs for example, and convey what I wanted to say instead with the same impact. I enjoyed working with Mary Ikoniadou, and her idea of giving us complete free will, with what to do with the Making Do, was a great exercise. Working in a group was not the easiest of tasks; however I believe she meant to put us into her shoes, on her journey of finally working on her own publication shared with friends/colleagues. The workshops (such as screen printing) have really benefitted me, in not limiting myself in my work, and experimentation to the obvious methods (e.g. photoshop). I hope to improve in having a clearer idea of the direction, in which I am going with my independent practise, so that my ideas and concept may be stronger, and have more depth.