N I S U A L
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ANGUAGE
Form follows funtion Issue one. May 5th 2015
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Modernism Postmodernism
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City in Flux 9 - 24 Earth Artefacts 25 - 36 Typography 37 - 46
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Modernism is typically defined as a conditon that begins when people realise God is truely dead and we are therefore on our own - Phillip E. Johnson
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Phillip E. Johnson is a retired UC Berkeley law professor and author who is considered the father of the intelligent design movement.
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What is modernism?
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odernism is a term which introduced a whole new variety of art movements which emerged in the late 19th century and the early 20th century shortly after world war one, which was a time where the world dreamed of changed and the end of conflict of any sort and this was the start of the influence in design, art and artitecture that we see today. From the early 20th century art movements such as DADA, Constructivism, Cubism, Bauhaus and so many more all had moderism as their main influence and they carried on their influence into the world of design, including photography and typography. These movements helped bring the relationship between art and craft closer together giving them a stronger connection.
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What is modernism?
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uring the 19th century, many artists started to make art about people, places, or ideas that they found interest in, and some of which they had experience with directly. Then the idea of a subconsience mind became really popularised and then many artist began to explore dreams, symbolism and personal iconography, this helped challenge art. For so long people found that art should realistically represent the world but some artist wanted to break this tradition and explore further into the art using expressive use of colour, non-traditional materials and new techniques within their experiments.
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Post modernism is Modernism with the Optimism taken out.
- Robert Hewison British Historian
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What is postmodernism?
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ost modernism is an art moment that came about in the late 20th century. The art moment came about when Graphic Designers seeked to challenege the restrictions imposed by modernist, ideology and principles. The idea of postmodernism began as a critical response to towards the modernism arts, when they became aware of the blandness and the failure of the aim to make everything perfect within the modern movement. Postmodernism is a huge reaction towards the assumed certainty of sciencetifics, or efforts to explain reality, this is saying that reality is not simply mirrored by the human understand but rather by everyones own individual and personal realality, this is why Postmodernism is highly skeptical of explanations which claimed to be valid for all groups such as cultures, races or traditions.
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What is postmodernism?
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ostmodernist people believe that nothing is original and everything has been stolen, or been done before, over and over again. The ‘Post’ in postmodnerism is because it denies the existance of any of principle and also it lacks the optimism scientific, philosophical or religious truth which explains everything for everyone. The placing of all princples under examinaion of it’s skepticism, although it should realise that even it’s own principles are not beyond questioning.
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City In Flux
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Breif C
ity in flux was our first breif that we got challeneged on. I found this breif to be both entertaining and challenging. I had never done anything like this before, which made it really enjoyable for me, I also gained new skills in graphic design as I was using programmes such as Photoshop and InDesign to create my final pieces.
The breif is called ‘City in Flux’ because the aim of it was to focus on how things from be changing in a city, this could be from fashion to buildings and the people within the city. This breif was a really open as we could do anything we wanted as long as it was to do with our chosen city as long as you had visually demostrated the change, or flux within the city.
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Huddersfield was the city I decided to look into as it was a new place to me since I had just started studying as the University, I wanted to find out more about this new place that I would spending a lot of my time in. Within Huddersfield I decided to look at the buildings and how they had changed over a number of years. I found my outcome really interesting and I think others will too.
Inspiration M
y main inspiration for the city in flux project was an artist that I came across on pinterest, her name was Liz Orton. Orton was extremely inspiring to me because I thought her work was very unique with a huge effect one perspective, which I thought was a perfect way to look at the city in flux breif. By putting this into a perspective you see just how things start to alternate, even right down peoples attitudes. Liz Orton jumped out to me as her work sometimes bizzarse yet stunning and eye catching, this was the exact reaction I wanted my outcomes to give to my audience. LizOrtonisanEnglishphotographer who wishes for different outcomes of her work compared to other photographers. Orton is constantly looking for new and brilliant ideas from around the globe. Orton also finds a way of getting her work to help others and interest others in helping the people in need.
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Research I
t wasn’t long after my inspiration from Liz Orton I wanted to get straight into my work as I was keen to find out my outcomes, but feore this I needed to decided how I was going to present my ideas, this was when I came up with the idea of a History book. I thought this would be the perfect way to put my message across of how buildings have differed throughout time in Huddersfield, as well as visually been able to show the changes of the city in flux I could also make it informative with dates and different types of information which would all be relavante.
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o start off history book I firstly had to research into magazines and book, this was a huge help for me as I could then see what layouts, headings, grid systems etc worked best for different kinds of books, and focusing more on informative books. While doing this reason I found out that the plainer the cover the more attractive and approchable it look for my audiences, whereas a cover with too much going on and images thrown everywhere would look messy and unorganised which would make people uninterested within the content.
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Research O
nce my booklet research was finished I could then start gathering my research for my old images around huddersfield. I thought this difficult at first, I couldn’t find any images in books or online of Huddersfield which were fairly old, however I did evetually come across a pinterest account called ‘Old Huddersfield’ this had all the images that I needed on it and all from different time periods.
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hese image were really handy , I could now see what I was comparing certain buildings too and I could also visual the difference between then and now, as well as this I can now see what angels I needed to take my own photographs at, to be the same as these old existing ones.
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Primary Research N
ow that I have gathered all the Secondary research that I needed, such as the existing images and booklet research, I could now go on and take my own. I had to be really careful when taking these images as they had to match almost perfectly to the old Huddersfield pictures, so that the comparison was much easier to visualise.
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Primary Research I
started my inital ideas out really simple with just little sketches, althought these sketches may not be very detailed, or good, this did help me visualise how certain images could turn out and therefore made it slightly easier when it came to creating my final piece.
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Development I
started my development by experimenting with my inital ideas. I decided to look at my three favourites and see which I think worked best for the message I wanted to put across, and to show people how things have changed over time in Huddersfield, mainly focusing on the buildings, but also throughout some of the images I found and some of my own that I took, you can see the change in attitude, fashion and general living environment.
GhostTown TimeTravel 17
SplitScreen
Development O
nce I had finished expiermenting I looked closely into which I thought worked best and met up to all my expectations of what my finished product should look like. I decided to go along with ‘ Time travel’ because I thought it was a really unusal piece, as refering back to Liz Or tons work I think it brought histor y to life as well as she did. I was happy with all my out comes, I think they were all original and different, but time travel felt like the only one which truly showed the different between that time period and now.
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o create my final look I found it really simple, all I got to do was cut and copy slices from both the old photograph and the picture I had taken myself, then line them up perfectly to give off the illusion of a whole new image. I continued this for all my images before making it into a book
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Finalising N
ow that I have finished all my development on the final images that I will be using my in ‘Histor y/Time Travel’ booklet I continued my development into my booklet outcome, Front cover, back cover and inner pages. Because I had done previous research on booklets I found this par t of the task really simple, as I wanted to keep my cover simple.
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e c a use I wa nte d my cover to be simple I decided to g o with the mo st simplistic shape I could think o f, t h e circle. I loo k at different opacit y for the front cove r b eca u se I thou ght having them as block cover s we re to o ha r sh a nd a litt le bit bor ing. Finally af ter look i n g into m u ltipu l opa cit y I decided 50% would be be s t.
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Finalising N
ow that I am happy with my final cover I had to look into typography, which I spent a lot of time on as I believe the type you use for the front cover says alot about the inner pages. This is why I later added a sub title, to make the front cover more entising, also using different types, such as regular, bold etc...
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Finalising N
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ow that most of my work is completed I then went on to produce the final product.
Finalising
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Outcome I
was pleased with certain parts of my outcome, I was really happy with my idea, I think I made my idea really original and unique, even thought it was inspired by Liz Ortons work, I think my images had a different turn on them, as the time periods were so wide apart, also because my images were taken in the center of the city, whereas Liz Ortons work was more in sceenery and it wasn’t busy at all. I found this task to be challenging at times because it was difficult to get the correct positioning and angels to match up the existing images of old town huddersfield, as I wanted to match as closely as possible to have a smooth running image at the end, which some didn’t turn out to be as smooth as I had wanted. I put this down to self blame, I think I could have looked closer to the existing images and done more to make them a little more a like in the end piece, I also think if I had used a better camera the images would look clear and clean, whereas I think some of the pictures I had taken look blurry and it can be difficult to see. But overall for my first University project I was happy with the final booklet, I do think it could have been made better in certain areas however.
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Earth Artefacts
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Breif E
arth artefacts was the second breif given to us, at first I was really looking forward to this breif, it found fun, different and like I could explore into anything I wanted, unfortunately me this didn’t last, the breif started to get repetative and over whelmbing at the same time, however I did enjoy expanding on my skills throughout this breif. This breif was called ‘Eart Artefacts’ because we had to research into anything we wanted on plane earth, which makes this a pretty wide breif. The end result of the breif was to recreate something along the lines of ‘The golden record’ which was a golden record sent into space with loads of different facts and languages etc on the record in case, someone or something found it and wanted to pay Planet Earth a vistit.
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I decided to look into what I thought was the most impor tant par ts of our ever y day lives, our humans bodies, for obvious reasons, Landmarks, as I think these make histor y and planet Ear th special, and finally crime, because as we all k now, planet Ear th isn’t always so dreamy.
Inspiration T
o star t off my insperation I began to research into The Golden Record itself, think then gave me a little bit more of an insight as to what was actually held on the record incase someone had found it and it was from there where I made a small moodboard which is what made me want to look into Human bodys and landmarks, it wasn’t until later when crime became another topic of my choice.
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started research on exist artist becaue I already knew that I wanted to create a infographic, so I look at artist who create simplistic, yet effective work, this is when I came across Minga Firm. They were perfect for my ideas and I really enjoyed their work, it was fun and different, which is how I wanted to portray my own work.
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Research B
ecause I already knewI wanted to create an infographic for my research I looked into a lot of different types. To help me Visualise my own infographic I created another moodboard of many different infographics. This was really helpful for me as I could then see which worked best and how the best layouts were effective and how I could use this in my own work to become effective.
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ow that I can visualise certain infographic I decided to look closer into infoggraphic artists, this is where I came across people such as Lemonly, Jack Hagley and many more, this inspiered me even more to what kind of infographic I wanted to create and it also showed me what type of graphics would work best.
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Primary Research O
nce I had finished researching into infographics, and artists I could then go on to begin the inital ideas/thumbnails, this way I could get a better idea of what exactly I wanted my final outcome to be.
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Development A
fter I had finished sketching out some visuals, I could move onto bringing them ‘to life’ I attemped different ways of doing thing, from the mesh tool and other tools, but I found that the pen tool worked the best for the types of outcomes I was looking for. They achieved the look of looking simplistic, but effective, and held just enough detail to look even amounts of cartoon and realistic as I wanted.
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continued with this process for all of my graphics for the infographics, most turned out really well and I was really happy with out come, the small amounts of detail made them really eye catching and appealing to all types of people and age range, I think they helped get my information across really well as well because they relate to the text and facts really well.
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Development
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Outcome W
hen I had completed all my graphics for my infographics I then went on to lay them out on a A3 page by using some sort grid system. I actually found this hard occasionally when
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Outcome trying to place everything equally so that the whole page flowed really well from one piece of information to the next, as I thought this would help my infographic appear more appealing for my audience.
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Outcome I
was really happy with my outcomes,Ithinktheyturnedout slightly better than expected, this was the first time I had created an infographic like this so I was extremely motivated to try it out. Even though I eventually found it repetative I still think this breif was really challenging at times, it helped me realise how important the grid system is and how that can my work flow and look a lot more appealing for my audience. However, even the grid system helped me and it did improve my work, I think I still should have continued with it and some of the pieces need improvments with layout. Another thing I think I could have looked into more is the type/fonts, now that I have looked back on this work I think the type is all wrong, and I think the whole page would look better with different fonts, this way you can also appreciate the images more, and then appreciate the information, after all it is the images why you get drawn into these infographics.
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type transcript
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Breif T
ypetranscrips was a good breif I found, I think it opened up my eyes to alot of usual types, and how different objects can be seen as a type, or word/phrase with different perspectives. The aim of the brief was to look at different artist and get inspired by them to create our own typraphy with similar properities to their work, such as curved lines, straight lines, characters, etc.. I decided to look closly at El Lissitsky as I wanted a pretty basic type, I didn’t want any too exgravigant as this was my first time to attempt any sort of typography of my own, so I wanted it basic, easy and of course readable, all these properties will make my font approachable.
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Inspiration I
found my main inspiration from an artist call El Linssitzky. Linssitzky was a Russian painter, typographer, architect and designer. El Linssitzky went on to studied architecture at the Polytechnic in Darmstadt 1909-14, then returned to Moscow where he began to work in an architect’s office. It wasn’t until 1919 when Linssitzky applied for art at the art school in Vitebsk
I
found Linssitzkys work really fun and I was immediatly attracted to his work, I like the idea of looking at something and been able to see something else really unusall and he art always came across as unique, which was something I wanted to create. I think how he has mainly straight lines, and rectangle, and curved edges really makes his work pop.
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Primary Research
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Primary Research A
fter I had decided which artist I wanted get most of my inspiration from, I could then go on to creating thumbnails of three different types of typography, from these three thumbnails we had to decided which one we wanted to progress futher into a full alphebet and finally a full digital font.
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picked this font out of the three thumbnails I had created because it holds a lot of the properties that Linssizky had in his work, such as the simple shapes lines, curved edges, and I think this really holds this unusal font together.
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Development
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nce I liked how my type look in a thumbnail on paper, I could then develop it into a digital font. This was actually easier than I first thought, I simply made a really simple grid on illustrator and then using the rectangle tool, I made 25 rectangles (one for every letter) and with the pen tool to simple added the rest of the letter where I thought it looked best with the rectangle.
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Development A
s soon as I had finished my alphabet in digital form the first thing I did was create a word, or my name, in the font to see how easy it was to read when all put together in a word, rather than looking at each letter individually.
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Outcome I
was really pleased with my outcome for my first attempt at digital typoragraphy, I found this task to be really fast and easy, but withafewchallengesalongtheway. If I was to do this task again, i think I would probably clean up slightly on some of the letters. I do feel asthough some of my work looks rushed and not well thought out as I could have made it. I didn’t want to create anything too difficult and challenging as I wanted to get used to creating a simple font and hopefully in the future I can go on to more developed type faces.
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