CONTE 1
Distinctive Characters: Typography as a Semiotic Resource Pg: 3-10
2 Postcard Pg: 11-16
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Lectures and Workshops Pg- 33-38 :Chromophilia :Silk Screen :Transmedia :Propaganda
- 35 - 36 - 37 - 38
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ENTS 3
Letters in the Landscape: A lexicon of urban typography Pg:16-28
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Exibition: For the Love of Graphics Pg:27-32
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1 Distinctive Charaters: Typography as a semiotic Resourse
Working in groups of two choose an initial letter from the following set and based on the terminologies and glossaries contained withing the brief develop a word that is related to the unit-you can produce it in Caps or lowercase. After careful planning design and make a three dimensioinal initial character that communicates it’s meaning. The model can be made of found objects but must finally be wall-mounted.
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Typography can be used as a powerful vehicle to transmit ideas and notions of culture, gender, history, materiality and value. The function of typography is to communicate a message so that it effectively coveys and reinforces meaning. In the early 20th century Beatrice warde in The Crystal Goblet ascertained that typography should render itself invisible and be subservient to the content. In the 21st Century digital intervention has allowed greater access to typographic technilogies and no longer is typography judged on it’s ability to remain withing these constrained vessels. Typography as a semiotic resource in it’s own right is capable of transmitting a variety of meanings.
The study of semiotics has been used by academics to analyse and deconstruct Post Structuralist Theories. If we look at the work of the Semiotics Alliance on http:// www.semiotics.co.uk we can see how semiotics are used withing the commercial sector to help some of the world’s biggest brands find fame and fortune. If we go further back in the history to the Middle Ages we see how religious and secular texts use illuminated Characters to accentuate meaning and establish hierarchical construction. The use of colour to provide particular emphasis and meaning to the texts.
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‘K ‘
In a group of two, we had to choose a letter out of 26 alphabets in random and I handpicked ‘K’ but we had a chance to exchange it with my class mates, if we wanted to try something else. But Kasia and myself, she was the person I was working with and we both agreed on the chosen letter. But the brief had few restriction, we werent allowed to create anything above 300mm high.
Here are the few words i brainstormed that starts with the letter K:
Kiss Knife Kettle Key Kit
Kind Kidney Keen Kite Kebab
Kick Ken Keypad Kid Keyring
Ketchup Kill Knee Kidnapped Knot
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KIT
Idea 1
For this idea, Kasia and myself, we both had an idea of creating a body shaped as “K’ and maybe dress it up with litle tiny football kit or maybe just draw the kit on the body. The ‘K’ body would have been probably made by wood while using laser cutter to cut it into the shape. When we sketched it to see how it will look like or either if it would work, it also gave the sense of Kicking aswell. It communicated 2 things with one whereas we only wanted it to communicate one, but we ventured on using the idea of Kick aswell, where the ball will be hanging giving the idea of the ball being ‘kicked’.
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KNOT
Idea 2
For this idea, we both deided to go for something simple such as knot. there are various things that gets knotted, so we researched the things that gets knotted often, such obviously your headphones which I’m sure everyone has experienced, shoe lace, some sort of string, ropes or even hair.
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Types of Materials
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ROPE After we looked online and researched and we thought maybe we should just go for something orginal f we are creating a “Knot� such as using rope. We also got past some visually interesting way to knot but again we thought knotting is just natural it hapens it self, even though we are kind of making a knot but we were trying to be less focussed on the way the knot looks. So, using thick rope was a simple idea and we made a small string prototype first and asked our class mates, and we got the right results so, took it further into using thicker rope.
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PROTOTYPE
The Final 3D Character It was quite easy to put this rope into a shape of ‘K’, and the big knots makes it more clear of the term “Knot.” To add a little style, we took threads out from the rope and spreaded it out. Using the black background, it really enhances the shape of the rope and stands out. The 3D Rope can be found at Kasia’s box.
After we did our test on a small string and made it into the shape of ‘K’, it was quite easy to make it and it gave the K shape. We added few knots around the hands and legs of K to of course communicate
the term “knot“. After that was done, we didnt know what difficulties we had to face for trying the proper big thick rope. First of all, finding the rope was a hard task, we went to all the shops that possibly sold
ropes but we didnt had much luck finding it. We even went to a pet store, and looked at dogs toys that had thick rope with a ball but the colour was a dissapointment, it included all the colours thats in a rainbow in all
the ropes, whereas we wanted something plain and simple. We then got the idea of rope that holds the curtains and decided to use thosewhich we found it in a small home store nearby university. 12
2 Postcard
Produce an A6 postcard with the image on one side and the brief description of word on the other.
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Initial Designs
These are designs for the Postcard, looking at the layouts and where the quote would sit on a black background.
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Contact Sheet
Out of hundreds photos, I have chosen these 6 photos that represents differences in it’s exposure, colour balance, lighting. 15
Quote “The importance of typography in design can’t be overestimated. Knotting the accuracy, precision, and balance of geometric forms together can give letters the elegance and sharpness they deserve” - Smashing magazine
Layouts
i chose this image as it had a good lighting and it was on better focus which icluded more details of the rope. I edited, cleaned a bit on photoshop. One of the layout has a slanted style which I really like, it
gives a slight edgy style to the postcard and even if it’s a got a little bit of rope cropped out i think it still gives the visual it’s justice. The other one on the right, it just carries a simple style to it.
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The Final Postcard
The Final Postcard can be found in Kasia’s box. 17
n y i d. h ap ate n r og tim sio yp eres reci t of ov , p s e y ic nc t be rac etr e a o u m iv rt po an n acc geo n g nd a f Im e gn c the e o er c e a rve. h T si ing nc th nc se de ott ala oge lega de Kn d b d t e e hey an rme s th ss t fo tter ne le arp sh
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Vernacular Letterforms: Mapping the Landscape - A lexicon of urban typography This Initial brief begins with a visit to poole where you will identify, collect and photograph, examples of vernacular letterforms in the town. Your images could be literal interpretation of details of road signs, gravestones or shopfront signs, etc or slightly more challenging abstract collection of ‘hidden signs’ drawn from architectural forms, found objects and unintentional typographic structures. It is important that you keep accurate notes for each pictures: ie Photographer, Location, Date, Description before returning to AUB and uploading your pictures to hard drive. You will then go through a process of picture editing and retouching in readiness to prepare layouts for the book they will be published in. Technical Specification: Trimmed size : 300 * 300 Four colour
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Poole Quays
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Before we were all set to go Poole Quays, we were to form in a group including 4 people which were Conor Kelly, Nischal Gurung, Harriet Salmon and of course myself. We then got on a bus from university bus stop and headed straight to the quays, and it was a bright day so it was a good day to pictures but it was quite cold. Also, we were given a small digital camera to take pictures on, which delivered quite decent quality pictures. After we got there, we all worked together and just tried to capture anything that you see has typographic character to it ranging from A-Z.
The Poole Yacht Club
Contact Sheet
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Contact Sheet
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Contact Sheet
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Book Binding Binding book with threads or strings which I had already learned before but I am definetely new to the scene if binding it with glue and using the wooden machine called ‘Lumbeck Press’. First of all we carefully chose the right images out of hundreds of images and played around with the layouts for the book in Indesign software in our groups. after that it was sent to print and printed on A4 paper and we used the bone tool to create a smooth fold on the paper. Then we used the Press machine to hold all the pages together and tightened it while also checking if all the pages are on the same equal level. On the top then we applied thick PVA glue and left it dry for 15 mintes. After 15 minutes we reappy the glue again and later we apply a strip of mull on the spine of the book and add glue on top one more time and we left it to dry over night. We returned next day and it was the last finishing up left to do, we stuck the cover of the book and cut extra unwanted bits of paper and it was completed with a pristine clean finish.
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Urban Typography Book
The Final book can be found at Conor’s box.
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Urban Typography Book
Urban Typography Book
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Exibition: For The Love Of Graphics
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For this project, We hosted a small exibition on Monday 17th of Febraury in our studio open for everyone who are interested and each of us had to bring an
item to showcase it on the exibitioin. The event was organised by small team and it was well exibited even in a very short period of time. It was interesting to
see what everyone had brought and also seeing all the amount of stuff from glass bottles to vintage designed tins to books etc, it was good to see the the
different style of art and designs from different corners. Also, seeing all the different styles from different time scale i’m kind of interesting what the future
holds, what more is there still to come. For the exibition, I brought 2 packet of twinings tea, but it wasn’t no ordinary tea. It had fruity flavoured in it which
were Blackcurrent, Rasberry and Dragon fruit. I got this when I was shopping at asda and just saw a tea with ever so coll packaging that caught my eye and i
thought i had to get it for the exibition and also for me to try it if it actually taste like the way the packaging is visualising it. The packaging was surrounded
by elegant clean cursine design that enhanced it’s look of flourshing fruity tea.
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Lectures Work Shops
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Chromopholia Colour terminilogy Primaries; Secondary, Tertiary Complimanetaries; simaltaneous contrast Chromatic; Achromatic Value Saturation Tints; Tones; Shades Warm and Cool Mineral, Vegetable, Animal pigment sources Pigment, Oil, Acrylic, Watercolours Extended, Limited, analogous palettes Colour proportion
Colour is one of the fundamental elements of communication available to an artist or a designer. In nature we see it a number of diverse ways: as display, for camouflage, as a warning. colour has psychological aspect too. that is our perception of colour relates to the different wavelength of light that surfaces absorb and reflect, and the way this wavelength is registered on our retina. This affects our experience as for example, red is not only different from blue, it strikes the retina more aggressively and therefore carries this implicatiion. Colour can commu-
nicated by means of association also. For example, purple has become linked to the notion of luxury goods from Far east during the 19th century, many of which were coloured in the unfamiliar (to the western eyes) and exotic colour purple. Colour can denote a particular period of time. A range of browns might make us think of 1950’s when rationing was prevalent, and camoflauge browns and brown greens were cheap source of pigment for wallpaper manufacturers. This was because the Ministry of defence were selling off he surplus tha had been produced for the war
effort. Also, colour can be used expressively. For example, strong clases of highly saturated colour might communicate ideas of energy, dance, vitality, and hedonism, whereas a grouping of delicate, shifting blues might talk about calm and quietude. Through practice and discussion we ar going to explore how colours interact, and increase your alertness to how colour might be exploited strategically in order to articulate your ideas more successfully.
For this workshop, I was to create just a random abstract looking typography. I drew a grid first and I just wrote big typography such ‘A’, ‘T’, ‘V’ and ‘R’ kind of laying each texts on eachother but not literally all of it on top but just its parts. I was to use very light soft cool colours, so I had mix lots of colours with white colour. and just paint in all the boxes. But i couldnt finish in time because im such a slow worker when it comes to paint and im not really a big fan of painitng but i enjoyed the workshops. After the i didnt had enough time, I scraped all the excess paint and dried the rest.
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Screen Printing
Silk-Screen From my experience, I have only heard of the term but never actually got to use it. That is why I decided to take on the workshop. the image above is my example of the silk screen printing. That’s right, I actually got to print something. The technician gradually showed us how to do it by oiling the paper whatever you want to print and later sprayed water on it and dried for about 5 minutes and after exposed to a big light
box for a minute or so and added it to the screen. we then squeezed ink and pressed by a wood piece on to the paper you like whcih got me the result which you can see on the image above. I thought it was quite easy to do but the process to do it took forever and I imagined especially when its busy and theres lots of students in class it would be hard to do and even could take longer but i enjoyed it. 38
The lecture shows the concept of transmedia ans it’s applicatiion to a range of visual and media practices. it examines the ways of in which the termis currently defined and used by a range of contemporary theorist, and how the concept builds upon previous notioins such as intertexuality, remix concept of the gutenburg parenthesis which seeks to examine the extent to which contemporary cultural and media practices can be seen to be reverting to a pregutenberg form in which relationships between textual objects become more fluid, and notions of ownerships and defined authorship start to break down.
Lecture Notes Monomedia-The book, Spoke, Word, the image, ie traditional Media forms. Interpretation/Adaptation-Remaking one media production into another. i.e. Book to Film. Multimedia-Combination of mediums working together. The concept of transmedia - Commercial-Storytelling. Transmedia-Different channels of communication in telling you story in one way. Eg: Matrix, comic films, animation and games. There are other ways such as MonoMedia- Books, Images, Music, by hearing. 39
Well Known example of propaganda What is it, Why it exists and how it operates through consideration of historica and in particular contemporary examples from across a range of dynamic, dramatic and diverse contexts and channels of communication. the sesion examines key issues - notions of mass manipulation, spin, persuasion and control - in relation to propaganda exampls including visual, audio, aerial example, digital and guerella methods.This provacative session will question
how we encounter propaganda today including animal rights, political campaigns, war reporter and news stories. The session will question the role of social media in contemporary propaganda experiences.
This lectures was probably the one i benifited the most from, as already got knowledge from this lecture to use on my essay, so that was a good thing. From this lecture I got fair understanding of the term Propaganda and how it’s still used now and it has been used since a while since world war from television, poster, advertisement etc.
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By Nawal Gurung