3
sem 3 documented
GDUG’13
CONTENTS
Oishee Sen
Acknowledgements Colour & Form SLA Drawing & Illustration Departmental Elective Photography Calligraphy Typography Art History
Acknowledgements A lot of thank you’s are in order, for this publication and the content inside it would not have been possible without the valuable guidance of my faculty, my batchmates and friends who were always there with spirited feedback and criticism. I would like to thank Mr. Anil Sinha for giving us the opportunity to follow a structured, professional design process of researching and finding solutions; Mr. Tarun Deep Girdher and Siddhartha Tripathi for inspiring us to come out of our creative comfort zone and nurture a love for exploring and learning. We also owe a lot to Madhusudan Mukerjee who took our SLA, as it was one of the most groundbreaking and enriching courses, that managed to change volumes of our opinions in a short span of a week. Photography with Shiho was just a lot of fun, and we’ll always remember her to be one of our most helpful and generous teachers. Lastly, Mr. Pinhorn who was a delight to learn under, and who managed to make a lazy batch pick up a new software, work incessantly and finally come up with a functional vernacular font. A shoutout to all my batchmates and friends who were there to help me, not only during the making of this document, but throughout the semester, whenever I needed feedback.
COLOUR Mode of Action - choose a market sector - thorough research - extensive field work - compile mood board - develop colour palette - develop form - explore colour & form Chosen Sector: Healthcare. Chosen attribute: Showing the process of HEALING through colour & form. Faculty Anil Sinha
3W
BROWN BROWN BROWN BROWN BROWN Brown is a humble colour associated with STABILITY, STRUCTURE, SECURITY.
BROWN is a natural organic colour hence it is widely used in branding and identity of eco-friendly and natural firms and companies.
COLOUR RESEARCH As a quick introductory assignment, we had to segregate into groups and research on our favourite colours. My favourite colour is brown, and during the course of this assignment I studied the relevance of this colour in life, society, nature and culture.
Brown also signifies DUTY, SIMPLICITY, RESPONSIBILITY, DEPENDABILITY, STRENGTH, MATURITY & LOYALTY. “SANVALA” A term associated with brown skinned people. Something very relevant to the Indian society.
On Earth BROWN and Green are the most predominant colours on land areas.
Integrating Colour & Form We followed a very structured, rigorous methodology in our Colour course. It involved several stages which culminated into our final integration of colour and form. It started with our batch being divided into four groups, each provided with a certain market sector. There was FINANCE, ENTERTAINMENT, EDUCATION and HEALTHCARE. My group researched on Healthcare, which was later narrowed down to hospitals in Ahmedabad. As part of our fieldwork, we visited several hospitals in the city to study patterns in colour and form. Based on our research we had to develop a colour palette that is related to hospitals. We then went on to explore forms, in handdrawn thumbnails, that aptly represents the space, mood, vibe and function prevalent in hospitals. Once we fixed on one or two final forms, we were required to digitize them and explore colour. My final form with colour represents the general idea of healing with colour variations showing specific types of healing.
Mood Board Colour Palette We compiled pictures from our field trips to local hospitals (both private and government) and other reference visuals to make a mood board. Using that mood board colour palettes were derived to define the space and function of hospitals.
Developing form After several pen and paper explorations, we fixed on two to three forms to work on. These forms must depict healthcare in hospitals in some way. I took up three forms depicting the process of healing in hospitals.
Adding Colour After drawing our final forms on illustrator we experimented extensively with colour. Some schemes worked in aptly depicting the concept of healing, while some others didn’t.
Colour Explorations Alternate Forms Clockwise from top left; Colour Form exploration depicting women health, maternal care etc.; Colour Form exploration using the colour green which is said to be the colour for healing; Colour Form exploration where foreground shows medical healing and background depicts healing space; Colour Form exploration showing gradual process of nurturing one to good health.
Final Colour & Form Exploration- Healing My final colour & form exploration represents general healing through a contrast between background and foreground. In this form the background represents the healing space of the hospital, which is organised yet nurturing. The string of circles which gradually increase in size from outside to inside show the healing process from sickness to health. I tried a greyscale
background starting from a medium grey to white. The circles in front have varying shades of red. Here because of the soothing, calming and peaceful background, the red circles despite of being aggressive add to the soothing vibe of the composition. This composition represents healing, calmness, radiance of life and peace.
SLA Semiotics -signs, parole, langue -binary oppositions in society -socialism, communism, marxism -myths, subcultures -basic Freudian theory Faculty Madhusudan Mukerjee
1W
In our Semiotics course we a covered wide range of subjects and discussed and dissected them in thorough detail. We talked about the history and evolution of signs, the parole and langue in linguistics, binary oppositions in the society, basics of socialism, marxism and communism as well as a tiny glimpse into the world of Freud. The course was groundbreaking for most of us. We got important lessons that gave us insight on a new way to live, think and form opinions.
Following are some excerpts from my final essay for the SLA course.
“A very basic way of categorising signs is to divide them into partsNatural signs (this is how we ended up talking about black clouds and thunder signifying rain) and man-made signs (take the NO SMOKING sign, for example). We also went on to learn about the two sign terms: a posteriori and a priori. A POSTERIORI is basically a derivation we arrive at with the help of past experiences. A PRIORI on the other hand is based on our notions and is independent of experience.�
* socialist movement in Britain.
“With extensive discussion and further verification through the movie “Unbreakable” we came across two important concepts of making choices and binary oppositions in our social structure. About the act of choosing, we all assumed that we we make a choice by the process of REJECTION. We only arrive at a single option that appears to be the BEST, not because it is the best, because all the other options fall short or lack in some way or the other.”
DRAWING & ILLUSTRATION
Proceedings -drawing objects with pencil and ink -self portrait & portrait of a friend in pencil & illustration of same -study an illustrator & recreate a composition in his style -pick up something unique about Ahmedabad and illustrate aposter -illustrate a recipe -create a picture book Faculty Tarun Deep Girdher Siddhartha Tripathi
5W
D R AW I N G EXERCISES
Drawing with negative spaces Amongst the many quick exercises that we did with the chair, one required us to fill in blocks of negative spaces of the form of the chair with black ink so that the positive space that emerges as a result shows the form of the chair itself.
Object Study We were given two objectsan iron and an old-school toaster and asked to study and sketch them in proper proportion and perspective. Meticulous study of these gave us a lot of intel to tackle the later assignments.
Contour drawing exercises with a reference chair.
Pencil Sketching We were all given an arrangement of objects as a composition and asked to study it in thorough detail. Amongst the different exercises we did, we had to sketch and draw the composition in pencil, draw it imagining all objects as transparent and render it showing the light and shadow and textures of the different surfaces.
Pencil Rendering Light & Shadow
TRANSITION TO
ILLUSTRATION After more than a week of rigorous drawing exercises and brushing up rusty skills, we finally moved on to illustration at the end of the second week where on creative freedom reigned.
Self-portrait Felt Pen & Ink As an introductory assignment we had to draw a self-portrait including features and a maximum of two objects to represent our personality. I included a book with the Hohner harmonica on its cover. I also drew myself akin to a child as I’m usually the tiny one amidst others.
Portrait of a Friend Our first proper illustration assignment required us to illustrate a friend’s portrait to aptly represent their personality. Somanshu is mischieveous and an eternal prankster. Hence the green ears and impish hunch. His face has coloured fragments to represent his bright playfulness. Plus he loves football!
Being Eric Carle Our next assignment was to study an illustrator’s work in thorough detail and incorporate his style into our composition. I got Eric Carle. He is an American illustrator who makes his own textured coloured papers to makes collages to illustrate his stories. His stories mostly involve nature & animals.
For my own composition I made several textured paper swatches in shades of blue, red, green and brown and added some typical elements unique to Eric Carle such as the birds and the butterfly, simple short text & crayon detailing to the collage.
The final composition
In the final composition I used handmade textured sheets to show waters, leaf blades, wood, plastic, cloth and so on. The two tiny birds are common in many Eric Carle illustrations. The butterfly on the right is the iconic butterfly that appears at the end of his famous book, ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’. I have added a tiny bit of text so that it looks just like a page of a storybook.
The
Ahmedabad Assignment
The brief was to explore the city and observe and take in the various quirks and idiosyncracies of the city of Ahmedabad. After discussing our own unique experiences in the city, we started making rapid sketches of illustration ideas that represented something typical to Ahmedabad. We were offered to work on three sizes of which I decided to work on the biggest option which would later become a poster. After fiddling with several ideas that ranged from the mad Ahmedabad traffic to this city’s incurable obsession with chai, I decided on something really funny that I saw in the old city. I’ve always loved the old city and have been a frequent visitor there. In one of the night heritage walks we went to, we were shown scooters and bikes parked haphazardly in the narrow lanes in the city with bricks kept on the seats to prevent dogs from sleeping on them! Working on something about the old city also gave me an excuse to illustrate the beautiful buildings there which have always fascinated me.
First trial for the illustrated poster using colours red, dark grey, black and some white accents. This version was discarded as the colours gave a sinister vibe which didn’t go with the concept of the illustration.
The final concept I took up the idea of showing how people who own bikes in the old city keep bricks on the seats at night to prevent dogs from sleeping on them. I wanted to capture the beautiful facade of the old city buildings, the night lights through the colours and, of course, the abundance of street dogs and haphazard parking!
recipe illustration For our next assignment we were all called to the Eames on the morning of Eid and given paper chits, each carrying a name of a popular Gujarati snack. The snack I got was Paatra. Its made of Arbi leaves and a spicy besan mixture. Arriving at the final recipe illustration required us to go through extensive field research defying heavy rain, explorations of style and media and deciding on formats and layouts. My final recipe illustration opens as a brochure and has visual demonstrations in watercolour with handwritten text.
Ingredients page with all the necessary requirements for making the besan batter, preparing the paatra and shallow frying them before serving.
All pages have traditional decorations to make the recipe document relevant to common Indian homes. All illustrations have been made in delicate watercolour washes to give it a homely, relatable feel.
Steps describing the entire process of deveining the Arbi leaves, spreading the besan mixture on the surfaces and folding it to make the paatra roll. Hands have been added to show the correct gesture.
The recipe has been adjusted from a large scale to suit an Indian kitchen by including common utensils and appliances like steamers, kitchen knives and frying pans.
Making an
illustrated picture book
Our final assignment was to illustrate a story in form of a picture book having 8 spreads and a cover. We were all given popular folk tales which we had to retell in our own way. I was given the story ‘Nasiruddin the Gambler’ which I retold in a high school setting making the lead character a gullible 12 year old girl, Raina. After setting out the story in form of pages, we had to explore extensively on illustration styles using different media. The style I chose for my book involves flat painting with poster paint and outlining with ink. Even with flat painting I have tried to add depth and layers by dividing an area into sections and using shades of the same colour. The choice of colour used also intends to bring out the general mood of the scene at hand.
The cover page for the picture book. I have named my story ‘Heart of Darkness’ and added elements that appear in my story such as shadows and light in a dark room and the lead character’s glasses. Following are a few spreads from my final picture book.
SCREEN PRINTING Proceedings -formation of groups and discussion and arrival at illustration concept -display of thumbnail sketches and fixing on one strong concept -exploring illustration variants of chosen concept -dividing final illustration into three parts and making screens in the print labs -choosing colours for the three screens and producing final print in three stages Faculty Tarun Deep Girdher Immanuel Suresh
1W
CHOSEN CONCEPT We went with the concept an illustration that showed someone, a lady or a man, drinking tea in a relaxed posture, with his or her hair showing the famous Dr. Seuss quote “Oh the thinks you can think up if only you try�.
PROCESS PROCESS IN IN BRIEF BRIEF
The process of screen printing requires skill and patience but is a lot of fun. This was my first experience working in the NID Print Labs with the spirited and enthusiastic crew there. After finalizing a basic concept, we tried out different versions and colour schemes. After deciding on the final illustration, we created a reference artwork, which we used as a base to create the three screens. This also required us to divide the artwork into three colour sections. Each of these sections were painted directly on the screens individually with PVC ink, and coated with green emulsion to block out negative spaces. After drying the screen, the PVC ink was removed. This screen was now used for screen printing which is done by pressing and pulling screen ink across the prepared screen with a squeegee. The three colour section are printed in order, layered one over the other, to produce the final artwork.
In order, final illustration used for screens; third screen printed on a tshirt; one of the screens being prepared for printing; print of third and topmost screen
The final print after layering the three screens
PHOTOGRAPHY
Proceedings -black & white film portrait photography. -colour film street photography in Ahmedabad. both these assignments were carried out using the Nikon FM2 camera -Introduction to digital photography. -documenting our day in 10 frames using the DSLR camera. -introduction to studio photography using studio lights. -field trip to Udaipur and documenting a visual narrative in six frames. Faculty Shiho Kito Rishi Singhal
2W
photography with SHIHO KITO
Photography course with Shiho was a ton of fun! It was quite cool to have a Japanese photograper teach us and everyone learnt a great deal throughout the two weeks. We first tried our hand at film photography with the Nikon FM2 and gradually moved on to digital photography with a Nikon D3100. In conclusion to this course, we had an amazing field trip to Udaipur and an exhibition to display our work. It was a refreshing feeling of fulfilment to put up a proper exhibition which went on to get great feedback!
A group photo taken with Shiho’s large format camera.
Black & White portrait photography using the Nikon FM2 film camera.
Colours of AHMEDABAD Street photography in colour using the Nikon FM2 film camera.
documenting
OUR DAY
The assignment was to document a typical day of our life here in college capturing its daily quirks and oddities in 10 frames. It was a lot of fun carrying a camera around shooting things that would otherwise come across as very natural, mundane and usual on any other day. Bringing it down to 10 frames was quite heartbreaking because, I expect, everyone had so much to show, so much to share and so much tell. For my narrative, I tried to capture the general mood of my day, which is usually quite laidback, slow and lazy, and include the people who make it so.
STUDIO photography We had a session of studio photography where we all learnt the basics of studio lights, using reflectors and other equipment to achieve the desired light conditions and bring out the best in the subject. Its fascinating how a couple of clever manipulations with studio resources can establish drama or show a particular emotion through the play of light and shadow.
Udaipur We were very, very lucky to get the opportunity to go to Udaipur for a two day field trip. Everything, from the journey, the hotel to roaming around the regal City Palace and the crazy Udaipur streets contributed to the mad experience that it was. Our task in this beautiful city was simple. To document our experience in impactful, intimate visuals. Following are some photographs from my visual narrative.
This photo of the city of Udaipur has been taken through a tiny blue stained glass window in the City Palace. The dirt in the glass gave the picture a natural mist which showcased the general mood of the city during our stay there- gloomy due to incessant rain, yet regal, mysterious and beautiful.
For the city palace brochure We also selected and sent some photos to the City Palace authorities for their palace brochure. Here are a couple of my entries.
Posters for our photography exhibition
CALLIGRAPHY
Proceedings -selecting and making reeds for calligraphy -extensive exercises on straight and curved strokes and characters -picking up different styles, both modern and classical -exploring styles with ink and coloured photo-inks -creating artworks using calligraphy Faculty Amit Kharsani
1W
Calligraphy workshop with Amit Khasrani was an immensely enriching learning experience for all of us. We started by knowing the basics behind selecting the perfect reed and carving it for writing. After we were ready with our reeds and ink pots, we started with practicing basic strokes and curves. These strokes and curves come together to form the different latin or nonlatin characters. After warming up to the basic strokes we started drawing latin characters. From there on, Amit showed us a variety of styles, both latin and nonlatin. He was also very very kind to give us all a bunch of calligraphy pens and brushes from his personal collection to explore with. It was a lot fun trying out thick and thin brushes with multiple nibs. We also explored with photo-inks and bleach. We picked up a really nifty trick where you can draw with bleach on a photo-ink base.
We were also really lucky to get the chance to use authentic Chinese brushes and Chinese ink. The ink came in form of a solid black bar which you had to rub against a stone slab with water. My name ‘OIshee’ is a Japanese word which means delicious. Here I have written ‘oishi’ in Japanese Kanji characters.
Explorations on latin characters using photo-inks.
Calligraphy artwork using ink and photo-inks, a staza from my favourite poem ‘Lake Isle of Innisfree’ by William Butler Yeats.
TYPOGRAPHY
Proceedings -rapid sketching of latin characters in any style keeping the legibilty in mind. -hand-drawn explorations of characters of vernacular languages. -digitizing them in illustrator and warming up to using a pen tool to draw characters. -creating a full fledged vernacular font in the style of a modern latin font using Glyphs or Fontlab. Faculty Jon Pinhorn Satyanarayan Rajpurohit
3W
Initial Hands-On Explorations Hand-drawn pencil explorations of latin characters. We mostly explored with the word ‘adhesion’ as it gives a good idea of spacing, serifs, curves and stems. We were allowed to experiment with thicknesses keeping the legibility of the text in mind.
From latin characters we moved on to Indian languages. We tried our hand at exploring different styles of these languages in worksheets from the ITF. The language I chose to work with was Bengali. The idea was to draw out different styles of the given phrase keeping the readability in mind. We were allowed to play with thicknesses and the features of the characters and come up with our own unique styles.
DIGITIZING
After hands-on sketching with pen and paper, we gradually moved on to using softwares for drawing characters, both latin and non-latin. The software we started with was Adobe Illustrator. The idea was to warm up to the pen tool and achieve smooth curves and lines while drawing out the character forms. We later shifted to Glyphs and Fontlab which are proper font-making softwares. This initial exercise helped us pick up Glyphs faster, and gave us good practice before the bigger task.
Designing
O U R vernacular OWN FONT
latin insipired
The longest and the most significant assignment of our Typography course was to design our own font for any vernacular language in the style of an existing latin font made in the last 5 years. The methodology was quite professional. We started out with hand-drawn sketches and explorations for our characters and then moved on to softwares like Glyphs and Fontlab to actually generate a working font. Developing a fully functional font is quite an extensive task and requires a lot of work and patience. It involves digitally drawing out all the characters, the marks and the ligatures and then figuring out spacing and connections. Picking up a new software was quite a challenge for me and for days I struggled with the feature loaded pen tool. But it felt great to pick up nifty skills and have something so cool and call it entirely our own!
DOCUMENTATION For our final submission we all had to make a .pdf document compiling our work and process in detail. The document had our initial handdrawn sketches, sample texts of our chosen latin font, character grids of our vernacular character glyphs, sample text in the font we developed and comparison notes. CHOSEN VERNACULAR LANGUAGE
CHOSEN LATIN FONT
BERKSHIRE BENGALI SWASH
Chosen Latin Font:
Sample Character Set
Noted Features
Bulged extension at the end of thinner strokes. Bigger bulges to suit varying strokes.
Varying thin and Presence of thick strokes. uniform bars in alphabets that Stems and thick have bridges strokes conclude across them. with a sharp curved projection with a blunt straight end.
Character Grid
Mark Grid
Running English Text
Running Bengali Text
Development Process Development Sketches
Working in Glyphs
ART HISTORY
Proceedings -discussion of the industrial revolution and art in that time -study of different art movements that followed like impressionism, art deco, art nouveau etc. -group assignment on phonograms and presentation on the same -study of modern and contemporary art and works of people in different fields like furniture, architecture, product design etc. Faculty Tanishka Kachru
Our discussions started from the Industrial Revolution, the important inventions in that era and its influence on art and design. In this context we discussed works on JMW Turner and John Constable. The dawn of impressionism followed, where works of famous impressionist artists were taken into account. The painting in this page is Impression Sunrise by Claude Monet. Impressionist artist are famous for being able to capture the change in landscape with time.
ART PERIODS We went on study different periods in art history, like art deco and art nouveau and their typical features. For example, art deco an eclectic style that combines traditional craft motifs with Machine Age imagery and materials. The style is often characterized by rich colours, bold geometric shapes and lavish ornamentation. On the other hand art nouveau was inspired by natural forms and structures, not only in flowers and plants, but also in curved lines. Architects tried to harmonize with the natural environment. Art Nouveau is considered a “total� art style, embracing architecture, graphic art, interior design, and most of the decorative arts including jewellery, furniture, textiles, household silver and other utensils and lighting, as well as the fine arts.
a typical art nouveau poster a typical art deco poster
In the context of Art Movements in history we also covered movements like Futurism, Expressionism, Postmodernism etc under Modern Art. Our discussions were not only limited to art, it also covered architecture, furniture, fashion and the business of publicity through adverts. The two posters in this page represent the two contrasting art movements, Art Nouveau (top) and Art Deco (bottom). In the course of our discussions works of Doshi Levien (Mosaic Range, Tefal sa France) and Laszlo Moholy -Nagy (Shooting Gallery) were also taken into account. For Art Nouveau we also studied the very prominent influence of this art movement on the way stained glass windows and screens were painted in that time. A lot of its common motifs draw inspiration from Japanese art.
PHONETIC As a group assignment, we had to study pictograms, logograms, phonograms and ideograms, of which my group worked on phonograms. Phonograms or phonetic trancriptions of words are basically the visual manifestation or representation of the sound of a word. They are basically speech sounds. In this context we were required to do extensive and thorough research on the history of phonograms or phonetics transcriptions of words, their functions and features, its relevance across different languages and dialects and its modern applications. Apart from that we also covered the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) which is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet. Different pronunciations of the same words arise due to difference in dialects in regions of the same country. In the contemporary society phonetic transcriptions are used by speech therapists and musicians, as well as in dictionaries all across the world. It is widely used for pedagogical purposes for teaching correct pronunciations of words. Phonetic transcriptions of words are usually present beside the actual word in most dictionaries.
dictionary examples of phonetic transcriptions; ‘ sign represents emphasis on a certain sound, ü represents the sound ‘oo’ in through.
TRANSCRIPTION
w h e n// ‘w e n
t h r o u g h// thrü b l i s s// ‘b l i s
STEFAN Sagmeister A designer’s work that really inspired me in this course was Stefan Sagmeister. He is a New York-based graphic designer and lettering artist who has worked with bands and musicians the likes of Lou Reed, OK Go, The Rolling Stones, David Byrne, Aerosmith and Pat Metheny. He is now part of Sagmeister & Walsh which is a NYC based design firm that creates identities, commercials, websites, apps, films, books etc. He seamlessly incorporates lettering into artwork and photography.
A poster made for Lou Reed where his lyrics for Trade In are written on his face.
MISCELLANEOUS
invite you to the Exhib Typo Display Aquarium 22,23,24 sep
conclusion My first semester in Graphic Design was a lot of fun, as we finally moved on to doing things that we loved, things that actually got us excited to work. It was certainly very different from Foundation, as now we took a voluntary ownership of our work and learnt to love and nurture it. This semester was also important in picking up basic, valuable skills that would help us immensely as Graphic Designers. Here’s hoping for a lot more learning that is bound to come in the following semesters!
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