STUDIO PRACTICE Ray Cheung UCA EPSOM Graphic Design YR2 Neil Drabble Mark Povell Semester 1
Occultural Studies Occultural Studies http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXOqVQ5YQIg
Ident-crisis http://test.gdnm.org/
A large part of the Occultural project was ensuring that we could establish a solid basis of ideas and decide on an area of interest we would aim to replicate in our video. Working with a group meant that ideas bounced faster and constructive criticism was given that pushed our concepts further until we were confident enough to record.
Occultural Studies
The workshops provided for this project were very helpful in familiarising myself with new programs. Audition was an audio editor that allowed me to add many effects. It was decided as a group that our final outcome video already had the ambient sounds that complimented the genre we were going for so it was unnecessary to add additional sounds without spoiling the atmosphere. The workshop did pay off however as I am now more comfortable for the future that involves anything sound related.
A large part of the Occultural project was ensuring that we could establish a solid basis of ideas and decide on an area of interest we would aim to replicate in our video. Working with a group meant that ideas bounced faster and constructive criticism was given that pushed our concepts further until we were confident enough to record. We refilmed our video clip after taking in feedback from the crit, deciding to make it simpler and easier to understand. The underlying concept of a haunted alleyway occupied by a ghostly figure still remained and this is something we wanted to drive forward and make successful by adjusting the scenes that were too difficult to comprehend.
Ident-Crisis For the Ident-Crisis project, branding was something I felt comfortable with, but not when I’m paired with someone I don’t know so well! I sent out a questionnaire to help get a better understanding of my partner. With this information I produced a list of key values that I could then research into and base my branding around.
Key Values Chess Progression Intelligent Strategic Puzzle solving Pieces Fragments B&W Two Grids Squares Mature King (Cem stands for ruler or monarch in Turkish~) Strategy Using the key values I began researching into the different parts of his interests and found noticeable patterns between them that I could use. I produced a quick montage of inspirational images that I could then use to begin designing the brand for Cem.
Ident-Crisis:Logo development A more visual representation of my logo finalisation and how it came to be.A combination of inspirational elements combined to become one solid logo that represents Cem.
I began sketching out logo and concept ideas in my sketchbook, trying to combine the ideas of interconnection and puzzles in the form of linking. However I felt that this would perhaps be too complex and after speaking to Cem I gathered his style of work and personality would suit something more plain, yet effective, while still including his interests.
The 5 squares idea came from both the idea of chess and also because Cem’s name meant ruler in Turkish. Because the King is such a vital piece in chess, I began looking into that and used the 5 squares because that is the limit to which the King can move during a game. I then began to experiment with rotations of the squares and found that placing a filled square behind created a negative spaced arrow which acts as a representation of Cem’s desire to grow and progress.
Digital experiments of my ideas of the five squares until I came to the finalised version. The CEM in the centre was too confusing for many to understand and so I removed it and decided for a more simpler approach.
Ident-Crisis:Blog Design
A part of the branding project was to place every element into a blog. I had not worked with CSS and HTML in a long time. A workshop by Luke allowed me to understand the basics, but I found for my idea I would require a lot more effort into researching the codes. I began contacting Luke through emails and he described how to create the pop-out squares and how to place elements inside them. My concept was to have a chess board/ grid like style that allowed the viewer to hover over the boxes to see the branding parts.
Progression of the blog. I had begun to learn on my own how to arrange different sections as well as colour changes upon hover and as a background. I slightly drifted away from having everything chess like with the spacing as this gave off a stale impression and I wanted to visualise that although Cem was very passionate about chess, that wasn’t all he was about. I still retained the squares, just not the alternating black and white.
The finalisation of the blog. Overall I was aiming for a style that would represent Cem, but found that my minimal preferences also coincidently suited his style of work, plain but effective. This heavily influenced the project throughout and can be seen in the website’s design. This project as a whole was very enjoyable and despite the blog and HTML being very confusing to learn at first, I persevered and worked out something that was different and unique, while still focusing on Cem.
ID-IOT:Research
A much different style from the illustrative and bold colours used in my earlier research. I wanted to focus on a more minimal style that used a grid, but not to the extent that it adhered to it completely. The research found in these books helped a lot in deciding how I’d go about being more playful with my layout.
For the ID-IOT project, there were so many subjects to choose from. After heavy consideration I found that Ageing could be something that both interested me and would be fun to design a book around. I began my research by choosing a variety of existing book styles that would focus on different areas of my book, for example a more child like approach for the first few pages of Ageing, then slowly becoming more experimental then finalising on a formal grid like style.
ID-IOT:Front Cover Very quick initial experiment of a cover that hasn’t taken the rule of using just two colours into account just yet. I wanted to establish the concept idea before I focused on that. The idea of manipulating typography so that there would be a transition from the young ‘sansserif’ to the ‘serif’ is something that could be used and built upon. The same could be done for graphic elements in that they fade away as they ‘age’ (by lowering opacity) and adding fractured textures.
My final design for the front cover consisted of a more abstract approach but is still related to the idea of ageing. I used a mixture of opacity changes and typography (sans and serif) fonts to create a boundary between the two age groups. This can also be seen through other parts of the design. Initially I left out the faces but I found that it added more context to the subject that the abstract approach would not do immediately. Overall I feel it works as a cover as it is neither an extreme of formality or of the child-like style, but just in the middle; exactly the age group that I am targetting my book at.
ID-IOT:Layout
As the book was heavily based around ageing, the first few pages were intentionally left simple, talking about the basic facts of ageing. At first I opted for the design on the left but found that I could emphasise the ‘rough’ style more by simply doing everything with the brush tool without caring much for accuracy. Remember back when you were a kid and you just drew how you wanted without a care for the specifics? That’s precisely how the first few pages were driven forward based on that ideal.
Being restricted to two colours meant that incredible care had to be taken to ensure the right colours were chosen for the subject. I found that blue was a good colour as it is both timeless and a long term favourite of many people. It simply never gets old. This experimental section of the book allowed me to play around with the grid and be bolder and more free in what I wanted to do. The research greatly influenced the way this section worked and It was the most enjoyable section to create.
ID-IOT:The Twist
The last few pages of my book followed a more rigid grid style in accordance to the idea of the book ageing. Small details such as the page numbers remained consistent throughout this book and the transition from the mid section to this section meant that everything changed, including the fonts and layout. It was also enjoyable to be slightly more playful towards the end of the book as can be seen in the above example where it focuses on eyesight issues and therefore the content of the page replicates this by moving away from the justified text and using larger font size and leading.
The ‘breaking point’ between the young and the old was something that began to unravel itself towards the last few pages. As the content began to talk about there being fairer social adaptations to the longevity increase such as the compulsory retirement age law being scrapped, the layout of the page replicated this by having bursts of colour, mixture of serif and sans-serif and overlapping of the page elements. This all tied into the idea that the old should be treated without prejudice and be offered choices in their older years to be more active and playful.
Critical Evaluation – Ray Cheung Studio Practice The Occultural studies group project was the first of this semester’s projects to involve working with not only a group of people I haven’t been too familiar with, but also with the concept of filming and producing a convincing occult experience. The beginning of the project involved us working as a group and brainstorming ideas, this was an exceptionally important part and I began by researching into occult occurrences around our university. This led me to the idea of filming in an asylum, which would definitely set the scene for a paranormal phenomenon involving ghosts and hauntings. After discussing our findings with the group we all bought together one piece of an idea that could be used in the final outcome, for example Lucy suggested the idea of a young girl haunting as she found the eyes and overall appearance in a dark location quite horrifying. With my idea of an abnormal location, we then decided to go with something that wouldn’t involve us breaking into and another member suggested a haunted alleyway nearby Epsom. It took us a while to get the ideas all sorted out and have the concept written down as reference, but eventually we went away and began our recording, which proved to be an interesting experience as we had to take into consideration a lot of aspects such as camera angle, lighting and positioning. We discovered it was a lot harder to make something convincing than to make it as a cheesy parody (as none of us had experiences with acting before!) however we persevered and ended the day with a finalised recording. My role during this was initially as the storyboard and the content analyser which I enjoyed as it allowed me to apply my analytical thinking. After our first presentation it was decided that our recording was perhaps too confusing and required simplification and a simpler approach. This was something that our group then went away with and worked together to improve upon. We went away and opted for roles again and this time I decided as the sound editor as I had experience with using Audition from a previous workshop. It was also decided as a group that not everyone needed to be there for the refilming as it was just several scenes that needed changing and a few of us lived very far away. With the updated clip I bought it into Audition to play around with audio files that would work, however both me and the other sound editor found that the style of the new clip had changed so that it was more of a hand-held shaky cam perspective. Adding haunting music and eery noises would spoil the overall feel of it being an amateur and raw footage. Although this may have been seen as an easier alternative to not make any changes to the footage, the raw clip already had ambient noises that occurred at convenient times such as an aeroplane flying overhead and creating a deep echo as well as leaves rustling. Overall this project allowed me to take both a practical and editorial position in both contributing ideas and acting in the original footage. I learnt the importance of assigning roles early on and deciding who would be available for what, as well as remaining committed to the project is a vital part of working with any group, especially with something that many of our group were not familiar with before. The next project, Ident-Crisis was also something that challenged my confidence in doing what I’m used to. I haven’t used CSS or HTML since the days of myspace and so the idea of having to create an entirely new blog was quite intimidating. The workshop provided by Luke definitely helped and I found that things became clearer after speaking to him personally and through email messages. The branding part of the project was something I was very excited to do as branding is something I enjoy for its responsibility in representing something or someone through graphical elements. As I was partnered with Cem, I did not know much about him as a person and so a questionnaire helped to fill in some gaps. With this, I created a list of key values of Cem that I used as reference for branding him. The project in terms of time constraints felt quite difficult as I had to produce a large amount of outcomes, although I found that once I had the logo designed I pretty much had the concept established and everything else could be played from that including the design of the website. For designing how I wanted the site to appear, the emails through Luke helped as well as using my own initiate and referring to web articles that helped to show the codes for adjusting the page. This project soon became one of my favourites so far at University because it allowed me to try something new along with something I personally enjoy. The positive that I received for my blog and overall branding was positive and this helped my confidence in what I like to do. Branding is quite a difficult and research heavy part of designing and even more so when you’re asked to brand someone you may not know so well. The ability to think with an unbiased head while taking into consideration everything that makes that person THEM was another important skill I had learnt. For improvements to that project, I feel I could have experimented more with the application of the branding and gather more feedback from others while the work is in progress, as this would allow me to analyse the areas to improve on much earlier. The blog also had issues with adjustments to different resolutions and this would be something I’d remedy if I was to return to the project. The last brief of this semester was perhaps my favourite, the ID-IOT brief, where we were asked to design a book based on any episode on the BBC In Our Time website. Browsing through the list of episodes I came across many interesting topics and was very stuck for choice. It was only until I read through the brief one again and realised that a large part of the editorial process was ensuring that the book was defined by the content. For this reason I went with Ageing as I could literally ‘age’ the pages as they progressed, depicting a story about ageing and the areas surrounding it. This project was very exciting in the sense that I could adopt 3 different ‘age styles’ throughout and make sure each page’s minor details were on point, whether it be the positioning of page numbers, to a lack of grid for the child like pages. Conducting the research was also an enjoyable part of this project as it opened my eyes to the vast information surrounding ageing. A mid-project crit also helped to identify ways in which I could improve my ideas. The small one to one sessions have been really helpful this term; especially in a big class it’s sometimes difficult to find time to actually discuss progress. In terms of the actual work, working with a mixture of all digital programs and especially Indesign was something I learnt a lot from. Working with modular grids allowed me to really think about how I wanted each page to be presented. The experimental mid section of the book was the part I enjoyed the most as it allowed me a lot of freedom to work with just the two colours, a semi-rigid grid and a variety of typography manipulations. The main driving factor of this project was hoping that I could get the printers to print on 3 different paper stocks, so for my 42 page book the first 7 pages where it features the ‘scribbles and illustrations’ would be on a cheap rough paper similar to simulate a child’s style. As it approaches the mid section the pages become more refined, going from scribbles to comic sans, to a modern day sans-serif font and with a cleaner
paper stock, preferably something similar to a 130gsm matt paper. Towards the end of the book this would then change alongside the formal grids and monotone imagery to a vintage yellow tinted paper stock to represent the ageing process. The final twist of my book would be that the formal approach begins to mix with the experimental mid book style, using colour and bold imagery as it discusses the ideas that the elderly should be treated just as everyone else, which was the key message of the IOT episode. Unfortunately because of an accident with my leg, I was unable to walk 2 weeks before deadlines. This meant that I REALLY had to make the most out of what I had by calling up every printers and speaking to them about my idea, the harsh part was that they either didn’t understand or I’d have to come in to explain to them, which wasn’t possible with my leg. This meant I had to really ask around for some favours from peers and thankfully many offered to collect my work from companies if I ordered it from them. In the end I had to compromise with the different paper stock idea and go with a single stock throughout and order my book online to be delivered to a student nearby the university. Regrettably situations happen that you can’t control and my leg restricting me from actively searching for printer companies and explaining meant I couldn’t fulfil my paper idea. However I am still happy with the results and have learnt a lot about working with Indesign, bleeds, layout, grids and also preparing work to be sent off to professionals. These are all key skills that will help me in the future to succeed as a confident designer.