The Working Title Project Diary by Rianne Van de Rijt

The Working Title Project

Rianne van de Rijt Major Design Research Project

I am I ama a I am I ama a (....) (....) (....) (....) Graphic Graphic Graphic Graphic Designer Designer Designer Designer

I am a I am a happy happy Graphic Graphic Designer Designer

curious curious Graphic

I am I ama a pattern pattern&&illustration illustration Graphic Graphic Designer Designer

I am a helvetica Graphic Designer

I am a friendly Graphic Designer

I am I ama a music-loving music-loving Graphic Graphic Designer Designer

I am a inspirational Graphic Designer

I am a seasonal Graphic Designer

I am I ama a gird gird&&layout layoutkind kindofof Graphic Graphic Designer Designer

I am a

artistical

Graphic Designer

magical

Graphic Designer

I am I ama a

I am a

(dreamer) (dreamer)

post-it note Graphic Designer

Graphic Designer

I am I ama a

I am a

Graphic Graphic Designer Designer

I am a I am a

Graphic Designer Designer

social

flying flying

sketchbook

traveling

I am I ama a I am I ama a

I am a I am a

Graphic Graphic Designer Designer

good good good good Graphic Graphic

Graphic Graphic Designer Designer Designer Designer

Graphic Designer

paper friendly paper friendly Graphic Graphic Designer Designer

Graphic Designer

typo freak typo freak Graphic Graphic Designer Designer

I am a I am a

vector ninja vector ninja Graphic

Visual magician Visual magician Graphic Graphic Designer Designer

I am I ama a I am I ama a (pixel (pixelartist) artist) (pixel (pixelartist) artist) Graphic Graphic Graphic Graphic Designer Designer Designer Designer

I am a little bit of everything Graphic Designer

I am a magnificent Graphic Designer

I am I ama a i-love-my-job i-love-my-job Graphic Graphic Designer Designer

I am a pantone Graphic Designer

I am a i-pay-attention-to-detail Graphic Designer

I am I ama a kind kind Graphic Graphic Designer Designer

I am a

I am I ama a

Sophisticated

unknown

freelance freelance

I am a

I am I ama a

Graphic Designer Designer

Graphic Designer

I am a I am a

Graphic Designer

Graphic Graphic Designer Designer

Graphic Designer

nice

Graphic Designer

generous generous

I am a

I am I ama a

i love books

Graphic Graphic Designer Designer

complicated

nocturnal

allround allround

I am a I am a

I am I ama a I am I ama a

Graphic Designer

'' normal '' normal Graphic Graphic Designer Designer

Graphic Designer

different kind of different kind of Graphic Graphic Designer Designer

Graphic Graphic Designer Designer

Unique Unique Unique Unique Graphic Graphic Graphic Graphic Designer Designer Designer Designer

The Working Title Project

Rianne van de Rijt Major Design Research Project

Cover image of 'The Working Title Project' I chose this photo because it is the 'weird' corner in the studio. The studio connects all the participants together, because that is where we met and were we come together to discuss work. I also thought it would be nice to have something on the cover that is not already featured on the inside. This photo keeps the book a bit mysterious and vague, on purpose.

(Don't) Judge a book by its cover

Introduction

Diary

Review: Made You Look - By Stefan Sagmeister and Peter Hall

Diary

Review: Studio Culture - By Adrian Shaughnessy and Tony Brook

Diary

Sources of Inspiration

Diary

Review: Graphic. Inside the sketchbooks of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s great graphic designers - By Steven Heller and Lita Talarico

Diary

Crazy Card Collection

Diary

This diary is part of the journey that I go through with ‘The Working Title Project’. This is the second part of the project. The ﬁrst part is the publication of designers and their design process. The diary consists of the stages that I go through explained in writing and drawing. It will show highs and lows, struggles, obstacles, achievements and thoughts. Discussing all aspects of making the collaborative document, working on the publication, gathering content and collaborating with fellow designers/ students. This part revolves around the visualization and presentation of my thoughts through a series of personal ‘project’ diaries. It will be a review of the collaborative document’s design process from a designer’s point of view.

Up until now

Thursday 9 July 2015

Backup regularly! A computer crash can be only minutes away! My laptop broke down in the previous stage,so I brought it to the Apple store. They told me it would take two weeks to fix which seemed like a very long time. I got around and picked up on some freelance projects that were laying around and needed finishing. I took the opportunity to do some Student Ambassador work and apply for some internships and jobs for after university. No worries, I also got to do some fun bits. I worked on my Lincoln photo album and filled album number 3 to the last page. I took a short break, from the 3rd of July to the 9th of July, to travel home for a week to visit family and friends. And also to go to the Sint Lucas yearly reunion, which was very enjoyable, talking to old classmates. I also bought a new camera lens, which was broken. When I returned to Lincoln, of course after an hour delay (I can’t seem to travel without delays), it was time to get my head around my work again. Preparing files for the publication and diary side of the project. Student Ambassador work that is. I worked on two open days, two consecutive days, and I volunteered last Sunday at the Lincoln Flume water slide.

I arrived back in Lincoln around 13:30 because of the delay. Then I got home unpacked got some food and went to the studio to pick up

the paper roll holder that I will use to draw and make notes on for this project. I also went to the library to return the copy of Critical

Practice - Jan van Toorn written by Rick Poynor. Sadly I didn’t ﬁnish the complete book.

Friday 10 July 2015 I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get much of a rest after my day of traveling because today I worked a 6 hour shift on the open day of the university as a Student Ambassador. I really like working for the university talking to future students about my experiences so far. I was so exhausted that night that I was in bed at 20:30.

In my experience, you have to allow yourself time to relax, to work, and to give room for distractions and other entertainment within each project. This to keep a good balance in your productivity and creativity.

Saturday 11 July 2015 Another open day! This time I worked from 8:00 till 17:00. Not much time for anything else than work. After work I ran to the store to pick up my ďŹ xed laptop. I made it just in time before closing. Now I can properly start reinstalling everything and prepare myself for the ďŹ nal project. Today I also installed my analogue desk. To start recording my notes and drawings.

Sunday 12 July 2015 Work again, but this time it was volunteering at the Lincoln Flume, a 100 yard long water slide down the road near the collection. It was a fun job from 9:00-12:00 and I got to go down two times as well, had a great time. I almost installed my laptop again the only thing missing now is the Adobe Master Collection.

It can be hard, balancing work, relaxation and other chores. I tried scheduling in more work opportunities in the beginning of the project, and stayed clear away from working near deadlines.

Monday 13 July 2015

After a conﬁrmation e-mail from John I went to the studio to photograph the remainder of Yudan’s work. I notices how her work had this nice pace and autobiographical feel. Her illustrations are wonderful and you can empathize through them what it must be like to study abroad, being so far away from your own country and home.

I alternate digital work

Also I made a new notebook out of spare pages from old notebook. A sort of recycling. Because there are always some leftover blank pages at the end of used notebooks. I thought this would be a nice way to create a new notebook for my ﬁnal tutorial and module notes.

with craft to stay

I really got started with setting up my new ﬁles and folder system on my laptop. I try to keep things as organized and labelled as possible from now on.

and content that you want.

creative Sometimes you have to take matters in your own hands to get the quality Keep nudging people until you are satisﬁed and only stop if you have tried every possibility

Tuesday 14 July 2015

Today we are meeting our new external examiner all the way from London, graphic designer Jona Piehl. She will look after MA Design and Graphic Design as a critical second opinion. She gave us some eye opening insights on how different doing a MA can be comparing Lincoln to London. We talked about the ﬂow of the MA and what we see as pro’s and con’s. Now I see that we do have some strong advantages compared to other MA’s and that being in a smaller city isn't that bad.

notes

Wednesday 15 July 2015 14:30

Feedback time!

Chat with John about my grades. It turned out I had a distinction which is great! Did not expect that after a crashed laptop and broken camera what provided for a lot more extra stress and worry. Now I am 100% sure that ‘The Working Title Project’ can be a success if I keep working hard with 100% motivation. After the chat I decided to distribute the gradient poster to other students, laying them on their assessed work with a little post it note asking if they would like to participate and how to contact me. I ﬁgured this is the best and quickest way to give them, since I won’t see everyone individual for some time. Success, inspired, achievement, failure, self-doubt, relief, powerlessness, creativity

Thursday 16 July 2015

block are feelings that you

can experience during the After a school visit student ambassador work shift from course of one project 10:00 - 14:30 I ﬁnished reading ‘Made You Look’ of designer

Stefan Sagmeister, written by Peter Hall. On the next page I made some notes.

Read relevant books, for your project to help put your work into a context. You will learn to understand your own project better

I started reading the book ‘Made You Look’ written by Peter Hall and designed by Sagmeister in my short break at home. A book about Stefan Sagmeisters work, the good and the bad. The book is a probably a heavily edited version of his diary. And thus a combination of a monograph and an autobiography. The story was written by another person: Peter Hall, instead of by Sagmeister himself. This I ﬁnd very regrettable, because you’re not given a full view of the designers thoughts and decisions. On the other hand, this is probably one of the only ways to give a (edited) diary of a designer a wide public audience.

small design studio is something that I still ﬁnd very valuable. To what extent you are willing to follow your responsibility as a designer or go your own way? In Sagmeister’s book this is a strong theme, the search for balance, prosperity, design freedom and personal happiness. Sources: Book: Made you look, by Peter Hall and Stefan Sagmeister www.sagmeisterwalsh.com

The book gives good insight on how it is studying and working as a graphic designer. With topics like studying abroad, traveling for work, working at big agencies and setting up your own business. It shows how the quirks and characteristics of a designer develop. Also if growing popularity has a affect on your work or not. The decision to stay a

Friday 17 July 2015

Today I picked up all my work from the studio to take home. One big box full of paper, notes and design proposals. Now I can sort out what I will take from the proposal stage and continue working on for the ﬁnal stage. What did work, and what didn’t work. I contacted some local printers today and send them this e-mail to enquiry about printing options and costs.

Contacting printers as early as possible helps you to examine the possibilities that lies within the reach of your budget.

So far I have contacted:

Then you know what you can work around.

Chameleon Print 01522 530 501 sales@chameleonprint.biz 367 High Street, Lincoln LN5 7RN www.chameleonprint.biz

Popla Print 2 Newland Lincoln LN1 1XG enquiries@poplaprint.co.uk +44 (0)1522 532386 www.poplaprint.co.uk

A14 Printfinishing Unit 1 Forest Court Gamble Street Nottingham NG7 4EX +44 [0]115 970 5093 info@a14printfinishing.co.uk www.a14printfinishing.co.uk

Ruddocks Printer 56 Great Northern Terrace, Lincoln, LN5 8HL 01522 529591 sales@ruddocks.co.uk www.ruddocks.co.uk

Lincoln Copy Centre 9 Clifton Street Stoneﬁeld Park Industrial Estate Lincoln LN5 8LQ 01522 546118 sales@lincolncopycentre.co.uk www.lincolncopycentre.co.uk

This to prepare myself to create the ﬁles of the books in a way that can be printed. I want to know in advance how much it is going to cost and more important how much time I will have until the deadline! I also would like to visit the printer for advice on paper stock, print method and how to print cost effectively. It is important that as a graphic designer you also keep tabs on how your work is made, not only how it looks and then just send it of. If you understand the process the whole project will ﬂow more easily.

First e-mail send to printers

17-7-2015

Hi there, I would like to enquiry about your book printing options. For my master degree in Graphic Design I am creating a book. I am also keeping a journal about the project and I will write a written thesis about my project. I am definitely printing the book publication professionally. The two other books (Journal and Thesis) might be optional for printing depending on printing costs. The books would be: Dimensions: 230x175 mm Full-colour Soft cover (Maybe with folded flaps) Each book will be approximately around 150-200 pages. (my thesis will be around approximately 75-100 pages) Paper stock depends on colours but preferably a recycled stock. Print run would be possibly around 15 copies for the book, 5 copies if I print the Journal, and 2 copies if I print the thesis. I would like to get some more information about the binding / printing and print finishes that you could provide. I am based in Lincoln, so if its possible I could come over for a visit as well. Also based on the information I’ve given could you give me a quote of some sort for the printing of the just 1 edition of the book or the printing of 3 books. I also would like to know how much time it would cost to print. The deadline will be around Friday 11th of September. If you need any more information please ask. Kind regards, Rianne van de Rijt MA Graphic Design Student at the University of Lincoln

Saturday 18 July 2015

Sunday 19 July 2015

Today I worked on the diary document and sorted out a new interview with Helena (Yiping) also from the graphic design MA, we agreed to do the interview on Wednesday the 22nd of July in the studio at 14:00. Also I e-mailed Yudan again if she could send me some digital ďŹ les and photoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s of her work. I continued sorting out this diary document, how I will design it and what elements I will add to make it more interesting to read. Tailoring it for an external audience.

On Sunday I worked a bit on the diary and sketched out some titles to be edited to feature in this document. I combine hand-drawn Planning titles with digitally written type. Sometimes a project Like the images on this page. takes more planning

than actually designing.

I like how the handwritten notes A good plan is half the on the pages make it more battle... autonomous. And with my Wacom Pen & Touch tablet I can easily write digital in Photoshop. Which still looks realistic. So I make analogue and digital notes for my diary now. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s see how this will evolve over the course of the project.

Monday 20 July 2015

I started working on the structure of the Working Title book document. Assigning what comes on which page and ﬁgure out exactly what information needs to be on there, right now it is one big puzzle and I need to decide what is going on each piece. So I started to read about self publishing and copyright. The website www.thebookdesigner.com has been a great help with that. Also Youtube video’s thought me that there are some things to consider in self-publishing, but these mainly consider ﬁctional novels. From today onwards, I set myself the challenge to create a poster, image or illustration after each tutorial to capture the essence of the chat about the project. To keep moving forward. So Hopefully after a while you will see the project develop. I started with the feedback session from last week.

Research, theory and a creating a system are the pillars of your project. 'Everything' falls or stands with how well you have done your planning and research.

About ISBN’s I found out today that a ISBN is just a product identiﬁcation number. You only need it if you wish to sell your publication through major book selling chains, or internet booksellers. These stores use ISBN’s in their internal

processing and ordering systems. Ofﬁcially you can only buy 10 ISBN numbers a time, which gives you publisher registration, allocation of ISBN preﬁx plus a list of all 10 associated ISBN’s, that will cost you £144.00. A bit too much for just a self-

publisher like me who is looking to publish just this one book now. There must be a cheaper way. (Information source: www.isbn.nielsenbook. co.uk)

? S S E N E V I S I C E D R O F G N I K O O L R E G N I L T O N DO (TRY TO, AT LEAST)

DOOR OPEN MANY TOO

MA ROUTE

Tuesday 21 July 2015

TUTORIAL First catch up session with Chris in the morning and John in the afternoon. Interesting to see at what stage the part-time design students are, highly visual work that’s still in progress. This would provide alternative (and more sources of) content than from full-time students who will complete their project. Their interview possibly would go more about the shaping of their projects and practice and what it is to begin deciding and doing research around their practice, what it means and what it can be. It’s still early days for this. Planning contingency, planning things that might not happen as you think. But by showing indicative content I showed how to cope with that. And when things don’t happen as they go it will feed back into the ‘Diary’ side of the project. Now I need to ﬁnd students who are working on their ﬁnal project and progressing enough to be interviewed. I will need to anticipate who will give me too much information or too little, to tailor the interview towards a stage where I get just the right amount. For the pace and punctuation side of the publication I will break it up with a story about studio culture, MAIDE trip to China and maybe an essay written by Neil on the topic of design process. The content that I will get will lead to making design decision accordingly. The thought of an end piece would be a good idea. Setting a mood and closing the book so to say. Alongside a directory to summarize all participants.

Conversations about your work gives you insight on the context and perspective of yourself and other people.

a goal

without a plan

is just a dream Illustration for tutorial: 21-7-2015

the contingency plan

expect the unexpected

I made a plan for this project’s proposal. So now it is key to stick to the plan! The success of the project will depend partly on the plan. If I fail to follow it some parts will be missing and the ﬁnal outcome would be incomplete. The quote: ‘Failing to plan is planning to fail’ comes into mind from author and businessman Alan Lakein. But lets not forget that the project quality is mainly inﬂuenced by the quality of the content.

Tuesday 21 July 2015

RETHINKING PUBLISHING According to Peter Bilak, in his talk rethinking publishing, magazines have been putting their readers second. Their business model is based around advertisers, so they make the most money out of advertising instead of subscriptions. This way the magazines are thread-end by becoming overpowered to advertising. Recent new magazines are reversing this trend, a higher retail price, but less advertising driven. Articles and stories that people want to read, funded through crowd funding. This instantly shows an interest and community around the magazine. With or without magazines, any book or magazine is as good as its content. This is something I want to take to heart and keep in mind in the development of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The Working Title Projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. Everyone is affected by design, so everything that is manmade is design. The design of processes and routines is an inherent and relevant part in creating design as well. (Source: www.typotalks.com/videos/bilak/)

contingency plans change things from the moment you have planned them, and they are no longer unforeseen. From that point you have to prepare for other unforeseen situations.

Wednesday 22 July 2015

data Today I had my 3RD interview for this project, with Yiping from MA Graphic Design, we had a nice chat about her work. First I send her the questions I wanted answers to. And the reply I got back on this was quite minimal. Short answers that weren’t even sentences yet. This annoyed me just a little, because I realized I would understand her work more through conversation. It is difﬁcult understanding her work when you can’t obviously see what the project is about and English is your second language what means your vocabulary isn’t great enough to explain it fully. You can interpret the work quite different than it’s initial meaning. The interview went well I understand data art a lot more now. And that it is actually a whole different design ﬁeld.

object

art

Thursday 23 July 2015

Control: If you're not satisﬁed, keep looking.

LINCOLN PRINT AND COPY CENTRE I started transcribing Yiping’s interview. Transcribing always takes 3x longer than the actual recorded interview. I did look at phone apps, online software and services to see if there is a cheap option to do this easier. But all things that I encountered cost money, and even if it takes a few hours to type up an interview it is still much more beneﬁcial for me to do it myself so I can generate the story as I am typing. I visited the Lincoln Print and Copy Centre. It is a bit hidden behind the train station. So I cycled over there and went in to get some information. In terms of printing and binding they do not have much options. Wire binding and perfect binding are the only real binding options, and I will want to have a real book so it is going to be either paperback or hard cover binding. And for paper-stock they basically print on 100gsm copier paper, which I could do at uni as well. Here you see the quote that they gave me. The cheapest option would end up £ 21,00 a copy which is still a bit much, but I guess this is due to the low print run. I hope I can ﬁnd a printer with better options in paper stock and binding quality, because it might be fast and good value for money but the Lincoln Print and Copy Centre would be my ‘Plan B’. I want to check out Ruddocks later this week.

Friday 24 July 2015 I started Yipings design of the interview. Also send out e-mails to all the MA part-time students to arrange interviews. For every interview I want to create a personal colour scheme based on the most common colours in the images and photo’s I have taken. So, hopefully the end result will seem more personal. I tailored the questions for MA design part time students because they have not ﬁnished their project yet. It will be a work in progress view for their interviews.

Saturday 25 July 2015 Arranged an interview with Dawn for this coming Wednesday at 10:00, she is the ﬁrst one to reply so happy about that. Had a think about things that I ﬁnd annoying in general and while I am working. This sometimes helps me to solve problems quickly, motivate myself and make things better. The list I made can be seen on the next page. Setting up a structure for the written study and arranging a reading list for that. Some books are already on my desk, but I still need to read them.

Sunday 26 July 2015 Today I finished the first draft of Yiping Yang’s project. I will discuss these in the next tutorial on Tuesday. The rest of the day was devoted to reading and the written study. I moved the first big things to my new house! So excited for next week. I came in contact with a copywriter to see if she would be a valuable help in (re)writing the interviews to make them more flowing and interesting to read.

Sometimes things that annoy you can give an unusual twist to your work, motivate you to solve problems or make your work better.

Design inspiration of todayâ&#x20AC;Ś The illustrations of Shawna X are very inspirational, colourful vector images a mix of solid and gradient colour what makes it a bright and colourfully mixed work. (Source: www.work.shawna-x.com)

Monday 27 July 2015 I did not sleep very well, so I got up later than usual. I did manage to start writing on the written study part. If I do count the words (and yes I did) I have written 650 words, so that is a little achievement right there. And I had the idea to ask lecturer Jim Shorthose to maybe write a piece for the collaborative book. So I send him an e-mail to see if he is interested. I also want to send Neil one of our other lecturers an email to ask the same thing.

Tuesday 28 July 2015 Tutorial number two with John. But ďŹ rst a chat about the written part of the MA. I contacted PixArt Printing a online printing website to see if they do any other customizations other than stated on their website. This would be the cheap possibility to print the written study and diary with. And maybe even good enough to print the collaborative book with since you can choose paper stock, weight and they have some custom perfect bound options. Their size that came closest to my original size is 240x165mm. My original plan was to use 230x175mm so it is 10mm difference on both edges, which I decided was little enough to choose to change the dimensions so I could choose PixArt Printing as my printer. What I like about their service is that they have a good balance between customization and automation. You are fairly free to choose dimensions and paper sizes, and it is still affordable and within a good time scale, delivery wise. They are also able to produce cushion covers, wallpaper, cardboard stools, posters, screen printed t-shirts and stickers. I will keep this in mind if I will turn any of my design diary ideas into designed products and â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;reminder-tokens.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

Pick any two, Design quickly, with a high standard, but it will not be cheap. Design quickly and cheaply, but not with high quality. Design with high quality and cheaply, but it will take a relatively long time. Sometimes you have to prioritize things.

TUTORIAL RECAP Interviews are going well, so far three people interviewed. Pay attention to detail in design work, type size and use of white space for more sophistication. Try to capture the MA struggle in the diary on personal and MA level. Do my expectations matches other peoples expectations?

Realization no2: The diary folder format for collecting notes, drawings and sketches works for me, it suits my working style, by taking the reader through my design process.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Design cannot rescue failed content.â&#x20AC;? Edward R. Tufte (A professor emeritus of statistics, graphic design, and political economy at Yale University)

Wednesday 29 July 2015

Interview number four! With Dawn Frobisher from MA Design part-time, at 10:00 in the studio. Her project is about making tailored garments for people with obesity. Her project is still in development and her research mainly consists of talking to bariatric services, people with unique body shapes, people who are considering surgery to lose weight, characteristics of fabrics and the psychology of how self-conscious people are about clothing and the effect a garment can have on that. The group of unique shaped people is far bigger than just size 0-14. Her work goes further than just plus-size and revolves around the rapid or slow change of the body and how people dress around that. Trying to make adjustable and adaptable wear that fits well and looks appealing. What interested me around this project is how the people think about their body and how this reflects in their clothes. There is so much more to consider in the design process than just sketch, design, produce and finish. The speciality lies in fulfilling the need of the client. With a body that is changing in size and weight it might be hard to consider this while creating a garment.

Thursday 30 July 2015 MOVING DAY 1. I started moving out after the feedback chat with Neil about the previous research-led practice module. I did well, but Neil thought to make it better something was missing. He couldn’t really explain it clearly, but I think it might be that I am struggling with ﬁnding references and linking my work to the context of the real world. This need to be discussed more in our future tutorials. Anyway, lets start moving.

Important: Take care of the space you work in. The space affects the ﬂow of your design process and also the quality of your design outcomes. Messy desk = messy head, in my case.

Friday 31 July 2015

MOVING DAY 2. Still not done, moving is so tiring. I couldn’t make myself do work these two days. But I did have a quick chat with John today about the ﬁndings from Dawns interview and how the rest is holding up. I think I am quite alright on my planning, if this moving doesn’t get the better of me. John also asked me to think about the MA and how we could improve it, this is an interesting questions because there did happen some things over the year that could be changed possibly. One dislike on the new house: a very VERY small desk. It’s dimensions are 45x100cm. So it is barely a A3 wide! I really need to adapt to that, since my desk in Brayford Quays was huge! Right now I have occupied the dinner table, for as long as my house mate can stand it...

TUTORIAL RECAP In between moving I had a quick chat with John about the interview with Dawn and directing people. Some people provide for a lot of copy and back ground research which is also a part of the design process. Keep the realism of the project in mind, I will not be able to reach everyone. The part I am focusing on is to learn about the design process. Sometimes books about design have the problem of becoming outdated quickly, it is a snap shot in time, a bit like my book will be too. But the upside is that it is relevant to us, and at some point all graphic design is ephemeral. The diary side of the project gives it an extra dimension and relevance. The books will provide a time lapse in my MA time, one with my peers and one of personal experiences.

Realization no1: Stop dreaming! - Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t run out of time. Pay attention to detail and take time for that. At one point I need to stop collecting data and start designing spreads. Play with type nuances and imagery. Now the key thing is thinking through & about design. But not only THINK also DO, work, sketch, make, assemble and DESIGN.

Creativit

Poster challenge

Saturday 1 August 2015

New ﬂat, new room, new desk. Almost feels like a new start. So a recap on how the ‘Diary on a Roll” is going:

Document ideas as much as you can, you never know when

4 weeks into the they might become project and this is relevant. what I have been documenting on the paper roll the last few weeks. Memory notes that come into my mind while working, and that I need to remember before scrolling to the next new bit of paper. I am more of a list maker, my thoughts around the projects are visualized in words, sometimes in colour and shapes but they are always accompanied by words to make the image concrete and clear to myself for future reference.

Saturday 1 August 2015

Sunday 2 August 2015

I hugely caught up with the diary because since moving I didn’t had the chance really to do that. Also started reading again and preparing for a short week away. Gather things to read and to keep producing while I am away, hopefully. Also came up with a set of ‘reminder-tokens’ things I have learned from my diary translated to design outcomes. This for a reason to do some kick-ass graphic design.

Realisation no.2 The ﬁrst came from the realisation that I need a proper spacious semi-organized space to work and think in.

I need space to WORK & THINK

My desk is

I need space to work...

25 times bigger than this... #can’t-design-a-key-chain

I can’t work this small without needing my glasses and extra magnifying set. My eye for detail is good... But not this good.

Design Dilemma’s

... this is not it

Monday 3 August 2015

Today, I got a reply from Global Water Intelligence for a job interview in Oxford, for the junior graphic designer vacancy. I reminded felicity about the interview questions, she forgot. But she made up for it by replying quickly this time and I can photograph and interview her tomorrow. I emailed Lewis from Interior architecture design to enquire You can only push about his design stage. So now I started to contact students people so far (before it from Interior Architecture Design and Museum and Exhibition becomes annoying and Design. Hope that goes as well as the other students. they don't want to help you out anymore).

Placing the book like this almost turns it into a display., maybe if you print a poster running through the whole cover it could work as a display? BOOK: STUDIO CULTURE BY ADRIAN SHAUGHNESSY AND TONY BROOK I started reading Studio Culture, a book by one of my starting-tobe-favourite writer and designer Adrian Shaughnessy. It is very interesting to see how a studio space, or any other environment for that matter, inﬂuences designers creativity, and creative spirit. It also covers how designers choose to set up their own studio and creative space and how this grows simultaneously with their design business. It almost happens in a conscious (buying tables, bookcases, archives, tools,

prints, etc) and unconscious way (the move of furniture in the space over time). The environment has effect on your inspiration and creativity level. And in my opinion if you surround yourself with positive things this will influence your work. So if you work in a dull and uninspiring box of an office, this will definitely have effect on you, your mentality motivation and work. Space affects your behaviour as well, open plan spaces can encourage you to socialize and talk to colleagues. As Erik Spiekermann says: “The most rewarding thing about graphic design is that you get to know about other industries.”

Tuesday 4 August 2015

Photographed Felicity’s work and received her interview questions, also asked her a bit more questions to get more content. Now I can start designing her spreads. Send Chris a recap of all the work I did up until now. I worked on Yudan’s spread with her additional images. This is how they look now:

Wednesday 5 August 2015

I had a last minute inspiration boost when I had a quick glimpse at my book pile. The book ‘Sixpeople’ was in my pile and the torn cover took my interest. It turned out it was a dust jacked, but if you unfolded it you ended up with a screen printed poster. This way a blank neutral cover can have a cover which is rich of imagery, on the inside. It also protects the book and enforces the cover. It might be useful for my design process book ideas. The book is a experimental exploration of six people on a creative journey. Elements like time management, teamwork, creative differences and the pressure of the task at hand are all part of the limited edition book.

Realisation no.3 Reading design books help me formulate my design decisions for the introduction and written study part of the MA. I encounter various words and sentences that increase my vocabulary.

INTERVIEWING FELICITY Felicityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interview went the least formal and most relaxed of all the interviews I did until now. This because it happened in a space Felicity was familiar with: the print room. But I think also because of the fact that Felicity talks about screen printing and printmaking techniques almost full-time, as her job as a print technician. Nevertheless less over the interviews I did I noticed that talking about your work is not easy. You need to get used to it.

get on with it

! g n i t n i r p go screen 41

Sources of Inspiration I ďŹ nd inspiration in various places and different forms of design. Especially in the design of book covers and illustration. And since I am also designing a book I thought looking at book covers is a good place to start if it comes to designing my own book cover. I also am inspired by art I encounter while traveling, art exhibitions and installations in galleries. Some things I notice spark my inspiration as well, like that most designers like using post-it notes!

××× Embarking on a very British road trip ×××

Wednesday 5 - Friday 14 August 2015

As a little ‘working’ holiday my boyfriend drove his car over from the Netherlands to England to do a little road trip. I took the train to Brighton to meet him there and from there we went camping and visiting some cities and beautiful British countryside. While on holiday I did try my best to keep working or at least reading. I managed to send out some requests for interviews, and

also forwarded questions to: Sarah Barrowcliff, Natalie Houtioudi and Bukola Bankole. I also received an email from Majd that she was too caught up in writing her thesis for her MA Interior Architecture and Design study. I emailed all MA Interior Architecture and Design and Design for Exhibition and Museums students.

Day 1: Day 2: Day 3: Day 4: Day 5: Day 6:

Lincoln to Brighton Brighton Bridport & West Bay Travel day Truro St. Ives

Day 7: Travel day Day 8: Bristol Day 9: Bath Day 10: Oxford Day 11: Oxford & Lincoln

Sometimes you need to step back to realise what you have achieved.

××× Realizations along the way ××× ×

× × × ×

I need to pay more attention to the reﬂective side of the dairy asking myself ‘Why am I doing this / ‘What am I doing?’. Camping means, sometimes having no wi-ﬁ, so no emails to send and receive. Visiting a lot of cities means you get to see a lot of cathedrals and churches. Scenery, location and landscape are inspiration for a lot of designers and artists. Letting go of things (time, stress, worry, thoughts) can be a good thing. As long as you then know what the right time is to start working again, to make sure you don’t get stressed again.

ay.. d i l o h n While o On our road trip we visited some gallery’s and museums. Our ﬁrst stop was at the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery. Were we visited the wildlife photographer of the year exhibition. In Truro we visited their cathedral and in St. Ives I was amazed by the amount of art galleries that were around, and we had to visit the Tate St. Ives as well were I saw the ‘I Wish Your Wish’ exhibition by Rivane Neuenschwander. A self-feeding art piece that makes you think about your own universe of desires and how they can match someone else’s

wish (you suddenly notice people are not that different from each other anymore). This in particular made me think about my own next step, after hopefully graduating and starting out in the graphic design industry, it made me think about future work, what I want, what I love doing and in what place I would like to work. The idea of the work is to take a wish and replace it with your own. I took this wish because it seemed relevant for me. In return I wrote: ‘I wish for my next adventure to be an amazing experience.

In Oxford we visited the Bodleian Library and their exhibition ‘Marks of Genius’ took my attention. It shows what impact a book can have on history and future. This might not have direct links with my book, but it is nice to think about the ‘life’ a book can have, its meaning might even increase in 200-500 years time. Format has a huge impact on the perception of the content, even when looking towards the future.

ay..Monday 10 August 2015 d i l o h n While o While I was away I received and send emails for interviews. I also received an email to review an article about ethnography and design. How ethnography can help your project and make you reﬂect more on the decisions you make. This is what I found out:

Ethnography & Design Great design always connects with people. Designers inspire, provoke, validate, entertain and provide utility for people. To truly connect, designers need to have compassion and empathy for their audiences. Designers need to understand the relationship between what they produce and the meaning their product has for others. I also need empathy within interviewing the participants for the project. If I approach it the wrong way, I end up with content that is different than I expected. That is why planning has been so important, because of rigorous planning I am able to direct the Theory substantiates interviews more and get the content that I need. your practice and can re-enforce your goals ETHNOGRAPHY IS A TOOL FOR BETTER DESIGN. Ethnography is a research method based on observing people in their natural environment rather than in a formal research setting.

“... most powerful insights come from a rigorous analysis of systematically collected data.” Finding out the rituals of designers through ethnography. In my interviews I also want to ﬁnd out the rituals of the designers in their design process. So this relates closely with my approach and method I am using within my project. I want to know what designers do, and what they think they do and things they not tell me. If I can uncover those aspects I have accomplished in my research.

BOOK: GRAPHIC. Inside the sketchbooks of the world’s great graphic designers by Steven Heller and Lita Talarico. A bit like my project this book shows design process, not focusing on finished pieces but showing designers sketches and drawings. But instead of focusing on a specific project, the book shows random pages of sketchbooks, and tells something about the designer and how they create sketchbooks. For example, Irma Boom a Dutch designer, she sees her sketchbooks more as diaries, you can look back in them and see all the ideas you have had. Some designers collect their sketchbook and have more than fifty in their collection. Most designers keep different sketchbooks for multiple

purposes. A sketchbook with hand drawing, notes and collages from a designer is almost like their ﬁngerprint on their design. Sketchbooks are the ultimate format to show characteristics and curious elements. You could compare sketchbooks with a memoir, biography of ideas and design diary. Some designers take a very systematic approach to ﬁlling their sketchbooks. They have a set style and certain steps to make marks on paper to explore ideas. From this book I've learned that sketches, drawings, thumbnails and sketchbooks are at the centre of almost every designer's practice.

Saturday 15 August 2015

After I got back from my British road trip I went straight back to work (after I put a load of washing in the washing machine)! I really need to catch up with both the publication and my diary. I started by properly organizing my emails again, and replying to everyone I still needed to reply to. I started designing for the poster challenge ( I still needed to catch up with that). After a break (no matter how long) I always feel a bit elated and I tend to be too active and buzzing with after vacation-vibes to really be able to concentrate on doing work. This usually fades after a day or two.

Sunday 16 August 2015

Today I received a message from Bukola, she can do an interview tomorrow! So fast! We arranged to meet at 12:00 in the architecture studio. She will be the 6th person I will personally interview. Over time I am getting more experiences in smoothly dealing with interviews and arranging meetings, taking photographs, talking about my process and assure participants that their (unďŹ nished) work will still look good.

Monday 17 August 2015

Bukola was late so I went back to the studio to wait for her there. There I had a quick chat with Chris about my progress before he is on leave again. He gave me some things to pay attention to and had a quick look at how the publication is going. I would have liked more tutorials with Chris, but he has been on leave quite a lot. If I look back at my process now over the course of the past 7 weeks I only had 4 tutorials. This is the least I've had throughout the year. I talked to Bukola from 14:00 to 15:00. Her project, revolving around culture, heritage and preservation, seems so complicated and interesting it deďŹ nitely peeked my curiosity.

Tuesday 18 August 2015

Today I had a tutorial at 10:00 with John. I had a few questions in advance, what I should take as the final deadline, and what printers should I also contact. I really do want to be able to print this publication for the final show, and show it to people by then. After the tutorial I send out this email. It is necessary to give people a definite deadline by which they can respond to me if they still want to be in the publication (because it is a great opportunity). Send to: All MA students Time: 15:10 Hi all, This is just a recap to reach the people I have not heard from before. For those who have replied to my emails and those who I have interviewed this email is not directed towards you, only if you still have content to send me. For those who I have completely interviewed I will try to send the layout designs to you as soon as possible. I am creating a book about designers and their design process that will be part of the final show this year. And I want to interview all this years MA design students to be featured in it. If you would like to be part of it you can email me so I can forward you the questions. The interview can be email based or in person. There is, however, a deadline for you to send the questions and content/ photo's back to me, I need to receive everything by: Friday 28th of August, this is suddenly due to receiving the date of the final show, which is earlier than I thought. I am sorry if this comes sudden, but I need time to edit everything and keep printing deadlines in mind. After I have send the layout and design for approval I would like a swift response, reading over your article shouldn’t take much time, and I guess errors are spot easily. I hope this is clear, if you have any questions or want to see me in person please ask and I am sure we will work it out. Thanks Kind regards, Rianne

Try to inform people through the right way of communication, not everything works well via email.

TUTORIAL RECAP I had a few moments of enlightenment while talking to John. We set a deadline for the interim critique. I will need to have everything finished by the 2nd of September! That is quick, a lot of thoughts went through my head the moment I heard that date. We agreed that then we still have enough time to proofread and check everything before we send the book to print. It will be in time for our final show. I will need to send out a wrap up email to notify everyone, because I can't keep gathering work. I need time to design participant's layout without still receiving content. So it is either your in or out, by the time the submission deadline passes. Because the deadline is near I can now start working backwards from that and plan ahead efficiently. The purpose of the directory is to provide contact details (that also keep existing after we leave Uni). It can give readers the opportunity to contact the designers and enquiry about the project.

Challenged

Rushed Grateful Creative

positive Exhilarated

Wednesday 19 August 2015

Some people are really slow with reading and/or replying to their emails. For example, I tried several times to reach out to Kamsin, but first it took her 10 days to reply to my first email. I did send her the questions, but I am not expecting a reply soon. I think I will need to chase up on her quite a few times. I send of spread designs to: Autumn, Yudan, Dawn, Natalie and Yiping. Autumn wants to meet-up next week to go over her spreads together, this is fine and I don't mind doing this. Yudan responded that everything was good, so that is ticked of the box, Dawn still need to send me photo's and Natalie and Yiping have some images that need to be swapped or added.

Thursday 20 August 2015

Today I am interviewing Sarah, but I could not find her at first and she didn't pick up her phone. This was so annoying. I looked in the print room, studio and library. I finally found her on the 4th floor Mac suite. Finally 35 minutes later than planned I could interview her. She had send me her questions the day before so the interview went quick. Then I helped her select suitable images and photographed and scanned in some of her work. Sarah's work is very intuitive, she creates narratives from stories and translates them to only visuals, pure illustration. Then in the end she will create a book, where the images are combined with text again. She is building her tool-kit to start out as a graphic designer / illustrator.

Friday 21 August 2015

Visited Belton House in Grantham. Lovely to see the gardens and Victorian house where the movie Pride and Prejudice is recorded. Visited the servant rooms in the basement as well, somehow I am always attracted to places you normally are not allowed to come. I have this hunger and curiosity to know things that are hidden for 'normal' spectators. It was a nice day out before working on the design of the interviews again in the evening. I set up a meeting with Jim Shorthose, one of my lecturers, to discuss the possibility of collaborating for the publication. He is willing to write an essay as the concluding part of my publication. I also received an email back from Yudan, she looked over the design of her spreads and she likes them! I am not sure that she proof read them on spelling mistakes as well, I guess not. So I still need to do that part.

Saturday 22 August 2015

First I Photoshoped all Sarah's and Bukola's images before starting transcribing them. Photoshopping images is quicker and gives quicker results, that is why I dislike transcribing it takes around 4 hours to transcribe 1 hour of recorded interview. It is not good to postpone this, because this delays the moment that I can send them their ﬁnal design of the spreads. It is only after I have send participants their spreads that they will get a idea how the book will look. And if they agree with their design, they then can check their text and images on mistakes and errors as well. Most of the time I only received minor changes. Most participants know what they have told me and it is suitable for readers. I pay attention to the ﬂow of the sentences and if readers can understand the projects key developments even without having any design knowledge.

Stop moaning about it Even if you dislike something, this doesn't mean it doesn't have to get done. It helps ﬁrst work on things you don't like and leave the best for last.

Sunday 23 August 2015

Working on Sarah Barrowcliff’s work took me longer than I thought. Her work is so spontaneous and appealing to me that I have a tenancy to work longer on her spreads than necessary. I also ﬁnally started transcribing Bukola's interview, I was not looking forward to it. That is why it took me so long to start. I had the tenancy to work on all other spreads ﬁrst before starting transcribing a new interview. This was not a good habit within the project, but I did do work, only not the most important parts at that moment...

Monday 24 August 2015

Today I met up with Autumn to go over her spreads together. Autumn had quite a few edits in mind, because her work is copyright sensitive. She is setting up her business and needs patents to register her products so they can't be copied by other companies. Because of that I can only show parts of products, close-ups and very early sketches. I had to change some images around to make it work. We also edited the text Let a bit to make it more understandable for people who don't people help know anything about the project. you I had a short chat with Lewis, about interviewing him for the publication. I told him that I would send him an email, with the questions that he could ďŹ ll in. I hope he reads his email quickly. Over the course of this project I kind of forget to let participants sign consent forms. I thought this would be necessary but I kept forgetting. I had a chat with John about that and he advised me that consent forms were only really necessary if you start to make money from publishing the book.

Tuesday 25 August 2015

I thought John was in for a tutorial today, but it appeared he was away until Thursday. I wanted to ask him some questions if copyright issues would occur if I would include written pieces from staff members in the project. Instead I worked on Lucia's spreads, she delivered the content in the most controlled way, and easiest way for me to edit. She numbered the images, and gave them a place inside the interview, so I would instantly know where I should place the image! That was so great, no one had thought of that before.

Wednesday 26 August 2015

Meeting Jim Shorthose at 14:00 in Nottingham. While away I received a lot of emails regarding 'The Working Title Project' AJ, Lewis, Autumn and Dave send me emails with images and work. Dave especially was exited with sending me a lot of photo's about MAIDE's trip to China. It would be nice if I could use those as a photographic story to break up the interviews! Yuejiao Wang from interior design also send me her questions, without any images. I did send her an email again (but she didn't reply). Her answers were so brief that I found them inconclusive, I therefore did not include her in the interviews. I wanted to keep the standard of work high, to make it a high quality book with content that is worth reading.

MEETING WITH JIM SHORTHOSE The meeting was concise and to the point, we came to an agreement that Jim could contribute to the project with a written piece, inspired by his book '97 ideas about creativity'. Things that link in with a ďŹ&#x201A;exible and interchangeable design process. There also was the idea to use some of the ideas from the book to break up the interviews, but in the end I realised the book would get too long if I would do that, and the context would not be mainly focussed on designers and their design process. We also talked about self-publishing and giving the book a life after the MA. Approaching it more as a research topic than MA project.

Visited the RAF Fire Museum in Scampton, where also the Red Arrows are based. Here you can see 10 of their planes lined up, they probably would ďŹ&#x201A;y out that afternoon. It was a really interesting visit because you normally can't get access to this place easily.

Thursday 27 August 2015

TUTORIAL RECAP Tutorial with John at 13:15. The project is progressing quickly, it's coming towards ďŹ nalization now. I do need to interview myself, I left that until last so I can turn it into a sort of conclusion for the book. The introduction explains the aim of the project and its initial ďŹ ndings. For the interim critique of 2-9-2015 I need to print off a dummy of the publication and possibly the diary side as well. We discussed to add in dates and times with the interviews, but we both decided against it, because it would make the book too dated soon. The plan for my written thesis changed. I could write an extended essay in my diary entry, as a separate chapter with a thorough introduction and conclusion. Exploring the context of the publication compared to other contemporary design monographs and books. Explaining my methodology and how the project changed and developed over time. The only downside of this is that I want to print the diary the same time as the publication. The deadline for the written study is later, so I will need to rush or keep them separate.

Know your limits But accept the clients too.

Friday 28 August 2015 Today is the deadline that I have set to receive content, text and images, from people that still would want to be in the book. I received content from: Lucy, AJ, Lewis and Cly. I also received the written essay that Jim Shorthose wrote for the publication. It is called 'The Logic of the Creative Process'. It is larger than I expected 3.089 words! But it is really good and suits perfect with the rest of the content! It explains how the creative process is a circular process and not linear. It also links in well with the modules that we had over the course Deadlines of the MA. The creative process is not monitoring actions, it are motivation can give you a sense of playfulness and happiness as well. for productivity. And the beautiful thing is everyone experiences their design process differently, it has its own characteristics and traits.

Saturday 29 August 2015

Finishing off a lot of designs today. I send ﬁnished spreads for ﬁnal check up to Lucy, Alethea, Natalie, AJ and Lewis. I really enjoy receiving people's reaction back after they have seen their work within the layout of the book. Most of them are surprised how good it looks. Here is a selection of the feedback I got: Hi Rianne,

Feedback

Thank you so much, it is looking great! Just a few little changes please.... I hope that's okay!

Positive feedback can boost your motivation! Constructive criticism

Felicity

can boost your

Hi Rianne, ignore my comment on elephant giraffe image it's perfect! The whole thing is impressive well done! Gifted for sure! I have in brackets added a few words or altered a few after proof reading. Hope this helps AJ Dear Rianne, Everything is right, it look like great, thank you so much:) Yudan Hi Rianne, Everything looks great, thanks. Can't wait to see this in print. Thanks, Alethea Hi Rianne, This is really nice .well done! If you send me a word document , I can edit the English as there are some typos . Other than that it's spot on. Good job!!! Bukola

At ﬁrst most participants were a bit reluctant to talk to me about their highly personal design process. But while we were talking most participants would loosen up and give me way more information and content than I expected. Also after I then gathered all the images and created the content they would see how impressive their work looks on the design of a page. Capturing their work on paper shines a different light on the designers and their work. After seeing the design most people were impressed with how I combined everything together and are really exited how it will look printed in the end.

productivity.

Sunday 30 August 2015

After the design of all the new spreads is done and send to the participants I can pay attention to Felicity's and Autumn's spreads who send me edits within their text and images. After I send them their edited versions I have asked them if they could check them again. With editing content also comes a lot of ﬁle management, you need to know what the ﬁnal version is and you need to back up all the older versions in case someone wants to go back to their previous design.

Monday 31 August 2015

Most of the interviews are done now, and I finally got to design my own spreads. I finished the last changes on Yiping's spreads, by changing some images around. I also received some changes from Kamsin, for an image. She asked Control me if she could still send me an edited version of the text, I Be careful with favours, told her to be quick, otherwise I will come in time pressure. they might not end up It was very difficult to pretend to interview myself. And design my own spreads, because somehow you are more strict and mostly unsatisfied with your own work. I know how to make other participants work look good, but since I am so immersed within my own work its hard to get that distance that I use while designing other spreads. I still have a lot on my to do list: trying to include the China photo story, pay attention to the contents page, end pages, introduction and the design of Jim's essay.

the way you expected.

Tuesday 1 September 2015

Preparation for interim critique! Had a final catch up with Emma Clarke at 11:00 and Dawn at 1:30 because they still hadn't send me their photo's. I met them at the studio to photograph their work with my camera so the photo's were high resolution and suitable to use. Busy day because I also caught up with Chris at 15:00 to talk about my progress. However I didn't bring my final dummy because I am going to show that tomorrow at the final crit. I completed all interviews - including my own - and wrote the introduction last. Sadly I had to leave Cly out because I could not access his photo's which were packaged by some weird Chinese software, even though that he did fill in the questions. Control I also realised that the MAIDE story was too commercial and Sometimes you marketing based to include in the book, because the tone of have to let go of voice and content is not relevant. I stayed away from it being promising content. a show catalogue and ventured more towards a book about In order to stay design process, so no MA course information or 'sales talks'. I focused. am however thinking about including the MAIDE photo story when they travelled to China. But I am afraid I can't include this either because of the amount of pages.

TUTORIAL RECAP In the tutorial with Chris I did realise that the ﬁnal book is too long, it is over 200 pages, I expected only between 150-180 pages. But since I let the content drive the form of the layouts and the overall book as well I guess it kind of 'took over'. The good thing is that I strayed away from the book as a show catalogue and made it more about people and design. Letting the University content out gives the book more longevity. The only thing to do now is proofread, spellings check and pay attention to widows, orphans and colour balance photo's.

Every project has pro's and con's

Crazy Card Collection As a designer I have some curious habits. One of them is collecting postcards. I mainly collect them from the places I travel. The ugly, the touristy the better. Some of them are pretty and well designed by artists, designers and illustrators others are photographs with the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s name in a gradient colour and drop shadow. You will ďŹ nd the whole spectrum of good and bad design capabilities within these postcards, and that is what I love about the format of it compact but yet compelling.

Find things that Remember you why you love being a designer

Wednesday 2 September 2015

DEADLINE: INTERIM CRIT Time: Place:

11:00 John and Chris' ofﬁce

The moment of truth. Printing a dummy version, creating a complete book. Binding it together, holding my MA project in my hands for the first time really made it feel real. Coming closer to the deadline feels daunting. After months of interviews, transcribing and designing I now have something that looks and feels like a real tactile book. The time scale now it to get everything proofread, and remove all the mistakes, errors and final typos from the file before I send it of to print. For the final show, John (my tutor) now takes the dummy to the marketing department to see if there is some funding available. I still hope it can be done, and it could be printed before the show starts (which is the 25th of September).

Planning Plan enough time for:

Realisation no.4

Knowing what your university / school / business / studio own - Printers to stop working - Big files to package in terms of tools and equipment is essential for any project. It might come in handy to know if your workspace has access to a bookbinding machine or a guillotine. It can take you a lot of time to go look for these things and knowing in advance what the possibilities are help the creative process. Or at least ask someone who knows all the ins and outs and secret hiding spot of unused tools. So a good thing to do is ask questions, if you need recycled paper - ask! If you can’t find the guillotine - ask! If you think something can be done quicker in another way, but are not sure of yourself - ask! So ASK - ASK - ASK lots of questions, it will sure make the whole process a lot more flowing and you know for sure you are not doing something that could have been done in half the time. I for example found out we have a great new binding machine in our university. It made the whole binding process a lot quicker and I now know I can do it myself.

- Files to back-up - Delivery times

Balance work and labour with play, relaxation and fun

Thursday 3 September 2015

Day after the crit! I allowed myself a fun-day and went to London with friends to visit some nice independent coffee shops (although I am not a coffee drinker, I just join my friends and drink tea). The buzz of people is always nice in London, it gives me the feeling of going traveling or exploring unknown places and designing and illustrating, because I always encounter beautiful an inspirational designs while traveling like postcards, prints and books. We visited an independent coffee shop in an old Victorian bathroom, 'The Attendant' and had some sushi for dinner, I have to visit Camden Town while in London so we went there too. I love seeing all the artist stalls selling their prints and jewellery! I did manage to sort out some diary entries like this one while traveling on the train.

Friday 4 September 2015 Changed some mistakes and error in the publication InDesign ﬁle. Right now it is basically proofreading and checking image resolution and design details. I also designed this paper windmill. The idea is that distraction can be good for idea generation and let your creativity more loose and free. So when you distract yourself with, the childish freedom of, blowing a paper windmill your mind will loosen your creativity. Hence the that the paper windmill says: 'Creativity Flows When the Wind Blows'.

Saturday 5 September 2015

Designed some 'diary-realisations-totems' along with editing the publication and make some detailed changes. These are little quirky designed objects that relate to this project. The little cards with 'I am a ... Graphic Designer' came from the realisation that every designer is different, like every individual is unique. We all work in different ways, that sometimes coincidentally overlap. I then found words to fill in the dots. In the end I decided to use them as end pages for this book, because they are visually appealing and sort of sum up the content of this book. My own journey as a designer to find out how I would fill in those ellipsis, asking myself the question what kind of designer I am.

Saturday 5 September 2015

GRADIENT POSTER As a mini challenge I designed this poster to turn into a visual infographic according to your own emotion. For two months I coloured in a square with a colour that represented my mood or how productive my day has been. The little text at the bottom of the poster says: Colour in every day in the colour of how you have experienced it. This can be in any color; your favorite color, a color that says something about your emotions of that day; it can be a piece of chalk, ink, highlighters, anything as long as it leaves a colour behind. You might want to create your own legend somewhere in the white space on this poster, explain a bit on what the colours mean and why you have used them. For a bit more background info. In the end you have your own gradient colour poster in response of how your day was. A cheeky piece of information/emotion design. If the poster is ready (beginning of September), please submit a photo or scan to me rianrijtjes@hotmail.com. Lots of colouring fun!

The beginning of July started quite relaxed.

After the hand-in I went

home for a short week. I

started emailing possible

participants if they wanted to do an interview and

the ﬁrst interviews went really well (as you can

see most of my tutorials

were on Tuesday's, some went really well - dark

green - others went not so well - orange/red - ). Then in august again I went

away for a bit - the dashed green area - so before

and afterwards were busy and sometimes stressful times. The last week of

august has been especially stressed because then I

found out that there were

The idea of this poster was that I would hand them out to all the participants to accompany their interviews in the publication. As an interesting way to break up the interviews (so that it is not interview, after interview, after interview). Unfortunately after the hand-in everyone kind of moved their own way and the studio stayed quite empty for a few weeks. I decided to place the posters on peoples work so when they would pick it up after assessment they would ﬁnd the posters within their work. I think this approach was too indirect since I only got a response from a select few. And after all I can't really include it anymore because I am already over the amount of pages that I had in mind. Two-hundred pages is a lot and I couldn't possibly ﬁt in 17 more pages. Instead I will review this in my diary where I think it is a better place.

less than 2 weeks to ﬁnish the whole publication, so stress kicked in and the

rush for interviews started via emails. Dealing with

people over email waiting for responses was quite annoying by this time.

Overall I have handled the stress well and it became a quite a green-and-

yellow-patched poster.

It represents my process

well alternating periods of relaxation and stress.

Content Sometimes you have to let content go, that after consideration doesn't ďŹ t well in the context anymore.

Sunday 6 September 2015

Kamsin and Bukola both promised to send me their edited text after the 2nd of September. By this date I still have not received anything, I am going to urge them to send it today by latest! Otherwise I get into more distress and it will be too late, because I am anticipating on doing the proofread edits tomorrow onwards. Tomorrow I am going to check with John to see how far he is with that, and with writing the Foreword. I hope he got it done over the weekend so I can send the publication off to print by Tuesday! Because I really need it by next week Monday the 14th, then is our ďŹ nal deadline for all the design work.

Content: If you let content drive your structure, you have to take care that the content doesn't take over, and gets bigger, than the project.

Dave (MA - International Design Enterprise program leader) also send me this email:

Hello Rianne I hope all is ok. Just wanted to check that you have all the necessary info you needed from myself and the MAIDE students for your project. Any problems please let me know and I will chase things up. The layout for the MAIDE page that I received looked very good. Thank you. All the best

Realisation: You can't include everything people give you when you are working on a big

Dave

collaborative project.

I am going to send back that it will not be published due to the amount of pages and relevance to the interviews, the publication is not a ďŹ nal show catalogue anymore, so it doesn't need this kind of content anymore. But that I might try to include a photo story insert, because that is still interesting to see. Here I have to accept that the amount and length of interviews is the core of my book, I don't need to brush it up with other content to make it read more enjoyable, because now I see that the content will stand on its own and still be interesting enough.

SARAH BARROWCLIFF PROJECT:

Because every interview is driven by its content the book is not led by its grid or layout - I didn't set a limited amount of spreads per person - so because of that it became a lively story for each project. The participant curated their own narrative and story and I assembled that with the images I received and photo's that I took. To gain some control I used set questions, but my approach to doing interviews changed during the project.

A conscious deconstruction

WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THIS PROJECT? Sarah: Because I wanted to create a body of work where I could experiment with my creative practice and use different

techniques to make images. I found a poem most appropriate, as the choice of words

makes image making so interesting as it is

I started out by storyboarding the story into images with

full of expressive words allowing for me to

the major events happening. From there I picked the 20 scenes for the 20 images I will deliver.

be creative and experiment with different stages of the story.

THE PROJECT TITLE EXPLAINS THE

PROJECT QUITE STRAIGHTFORWARD, WHY NOT A MORE VAGUE TITLE?

This explains best what I am doing, my own visual interpretation of the book. The Rime

of the Ancient Mariner is the longest major poem by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge,

More information on: www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/ samuel-taylor-coleridge

written in 1797–98.

Throughout the poem a narrative is used, which links in with the visual narrative.

In writing the narrative techniques are

personification and repetition to create a

sense of danger or serenity, depending on

the mood in different parts of the poem. In

An early screen print exploring light and dark and pace.

WHY DID YOU PICK THE BOOK: THE

the visualisations I use various treatments

RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER?

to create the narrative in my drawings,

It was John my tutor who advised me to

these are scale, black and white, light and

read it because of the actual words. He

dark, perspective and pace.

said to think about imagining what the

Since the project has developed I noticed that I am leaning more towards using

images would actually look like. That I

I will create a body of work for each

but when I read the book I actually instantly

needed to imagine the images I would

contrast so light and dark and scale.

make from the story. John influenced it,

started to think of things I could do with

technique I am using, a body of work for

the story. So it was a joint conversation

monoprints, collages and screen prints.

about the story that made me pick this

This to show the variety and difference

book. It was also in conversation with John

in visualisation outcomes, which will vary

that I got to 20 deliverables, 20 key points

depending on the technique that is used.

within the story to visualise.

YOUR WORK LOOKS LIKE A DELIBERATE MIX BETWEEN GRAPHIC DESIGN AND

The actual breaking the story down to 20

ILLUSTRATION, BUT SEEMS TO TEND

images/deliverables was difficult. If it was

MORE TO ILLUSTRATION, HOW SO?

more I would have done too much and the work would end up unfocused. Initially I

I use a combination of different techniques

thought to only pick 10, but that did not

from each discipline. Monoprint techniques

seem enough to portrait the story enough.

use drawing and generate more expressive

In the end 20 images was a number I could

visuals it leans more towards illustration,

work with.

collaging tends to use more skills than just drawing, it uses different materials and

SO DID YOU START THE PROJECT BY

compositions so that tends more towards

STORYBOARDING THE BOOK?

graphic design.

First, I started doing interviews with a list of questions on my lap that I would ﬁll in during the interview. I would also record the interview to transcribe it later. This took a lot of time, but the interview ventured into a lot (probably too many) of interesting directions. This worked in the beginning since I had a lot of time to edit the interviews.

A conscious deconstruction is about “Drawing is definitley at the exploring visual expression and centre of my practice.” storytelling with a visual treatment of the poem The Rime of The Ancient Mariner. A highly visual and experimental project, exploring narratives and conveying a story through image making. Through the project Sarah wants to define her visual voice and learn new skills within the disciplines of illustration and graphic design.

Yeah, I started with storyboarding the pieces

I am exploring the different aesthetics

of the story, testing the pace of the story and

through the design techniques, to see what

seeing how it would actually fit together.

different results will come out of that.

I planned out the layout and backgrounds

I want to find out if I am more of an

into different thumbnail sketches, to try out

illustrator, graphic designer or art director.

different proportions and shapes. I drew the

Since I have a background in Creative

shapes of the sea while I was away on holiday

Advertising, before starting on my masters

as a reference for the images. Through the

I completed a Bachelor degree in that area.

storyboarding the illustrations kind of go

back to my advertising background a bit. It did help me break up the story into the

storyboard, and through thinking of various

“I am building a toolkit of different techniques to develop my visual voice.”

ways of communicating the story.

Note making like the visualizations are very personal to Sarah’s style of working. “I wrote down all the insights I had while working in the print room. I like to write on bright paper, and scraps of paper that I find lingering about.”

The end result will be a book that is heavily image based but does have the text of the poem next to it, the text will be secondary to the images. In the end the book will

bring all elements together, image, text,

monoprint, collage and screen-print. It is

good that I did not stick with only screenprinting, which would have been too

restrictive. Monoprinting and collaging have

more energy and are not as time consuming as screen-printing, you don’t have to plan

every single move with those techniques. I

like to combine the intuition of one with the planning and organizing of the other.

It is about balancing risk and certainty, at one point I am taking risk and the other is more certain. This project has been a

massive risk, in the beginning it was scary just the thought of making 20 images was a daunting task. When I always went with

WHERE DO YOU WORK BEST?

small projects before.

Usually in my room as I enjoy quiet when I

In creative advertising if you stick with a bad

am working but I also do a lot of thinking

idea, you can’t make a bad idea better with

in coffee shops and at the studio. I then will

design. This is the thing when I went with

make the prints, monoprints, screen prints or

screen-printing, it didn’t look right so then I

collages in the print-room at the university.

started layering images and more intuition came into my work. I planned the screenprinting too much it wasn’t me anymore,

but by combing it with monoprinting and

Once the storyboards are made, I

collaging it became more organic.

started sketching the images out and choosing compositions.

WHERE DO YOU FIND INSPIRATION?

Then I noticed a different approach would leave me with less transcribing and more time to design. This was to send the participants the list of questions first, send the filled in questions back to me (so I had the fully typed text) and then have an interview to discuss the questions in person with the work. This resulted in a quicker process and left me with more time to select, edit and design the spreads. The answers to the questions were partly focused because the written text and partly free flowing because I still would question them in person and transcribe the (substantially shorter than in my first approach) interview afterwards.

From drawing, being around other people, talking to people, looking at creative

journals and magazines, painting, taking

photographs, walking, listening to others, making scrap books, drinking tea! I also

enjoy spending time looking through blogs and also looking at fashion magazines.

Gathered scraps and print hold together by a clip. And an inspiring quote from illustrator Sara Fanelli.

WHAT STEPS DO YOU USUALLY

WHAT TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES

FOLLOW IN YOUR DESIGN PROCESS?

DO YOU USE TO PRACTICE YOUR PRACTICE?

I have always began by scribbles in my

sketch book and jotting down any ideas and

I have created a body of work with 3

layouts that I like and think work best. I enjoy

different approaches to image making

looking for inspiration in books of designers

in order to at the end have three bodies

I think communicate well. I like to think about

of work which show a range to how I can

this afterwards and then use my journal as

image make. Firstly I have created prints in

the basis for my work and beginning Ideas.

a very expressive format layering and using

I use all different types of mediums to work

sceen printing to create 20 key scenes

with but most recently I have enjoyed using

within the poem that express the poem.

collage in my work as a major influence. I

also enjoy using photography in my sketch

Secondly I have a very graphic approach

books. Within my major project I have

which uses collage based inspiration from

focused on using monoprints because I

the work of Sara Fanelli and Hannah hock.

enjoy the quality of line that they can create.

This still involves layering and printing however it is a very different way that I

have began to develop over the course of

“Out of my organic and sometimes chaotic design process I need to take organized bits to create work that can be screen-printed.”

the MA from the different designers I have being able to look at.

Thirdly I have a series of monoprints

which are another experimental choice of working that remind me more of Tracey

Emin’s style and approach to art however they are also full of expression and allow

me to tell the story in another way which is something I have found interesting.

My design process doesn’t follow a set of

rules it is organic and free flowing and much more analogue than digital, as I think it

allows for more personal design. I reckon I

would be better off if I was more organized when I am screen-printing my work. You

need to be quite organised to successfully

screen print in an effective productive way, which is something that I did not expect

before starting how you need to plan out all your decisions and steps. That is a key thing that I have learned as a designer besides

I find inspiration from magazines, I

knowing the techniques, organising your

cut out images I see to use in collages

work and thinking ahead is important too.

and as a form of inspiration. These backgrounds I found in Creative

Out of my organic and sometimes chaotic

Review, that gave me the idea for the

design process I need to take organized bits

crazy clouds in the background. I plan

to create work that can be screen-printed.

through the storyboarding and notes in my sketchbook.

WHAT ELEMENTS WENT DIFFERENT

look at it in a different way. Asking people

THAN EXPECTED?

HOW DO YOU USE SKETCHBOOKS / DRAWING / MAKING NOTES?

what they thought of my designs allowed me to gain a true insight and interesting

I didn’t think that my prints would be so

I like making notes on brightly coloured

colourful so this was a happy surprise! I

findings about my creative practice.

geometric style similar to the diploma

ARE YOU COLLABORATING WITH

had layouts planned for my work in a very

paper as a way of reminding myself what

was happening at that stage of the process

OTHER PEOPLE ON OR IS THE PROJECT

stage but the design process has allowed

and what thoughts were going through

MORE INDIVIDUAL?

me to be much more experimental which is

my head as sometimes It is a better way

of realing where insights are born. I have

always enjoyed drawing and try and draw sometime everyday as when I did A-level

a happy surprise.

Asking peoples opinions as I work through

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE

doing however the designing is all my own.

the project is something I have being

PROJECT?

art I got into the habbit of this and as a

designer I have found it a key part of my

WHAT NEW SKILLS DID YOU ACQUIRE

To allow people to understand more about

overall design process.

WHILE DOING THIS PROJECT?

Visual Narrative as I aim to formulate a

Screen printing, collaging, monoprinting,

system that others could consider when

WHEN YOU STARTED THE PROJECT, DID

and organising! Collaging also really works

image making. Using the experiments I

YOU FIRST START OUT RESEARCHING,

well in combination with screen-printing.

carried out in the Diploma level I wanted to

DRAWING OR BRAINSTORMING? IN

You can add things to the images through

see whether my image making would make

SHORT HOW DID YOU START?

the different layers.

the poem easier to understand or maybe

I started drawing and reading and re-

reading the poem. I wanted to find a fresh

approach then I used collage and drawing painting and experimenting to form the basis to my work.

DO YOU REFER BACK TO YOUR

RESEARCH? IF YES HOW OFTEN? / IF

The last approach I took was an interview done fully by email. Because the deadline was approaching or some people were not able to see me in person email interviews were the best and quickest options. They still resulted in good content, but it was more condensed and focused that the partially email/in-person interviews. This however did give me time to include more participants, because this approach needed the least editing (it was basically just copy and paste, check image resolution and typos).

NOT IS YOUR DESIGN PROCESS MORE BASED ON YOUR INTUITION?

I do refer back more as I have got closer

to the end of the MA as I have learnt that

planning isn’t always for the best sometimes we create small mistakes which actually

communicate the design better. Intuition

will always play a huge part in my process but understanding what research I have looked at can always keep me on track.

LOOKING BACK ON THIS STAGE, WHAT WENT WELL IN THE PROJECT?

Understanding that I can’t always rely on

Some examples of the brightly

just one design process, my work is all

coloured notes and ‘to-do’ lists Sarah

about layering and having the skills to use

makes to remind herself of important

different elements to make the design the

happenings and thoughts.

most effective it can be for the purpose.

100

HOW WILL YOU CONTINUE THE PROJECT?

The project gave a set brief with quite an

I aim to have 20 prints that truly reflect

open end, I like the freedom to experiment

my Visual Voice through Images. Then I

and develop new work that is quite

will continue working on the approaches

substantial that is what the brief gave me.

of visual image making that I am using

This project showed me how to create a

already. I am building a toolkit of different

coherent body of work. I had to re-read the

techniques for if I want to continue further

book so many times to understand how

into illustration. This to develop my own

to communicate it. I had to do research

visual voice and illustrate and design

on narrative, communication and visual

with that. I really learned the printing

voice this all to create a response to the

techniques through this project.

initial brief. Now you can tell the images I created are a series together and form a

I also landed a part-time graphic design

story, as for before I would make a one-

job at a fashion company; this gave me the

off and leave it at that. It gave me more

opportunity to learn more about the graphic design industry and the ‘nuts and bolts’ of

focus and consistency as a designer doing

experience from a job really gave me the

conversation through image making.

one big project, creating one big visual

the job. This project in combination with

opportunity to learn and grow within the

illustration and graphic design disciplines.

DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO ADD

THAT MIGHT BE INTERESTING ABOUT YOUR PROJECT?

I want people to look at the prints and be able to see that they are all coherent and

have a personal feel to them. I’ve had tears and many cups of tea to get to this stage

but seeing all of them work together in the way they are makes me more than happy!

These images are a mix of collage, monoprint and screen-print.

102

103

My preference goes towards the second approach, a middle way between focused and controlled answers and a free ﬂowing interview. These are a selection of the first set of completed images I aimed to visualize. Created using various kinds of printing techniques like collaging, monoprinting and screen-printing. From here I started thinking about a format in which I would show the 20 images I have created. It could be posters or a book.

104

105

the working Title project

the

working Title project

olla bo rati de on sig a ne rs a l proje nd c t re the vo ir d esig lving aro np un roc d es s . Edited by: Rianne van de Rijt

FINAL COVER AND END PAGES DESIGN These are the ďŹ nal design versions of the cover. And the end pages. To contradict the inside of the book I chose to keep the cover neutral, vague and abstract. This is actually also a weird, curious corner in the MA studio. I thought this would suit nicely with the rest of the book, because it is the space of the MA studio that links all the featured designers together. Over the time the book was created we all shared this space to work, talk and have lectures in. And since I don't need to comply to commercial book cover standards I can design it in my own way. The end pages link in with the front cover. It is a time lapse I took in the diploma level stage. It portraits the use of the studio and how people move around in the space. It is also nice to see images that are not in the actual content of the book. They give it more visual appeal and set all the participants more in context with doing their Master's, without actually mentioning any commercial MA talk.

t h e w o r k i n g T i t l e

olla bo rati de on sig a ne rs a l proje nd c t re the vo ir d esig lving aro np un roc d es s .

p r o j e c t

the

working Title project

Edited by: Rianne van de Rijt

Introduction

CONTENTS 6

Foreword

Introduction

Lucy Patterson

Project: Monika

RIANNE VAN DE RIJT

Emma Clarke

Project: Wearable Architecture

Autumn Anderson

Project: Vusu: Designed For You

The Working Title Project is about exploring and documenting the creative process. Showing creative thinking, processes and techniques that designers use in their design process to come to their final ideas and designs. It is about documenting the design process of designers through interviews and collaboration.

Kat Downs

Project: Away With Words

Yudan (Yuna) Ding

Project: The Design Student Abroad

Kamsin Mirchandani

Project: Middleport Farms - Stoke on Trent

Yiping (Helena) Yang

Project: Data Pattern Design

Rianne van de Rijt

Dawn Frobisher

Project: Adaptable and Adjustable Bariatric Garments

Project: The Working Title Project - Publication & Diary

This book is the result of a substantial investigation

Jim Shorthose

the project I have been talking to designers, almost

Directory

Natalie Houtoudi

Editor: Rianne van de Rijt

Design: Rianne van de Rijt

Kamsin Mirchandani

Acknowledgments

Bukola Olabisi Bankole

Sarah Barrowcliff

Project: A Conscious Deconstruction

Images copyright of the respective designers unless otherwise

Lucia Lopez Garci-Crespo

stated. Every effort has been made to trace and contact the

Project: My Journey

However, if informed, to correct any errors or omissions in

Alethea Sandercock

subsequent editions.

Project: Creating Ghibli

Shiliu (Lewis) Fu

distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including

Project: Animal Chair

photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical

methods, without the prior written permission of the author.

AJ Philp

Publication is part of the Masters of Arts Graphic Design

Project: Baby Boo Hood - Educational toy for babies

Edited by:

programme at the University of Lincoln.

Rianne van de Rijt 6

AUTUMN ANDERSON PROJECT:

Introduction

VUSU: Designed For You

RIANNE VAN DE RIJT The Working Title Project is about exploring and documenting the creative process. Showing creative thinking, processes and techniques that designers use in their design process to come to their final ideas and designs. It is about documenting the design process of designers through interviews and collaboration.

This book is the result of a substantial investigation

revolving around the creative design process. Throughout the project I have been talking to designers, almost

Throughout this book we gain a glimpse of insight in how some designers reach a visual solutions and solves the

problems that arise within their projects. Uncovering the explorations, realizations and anticipations of various

design projects and designers within multiple disciplines.

Showing that there are certain stages and questions every designer goes through in their own way.

Surprisingly there are few male designers featured in this

length of the interview and how it was designed.

everything related to their creative practice, their

themselves or a select small group, like tutors through

assessment. In my opinion they hold much more value,

they show the development and journey the project, and designer, took. I set out to uncover the design process to

free to reach out, and contact them about their endeavors,

user testing groups’ experiences and

market. By designing products that can

my own. From having the condition I

be used by people with disablements

and without I hope to reduce prejudices

understand how difficult daily tasks can

communication about the conditions.

helpful during the whole process of design.

be however my user groups were greatly

around disability design and increase

WHERE DO YOU FIND INSPIRATION?

“There weren’t any products throughout my design journey. The Chef’n out there that were useful, Potato Peeler was the first product I found functional and styled to fit that worked well for my friends and me. It me as a person. Just because looked fun, was affordable and enabled someone has a disability me to prepare food with dislocations whilst does not mean they don’t also being useful for want and need aesthetically More information about the Palm my flat mates. positive products.” Peeler™ on: www.chefn.com Many objects and people have inspired me

Negative inspiration is something I

WHERE DO YOU WORK BEST?

have also embraced during this study.

I prefer to work in my home office as I can

Some ‘disability’ products are so badly

spread my work out and do experiments

designed it motivates me to change the

the time to fully develop three products,

market. Another inspiration for me has

whilst not having to travel far. Due to

and were expensive. Due to not using aids

a business. This journey has taught me many

disability products. The whole experience

university studio once a day so I plan my

packaging and branding to launch VuSu as new processes and methods from design

or helpful products I have unfortunately

challenges, which has motivated me to start

had great damage to my joints so when

daily journeys. Although I use the library

of shopping for them was depressing. VuSu

regularly for reading I prefer to take the

products will be sold online from the launch

The electric toothbrush is another inspiring

and discuss my work with other people.

of their work. I find that sometimes the actual process

an accessible, socially excepted item that

time in the workshops physically testing

VuSu as a viable business.

I got the opportunity to write my own

grow and evolve into something else that, I think, is the

has been a useful place to have tutorials When at the university I spend a lot of

object for me as a designer and user. It is

featured designers and a work-in-progress snap shot

Autumn’s desk in her office. All the test molds are stored away in boxes and piles throughout the little place.

my joints I am only able to walk into the

been my memory of originally trying to buy

So this is a true look into the design process of the

of design is more intriguing than the final piece. The

the interviews, images and explanation curated within 200

My main inspirations have been from my

unit costs and therefore make the range

books back home. The university studio

then to take and create into a book. This is the result of all pages worth of valuable insights in design processes.

more accessible to the potential user

through a modern, simple and fun website.

their projects and decisions, ways of working and reading lists, telling me the information about their work for me

testing, product marketing, the logistics of design and more. This study has given me

certain people with mobility disablements.

on the market to help; they were designed for the elderly, were branded medically

because some projects were not finalized before this book

design, tailored for a presentation and curated for their

eyes. Now, I asked them to curate their design process to

design. I have explored manufacturing, user

Autumn: When I was diagnosed I was

shocked at the range of products available

If you would like to know more about a designer or a

project please refer to the directory later in this book. Feel

was finished.

fit in a few spreads, through text and images they explain

I have been exposed to many aspects of

WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THIS PROJECT?

need more or less explanation. The content drives the

reveal the ‘hidden’ thoughts and decisions in their projects. A client, visitor or reader most of the time only sees a final

be positively branded. During this course

pure coincidence. You may also notice that some projects are substantially longer, this because every project has different characteristics and key elements, that might

brainstorms, sketches, lists, drawings, tests, early renders and designs that normally would only be seen by

The VuSu Designed for you project “My masters in design has given started during Autumn’s product me the opportunity to fully design degree course when she was explore disability design and given an open brief to design. From user centred design.” being diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) in her first year of her degree she tried to find suitable products that could aid with the brief I chose to design a range of home condition. Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome ware products that would be practical for means that you are hyper flexible people with mobility disablements whilst in your joints the condition causes being positive items to own. damages by over stretching and dislocating joints. Ehlers-Danlos My Masters in Design has given me the Syndrome is part of a family of opportunity to fully explore disability design conditions that range in severity and user centred design. I have found that and are predominantly ‘invisible’. the products could be made to be useful for disabled and non-disabled people and

book. This I realized over the course of the project, but is

interrogating them, about their projects. I asked for

although is practical for most, is essential for

The VuSu product range has been

developed for mass production to reduce

unfinished work holds more potential and anticipation to

After a reflectional period I realised I that

materials and designs or in the enterprise

my designs were too personal and would

building completing extra workshops on

potentially be difficult for mass production.

design business.

This changed my process to user centred

WHAT STEPS DO YOU FOLLOW IN YOUR

design, where contact with others with

DESIGN PROCESS?

the condition and without has been

integral to the whole process. I started the

User centred design process has been

designs again from the users point of view,

a constant theme throughout the VuSu

collecting their opinions and experiences

project and has changed the way I work

to design for them.

as a designer. From my original brief

beauty of an unrefined design.

during my degree, I made myself the

During the project I have ran meetings and

user and tested products around my

focus groups where a selection of users

own capabilities. These tests involved

have tested the functionality, branding,

everyday movements within the home

functional forms using a 3D printer,

The Chef’n Potato Peeler (© Chef’n, Palm

for the Scrubbie, a hand-held

Peeler™) was a source of inspiration for

The development of the designs started as sketches, rough models and rapid prototypes. Once I had a range of

Sketching for me is the initial idea

generation, working and playing with

programs gives me more practical sense

whereas working through physical medias

and sketching is more creative and free.

within this project. Its purpose was to experiment with reusable packaging.

the material react with different chemicals?

As all the products are designed to solve

best in 3D, whether making rough models

the business industry and taught me many

the many new skills Autumn learned

important users are to the design process

Photo taken at a focus group meeting, to test the VuSu products.

and that they have many experiences that

can be influential to a design.

a daily task I had to go back to basics and

To conclude my project I organised a large

design the simplest method of holding,

ARE YOU COLLABORATING WITH

squeezing, pulling etc. These design

This meeting was very useful for me as

gaining feedback throughout the project.

succeeded and failed. The users surprised

During this project I knew I would need

my project and designs.

MA Graphic Design student’s client as

which has been inspiring and educational.

branding process. As I had only prototyped

contact base for testing my products and

Networking became hugely important

As well as being functional the range also

needed to be beautiful to the user group.

help from other students. I became the

throughout the project. From this course

Although I collected many opinions on

styling from my users I, as the designer had make them attractive the majority. It was

essential that the products communicated

packaging before I collaborated with

another Postgraduate Student, Lucia

My main collaboration has been with the

durability, elegance, usefulness and quality,

and conferences I was able to launch a

influenced by the branding of VuSu as this

conditions. This information became my

pulled them together.

Through sketching ideas for a logo I found out that I know too little

to form a design business. I continued with

Design and MA International Design

about branding to do it myself. This is why I got in-touch with MA Graphic

user centred design throughout the whole

Enterprise, to help me out.

process and saw the products as prototypes

design, Lucia being the creative and me

inspiration for the products and gave me

other subjects at the University I met a

testing materials. Through working with

professional injection moulder. This contact was very useful and became essential to

and what they needed and wanted.

my first batch of product.

contact with thousands of others with the

conditions, enabling me to ask them direct questions about my design choices and

Through my industry link I was able to

From using online support groups I was

enthusiasts. This group has taught me about

join HackSpace Lincoln, a social group

of professionals, entrepreneurs and

machinery and how to make stuff work!

able to go to a local meeting for people

Throughout the MA Design I have found

with the conditions. These meetings

Sketchbook with inspiration about useful functional existing products.

“I have explored many new skills during this project, including silicone moulding, ceramic casting, digital fabric printing, sublimation, paper making and injection moulding. These new skills, although not perfected, have inspired me to explore further into industry processes.

the success of VuSu. This contact taught me

about the industry and also manufactured

Through using Social Media I have had

stay motivated.

until my users were satisfied.

a indispensable collaboration.

We worked together on the packaging

nationwide survey to people with the

an understanding of the lives of my users

I hit many design hurdles along my journey

and found that by working with others in the

design field I could bring all aspects together

Working at Hackspace learning how machinery works and how products are getting manufactured, resulted in

3D printed, scilicon moulded and cly prototypes and tests for the VuSu branding and product range.

from MA International Design Enterprise.

users themselves. Through going to events

whilst also being fun and accessible. The

aesthetics of the products were greatly

the designer as it showed me where I had

me at the meeting with their enthusiasm to

they re-designed my logo and started the

many other people in the subject area,

to form the products into a collection and

focus-testing group with a range of people.

became my focus groups and were a great

MORE INDIVIDUAL?

in the making of VuSu and motivated me

I have met, worked and collaborated with

OTHER PEOPLE OR IS THE PROJECT

aspects made the overall product simple to produce and use.

Initial sketches for the Tippie product. A product that helps you drain pans.

WHAT NEW SKILLS DID YOU ACQUIRE WHILE DOING THIS PROJECT?

I have learned many new skills whilst also

understanding how naïve I was when I first

started this project. I now appreciate how

Is it easy to clean? Is it simple to put on and

or C.A.D visuals. I find that working in 3D

DO YOU REFER BACK TO YOUR

I started with A3 prints initially, but when

RESEARCH?

PROJECT:

Half way into the major project I went back

I printed A2 prints I found it difficult to

The Design Student Abroad

control the pressure and therefore the inks

to my brief and found it very motivating.

that flow through the screen. To get clean

It has been useful to revisit my plans and

solid colours you need to put even pressure

clarify what I needed to pursue.

This whole project has been about research, using processes and others experiences

to design right. Material research has been

especially important to me, as I wanted to

explore their applications. Silicone moulding

YUDAN (YUNA) DING

was a challenge however by researching

different methods and mixes I could explore

“Here I am able to travel through Europe, you don’t get that opportunity when you live in China.”

throughout VuSu as there was so much to

Various test pieces of fabric which is digitally printed with the VuSu pattern, to be used as a packaging and branding solution for the Scrubbie.

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED OVER

ALL OF THE PRODUCT DESIGN AND BUSINESS SIDE OF VUSU?

I have learned that although good product

design may be extremely difficult to

achieve, the journey is the most important.

I have explored many new skills during

I feel that the branding of VuSu still needs

this project, including silicone moulding,

more development, as there was confusion to

sublimation, papermaking and injection

design. The packaging concepts were made

perfected, have inspired me to explore

cleaning cloth or an accessory to the actual

ceramic casting, digital fabric printing,

moulding. These new skills, although not further into industry processes.

Through exploring different materials,

processes and people I have found that no matter what the end result knowledge is

the environmental aspect from the packaging

gathered and learned for the next product.

to have an after use, such as being used as a

designer cannot do all aspects of design

product. Due to this and the colours chosen

to bring a whole set of skills together.

most of the users thought the whole range

from the user testing meeting there are

option to make the branding based on two

before they are launched into market.

with eco-design.

provides me with lots of ideas.

WHERE DO YOU WORK BEST?

I spend my time between living in London and Lincoln. Sometimes I live in Lincoln

and sometimes I live in London. When I

am in London I often visit exhibitions such

“Screen printing was a precious experience and an interesting new way to develop illustrations.”

delicious chocolate and tea. I got the idea

WHAT STEPS DO YOU FOLLOW IN YOUR

why I collected the chocolate packaging.

I learned a great deal about screen-printing during those few weeks but I still lack some

my use of colour. I like to travel through

confidence with the process. This is mainly

favourite artists show their work, because

larger than A3 sized because of the scale.

Europe to visit locations where my

“Product design is trying to find the a balance between high quality, design, materials and manufacturing.”

express app, and turn them into posters.

and up to 10 hours there each day!

Additionally, I went to Amsterdam to visit

with your hand digitally. I draw with the Sketchbook Express app. I don’t use a

Travel Diary Log I collect and develop my

to completely finish my work. In one week

the Van Gogh Museum which inspired

DRAWING / MAKING NOTES?

For sketching I use my iPad most of the

time, because it is a very easy way to draw

laptop, a tablet is easier to carry and I use

I’d typically spend four days in the workshop

went to Milan for three days to visit The Expo.

HOW DO YOU USE SKETCHBOOKS /

the workshop in order to make my first print and had to book 3 weeks in the workshop

travelling from place-to-place are where I

gain most of my inspiration. For example,

I have visited the Saatchi gallery, and also

The three products that will be the start

with 17 prints where only 7 prints came out

I learned how to screen print a few weeks

ago. During the first week, I spent 40 hours in

Yudan: Galleries and exhibitions as well as

of the VuSu product range.

mixed extra colours during the process to get the exact colour that I wanted. This is

a long process to go through. I ended up

study in the library where I reflect upon my

inspiration. When I return to Lincoln, I often

WHERE DO YOU FIND INSPIRATION?

and business, but can network with others

This is hard to do on a bigger scale. I made all the colours for the prints. Sometimes I

mistakes and with others the separate layers were slightly misplaced. Those are things that are hard to control.

as the Tate Modern and Tate Britain for

visits to the galleries and exhibitions.

tones of colour to become less associated

still a few more developments to be done

China. I also find that visiting gallery shops

I have overall learned that a product

was environmentally conscious. There is the

Although the products got positive feedback

I don’t have that chance whilst living in

This project is a combination of illustration, product design and graphic design. Due to Yudan’s background in graphic design, Yudan chose to focus specifically on illustration that enabled her to take her work in new directions and approach graphic design with a different perspective. A diary is at the heart of Yudan’s project, which is used to record the transitions of a student in China to overseas life in the UK.

explore and now so much to prefect.

on the squeegee while screen-printing, you need to have power to get even results.

the way I wanted. Some prints had colour

the material. My research has been constant

“I have learned how people are different. I will never be able to design for everyone, but by designing for a particular user group the range will be useful and accessible for them.”

level as someone with the condition.

transferrable skills. Making your own seed-paper is one of

for the product to reduce costs? How can

I make the product durable with the least

remove? Is it affordable to manufacture?

Enterprise Course, which exposed me to

scourer to that shape to complete the task

disposable parts as possible? How does

ideas that may form into concepts. I work

feedback has been greatly useful to me

my MA Design I also completed the

wrap around your hand and still be

adjustable? How can it fit different shapes and sizes of hands? How can you attach a of washing up? Can I use standard parts

to check I am including what is needed.

as the designer and for me on a personal

great contacts within the university. During

during the first stages: How can something

mass manufacture.

further develop and make suitable for

These are some of the questions that arose

developed concepts I selected three to

I firstly write out lists of specifications

differed from those without the condition and so designed to suit all.

Autumn’s initial design work.

washing-up product.

aesthetics and packaging of VuSu. Their

washing up. I found that my movements

These are tests for prototyping

from squeezing bottles, turning taps and

because it is quite difficult to make a print

it to develop my initial sketches. In the

I travelled to Amsterdam and while I was there I met my landlady, she was really

inspiration. I sketch and make notes in it.

nice. The first day she treated me on very

Then I draw the sketches in the Sketchbook

and inspiration to make this illustration, that’s

DESIGN PROCESS?

When I am traveling I don’t take my iPad

so then I sketch by hand. And when I come

I make notes about my everyday life,

back I use my iPad to sketch and draw again.

gallery visits and travels in my Travel Diary Log. That is my main source of

inspiration. I take ideas and sketches out of that book, and draw them on my iPad

in the Sketchbook Express app and create a digital illustration of it. I draw digitally because it is easy to store my drawing,

change colour and brush sizes. The iPad is small to take with you, and not heavy as a laptop. The look of the illustration

almost looks like they are hand drawn with

“Here I am able to travel through Europe, you don’t get that opportunity when you live in China.”

markers, but they are actually digital. The inspiration and research for my

drawings come from my Travel Diary Log. The style I use is bright colours, cut out letters, pieces of paper and drawing to

make collages. My collages and illustrations are inspired by my everyday life in the UK,

that is why I draw myself in my illustrations. In France I ate this famous ice cream and

took a picture of it, as a reference. I created an illustration to capture the moment while I was traveling. The cherries are in the

illustration because cherry ice cream was

I noticed a lot of differences between the UK

their most famous flavour. In my illustration

and China, more things than just weather

I try to create little hints to link to the place

and transport. This also influences my work

of the illustration. One of my final prints is

for this project. In China I cook a traditional

not popular for young people. Karaoke is

is very different, so I created an illustration

meal for breakfast. But the English breakfast

the picnic illustration. In China picnicking is

about that difference. I cook food everyday

more popular for young people. I like to go

for myself, and go shopping. You even

to the park and sit at the river to picnic. The

see different vegetables here in the UK

prints and posters will be framed and the aim

Yudan’s workspace in her house. With

than in China. I started to like some British

is for them to become gallery shop products.

work on the wall as a mini exhibition.

This is one of the final prints that

traditional dishes like fish and chips. In my

Yudan made for her collection.

Travel Diary Log I collect various things form events that happen to me like holidays, places and restaurants that I visit. I take

pictures as a form of inspiration to create illustrations and patterns with.

UNO ART: Gallery products and prints of

Page photographed from Yudan’s

‘the design student abroad’ project.

logbook, showing her inspiration and design development.

YIPING (HELENA) YANG PROJECT:

Data pattern design

Yiping’s project is about creating patterns from data. It is brings new methods and applications to Yipings work and it is a new unexplored path within Yiping’s practice to explore and develop new forms of design.

Yiping: This project took me into a new

These two patterns are based on cancer data.

path in my design practice. First I focussed on hand drawn decorative illustration,

Yiping’s previous patterns were hand drawn and had a decorative purpose.

because that is something I like doing. Then because of this project I moved

This pattern is based on wind, the circles represent the

to show that it will have a decorative purpuse. But I want to go more into the direction of decorative fabrics.

zones of a clock to show what time the wind was strong.

becomes only visual.

looking at data around weather.

idea. Now, I focus on data visualization

and white so that I can easily scan them in and trace them over in Illustrator, which

and maybe even every minute so it is a big

infographic has, because an infographic is

At first, I was a bit hesitant to use extreme

floods. Focused on the treatment system of time and repetition.

In the final stage of my master degree,

by the data, but not directly visible in the

source of information. Weather is also fixed

makes digitizing the illustration a lot easier.

weather data because people that went

there to only convey information. I want to

I started to use extreme weather data,

patterns is mostly decorative meant to

it turned out that the data is easily accessed.

illustrations are easier to edit in size and

strong feeling about them. So I need to be

art, to create an emotional experience. The

hurricanes. The three patterns (on this

pattern anymore. The purpose of the data

Then scan them in to digitize them. Digital

on a location, on a certain date and time, and I use the Weather Underground website to

evoke emotion and recognition.

(Source www.wunderground.com)

First I used graphs and diagrams of obesity and cancer research to create patterns.

colour, this gives you more freedom to change things.

access up to date

data numbers, such

visualizations of the true data, which is

of ticking ‘YES / NO’ instructions. Choosing

their relatives feel uncomfortable seeing

Geometric data patterns will have a

changeable weather conditions result in the

example. Through the different answers

use this as a positive thing, if I apply this

I like the work of Casey Reas because his

I had the idea to develop the project further

different look and appeal than hand drawn

patterns with. In the design I use time order,

patterns, so their purpose can be different.

scale, colour, density and sometimes three dimensions instead of two. One pattern

Laser cutting patterns on wood to explore

reliable source to gather the data from,

hand drawn mark and shape represents a

something I will try as well, but right now I

the application of the patterns further is

is about rain and humidity, where each

it needs to be true, based on facts and

will focus on fabric.

different range of data. Inspiration for this

this was a big part of the research that I

First attempts of data visualization

conveyed. Sometimes I got stuck because

were with obesity data, based on the

the data that I needed was not accessible.

numbers of fat cells.

piece came from the patterns that raindrops

(Source www.reas.com)

design patterns and it gives and extra

for shapes and colour, sometimes I pick a

of ‘YES / NO’ patterns is an interpretation

at weather photo’s and type of weather,

images of weather disasters can evoke

are created by complicated software. He

actually experienced. For inspiration I look

organize the data in different time ranges

disasters as a source of inspiration. Visual strong feelings. The strong emotional

creates changeable patterns by using

a design like an infographic, that is why I

and create a design where every mark will

using extreme weather data and weather

work looks simple but

most of his pattern series

his understanding of coding and making

other places I have visited, from weather I

you get different kind of sequence patterns.

most interesting patterns.

The weather data is mainly from Lincoln and

and I don’t want to just copy it and create

‘yes’ creates a ‘/’ and ‘no’ will create ‘\’ for

to represent in the pattern. Days with

leave in water. Weather data is complicated

feeling will give a new dimension to the pattern and its application.

software. This is a different process to

“The purpose of this project is to design patterns that extreme weather data pattern to suitable evoke emotions and feelings products the money that is raised could be from non-emotional data and donated to help people that suffer from numbers.” this kind of pattern on products. I could

extreme weather conditions.

and turn it into a routine. These are the

struggles that these people deal with without

have. And from looking at trends and what is

then there is no acceptance and change

and fabric fairs, which are really important in

are fashionable and fit properly.

rather than positive process.

exhibitions to keep myself up-to-date.

and fashionable clothing. That is where my clothing for people with this condition that

“A change in your life can be good but if it doesn’t happen slowly it is hard to turn it into a routine.”

for their weight to stabilize so they can buy suitable clothing. There is no guarantee

they have difficulty reaching their sides and back. Dawn tested various

more choice and attention. Then my project

surgery, everyone’s body reacts differently

to these procedures. An intense surgery like

There are a lot of reasons that someone

time to adjust, so you need to give it that.

can be genetic as well. One of the big

this happens so rapidly that your body needs

is obese, its not just through fast food but

A change in your life can be good but if it

issues is the psychology behind it and I

doesn’t happen slowly it is hard to maintain

shifted more towards clothing and obesity.

believe that if somebody feels bad about

Bariatric: the branch of medicine that deals with the study and

out how to achieve something the clients

containing sketches, notes about assembling the garment, inspirational textures, fabric samples and photographs of sown garments.

portion of the small intestine so as to restrict food intake and reduce severe obesity. Gastric sleeve surgery: A bariatric

times, you can’t eat and drink at the same

surgical treatment in which a large portion of the stomach is removed

time and for the first few months your body

(2/3), leaving a 60–80-ml gastric

can only take fluids. This also means that in

tube. The greater curvature of

a small amount of time your body starts to

the stomach is removed during the procedure. The small residual

rapidly change. The loss of weight is really

stomach tube prevents overeating

rapid, so in terms of clothing what would you

by creating a feeling that the

wear, that is what I am looking into. As well

wants within the restrictions of their needs.

start of the acceptance of your own body.

Pages from Dawn’s sketchbook

caloric absorption in cases of

The stomach becomes very small, that means

preferred colours are mostly dark so that

the clothes don’t look too exposing. So for

Ultimately, I want them to take interest and

involves reducing the size of the

that you can only eat small portions at certain

digital printing.

because of their specific needs in terms of fastenings, fabrics and colours. The

At the moment I work with a group of obese people to look at what their needs are and

stomach and reconnecting the

sleeve surgery, they severely decrease the

of the solid shapes. The bright colours

suit the pattern and makes the bags look

fashionable. The fabrics were printed using

give me their thoughts, of me producing something slightly different than clothes from a magazine for example. And also

is a very sad thing.

smaller stomach to bypass the first

size of the stomach to trigger weight loss.

solutions with the data pattern printed on

it. The bags have a geometric feel because

There is still, for me, the issue to be able to

design what the client wants. The client will

are still a bit ashamed of their body, even if

they had a massive weight loss, which I think

me the design process becomes,to figure

really help give someone a boost and

surgery, like a stomach bypass or gastric

Here you see a few bags and packaging

and have today’s fabrics and patterns. So

size too big’ or ‘I wouldn’t want to wear tight clothes’ that accentuates any body shape.

become part of the design process.

a positive self-image, which can be the

Gastric stomach bypass: a surgical bypass operation that typically

When someone goes through weight loss

there is a need to keep up-to-date.

body should, in their eyes, look. Talking to

is not a good influence on trying to lose

that affects not only the body, but also

how that affects the person and looking at clothing for this group of people.

those who had had the surgery they were

saying things like: ‘I still only wear clothes a

yourself, and have a low self-esteem, then

weight. Well-cut and fitted clothing can

weight loss surgery. I am looking at how

“The patterns will be printed on fabric as their final purpose, because they are mostly decorative.”

The group of people I am looking at, like

everyone else still wants to be fashionable

so they can look at some of my designs.

psychological you don’t function and that

treatment of obesity.

as clinically obese and who might need

finding out what is out there. I have been to

up to their own expectation of how their

himself or herself then that’s not going

to help lose weight. If you feel bad about

Bariatric is a different name for obesity. It is a term used for those who are classed

available in fashion. I visit fashion trade shows

becomes harder and it becomes a battle

They still have those old habits. Inside they

that their body will stay slim only through a

fashionable solutions.

want to lose any weight, no matter what,

The issue is that some people never will live

So they end up with clothes that hang off

Bariatric people benefit from front

Inspiration comes from the conversations I

against your own body that does not

project comes in, I want to make accessible

they envision that through surgery they will though, but they don’t think it is worthy

fastenings in clothing, because

WHERE DO YOU FIND INSPIRATION?

With that acceptance comes the ability

to change. If you are constantly fighting

even worrying about nice fabric, colours

Most people suffering from obesity are

them and that don’t fit properly, waiting

products.

body shape and size.

buying clothes that are fit for them.

isn’t a lot of plus size fashion out there and

visualization as an art form.”

and the background (red), breaking up

the time flow. I turned the data patterns

looking at cheap clothing, initially, because

the final part I decided to focus on design

The red/blue pattern and green pattern on this page are also derived from data numbers that came from floods.

continuos pattern. With the green pattern I

In the blue and red pattern I used a

become slimmer. This process takes time

Dawn: Previously I have studied on a

into digitally printed fabrics and screen

In the blue pattern I mirrored the marks that represent the data, so that the marks seem to blend in the background. Creating a

destinction between the data shapes (blue) “Data art is data

as how could clothing become adaptable

WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THE PROJECT?

printed prints to turn them into fashionable

shapes represent the data.

a changable look. It looks like the pattern,

for people that go through rapid changes of

in my opinion this is a group that needs

the same system of time order, scale, colour and density. In these three the main focus

was on time. The colour and direction of the

A work in progress project that, is still very much in development, revolves around developing and creating adjustable and adaptable wear for people with unique body shapes. Who would need special garments to fit their needs. Specially considering fashion combined with a perfect fit.

for plus size women. Mainly because there

page, and the next) are created by data from floods. Extreme data brings more

inspiration to me. They are designed with

and therefore the time, repeats itself.

numbers. The emotions are linked to the data, but the data is not strongly visible ability to convey emotions than that an

Fashion design Bachelor degree where on

from disaster like tsunamis, storms and

used the same method. The marks constitue

The purpose of this project has been to design patterns which evoke emotions

and feelings from non-emotional data and

DAWN FROBISHER Adaptable and Adjustable Bariatric Garments

visual appeal of the design.

in the pattern. Visuals have a stronger

dimension to the final design. Reas series

PROJECT:

visible and less distraction to the actual

The question is if someone who suffered

from a weather disaster, would he or she or

contrasting colour or more abstract shape

be quite difficult, choosing the right kind of data was also important. You need a

way so the information becomes less

and what the final design will look like.

are mostly decorative. I am still exploring

other forms of application for the patterns.

So I started to create a system around

the theme and weather data to generate

Working with only numbers turned out to

data can be designed in a more abstract

very careful with how I design the patterns

Data pattern about rain and humidity, each mark represents a different range of data.

their final purpose, because the patterns

humidity, wind and wind speed.

essentially only numbers.

make the hidden data visible through data

through an experience like that can have

The patterns will be printed on fabric as

as time, location, temperature, dew point,

This did not work well because of the

complexity and the graphs are already

Data pattern derived from data from

I sketch on loose sheets of paper in black

Weather changes every day, every hour

as art, so the pattern is inspired and led

stronger the wind. The data is then arranged in the time

represent a specific range and the data

I also wanted a theme for to create data patterns around, that is when I started

more intricate patterns and patterns with meaning. This sounded as an interesting

Preview of the ﬁrst ±90 pages

This cup is an initial idea for the application of the design,

strongness of the wind the further out of the centre the

towards data pattern design, because I

got the suggestion to use data to create

stomach is full after a small meal.

I have looked at, how can I change the

fastenings so that they look fashionable,

by using different techniques and different methods. Obese people need adjusted fastenings because they are limited in

“Everyone has the right to wear clothes without feeling ashamed.”

WHAT STEPS DO YOU USUALLY

In normal clothes a lot of polyester is used,

FOLLOW IN YOUR DESIGN PROCESS?

adaptable. A collection that will cover a

built tremendously the past year. Confidence

the same garment can be adapted and

qualities like stretching and pleating.

so the fabric would preferably have an

pattern made from

garments. I think everyone has the right to

inexpensive cloth for fitting. Calico: A plain white cotton

WHAT TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES DO

cloth, also used for pattern

The goal for me is to achieve that for

making, heavier than muslin.

example decorative front fastenings are seen

is the name for both, firmlywoven cotton fabric, and a trial garment. The toile gives you the proportions and an idea of the finished product, so you can avoid making mistakes. Sometimes Dawn even glues in samples

and pattern of first ideas for garments. I

being measured.

different kind of patterns from the shapes

attention to a different part of the garment the neck will divert the attention from the

the sleeves are going to be fitted and with

colour in a positive way.

the piece is going to be manufactured, how

directions the project took. I started out

“Confidence is a valuable skill, you know your skills and knowledge but confidence is something you gain through experience.“

thinking I would work with plus size fashion, then it was suggested that I had a look at

people with disabilities as well. There I ran

into a blockage, that people with disabilities

wouldn’t talk to me and where hard to reach out to. I then managed to find the bariatric

fabric. Changes can still be made in the

service online and they were happy to talk

paper pattern stage, if that person wants to

to me, recognizing the possibilities. This

turned the project towards plus size fashion

to talk about fabrics, colours and prints.

again but in a much higher need than I

A spread out of Dawn’s sketchbook,

anticipated. I originally anticipated looking

showing tests with digital printing

at body shape and enhancing that body

of patterns on fabric. And how these

shape. I had not considered the adaptability

would inspire a new garment.

of clothing and importance of fastenings

The surrounding images are all

Photoshop sketches show initial ideas

at that stage. That now gave a whole new

showing adaptations of fabric to

on 2D mannequins to give the general

Dawn’s hand screen printed outdoor

interesting dimension to the project.

shape clothing. Through folds and

look and feel of the garment.

pleads, fastenings and elastic fabrics.

FELICITY SHUM

SO YOU STARTED DEFINING YOUR

BAGS WITHIN THIS PROJECT AS WELL?

fresh eyes and realise it is done - or maybe

It’s not always the way, but when I look

thing I made from this collection of designs

designing and start worrying; that’s when

at my work all the time I sometimes stop

I know I’m over working it! That is kind of

was a screen printed cushion with delicate

what happened with my WWII research;

hand embroidery; it was a gift to say thank

you. I work better when I’m making things for

I over- thought things and worried about

such as making work for an exhibition.

and learning from mistakes along the way.

making the work rather than just creating

others – either as a gift or for an audience,

AA2A scheme before working at the

university and I hoped to use this work as

approach it in another way.

I love to make ‘things’ from my prints – giving them a purpose to be designed. The first

WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THIS PROJECT?

Sewn testing folds and pleads to create a perfect fit for all bodyshapes.

another piece, then I might see it with

I enjoy designing and printing fabric; but I’m

Felicity: I did a residency as part of the

dressmaking service.

or developing it. But if I had some distance from it, hiding it away or working on

not always content with surface pattern alone.

The interview was conducted via email and in person.

sign for her business as a professional

PRACTICE ALREADY BY MAKING

CUSHIONS, A NEEDLE CASE AND LITTLE

Bright and colourful fabrics, prints, embroidery and little trinkets, are some of the results of Felicity’s project so far. A project revolving around making and design, that didn’t however go without struggle.

Making

challenge I have set myself.

and doing it for somebody else, who is

It was astounding when I started what

make any changes. And then we can start

PROJECT:

adjusted while losing (or gaining) weight. Clothing that grows and shrinks with the

person who is wearing it. That is the design

different fabrics, although you know you can

WHAT ELEMENTS WENT DIFFERENT THAN EXPECTED?

away a barrier that

surprisingly consists of people who have body shape difficulties, or they can’t find

clothes in normal shops because of their size.

rest of the body, this is a way to design with

what kind of stitching. As well as designing,

numbers tend to have.

a paper pattern. Then I can create the

along with other tools and equipment.

service. My current customer network

and body. A colourful printed collar around

drawing I am working out in my head how

perfect fit. It takes

garment from that, on the actual intended

Dawns workspace at home. It contains

alterations and custom-made dressmaking

in to subdue it as a decoration to direct

and colours from within the flower. As I am

can shape it around the body to make a

Yes, Dawn’s Dressmaking is a general

talking about bringing a piece of that colour

base some of the sketches on. Design

with numbers, you

YOU ALSO STARTED YOUR OWN BUSINESS, RIGHT?

it is not suitable for them. Then I end up

add in inspiration sources like flowers to

The numbers start to become really

disability and dress that actually transfers

and fabric qualities. Someone might say

and pinned into a pattern to transfer to

her sewing machine and mannequin,

willing to paying for the garment.

they want this colour, but end up realizing

The muslin or calico them will be marked

of texture, here it is a piece of bark that inspired her to do more sketching.

to people with obesity as well.

someone can’t find the right kind of pattern.

The Photoshop sketches show colour, shape

By using a toile method, you’re not dealing Toile: also known as muslin,

fashionable piece of clothing.

It is about mediating between the client and

worked-up about

a muslin pattern.

function properly on a person with obesity

and still full fill their needs as a flattering and

work with them it’s about getting in there

my knowledge around fabric, colour, pattern

important so it is easier to avoid that using

as a complement to the garment rather than a necessity to it. There is a balance to strike between the ability for a garment to fit and

work has been written about people with

needs, I realized, are the same. Where

range of different sizes and shapes, so that

is a valuable skill, you know your skills and knowledge but confidence is something

print for a fabric and getting it printed, if

I use hand drawn sketching and Photoshop, combining the two to plan the garments.

on clothing. Through that my confidence has

you gain through experience. Working with

it. Sometimes

someone can get

disabilities further, looking at that helped

me understand people that have extreme obesity better because some of their

Sometimes it is about designing a new

YOU USE IN YOUR PRACTICE?

than measuring

that provide clothing for plus sizes. And

early design stage and considering fabric

be antibacterial as well.

body using muslin or calico, rather Muslin: A dressmaker's

of clothing. So I am making notes about

fibres are more suitable for them. Cotton

set up a small sewing studio. There I

wear clothes without feeling ashamed.

further and develop a small collection of garments that are adjustable and

garments for people and doing alterations

although I have not taken working with

and bamboo are regularly used, bamboo

would create the pattern on the person’s

decorative appeal as well, so that they are

In the future, I aim to take the project

WHILE DOING THIS PROJECT?

On a daily basis I acquired new skills, making

fashion for this group and businesses

what fabric I am thinking of using in an

has a high absorption value and tends to

as a obstruction. I want to give them a

a positive and integral part to the design.

WHAT NEW SKILLS DID YOU ACQUIRE

2D pattern or sketch to a 3D fitted piece

absorption function which makes natural

Currently I work from home where I have

client who commissions a garment.

Changing the point of view towards special

behind obesity, fabric characteristics,

fastenings, what is available in today’s

that are obese tend to transpire more,

start of the design process, working with a

often need to be in the front, where they are easy to use. Most people see them

For research I looked at the psychology

So for me it is about how I am going to

make this. Transferring a garment from a

suffer from obesity, and they tell me what they want and would desire. That is the

problems and they can’t reach well

behind their backs or sides. So fastenings

I do see myself more as a manufacturer.

which is not a natural fibre so it is not a

very breathable fabric. However people

I spend some time talking to people that

their movement, and often have dexterity

I really benefit from having to declare

the basis for my research when starting

something as ‘finished’ by giving it as a gift

A piece of print design that responded

the MA. My AA2A project was about the

or exhibiting it in a show. Sometimes I can

to the themes of WWII.

‘rose tinted’, nostalgic and sometimes

over think or overwork things; if I have a

naïve view of the war periods when used

piece of work on my desk it is easy to think

in design. I wanted to make a point of this

it is not quite done and keep embellishing

with my AA2A project, whilst highlighting some of the more realistic, awful aspects

of the time. I have an interest in the history

I felt so overwhelmed, like I needed to do

of the World Wars; but have very limited

informed research with weight to it - and

research these important periods in history

felt like there was so much to learn and

knowledge of the events. I hoped to

it turned out the topic was too ‘heavy’. I

and use the knowledge as a basis for my

read about the history, that I couldn’t

MA design work. I was concerned about

absorb enough in the time and be able

making anything nostalgic or ‘twee’ – so

to do design work too. The topic is really

sensitive and informed work. Or perhaps

it made me melancholy.

I was keen to learn more to try and make

interesting but also grim, raw and horrific –

create work that was inspired by this time but transformed into designs that are

that wasn’t right for me. I wanted to make

THROUGH THIS PROJECT? THE TITLE OF

based on unless directly informed.

relate to… I felt a huge sense of relief

A MAKER MORE.

at the pattern and not know what it was

and the trajectory of my work changed

making marks, if I’m screen printing then

applied in a variety of ways. A huge turning

my fabrics into an object or product then

– something I had been struggling with

previously. I was excited but daunted by

the gallery space at The Collection; but I chose to curate the show before making

any work because seeing the space helped me visualise what I wanted to create to use

I’m embellishing fabric and if I’m turning

the space effectively. I designed how my

exhibition would look as a whole before I

I’m definitely ‘making’! For me, design and

point for me was when I realised that I wished

together into bobbins, gifts bags and

knew what the work itself would look like.

making are so entwined; I don’t think I

to do my research ‘in or through’ design.

a needle case.

The Collection, but a very tight deadline

– if I’m drawing or designing then I’m

design module made me realise that

‘research’ could be so many things and

This is a selection of elements that

meant that I had to just ‘get on with it’! It

I suppose I think of all what I do as ‘making’

completely. The research and enterprise

Felicity made as ‘little projects’.

encouraged me to draw, print and make

THE PROJECT IS SAYING THAT YOU ARE

work that reflected who I am, that I could

Screen printed, sewn and stitched

I was given the opportunity to exhibit at

IS IT THAT YOU WANT TO FIND OUT IF YOU ARE A DESIGNER OR A MAKER,

I realised that I was attempting a project

seemingly unrelated – so you could look

could do one without the other.

From then the project changed.

This pillow was made as a thank you gift, which gave it a purpose to be made.

WHERE DO YOU WORK BEST?

DO YOU REFER BACK TO YOUR

HOW WILL YOU DEVELOP THE PROJECT

RESEARCH? IF YES HOW OFTEN? / IF

The print workshop – because I love to

print! However, being a technician means

using the room as a print maker. And also

HOW DO YOU USE SKETCHBOOKS /

my living room floor – I’ve got a tiny space

ARE YOU MORE OF A LIST MAKER OF

of a couple of smaller ‘projects’. The idea

IN THE NEXT STAGE?

behind this approach is to encourage

NOT IS YOUR DESIGN PROCESS MORE

I sometimes struggle to explain my

me to explore and experiment. To work

I enjoy researching ‘in or through design’

the opportunity to do a series of ‘projects’

the boundaries of what I do. I hope that

BASED ON YOUR INTUITION?

that I often find it hard to switch off from my job at the end of the day and start

creative practice; so I would like to take

and this is most beneficial and influential

outside my ‘comfort zone’ and push

during my major practical project. This will

to my practice. As well as researching

by investigating different content and

allow me to explore a range of different

exploring processes, I will be able to refine

under the stairs where my desk and sewing

DRAWING / MAKING NOTES?

DO YOU DRAW MORE?

books and journals, I love to visit shows,

processes, test materials and work towards

so I often sit cross-legged on the floor

sometimes fear the moment when you have

‘making’ that I can’t think about how I

these are often more influential in how I

deadlines, although each project will not

WHAT TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES DO

back and work on later. The first thing I put

my guess:

things influence me more naturally, for

Some projects will be over longer periods

AUDIENCE)

Textile design. Surface Design. Making. Tools

nice to not start at the beginning so I can go

Drawing and developing designs 14%

designer said to me is more important

things, and other projects may be very

processes, testing materials and working

machine are, but it isn’t quite big enough

I spend so much of my time printing and

I love getting a new sketchbook, but

whilst planning what I’m going to make!

divide my time without thinking about

to make the first mark in it – the pressure!

these two. It is so hard to know, but here’s

I often leave a page or two blank, to come

YOU USE IN YOUR PRACTICE?

in a sketchbook is never my best work so it’s back and do something ‘better’ on the first

and equipment: pens and paper, Adobe

often prefer to work on thin strips of loose

embroidery (hand and free machine).

paper etc.) or a square format sketchbook.

paper, found papers (old note paper, graph

design development, screen printing,

When I create I often draw, develop

lists, plans in. I keep my drawings and

natural for Felicity as a designer maker and print technician.

designs and repeat patterns before screen

design development together. And I think it

printing (especially onto fabric) and adding

is good to have a notebook to keep a log of

as hand embroidery. I love to design and

out patterns, sizes, materials to use etc.

print textiles; but I am not always content

Through exploring a range of different

short – perhaps with only a day or two to

towards different outcomes I hope to

make the work. As the projects will be of

develop and define my practice. Hopefully,

researching places and shows, but also

varying length – the content and outcome

this will in turn enable me to speak more

make the things we make. My research is

have numerous outcomes or be made up

statement about my practice.

why we, as creatives, feel compelled to

will vary dramatically. Longer projects may

eloquently about my work and develop a

that way I work more intuitively.

LOOKING BACK ON THIS STAGE, WHAT WENT WELL IN THE PROJECT?

I am so happy that I was offered the

opportunity to exhibit at The Collection. It

my ‘making’ – so this is often where I figure

embellishment through techniques such

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE

PROJECT? (FOR YOURSELF OR YOUR

of time, so I may be working on numerous

not what inspires the ‘topic’ of my work – in

the final goal and she will achieve this through her design.“

little notebook to scribble ideas, thoughts,

Working in the print workshop comes

and the context that I am working in.

be allocated the same amount of time to encourage me to work in different ways.

than reading a lot of books which may not

I like to keep thing separate, so often have a “Making for Felicity is

WHAT STEPS DO YOU USUALLY

FOLLOW IN YOUR DESIGN PROCESS?

work. I don’t often directly refer back to my research – I think it is important that

directly resonate with my practice. I enjoy

screen printing 60%

embroidery and making 22%

my work and define what my practice is

different outcomes. I will decide on fixed

example being inspired by something a

List making 4%

page! I don’t really like standard A sizes; so

Photoshop and Illustrator, screens, squeegee and print table. Techniques: Drawing and

exhibitions and designer-maker fairs and

spurred me into action and gave me focus; I now feel confident and excited about the next phase of my project.

with surface pattern alone… I like to have an end use for the fabrics; giving them

Page taken out of Felicity’s logbook, to show how concise

purpose to be designed.

WHAT ELEMENTS WENT DIFFERENT

Felicity’s note-making is.

THAN EXPECTED?

IS YOUR DESIGN PROCESS MORE

I didn’t anticipate how much I’d struggle at

ANALOGUE OR DIGITAL?

the beginning of the project, but without

I am a little old fashioned, often preferring to use an analogue method to a digital

stitching a label, or the details that others

one – and this influences how I work. I love receiving letters in the post, how clunky a

turns the printed fabric into objects

typewriter feels and secretly enjoy queuing of my personality that likes the physicality

Felicity’s logbook contains writing along with a lot of ink, fabric and

IMAGE CAPTION?

onto fabric, but a way of exploring and

paper samples and tests.

I love receiving letters in the post, how

progressing my designs.

and get the designs separated into layers

my creative practice and how my project

work – it isn’t just a way of getting my idea

tidy up my designs, put them into repeat (so much quicker than doing it by hand!)

satisfaction of drafting a pattern and hand

will evolve next.

printing enhances the development of my

I use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to

of ‘things’. I enjoy mixing ink and the feel

developed in the way it has. Making work

development. Once my designs are on a screen, I work intuitively, experimenting with colours and layout . For me screen

but I don’t abstain from using digital ones.

of pulling dye through a silk screen, the

for my exhibition really helped me focus on

print; I use the process as part of my

Lots of what I do uses analogue processes,

and products.

up in the post office! I think it is this part

this experience my project wouldn’t have

ready for screen printing. I love to screen

may not even register.

Felicity’s sewing machine, where she

clunky a typewriter feels and secretly enjoy queuing up in the post office!

WHERE DO YOU FIND INSPIRATION?

invited artists to use interesting vessels

(NATURE) SEEM TO REOCCUR, DO THEY