SEMESTER 4 shivani singh graphic design
4
Science and Liberal Arts - Visual Language
8
Open Elective - Moving Spotlight
18
Sciece and Liberal Arts - Introduction to Theatre
24
Convocation, RGB and Typography day
34
of 4 Basics Graphic Design
10 Typography II and 20 Printing Binding
26 Colour and Form
4 Another semester, another crazy ride of new courses and assignements. So it began with bgd. Honestly, I had no idea what this course had in store for me. It was something completely new and alien to us. But in retrospective, at the end of two weeks, what i achieved was an understanding of the scope of the simplicity of black and white forms. The power of a line, a shape, a letter. First assignment: Write a short story and depict it’s character using lines in a 10cm by 10cm frame.The idea was to retain the property of lines as much as possible without allowing it to take on the characteristics of form as such. My story had much to do with a child’s perception of shells. I explored a couple of variations and pinned down on the ones to the right.
Basics of Graphic Design course faculty: Anil Sinha
Second Assignment: Take any basic shape and create a new form by either peeling the or folding it, layer by layer in a logical manner in a 10cm by 10cm frame. After some explorations, we modified the edges and corners of the form without much distortion to the original one to enhance the visual. We also tried to incorporated associative words with the visual. A simple shape began to evolve into greater forms, and abstraction grew meanings of its own.
6 Third Assingnment: Integrate the initials of your name to create a balanced, simple and visually appealing form . This was a bit challenging, and I found myself stuck at several instances at the incapability of integrating the letter ‘s’ with ‘s’. After many explorations and a lot of help from our faculty, I finally found myself a well blended unique form.
Fourth Assignment: Choose a word and represent it in black and white as a well blended and simplistic depiction. The word I chose, after much confusion was yellow. There was the obvious challenge of depicting in black and white but I liked it’s connotations and associations a lot so I stuck by it. After weighing out possibilities I decided to associate it with spring and sunshine out of other things because that was acceptably the most universal and immediate interpretation of the word. I then decided on keeping the nature of the form spherical and integrating the bee into the flower for an interesting visual. I further explored variations and came to the final form.
8
Science and Liberal Arts - Visual Language course faculty: Debashish
Like all SLA courses, Visual language was insightful and new. We focused on three eras in art history, namely surrealism, impressionism and baroque. We broke into groups. By the little I knew about surrealism from our history course, I was keen on researching more about it. Simply because of how absurd it seems to be. And why shouldn’t it be; all kinds of psycological breakthrough studies were taking place, and humankind just stumbled upon the possibilities of the unconscious mind and so on. So we made a presentation on the first day to introduce the whole idea of what that period in history was all about, in an all round perspective, from politics to sports and culture. There was a lot of Dali, Magritte and Freud. We went on toshare a review on a movie of that particular era (un chein andalou in our case).
Lastly, we studied a piece of literature of that era. We got an extract from the ‘Library of Babel’ by Jorge Luis. We were to visualize a screenplay for it, design a poster to promote the performance and make a moodboard to convey the feel of it. But we were to do it in the style of the surrealists. After much brainstorming, and explorations, we split and did the work. The keywords we worked by bradly were infinity, dark greens, dim lights, space, hexagons, books and stairs .The presentation was quite a success. The poster was specifically liked because we came up with this absurd idea of a live poster. The idea was to convey the feel of infinity by using the concept of a loop; The screenplay and moodboard also complimented the piece of text in nature.
10 First Assignment We started off by introducing ourselves to nidhi, our faculty on an a4 size sheet in black and white. It was a bit of figuring ourselves out visually, in terms of our associations with handwritings and grey values, layouts and sizes. I enjoyed doing this, since I am fond of writing, and it involved a lot of freedom expressing yourself. Everybody’s collective outcome was very interesting and varied, quite like ourselves. We then digitized these sheets to find typefaces on the web that looked like our handwritten text. It was quite exciting to bump into typefeces that resembled our handwriting. I used one called king cool for my composition on the right.It was also a bit of a quest looking for the right ampersand.
Typography II course faculty: Tarundeep Girdher and Nidhi Sah
12 Third Assignment This was on a slightly lighter note. We had to compose the names of two faculty members on an a4 sheet each to bring out their personalities as people see them.The restraint was that we could not meet them in person. It was meant as a name tag for their individual chai cups apparently, but we couldn’t quite take it unto the implementation. Either way, the whole process of brainstorming keywords and matching forms of the alphabet to people was quite a revelation. I pinned down to the typefaces riesling for Anil Sinha and american typewriter for Ujawane. The composition for Anil’s was such that it appears as a signature because he is known for his work. The logotype look and cohesiveness furthur enhances his job. Ujawane required a more conventional look and old school feel, hence typewriter at top centre. Also i gave it a grey tone to match his character.
ujawane
ani l sinha
Fourth Assignment The next and last one was specific to everybody. I had to design the book cover for a book called ‘Divine Art’. The original book cover was very catchy, bright and kitsch, quite unlike the contents of the book. So as i saw it, I needed to re design the cover to aptly convey its contents. The initial explorations seemed quite passe, but after a couple of days i managed to come up with something i was quite convinced of. I used typographic dingbat elements to enhance the look, and replaced the kitsch pink to a royal wine and plum. The final book cover is a full spread on the next page What i really took from this assignment though, was about designing the back of a book. I learnt that justification can ruin a blurb, barcodes need to be composed too and the spine is what really sets a book apart on a shelf.
&
14
Dr. Shashibala’s
Religions of the world have inspired divine art forms, embracing the deepest insights and highest aspirations of mankind. This book charts the origin and evolution of these divine art forms and aims to understand the deeper spiritual psychology of human beings inspired by divinity. Begining with the worship of nature, divine art inspired forms as writing, music, dance, drama, painting, sculpture and architecture. Some early manifestations of divine art included the illustrations of religious lore, epics and ballads on papyrus, palm fronds and parchment. Divine art also inspired dance forms such as the tsam and the noh. Architecture too reached it’s highest forms of magnificance as man tried to invoke and appease the gods.
Roli Books
Lustre Press
In this age of materialism and consumerism, divine art not only instills in us feelings of love and compassion but also helps us transcend our suffering. This book comes as a source of hope and elucidation that divinity holds us together.
DIVINE
ORIGIN &
EVOLUTION
16 Fifth Assignment Choose a typeface to study as a parallel assignment. The analogy that Tarun gave was a funny incentive. He arranged the task as a marriage bureau where we were all assigned a personality each to learn about and then introduce to the entire class. So after the three weeks of periodic presentations and other assignments we finally had a hard copy eight inch by eight inch booklet each of our typeface. the great learning i think was about sensitizing ourselves to the entire business of type design. The complexities it involves, the time periods it caters to and the number of people it takes to design it. The foundries, the purpose, the variations, the numerals and so on. I loved this assignment and within a couple of weeks, I began to feel really attached to my typeface, Fedra(especially after i found it on my boarding pass on my way back home at two am in the airport!) I began to find it around and jump with joy; so much that I began associating traits of myself with the letters of its alphabet. It’s a booklet I am very fond of. These are snapshots of the document.
{ } TYPOGRAPHY needs to be
AUDIBLE
TYPOGRAPHY needs to be felt
TYPOGRAPHY needs to be experienced
-HELMUT SCHMIDT
We concluded by making postcards and posters of typographical quotes as promotional material for our display. So after four constructive weeks of typography, I feel, that more than anything, I stumbled upon a type-world larger than that i was aware of. A complete universe of its own, with ownership issues, passionate protagonists, critics, enthusiasits, and everything inclusive. It’s been a journey, that has made me concious and sensitive to the value of every piece of text and its context. And I would particularly like to thank Tarun for sharing with us his incredible collection of books, fonts and everything else typography. It’s a treasure I really cherish and hope to make good use of.
18
Open Elective - Moving Spotlight course faculty: Hrishikesh Pawar
One of my favourite courses this semester, observed by a moving spotlight was an incredible experience. Hrishikesh Pawar just swooped in with all this tremendous energy and sweeped us off completely. It would start with ballet and end with bollywood, kathak one day and contemporary another. And although we reached our rooms with aching limbs and muscle pains only by eight in the evening, it was every minute worth it. In retrospective i cannot believe it was only two weeks because it was every second worth it We’d watch movies, discuss philosophy, exchange experiences, and what not, in those cracks of time between dance. Everyday was a new recipe. We’d beat boxing a tribal improvisation on congo one day, and dance to lady gaga another. It was also great to interact with a fresh bunch of people who shared the same kind of love for dance.
So we prepared a lohri performance, and other littlle gigs. But what we put together as a finale was a contemporary performance all set for an audience.What was especially amazing about this dance was that we all shared a chunk of ourselves in it; and that is what brought it alive. We incorporated incidents and stories of our own past into it and wove together ‘ My Clay Mould’. What I really take back from this course is a couple of realizations; it undoubtedly got me acquainted with the potential of dance as such a strong medium of expression; but besides that, Hrishikesh’s stories about human relationships and life, got me thinking; about how, more than anything else, all we are really trying to do every single day, is find a little bit of ourselves; in people around us, in things that inspire us and so on. and so we’ve got to be open and accpeting, to be able to learn and piece ourselves bit by bit.
Printing and Binding
Printing was a primarily theoretical course. Our field trip, offset lab interaction and calendar designing, though, gave us quite an insight into the practice of mass convnetional printing as well.
¥
gZ f P G
U
Q
After the first week, we all designed a calendar together that used different methods of printing so we could get a hands on idea about various processes. (screen, letterpress and offset). The back cover, that i designed along with amardeep, is on the following page. It is printed using the letterpess technique.
� ��
q
It was necessary to become aware of what techniques of printing are used where. From our T-shirts to our plastic bags, packagings and posters. Bharat bhai shared a lot of examples and samples with us so we could get a better idea of the whole thing. The engineering and evolution behind all kinds of conventional printing are finally clearer to me and I feel more confident about designing for something in print.
course faculty: Tridha Gajjar and Bharat Suthar
c
20
MARCH APRIL MAY JUNE JULY AUGUST SEPTEMBER OCTOBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER JANUARY FEBRUARY
This calendar is a printing experiment carried out by the 2nd year graphic design students. The front page is screen printed while the other pages are printed using the digital offset technique. Various methods of illustration from photography to clay, hand drawing to digital artwork have been used to depict the events of NID through the year. This page is printed using the letterpress technique.
22 We went to ‘Art o Print’ for a visit where we were introduced to various kinds of offset machines. Some of them were 4 colour machines while there were others with additional units for spot colours, UV coating, etc. We also saw machines for folding, cutting and pasting. There were bigger machines for die-cutting as well. It was an interesting experience to see the whole procedure of a job going through print right upto the final product. We managed to get some samples as well. Since we had already been taught the theory about the machines and the various processes, the visit led to a better understanding and learning of it all. We also visited the factory where corrugated sheets and cartons are made. Sheets were crimpled, pasted, cut, creased, stapled and made into finished cartons.
We concluded the last week with binding. This was very exciting and with the help of patel bhai and in company of his humour, we all succesfully had four self bound books to keep and use. We got acquainted with the binding equipments and terms, like padding, tapping, bone folders, the compressor, the flexo machine, and so on. We were also introduced to the very interesting concept of imposition and taught how a 23’ by 36’ sheet of paper fold out to 1/8th of it’s size for a4 size printings after which the cutting machine gets rid of the folds. And hence a designer has to keep in mind these technicalities to be able to aptly arrange the pages of a book before sending it for mass production. And finally we documented the entire course into a booklet for future reference.
24
Science and Liberal Arts - Introduction to Theatre course faculty: Arshia Sattar
For me, this was nothing like anything before. Fourty hours, Twenty odd people, One script. And a blur of events. But without a doubt in our minds and under the liberal dictatorship of Arshia, we all split into our roles and tasks. After a lazy afternoon discussion, and a sheet of pros and cons, us ‘production crew’ people broadly pinned down on location, stage, props and costumes. Meanwhile, the script and actors made themselves comfortable, and that evening followed a rather passionate debate about the contemporary adaptation of the play. A democratic vote out put a simple end to that and we all went back to our expert zones. I teamed up with Anvesha to work on costumes, my lazy brain thinking, ‘oh how hard could that be’ but hell no, how wrong i was, and thank god for that.
Promotions began, lights and sounds started their affairs, and the whole thing started to come together, just like that. Everybody was quite thrilled with themselves and silently surprised i should say, quietly patting their own backs without the time to look back and wonder how it all happened. And there’s more i can go on about, but i shall conclude by simply being glad for it all, the sleepless nights, the stressful day, the arguments, criticisms, opinions, expectations; And more than anything, this course has helped me make mistakes, go ahead and do what I don’t usually, and understand what working in a group means more than ever before; that everyone’s really got to see the whole thing as their own baby as opposed to nobody’s baby, and really dive into it heart and soul, to come up with what you can call a successful production.
26
Colour and Form
course faculty: Tridha Gajjar
I’ve always been in love with this course. Semester after semester we seem to delve into these fantastical things about colour. It started off as hands on paint and paper, scales and wheels and has evolved into more contextual application, digital swatches and cultural meanings. First Assignment Choose a colour, research its cultural connotations and make a presentation for the same. I picked violet, for everything about it that i adore. It was interesting, coming across it’s paradoxical meanings, psychological connotations, it’s uses, origin, perception and natural occurrences. More than that, I got to learna great deal out of everybody else’s presentations ; The stories woven around the etymologies, the scientific explanations to natural existence, why sadhus wear orange, or the reason flamingoes are pink. We seem to understand and read color unconsiously because we live in a world of its cultural connotaions, but what is really intriguing about the use of colour is how intuitive it really is. And that’s what I got out of this course. Inspite of that, I feel slightly more capable of making an informed decision about using color in the right context.
Second Assignment Choose five logos to study, in terms of their color and form. I chose four companies that have changed their identity recently so I could compare and rationalize the redesign. I learnt how an audience really reacts to a change to established logos and how in the case of something as established as carrefour, a change needs to be as subtle as the flair of the serif, and that anything more dramatic could be unnecessary and a possible setback. Whereas, for something like Bajaj Auto, the change was to communicate the change the company was itself going through, for changing times and so on. Through the other presentations, a lot of questions that I previously had about various ubiquitous logos were answered like that of the of Starbucks character and the knit knot of United Colours of Benetton.
28 Third Assignment Make an infographic to depict your activities and moods on a particular day (9th march 2012) on an a3 size sheet. It was our first window to the world of infographics so it goes without saying we all felt a little lost at first, but with a little google inspiration and references, it seemed to get quite exciting. I started by brainstorming on how to metaphorise a day at nid. I thought of calendars and dates, clocks and hourglasses. Finally pinning down on the internal working of my biological clock, I managed to come up with something I was pleased with. I tried colours variations, with the gears and the background, and concluded with the visual to the right. The major learning was about concising your information and giving an apt kind of heirarchy to the it so that a viewer is at ease while looking for the information he/she requires.
30 Fourth Assingnment Make an inforgraphic to compare different kinds of a particular product. Example: Types of coffee. This was another mind boggling one. It took me more time to decide on what product to compare than to make the visual. I went from mango products, to milk desserts, from cigarettes and hukkas to inks and pigments, till I finally almost gave up since none of the options were really exciting me. And then it struck me, to do flush systems. The brilliance in its mechanism often goes unnoticed and its something we deal with very regularly, so I thought why not. I started to research, and found out multiple kinds of flush systems, some that I had not even heard about. I narrowed down the criteria for comparison, to noise levels water effieciency and ease of use, and made the following visual.
32 Fifth Assignment Choose an emotion and use a metaphor to represent it as a form on an a3 size sheet. The emotion I worked with was envy. After a thourough research on its meanings, etymologies and cultural contexts, and mythological associations, I started to explore on the lines of some quote and stories I read. I was quite inspired by this one quote about how envy is the sin nobody confesses; So I began to explore on masks and hidden intentions. I went on to list out everything that can be associated with the word envy. So I had material but after no real visual progress. Then the metaphor of neembu mirchi struck me one evening. I sketched a couple of ideas and these are the final forms I came up with. The concept was a green eyed creature eyeing the good fortune of another. This assignment was relatively taxing on the grey cells and everybody seemed to face a bit of a challenge but it was worth the learning.
34
RGB, Convocation and Typography Day 2012
And well, no semester is complete without the perks of fests and trips. To sum up, this semester was largely about small exciting events squashed between lengthy important courses. That worked beautifully because we always had something to look foward to. To start with, convocation. It is all about graphic design getting together to put up somethng great so it’s worth keeping year long. After tossing some ideas, we got to making painted cubes and hanging up our work in a simple yet effective manner. RGB was an experience. I started out by joining the workshops team, calling up people, arranging their modules and so on. Went on to work on a promotional video side by side. Jyothi and I got couple of hundred RGB logos printed and scribbled on by the community; Scanned them in and compiled them in quick succession to sync to beats. Because of the process, it was partially promotional in its implementation stage as well. It was fun for us of course, but the idea was to make everybody who scribbled feel like a part of the video too.
Then there was typography day. I felt that here, there was a lot to learnt out of the off stage debates and discussions and questions. The talks were ofcourse very involving and some of the topics really intrigued me. Though most of it revolved around multi lingual type design, and that was relatively new to us. I began to understand slightly more intricate things about devnagri type design. I was also very inspired by the younger graduates on the podium presenting their work. Like the new kurux script design and the project on ambigrams and palindromes. I was amused by the whole book making presentation and another talk about the outlook magazine design was one I will not forget soon. The workshop on calligraphy I attended, taken by Achyut Pallav, was also good fun and helped me realize the scope of calligraphy commercially. All in all, it was an insightful experience.
36
Typefaces used: Frutiger & Whitney Light