Natasha Kosak Collide 2015/16
Brief: Project synopsis This module enables you to develop the integrated design methodologies required to work in a dynamic, professional, creative and commercial environment. This project demands that you channel your intellectual and creative skills, through exploration and self-directed progression that demonstrates your ability and independence, as well as in-depth knowledge and understanding of aesthetic, environmental, marketing and technical requirements of design for the creative industries. Emphasis is placed upon the ability to achieve high-level flexible thinking approaches in the pursuit of creative solutions. Expectations are further challenged for the design outcomes and artefacts to achieve group coherence for exhibition purposes. Project/Assessment requirements: The assignment will incorporate a range of stringent professional requirements, involving personal and project management, detailed research, creativity and originality, as well as a high level of technical expertise and portfolio promotion. Project/Assessment Task: Brief: Collide Individual Task = create both physical and digital outcomes in response to the three themes explored. • Explore and evaluate the creative propositions beyond the parameters of your chosen project • Produce outcomes that respond effectively and coherently and meet your projects initial Source
aims and objectives • Resolve technical and aesthetic problems utilising and practising a variety of working methods • Present and communicate developmental work and outcomes in a manner appropriate to your discipline and to high professional standard Collaborate = create artefacts and curate an exhibition of work to launch the Collide Event Exhibition outcomes for screen based media as well as physical installation pieces R&D = Blog - should include research, methodologies, experimentation, prototyping, synopsis and strategies. Consider, explore and mash-up the three themes; Happiness/ the Internet/ Your Future Self; Sagmeister urges us not to convey happiness but to ‘evoke happiness’. Coupland misses his pre-internet brain – should we embrace this ‘inevitability’? The future – the virtual or reality – will we fake it, or keep it real? Ten years from now...what will you be doing? ‘Collide’ requires you to appropriate and converge a variety of mediums for exhibition at the Collide Event: Graphic Design Posters, Fanzines, Book, Magazine, E-zine, Manifesto, Marketing Strategy, Direct Mail, Advertising Campaign, Advertisements, Copy, Photography, Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, You Tube, Vimeo, Vine, etc...). 3D artefacts, installations, events and experiences.
Aims: Undertake creative and ambitious research beyond the parameters of each theme Develop a brief that transcends commerce and commodity acquisition Examine the conceptual and aesthetic potential of digital convergence and the future self Innovate, explore and expand technical and personal parameters. Create a contemporary portfolio piece for personal promotion and a curated exhibition. Show your ingenuity – be unique - make it memorable Requirements: A portfolio of designs involving a high degree of creative and technical skill and justification, in which there is a clear reasoned and personal response to the requirements of the brief. Background material in the form of research and concept development will be of a high standard and will clearly support the final outcome. Each assignment will incorporate a high degree of finish and presentation, with all aspects of the brief taken into account.
Brain storm ideas: Consider, explore and mash-up the three themes; Happiness/ the Internet/ Your Future Self; Sagmeister urges us not to convey happiness but to ‘evoke happiness’. Coupland misses his pre-internet brain – should we embrace this ‘inevitability’? The future – the virtual or reality – will we fake it, or keep it real? Ten years from now...what will you be doing? ‘Collide’ requires you to appropriate and converge a variety of mediums for exhibition at the Collide Event: Graphic Design Posters, Fanzines, Book, Magazine, E-zine, Manifesto, Marketing Strategy, Direct Mail, Advertising Campaign, Advertisements, Copy, Photography, Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, You Tube, Vimeo, Vine, etc...). 3D artefacts, installations, events and experiences.
- How does happiness, involve my future self? - Where do I want to be in 10 years time? Happy - what will make me happy? Marrige, children, a job, a home? - How does the internet make me happy? Would I live a more or less happier life without the internet? Were peoples lives happier in the past, without the intenet? Communicatiom with loved ones over skpye make me happy. What could I feel if I couldn’t have this communication? - Sagmeister urges us not to convey happiness but to ‘evoke happiness’. what does this mean exactly? - Ten years from now...what will I be doing? What do I want to create? - book - animation - zine - posters? AVOID - social media campaign. - 3D artefact - what could this be? - infographic? - instillation - what could this be?
Start by drawing on paper Make stuff and develop prototypes Film the process This helps you make informed decisions Broadens the project scope Allows the ideas to come first Leads to new workflows Collaborate! Glossary of terms Methodology The science of method, or a body of methods, employed in a particular activity such as the research aspects of a project. Secondary Research Established or existing research already undertaken in the field and used to support the designer’s own research.  Primary Research The raw materials, which a designer directly works with in relation to research. Primary research approaches might include audience interviews, direct testing of potential visual solutions.
The Happy Show by Stefan Sagmeister.
‘Filling the Institute of Contemporary Art’s (ICA) entire second-floor galleries and ramp, and activating the in-between spaces of the museum, The Happy Show offers visitors the experience of walking into Stefan Sagmeister’s mind as he attempts to increase his happiness via mediation, cognitive therapy, and moodaltering pharmaceuticals.’ I was inspired by this large scale exhibition because of the messages it sends across, and also because of the style of work shown. The bright infographics, the bright neon lights and the interesting typography are all elements I am personally interested in within graphic design. To inspire my Collide brief further I am going to look in to what exactly happiness is, and how it affects us.
What is happiness?
Personally, this question was really difficult. When asked what happiness is, everyone thinks ‘its an emotional feeling of euphoria’. When asked what makes them happy, this is more difficult. When looking at the bigger pcture, for me I always believe happiness came from friends, family etc. I believed getting married, having children and a stable job would be the things to make me happy. But the more I think about ths project, I believe its simpler things that personally make me happier. I don’t see myself getting married, or having children. I see myself travelling the world with a loved one, having a great job that allows me to do so. (Preferably freelance graphic designer, or working for a big comany in a large city or another country). Ive never been one to want to stay home, so I dont think going back to cumbria would make me happy. I need to travel. I asked around to find out what happiness is, and what makes people happy. These were the most common responses: - Happiness is feeling good about yourself as a person. - Money, family & friends are what make you happy - Being content with yourself. Having family who love you. - Feeling relaxed and free of worry - Happiness is the ability to be content with what you have in your life and enjoy! So this then got me thinking, am I rare for not basing my happiness on friends and family, but instead for wanting to be away from home?
Ideas: * Zine * Book * Instilation * Illustratiin * Social media campaign * Animation * PHYSICAL & DIGITAL OUTCOMES* * Illustration of ‘Happiness’ - Looping from birth, growing up, adulthood and the future * Aimation of a happy life - Mother pregnant, giving birth, child growing up, going to school, going to uni, getting a job, meeting a guy, getting married, being pregnant, etc - Contradicting ending of the first mother (now grandnther) dying? * Contradictng piece of a happy life - growing up with the dream job - a family/marrige doesnt make everyone happy * Typography? - Illustrate the Hectors guide to happiness quotes * Self acceptant piece? - This leads to happiness
Illustration/instillation Ideas: * Illustration of ‘Happiness’ - Looping from birth, growing up, adulthood and the future * Contradicting piece of a happy life - growing up with the dream job a family/marrige doesnt make everyone happy * Typography? - Illustrate the Hectors guide to happiness quotes
Idea Development One of my ideas is to create an animation / series of illustrations starting out from birth, and moving on through life until death while showcasing what makes us happy during our lives.
Physcial
Digital
- Ilustration of ‘happiness’ looping from birth to death and everything in between
- Animtion
I looked in to animations / adverts that already exist where it shows a time lapse of life. These are the ones I found:
- Illustrated quotes (hectors guide to happiness)
KFC by BBH London - May 14, 2014
- Zine/Book of illustrations/quotes/photography/ typography etc
Menji - CM Life with meiji 2011 Pepsi Commercial - Beach boys 2009 John Lewis Ad 2010 - Fyfe Dangerfield ‘She’s Always A Woman’ These are all adverts which show the type of timelapse I wish to show in my work. As I am unexperienced when it comes to animation I am swaying more to the side of the illustrative piece. My idea for the illustration is to create a long piece, either on acetate which is then presented on white walls, or to go one step further and create these illustrations on widows. I think by creating them on windows it woud be very eye catching, having bright images would liven up the enviroment and attract peoples eyes to it. I have also had the idea of making a book / zine full of illustrations / quotes / photography / typgraphy etc. I feel like this could be a really nice physical outcome, that could encorperate a number of my ideas. For a digital outcome I wish to film the process of making my physical items, and then edit to make a short film, like a ‘making of’ documentary.
- Flip book
- Record the process of making the ‘physical’ elements and edit in to a ‘making of’ film
Timelines of life: Guide to happiness? Family led timeline Career led timeline Born Born First steps / words First steps / words First day of school First day of school First pet First pet High school High school First job College/sixth form Learn to drive Learn to drive University (New city) First car Graduate Move out of home (First flat) First job (career) Promotion at work First house alone Fall in love First car New house with partner Promotion at work Get engaged Set up own buisness Get married Freelance designer Move to a bigger house Baby on the way
Timeline Acetate Ideas These are all illustration pieces that I found. Each piece is illustrated on acetate, like how I want mine to be. The artists behind these pieces are Mady Dooijes, Heather Tribe, Brooks Shane Saldewedel & Claire Harvey.
Artist Research
Curtis Wiklund
http://drawings365.com
Alain Pilon
http://www.alainpilon. com
Nimura Daisuke
http://nimuradaisuke.tumblr. com/post/109968456918/ congrats-for-tocci-and-q
Kerby Rosanes
http://kerbyrosanes.com
Nimura Daisuke http://nimuradaisuke.tumblr.com Nimura Daisuke is a designer I chose to explore due to the style of his/her work. I found very little information on the artist themselves, and any I did could not be translated to english. However, I chose this artist because of their style, not their background information. I like the simplicity of the thick black lines with the odd section of block colour. This is something I am going to try achieve within my own work.
Pete Gamlen http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/pete-gamlen-illustrator-020216
Happiness Sketches
I created some quick sketches of what I thought the content for my illustration could be - i.e. birth, growing up, getting married, being pregnant, your first car and moving to a new city. These are just very basic sketches of what I thought each important/happy memory in your life could consist of.
Timeline Idea
My initial idea to showcase my illustrations on happiness, was to produce a timeline piece. I was going to procude a large mural style piece that took up a whole wall. Ideally, I wanted to illustrate directly on to a wall or window, but I figured this would be difficult due to restictions on time and space. I also felt that if I was to produce my illlustrations in this way, the actual designs would have to be very small, and I think they would just look lost.
Sketches
I decided that a better way for me to produce my illustrations would be to have multiple A4/A5 illustrations, framed and exhibited as though they were photography/fine art pieces. I want the content of my ilustrations to look as though they were photographable moments in life, so I feel like having the finished designs in frames would help me with this. I also feel that, if I produce my designs in this way, there is a possibility of me then developing them in to a zine or small book - with added quotes or comments.
Medium Experiments I experimented with various methods of illustration, from hand drawn pencil, charcoal and pen, to digital vector illustrations. I found that digital is once again my favoured form of illustration. I feel that it allows me to be more precise, and I am more comfortable with this. I think partly due to the fact if I make a mistake on a digital illustration, I can simply delete that part and do it again. I am going to stick to digital outcomes from now on, and develop my ideas in to something more structured. I want to illustrate milestones in life, now is the time to decide what these milestones are going to be. These will become the physical outcomes for my collide project.
Prototypes
The next step for me is to produce the final illustrations that I would be happy to show in an exhibition. I may produce my own photographs of the contents for the illustrations, that way I can play around with composition a lot easier. I am then going to produce these photographs in to illustrations. I want my illustrations to be almost like photographs, in the sense that they have captured an amazing milestone in someones life. While producing the physical element of this project, I will be also producing the digital part at the same time. I wish to produce a ‘making of’ video for my collide project. I wish to show the making on the illustrations from start to end, the setting up of the exhibition, and also possibly a voice over element where I talk about the project, or voice overs of other people talking about happiness.
After deciding that the curved timeline was a little difficult to follow, I decided to experiment with using a straight line as the base for my timeline. This is more traditional for a time line so I thought this would fit better. I am going to put the career driven path along the top, and the family driven path along the bottom.
I have experimented on aceteate using various pens to see which would be the most suitable. I need something that will not smudge, and had a good colour to it. As you can see, some of the pens I have used smudge. These are not ideal as I am working on such a large scale, I need them to dry almost on impact. I need a solid black colour that dries instantly. I also need a strong yellow colour. So far I have found that sharpies are the best pens to use, as they are strong colours that dry instantly. My only criticism it that the nib of the pen is slightly too thick. I could probably get away with it, as if the illustration lines were too thin they would get lost. However, for personal preference I would prefer something a little thinner.
This is my first experiment doing my designs on acetate. I purchased a large roll of acetate to allow me to experiement alot. I feel that I need a thinner pen, to allow myself to get the style I want. I feel like it is currently too bulky. I am also going to choose some better source images for my final design.
I created a digital version of my illustration, to allow myself to play around with various compositions much easier. I am quite happy with this outcome and I feel I am ready to move on to my physical illustration.
Filming illustration for my digital element to the project,
https://vimeo.com/165795336