Tessa-jo Hayes
TID1162 Professional Practice
Graphic Design Portfolio Summary
Taxonomy Rationale I chose to collect 30 images of tattoos, I chose this because not only do I have them but I also appreciate others. I wanted to find out how many people had tattoos with and without meanings, and what those meanings were. This created a miniature questionnaire that I sent out to everyone who’s tattoos I was using in my project. Some of the responses of the questionnaire were really deep and meaningful and I found this very touching that people choose to express themselves and some of their hardships through art on their skin. I knew from the start of my project that I wanted to present my collection through a booklet. After researching the layout and other variations of presentations of tattoos. All the books that I found had black or dark colours as a prominent feature, so I decided to use black as my background colour. After reading through the responses of the miniature questionnaire I decided to keep it simple and use the questions and answers within my booklet. Each person would have one page for a photograph, name and their responses, and between one and two pages for images of their tattoos. I chose to use sparky and bubbly images of my friends as this portrays their personality and for the people who disapprove of tattoos that we are just people who chose to have art on their skin. The back and front cover has famous tattooed models as these are easy to recognise and the images are a lot more capturing and inviting to the eye, drawing people in to read my booklet.
Image Collection
A select few
I chose to ask my questions aimed directly at the biggest or most prominent tattoos as I felt this would give for a much more interesting read. These are some of the examples of the answers two different people gave, both are very personal to each individual. When selecting my fonts I wanted quite an illustrative look as this is something that I found repeatedly in my research when looking through tattoo books etc.
I chose to name my collection “Tatau” as this is the original name and spelling for what is known in the modern world as “tattoo”. It is still pronounced the same so it is obvious the the reader what the collection is about before they’ve even seen anything
Page example of how my booklet is layed out. Each individuals name is in a very illustrative font and similar to a lot of text tattoos, whilst the question and answer section is in a much more readable, yet illustrative font. The image which is being referred to in the answers is the biggest image and placed last on the pages for that person. I felt it was important to keep this image larger than the rest as I wanted people to be able to view it easily
Visit my publication on Issuu at http;//issuu.com/tessajolauren/docs/tattoo_magazine . The thing I like most about this publication is the front and back covers as they look most professional. But also the way each persons story is unique and each persons collection of tattoo’s whether it’s just one or a whole body full means something to them and lets them express themselves without saying a word.
Data Visualisation Rationale Originally I was going to choose to do my data visualisation on social networking, but due to the fact this was chosen by a few people I wanted to change to something more personal, something I was much more interested in such as depression. After putting together a questionnaire I collected over 100 responses, the question that most interested me was “What words would you associate with Depression?� and wanted to link these words with colours that represent dark thoughts and depression. I researched infographics to do with depression and posters to do with depression. Timelines, photographs and shapes related to body parts, such as the brain, captured my interest most. I decided to do a posters to advertise depression using words and colours. I would keep it simplistic as not to deflect away from the issue at hand. I ended up creating a series of images that could be used to raise awareness. I also created a ring image which displays the amount of times a word was associated with depression. The bigger the ring, the more it was mentioned. The key at the bottom links to the colours and states which words it represents.
These are some original ideas I had using the words I had collected via my data. Although it represents how often the words are used quite clearly, it was too basic and too simple. It needed some depth to it, so I chose to design images for raising awareness as 38.38% of people said they didnt feel educational facilities had enough support or don’t advertise it enough. On the opposite page are some development pieces I designed using words, shapes and icons. After looking back through my research the infographics that stood out to me the most were the ones using icons such as brains and eyes in their designs.
Final Image
Competition Brief - National Trust Rationale I knew I wanted to take a well known story such as Alice in Wonderland, because it’s known throughout all generations and would be something the 25-40 target group would recognise. I see the 25-40 age range as a group that would be in work and/or with families so Alice in Wonderland would be something they would remember from their child hood and something they would probably read to their children. As I wanted to keep my own personal style in this project, I took inspiration from Robert Ryan and Lotty Reiniger. I initially wanted to create posters that could be placed at bus stops, tube tunnels and other routes commuters take on a daily basis as these are prime locations for advertising. I wanted to link the ideas of iconic scenes in the books e.g. Tulgey Wood, The Red Queens Castle, Oyster Scene, The Caterpillar and The Mad Hatters Tea Party and have strong connections between each for example Tulgey Wood and the “This Way” and “That Way” signs and how the Red Queen often says “Off with their heads”. After my formative assessment with Spencer we decided my intial poster idea was a little 2D and the National Trust got lost in my designs, so I chose to design Vinyl Stickers that could be placed on walls and floors of commuter routes. This way commuters would literally walk through my designs and these would be eye catching and more memorable
Woodland – Tugley Wood – What they protect (dark green) Buildings – Queen of Hearts castle – Dunham Massey (iconic) (red) Coastal – Oyster Scene which features in Through the Looking Glass (dark blue) Nature & Wildlife – The Caterpillar (Absolem) – (light green) Gardens – Mad Hatters Tea Party – re-inventing cream teas on the lawn (light blue)
I’ve always been inspired by Rob Ryan and his delicate cut outs, so I knew from the start that is what I wanted to do, Rob also told me about Lotte Reiniger who has a very similar style in work. I also looked at A Series of Unfortunate Events credits, before I researched this I thought it was all computer genorated but is actually paper and makes it all the more beautiful. I decided to take key scenes from Alice in Wonderland and translate these into iconic places within the National Trust, i.e. The Red Queen’s castle is Dunham Massey
These are my original cut outs, they took me ages as I was doing it all by hand and they are incredibly fragile. I spray painted them in the appropriate colours I had previously decided on to give a flat, block coloured effect I didn’t want any paint brush marks or pen lines as this would have ruined a flawless look that I was wanting to achieve. I then scanned them and image traced them in the hope of being able to work digitally as well as by hand. Working by hand is always a preference of mine as I like to have physical work not just digital. Below are the images I got once image traced and touched up. The space in the left top corner is for the national trust logo, they requested we leave a certain amount of space clear around their logo.
After my formative assessment it was agreed that my cut outs, although beautiful, they seemed much too 2D and the National Trust got lost in the design and style. Because I knew I wanted to have my designs placed with commuter routes, such as tube stations I decided to design vinyl stickers which could be placed on walls and floors, so the commuters would literally walk through my designs. In terms of the Tulgey Wood scene the leaves I had drawn would be replaced with the National Trust’s own logo, working with the colours they provided for us, I chose the ones that were most like what I had originally planned. Each example is shown at the top of each page with the colour code below. Due to saving images as JPEGs and uploading them the Wordpress on my blog, the colours have been changed. These stickers are what I would have presented to the National Trust as an example of how each scene would have key images such as the leaves, branches and sign posts. I feel this approach of vinyl stickers would be a really hands on way of getting the 25-40 year old target audience to think about and remember the National Trust as they’ll see it on their way to and from work. It will also target tourists which will increase the National Trust’s visits to properties and landscapes.
LINKS http://tessajolauren.wordpress.com/ https://issuu.com/tessajolauren https://www.flickr.com/photos/tessajolauren/ http://tessajolaurenart.tumblr.com/