Contextual Review // Logbook
Tom Bishop // 2013 – 2014 Lincoln School of Art, Design & Architecture // MA Design // John Stocker & Dr Neil Maycroft Volume 1
Synthetica GD
Tom Bishop’s MA Blog
IDEA - MA Blog 3
Welcome to the Conversation: The first week of the MA kicked off with a couple of introductions from our tutors and the rest of our course-mates, learning about our different backgrounds and practices. This gave me a good opportunity to reflect on my own work, who I am and what my work says about me. I ended up looking at the work that I had created towards the end of my undergraduate degree, where I began to explore what it meant to be not just a graphic designer but also an experience builder. These projects were a great place to start, as I had spent the summer working out where I wanted to position myself and what I wanted to get out of the MA. I want to use the MA to explore what it means to be a graphic designer, how far can I push my own practice aswel as developing a deeper understand the ever changing dynamic between the designer, client and consumer.
Contextual Review // Logbook
‘Metamorphosis’ by Tom Bishop.
5
The Magna Carta: Beginning with a brief about the Magna Carta, I have chosen to look at the themes and relatable material that could be solid starting points for a response to the Magna Carta. Explore: Freedom – freedom of speech Opinion – platforms for free speech Social media – Twitter – Facebook Which countries do not have free speech? • • • • • • • • • • •
Monitoring Big Brother Censorship How do people fight back? Underground movements Hacktivists Hack-space CCTV Great Firewall of China Internet censorship Government lists
Contextual Review // Logbook
Oppressed people usually rise up. • • • •
Constant state of fear Revolution Overthrown Power Dictatorships
24 Hour News – People controlled by fear “Turn on the news for an hour or two and see how you feel after that.” • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Working towards a utopian society Progress Power resides with people with money Power is controlled by death Always looking out for yourself Self preservation How far will it go? How far would a country/regime go to ‘protect’ themselves? Thought crimes – break into someone mind Monitoring thoughts Minority Report – Philip K Dick – Dystopian Technology Lie detector Phone tapping
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Corruption Censorship Hacking Public interest Platforms to stand on WikiLeaks, Internal practice Reflective rights Comfort Internal corruption Destabilisation Stand up to power Brain washing Lobotomising Influence through media Transcendent
Self aware – Cosmically aware – The Absolute Do we filter out ‘Uninteresting’ experiences? Consciousness only allows a limited amount of information to be absorbed at any one time. • Subconscience will absorb much of what is not absorbed by our conscious portion of our brain
Innitial Brainstorm
7
The Absolute: The absolute is ‘the end’, ‘final’, ‘completion’. An event that happens to everything, I could be refered to as the end of the world, universe and life. It is the theory that is you are not evolving or changing in any way or any state in the universe and on a cosmic level you are dying. The Absolute signifies the end of existence or the end of your existence. Learning through experiences: • Every experience affects us, shapes us into who we are in that moment, we are never the same person twice, we change and evolve daily. • Every aspect of your life has shaped you in some way, every choice, every mistake and every experience has led you up to this exact moment and to this page. • You will never be the same person you are today because of your experiences. Through our experiences, we build up a wealth of knowledge of the world we live in. Life is something we all experience and we all experience it differently.
Contextual Review // Logbook
We cannot experience something that someone else has experienced. In the same way that we cannot pass on our experiences directly to another, as all human being have different memories and a different understanding of the world around us. The memory of previous experiences all help to define our current experience, even on a basic level, we understand how to read, the effects of gravity the reading of facial expressions; all knowledge that we have learned throughout our lives. All life is unique.
Power: Those who have it. Those who crave it. • • • •
How do people stay in power? Money maintains power Banks – Public trust News – Public influence
How do newsgroups control public opinion? • Media representation controls public opinion Government controlled news: • Censored news • Always portray the government in a positive light Censored images Look into the idea of using a series of classic novels that have been censored; edited or changed in some way. Books become censored: Tracing paper to reveal the censored information Great works of fiction that speak out against the ideals of the current government are censored.
9
Censoring History: • Nazi Germany • Historic revisionism Explore the historical relevance of the portrayal of governments in a positive light in order to justify questionable acts of law, war and regimes. • Re-writing history • Revisionism vs. denial – Holocaust denial – Modern equivalent? Misrepresentation of facts to justify war, political revolution and retain power. • • • •
Mirror News Controlled media vs. free speech. Different story, two opinions – Same event. History is changed to support whoever is in power.
What if the Magna Carta were to be written today? • What would it mean to people today? • What would be different? • What would you change?
Contextual Review // Logbook
Re-drafting the Magna Carta: Who would the changes effect? • Governments • Kings • Dictators • Chairmen Would it have the same impact? • Talk to different people, what changes would they like to include. • Build up a base of public opinion to re-draft the Magna Carta for a modern age • Translate the document into modern English • Different interpretation • Try to apply old and out-dated clauses to a modern age and to a modern audience. • What format would the new Magna Carta take?
What would it be like to live by the clauses of the original draft Magna Carta today? • Unbreakable laws • 3 laws of robotics • Designed to give power to the people/working man • Identifies people as individuals
Free will: • Is free will an illusion? • Manipulation of free will • Brain washing • Hypnosis • Suggestion • Visual clues • Combination of sound and vision.
11
Sensory Overload: • Multiple screens • Different stories on each individual screen • Some stories overlap between 2-3 screens to create an interlocked narrative Draw the eye over the screen Possible applications: Subversion • Subliminal • Perception altering • Brain washing
Overloading the senses.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Small to large scale installations.
13
WIFE at Frequency Festival I was completely blown away by the performance, a beautifully choreographed dance performance, synchronized with rhythmic combination of projected imagery and music. The performance lasted about 10 minutes and featured three actors clad in white, which, during the performance became living statues. There was a subtle elegance to the costumes that created a canvas for the emotive images that were projected onto the actors throughout the performance. This effect had me completely transfixed during the performance. The stage itself comprised of three white pedestals spaced out in the middle of a darkened stage. As the show began, the actors took up positions on their pedestals; waiting for their musical cues, changing position in time to correspond with both the music and the projected imagery. The performance itself was a hybrid of digital animation and still image projected over the bodies of the actors, who themselves maintained rigid and motionless stances, moving in an almost clockwork and mechanical way. Every aspect of the performance played a vital part in the telling of the story, the whole experience left me wanting more.
Contextual Review // Logbook
WIFE: The grey ones
15
Sound: Phone calls? Interactive phone call Headphones
Bank of telephones User driven experience, as the user engages with the different aspects of the design, allowing it to adapt and change into fit a tailor made experience. Multiple choice, multiple outcomes, different experiences.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Analogue & Digital Crossover: The use of both traditional techniques and immerging technologies, to deliver a tailor made experience of my design to the end user.
Decide on a message: All design of this nature should tell a story Are we looking at a revolution? Emotional design – explanation of emotion Analogue vs. Digital: • Reel projectors vs. Digital • Analogue image capturing vs. digital • Drawing by hand vs. Vector artwork Hybrid of Analogue & Digital: • Model making • Photography • Digital animation • Hand drawn animation • Making use of found imagery
Drawing directly onto film reel.
17
Me and The Machine at Frequency Festival: Moving from a public performance to a much more intimate and personal one, The Show of your Life by Me and The Machine, took place in an abandoned building, with little sign posting and an unassuming location. The setting really helped to bring this performance to life, upon arriving at the location we had to sit in a small waiting room with four seats in a row. Every five to ten minutes the door to the waiting room would open and a man would invite the next ‘patient’ into the room, one at a time… never seeing anyone leave. This process became slightly unnerving as more and more people were ushered inside. Eventually, I was the last one, waiting for my turn and for the door to open.
When the door did eventually open, I stepped inside a very dark room. In silence a man took a small corded bag and placed it over my head, next placing a pair of TV goggles onto my face and finally placing a pair of headphones over my ears. Shut off from the entire world, my goggles suddenly came to life, with the man I had just met, now inside my goggles, asking if I could hear him to which I shouted, “Yes!” then nothing… until a small voice in the back of my head told me that “In darkness is how the universe began.” This same voice began to talk and tell me things about my ‘life’; who I was, where I lived, what I did for a living and what aspirations I had. Next came walking, learning how to walk via a pair of goggles with legs that I attempted to stay in time with, was probably one of the most peculiar things I have ever done. The entire experience was designed to help you reflect on your own life and when you left, how to live a better one. As I exited the show, I had the overwhelming sense that I had been changed by the experience, hopefully into a much better human being.
Contextual Review // Logbook
19
Found Imagery: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Internet Youtube Vemeo Newspapers Magazines Borrowed imagery Artwork Galleries Photography Street photography News broadcasts View from my window Point of view Personal points of view Old photographs Sculpture Illustration Recorded TV Films Video games Comic books Silent films Blockbusters Film noir Graphic novels
Contextual Review // Logbook
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Theatre Dance Macro photography Pornography Animals Fine art Portraiture photography Classical portrait painting Black and white imagery Screen prints Print advertisements TV advertising Visual noise Clutter Nature Urban Religious iconography Typography Make do and mend
Concepts of Freedom: • • • • • • • •
What do people take for granted? Human rights – Lack of human rights Freedom of speech – talk out against the King or Queen Monitoring – Phone tapping – Who else is listening? New laws that infringe human rights Anti-terrorism laws – False justification Just an excuse to spy on people and to keep everyone in line and accounted for A regime will go to any lengths to maintain power and to protect itself from being overthrown
What else did the Magna Carta start? • Revolution • Gave some power to the people • Chain reaction that started democracy and over the past 800 years has led to this moment
• • • • • • • • • • • •
Recent Developments Regarding Freedom: U.S. phone tapping scandal U.S. building massive phone tapping centre in Utah to keep tabs on even more conversations to ‘Avert threats’ to American national security Data Mining – call partners – internet partners Guantanamo Bay – Human rights abuse – Shut down? “Plebgate” public trust – politicians – police – governments “Political correctness” gone mad? Arguments for “The nanny state” Discontent Class divide Human rights violations in the middle east
What were the reasons for it being written? • Which documents support the Magna Carta? • The Magna Carta changed everything
21
Trope at Frequency Festival: As my last entry for Frequency Festival, I want to talk about Conversio by Trope, a performance that took place at Postern Gate. Trope is a piece of mixed media, using techniques I have never seen before, a type of stop motion animation that combined a clever use of lighting with props and a great environment. As the show began, different physical objects were lit up independently of one another, creating the effect of motion. Using the music and sound effects as a key the show involved a series of flowers, a chain with a red hook and a series of counting blocks. Not requiring audience participation, I was purely an observer; the show lasting for five minutes and had three definite movements to me representing youth, adulthood and old age, eventually leading to death where the show ended. In the childhood stage, the flowers moved back and forth, taking their time and spreading out across the room. Next came the adult stage with a chain that swung back and forth, connecting and disconnecting with a red hook at its end. The third movement involved a series of counting blocks that began, slowly at first, to move in a circle. The blocks gained momentum, appearing to build up to a climax, then nothing. The show ended and the tulips began for the next showing, signalling, for me, a new cycle of life.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Article – Eye, 34/99 – Non-Places: Leading from a small task we were given by Neil, to photograph ‘uninteresting’ stuff that we see on the streets of Lincoln. I became interested in the uninteresting. How and why these things exist and what sort of perception does the wider community have of them. In this article, designer Emily King talks about the different nonplaces she has documented, these places are of almost no interest to the wider community and she records them as the gaps that glue different sections of society together. In the article King describes these areas as the bits that are left behind or forgotten in the development of the wider community, sure enough these places will eventually get filled in when the next big development comes along to wipe the slate clean.
23
These wasted spaces are everywhere; I walk past several myself everyday and am intrigued as to how these spaces are seen by the wider community, sure enough they are probably home to much illicit activity and the majority of the population want them to be smoothed over and removed from the rest of the street. I want to look at how these gaps and holes in society are used and viewed by other members of the public use my design work to draw attention to them, even hold mini-exhibitions in them. What sort of content, if any, could be generated to fill these gaps?
Contextual Review // Logbook
Public Involvement: Raw Reporting: • Uncut • Unedited • Loosely edited • Single takes • Long takes Performance based: • Hired actors • Re-telling the story of the Magna Carta • Contemporary re-telling • Classical re-telling • What events led up to the signing? • Parallels with modern society Paving the Way to Democracy: • Reflective of history and historical events • How many lives has the Magna Carta affected? • Was it the trigger? • Try to imagine what life would be like without the Magna Carta • Look how far we have come – Retrospective • We can’t force democracy upon people, the people have to take it for themselves
Interactive Story Telling: • Animation • User drives the story, taking control of the narrative • Different story depending on who is interacting • Different ages • Options to learn more about specific events • Stylized animation • Experimental • Response to the Magna Carta Length of Involvement: • Gain the users attention for any amount of time, as long or as little as required • 1 minute to 1 hour • How much time have you got? • How much time can you spare? • The more time the user puts into the experience the more they will be rewarded • It should be all about the experience, no matter how brief the encounter Short Recordings: • Voice • Video • Sound 25
Tutorial with John: • • • • • • • • • • • •
What is the message and how do I say it? What is my take on the Magna Carta? Human rights Monitoring Demographics Type-Specific How is it communicated? Becoming the observer “Looking” Troika.uk.com – Digital by Design Universal Everything – Matt Pyke Why do these people do what they do?
Contextual Review // Logbook
Article – AD, 77/4 – Illuminating Embodiment The article, ‘Illuminating Embodiment’ explores the notion that the population is one body or collective, combining that with the idea of interactive environments and audience participation. The process uses a series of projectors and sensors to observe the environment, projecting imagery into the shadows of the participants. Mexican-Canadian Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, is an artist interested in combining the physical world with the digital by looking for gaps and spaces between buildings and outdoor spaces. In an ambitious challenge, Lozano-Hemmer wants to challenge the opinion that buildings and spaces are designed by architects and designers to socially control humanity. Historically, the population has been thought of as a collective or a single body, with little thought about the individuals amongst society. This thinking has influenced architects and designers since the great enlightenment, as buildings and spaces are often thought to be connected. Lozano-Hemmer’s work is designed to challenge this way of thinking, instead of being connected, the body of people should instead be thought of as a group of individuals, independent of the spaces they occupy, receptive to the instability of society.
27
In 2005, Lazano-Hemmer, worked on a piece of design commissioned by the East Midlands Development agency aimed to explore the invasion of the self, as the shadow of the participant became taken over by the body of another. The work itself ‘Under Scan’, used projectors to project imagery into the shadows of the participants. The projections showed videos and photographs of people chosen at random and who wanted to take part. The portraits included people walking, gesturing, sleeping and interacting with the camera, tracking technology predicted the movements of the public and images were chosen to be projected on their shadows. As is the case with much of Lozano-Hemmer’s work the piece was achieved with the collaboration of many other creatives.
Contextual Review // Logbook
29
Demographics: • • • • • • • •
Video of everyone interviewed. Image, response, image, response. 2-5 minutes of film Word Association Identify how absurd the idea of monitoring is Style of editing All videos synchronized together Can be scaled up to show on multiple TV screens
Contextual Review // Logbook
The message becomes lost in the babble of different answers and responses, illustrating how difficult it is for security services to hone in on one individual response or even an individual person. Every so often people will respond with the same answer. All answers blurring into one.
Front to back TV screens Environment is important, how would the room be divided up?
31
360º experience. Projector to display shape on the floor of the exhibition, surrounded by floor to ceiling television screens. Each individual screen is completely independent, with its own video and soundtrack. These screens will have a need to compete with one another to gain the attention of the audience.
“Can’t see the wood for the trees” “Sound bytes” “Scanner” - Robin Rambou Multiple sound waves played together, adding layers and depth to the recordings and playback.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Sensory Overload: Vision Sound By controlling the environment and the way that the piece would be presented, I have control how the visitor behaves and feels during the experience. Possible outcomes could include; a darkened room to overload the visitors with excessive visual noise, bombarding and overwhelming the visual sense.
Another aspect that I could explore regarding sensory deprivation could be the use of soundproofed rooms for the exhibition itself, by limiting the background noise of the gallery space and cutting it off from the rest of the world in this way the impact of sound introduced through the exhibition would be much more powerful. “Sequenced� Each screen could work independently or as a whole, allowing for multi-screen sequences, animations or a broken narrative that needs to be followed from screen to screen in order to make into a whole.
33
Ambient Noise: Record noise from an area and play them back, either in the same area but at a different time of day or take several recordings from different locations: rural, urban, decaying, bustling, vibrant. Then using these sound recordings and play them in alternate locations, juxtaposing the environment and introducing ideas that we can hear sounds in a completely different way.
I like the idea of taking the unobserved and making it visible, when observing an environment the sounds we hear that become background noise are absorbed by our subconscious and are ‘unobserved’. By taking these recordings to a new environment they become visible as we are aware that the sounds we are listening to do not correspond to our preconceived ideas about the current setting.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Article – Eye, 85/13 – Lust: Lust, a design agency based in The Hague consists of three members, Jeroen Barendse, Thomas Castro and Dimitri Nieuwenhuzen. They specialise in all areas of graphic design, from poster to architectural and urban works. I have looked at them in relation to my exploration of involving the user as a key part of the design process. Lust work on projects that give a lot of freedom and selfexpression to the participant, asking them to get actively involved in design work that without the participant, the work wouldn’t happen. A piece of Lust’s work that inspires me is the impressive ‘Data Wall’ constructed in Rotterdam’s main art museum. The ‘Data Wall’ would show information generated by the visitors and general public, interaction with the wall was easy and would display tweets and news stories from around the world, using Twitter’s trending topics. The visitors could also interact directly by tweeting a story or an image at the wall for it to be displayed.
35
Lust believe that when communicating an idea without falling into the trap of extensive ornament or superfluous decoration is an essential part of their design process. By approaching a project from the direction of the idea, the work created seems much more pure and to the point, this process allows the idea to grow and develop naturally. As Lust developed they began to draw up rules or ‘commandments’ to help guide their practice, all of their work is governed by these rules and is integrated into the development process. As the agency work with digital media, they also create the software they use to create, similar to how a stone mason makes their own tools, lust create and constantly tweak the tools to improve their performance or to modify them for a specific brief. The agency is split into two, with Lust agency handling the design work and LustLabs working to develop the software. The two halves work closely together and follow the ‘ten commandments’ to expand the visual language of the work they produce.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Video Memories: • •
Real person Photos of person repeated, fade over time.
The idea behind this instillation is playing with my idea of monitoring, by showing how every move we make is captured and stored forever by a faceless organisation and can be accessed at any time in order to convict you of crimes you may not even have committed yet. These walls capture your movements as you move through a corridor, displaying for a short time your image in a specific position as you move. These images will then slowly fade over time. This piece is inspired by the impact you make with your life, how you are remembered and if the monitoring of your every move is necessary, or in the public’s best interest. 37
Always Watching: Digital figures are programmed to track passers by, as a result the public become ‘watched’ by the digital figures. There figures that haunt the windows of empty shops give a sense that we are always being watched. This idea isn’t far removed from the truth as there are millions of public and private CCTV cameras located around the world. The owners of the cameras assure the public that it is a measure for public safety, but are their assurances nothing but empty promises to disguise another motive?
Take an image of a passing member of the public, taking the face and placing it on screen.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Fraud: How to set people up for crimes they have never committed. Take image and transpose it onto crime scene photographs. Police station line up.
39
Rhythm of the Street: Motion sensors track the space in front of the screen, allowing for the projection of imagery that directly links reality to the digital world. This process allows the direct input or data from members of the public and allows the user to create content that will be displayed in real time.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Hot to Cold: When light boxes are not occupied, they gradually fade back to their base colour, giving the impression of a ghosting effect around the action happening on the screen. As the colour fades, it can hue-shift through different colours to add another graphical aspect to the display. This hue shift could allow different colours to be applied to different movements and effectively produce some kind of motion blur.
A constant presence will trigger a red response, over time this red will change if the user is no longer in that zone, through a slow process of hue shift.
41
Pathways: Mapping the flow of pedestrian traffic through busy areas of the city, using video technology to detect where the flow of foot traffic is strongest and where it is lightest, producing a map of the ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ spots that is then projected directly onto the pavement. This project could use the data collected to predict foot traffic in the future and even help to make the pavements much more accessible.
Relating back to the idea of monitoring, by projecting the data map directly onto the street the original data came from, the map becomes a site-specific instillation that can change and adapt through use and can be directly altered by members of the public. Contextual Review // Logbook
Top Down View Projection
Site specific, monitoring walking patterns during the day and displaying the results at night via projection onto the area.
43
Rectangle projector How would people interact with a piece of interactive design in the environment, would they observe it for any length of time or would they simply ignore it? How many people would change their walking patterns if they realised they were all following the same path as everyone else?
Contextual Review // Logbook
Responsive Environments – Lucy Bullivant: Responsive environments, a space that interacts with the people who use them or pass through them is all about creating an environment where the public can engage with the space. I have looked at this type of design because I am interested in how the public react to the responsive environment. As technology becomes more and more proficient at dealing with data and rendering much more sophisticated outputs, the real world is becoming more and more augmented with this type of technology. In the age of the iPad and mobile computing, never before has the general population been so engaged and able to interact with technology. These advances have enabled designers to create sophisticated code, programmes or pieces of design work with the knowledge that the public will know how to interact with the design work.
45
Unsurprisingly designers and artists have already started to make use of this technology; creating immersive, interactive environments that the public can interact with. the best examples I have seen are when the users are actively engaged in the whole process, with the designer leading the process through their use of code and the way the design work changes to the behaviour of the user. Seveal examples in this book show how designers have ‘hacked’ commercial technology, in this case the Xbox Kinect, popular software developed by Microsoft for use with their games consoles. The Kinect allows designers the ability to motion track their subjects, feeding back this information into the programme, creating a visual output, responding to the movement of the user. The Kinect allows designers to build in gestures for software activated by motion; all that is required is the presence of the operator to be able to interact with the piece of design. In my own work I have explored the possibility of using hardware such as the Kinect to feed back into a computer programme, creating a visual element that would be viewed by the user. These design outcomes would react to the audience, directly influenced by their actions and engaging the audience in the process of design and image making.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Population Height: The more people of a specific height that walk by, the more intense the colour of the corresponding section of the display becomes. I predict that the colour would be more intense towards the bottom of the display, becoming less saturated towards the top.
Height
A member of the public would walk through the device and be measured; a computer would calculate the results and the segments of the wall that corresponded to the height would be illuminated. Gradually over time the wall would build up a result all of the people who had been measured, only increasing the density of colour gradually, over time building up a visual display of the height of the public.
47
Real Time Data: • •
Audience participation Watch the piece evolve and develop before your eyes
The cards themselves are all coated with a different colour, giving the effect of a change in density as the cards rotate and become darker to the observer. The cards themselves are all motorised and will move when they receive the signal from the computer programme. Physical change vs. Digital change Spring loaded, revolving cards
Contextual Review // Logbook
Digital Wall: The use of a digital wall over a physical wall would allow the information to be displayed much more accurately, with richer colours and a varied tone.
8 7 6 5
Input 4 3 2 1 0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Intensity %
70
80
90 100
49
Digital Recording: • Bar graphs • Site specific • Projections The projections are specific to each location, producing different results depending on their usage and how much footfall the different areas have. “all operating independently until we can all work together” The design lives or dies depending on participation from the public. • • • • • •
Contextual Review // Logbook
Intelligence of groups Collaboration and democracy Capture impressions of the public Bruce Mau – Content, Lifestyle Thinking in other ways Institute without boundaries
Digital by Design – Troika As suggested by John in one of our tutorials, I looked into the design group, Troika. Their book, ‘Digital by Design’ is a showcase of their work and work that other members of the collective have produced. All work featured uses a digital framework but the work that I am most interested in is the work that involves the audience or viewer in some way. As a source book, the projects have provided a huge amount of inspiration and have informed my visual design thinking. The projects themselves blend style and substance with a write up from the artist or designer. Generally, the projects featured explore the boundaries between science, art and design, using technology to allow the user engage with the world differently.
51
Philip Worthington’s ‘Shadow Monsters’ is a standout piece in the book that allows the audience to engage with the design work. The premise of the project is to encourage the audience to crate their own ‘shadow monsters’ using their hands; these shadows are then augmented through code with additional features such as teeth, ears and eyes. The content of the ‘shadow monsters’ is all created by the user, with additional features added by the code that the designer has created. This is a great example of how the experience is led by the content created by the user; the content they produce is then enhanced by the work of the designer. Something that I feel ‘Shadow Monsters’ does well, is that it balances the control between the designer and participant, one thing that I need to be aware of when working with the public and expecting them to create content for my own design work, I need to be sure that I am still directing and controlling the design process. By creating work that is able to form a framework where non-designers and the general public can create I ensure that the I am still directing the project and keeping creative control.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Fighting Infection: Democracy is like the human body, the immune system is a part of the body that will rise up to protect itself. White blood cells are the last line of defence, giving their existence to protect their delicate ecosystem. Democracy – people all work independently of one another until a common threat will challenge their way of life and existence. These people will all bond together to neutralise the threat. • • • • • • •
Strength in numbers Survival instinct Pack animal instinct Equal measures A voice for the 1% Democracy is the vote of many, all equal and all banded together under one idea Democracy lives or dies depending on audience participation
53
Participation: As the users hold their part of the string, they are all responsible for maintaining of the shape. Any one participant can change the shape at any time or even leave the group to disrupt the shape all together. •
The 1% having power.
Everyone is holding onto this piece of design and and has a part of its creation and sustained shape. Much like democracy, this design will only work if the audience fully participates. Could this be a comment on our own society and the modern age we live in, are we not all clinging onto one another to stay afloat, with countries borrowing money from other countries in an attempt to quell the global deficit. All participants holding the string Using design as a tool to provoke a reaction. Everyone operated independently only at the end collation their journeys together.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Tutorial with John: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Opportunity seekers Changing relationship between client and designer User created design Interactivity between the designer and the end user The client is the one who holds the financial backing to the product but the end user is the one who will be experiencing the finished thing Look into changes regarding the changing relationship between the design, client and consumer Democratic – changing relationship Template designers – Vista print – Web 101 – Ect Process of collaboration Bespoke vs. Unique Products, games, the area of dominance Building a body of inquiry Challenging the relationship between the 3 big participants: Designer, Client, End User. Procassing.org Creative commons
Audience participation should take the form of a journey. • I am the story teller • I will guide the narrative • Shape the story • Provide clues • Visual hints The participants will generate their own content. Content that will drive the narrative further, to be collated with other participant’s responses. Look at: • Design for the real world – Victor Papanek • Works that work • Design hacking • RSA publications • Platform 21 • Sugru.com • Ikea hacking
55
Bespoke: adjective • (of goods, especially clothing) made to order such as a bespoke suit • (of a trader) making bespoke items of clothing: the bespoke tailors of Savile Row • (of a computer program) written or adapted for the use of a specific user or purpose:completely bespoke software Unique: adjective • being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else: the situation was unique in British politicsoriginal and unique designs • (unique to) belonging or connected to (one particular person, place, or thing): a style of architecture that is unique to Portugal • particularly remarkable, special, or unusual: a unique opportunity to see the spectacular Bolshoi Ballet
Contextual Review // Logbook
Bridging the gap between the designer and consumer: Design is a basic human activity. “Design is the conscious and interactive effort to impose meaningful order.� – Victor Papanek It is argued that the universe shows evidence of design; physics, reason, natural law. This could in fact all be random but could it be that the human mind wants to make sense of chaos? Design and our natural instinct to make sense of the rest of the universe is hard-wired into the human mind, we apply design to every aspect of the world of which we are aware.
Carving groves into sand where concrete will be poured to provide a strong structure.
Design for the real world - Victor Papanek (1971) 57
Beauty in Aesthetics: Natural aesthetics such as a fish being streamlined is of benefit to the fish, the fish has evolved in such a way to make it as fast as possible. To humans, this concept of a streamlined aesthetic is one that we acquire as we experience life. Product
Is the concept of aesthetics an ideal that we, as designers strive to capture, to reinforce our lives with meaning? “Design should be meaningful.” Often designers have to choose between what we commonly assume to be two opposites. “Should the design be functional or aesthetically pleasing?”
Aesthetics
Function
Good design should do both. Looks Great
Contextual Review // Logbook
Average
Works Great
Product
Understanding the designer/client relationship: Designer
Designer
Designer
Client
User
User Client
User
Client
User
Designer
59
Materials: Should materials pretend to be something else? Plastic bottles are manufactured into the shape of glass bottles, should designers use materials in a way that is respectful to the actual material, not using plastics as a cheaper alternative to glass, celebrating the materials own valued characteristics. Materials that are “faked up� often contain imperfect aspects of the material that is if trying to mimic. Plastics that mimic wood for example, are manufactured with wood grain, knots and even woodworm holes, all in an attempt to make the plastic alternative more convincing to the buyer. Design is informed by the tools and materials the designer has available to them at the time of manufacture, together they inform the design process and the outcome.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Processing.org On the advice of John, I began to look into processing.org, a piece of open source software that allows the user access to powerful programming software with relatively easy commands and a clean user interface. The programme itself offers a very simple UI in which to write code at the same time creating a Java powered sandbox to run and test out code. Using the tutorials I have been able to create several very simple pieces of code and change the settings on code that other people have uploaded. I am far away from becoming a coding master, however by using Procassing.org I now have a very simple toolset to use and build upon my coding abilities.
Directly linked to Processing.org, I have looked at several designers who have used the tools provided by processing to create a piece of interactive design. In the case of ‘The Feltron Annual Report’, designer Nicholas Felton created beautifully designed infographics detailing every aspect of his life. Felton originally designed his annual report by hand, inputting the data he had collected into a computer and hand drawing the graphs on illustrator. Later issues of the report were then produced using Processing, saving a massive amount of time for the designer because of the speed that Processing would create a finished visualisation of the data. An advantage of using a tool such as Processing.org when it comes to handling a lot of data is that even when a variable is changed, processing will immediately update the visual, allowing the designer to quickly sketch out new ideas, alter the different variables to change the look and feel of the visualisation. Using Processing.org as a tool to visualise data, it is a fast way to work from raw data on a spread sheet to a working visual with relative ease. This allows the viewer to quickly see trends, structures and patterns in the data that may not be clear just by reading the data.
61
Contextual Review // Logbook
63
Contextual Review // Logbook
Some basic programmes I have created using the Processing. org blog as a recourse. This is some of the basic level coding that I have been able to produce as part of learning how to use processing, although much simpler than other coding tools I have used, I still cannot get my head around the writing of code. If I do end up using processing as part of my major project I am going to need to improve and put in some extra hours using code as a tool to create design work.
65
Contextual Review // Logbook
Article – Eye, 65/07 – Grow Your Own: In the age we live and work in, there is no getting away from the use of code. Almost every aspect of our lives is dependent on designers and programmers developing code that we can interact with. The article, Grow your own, focuses on the programming tool Procassing.org, an open source piece of software, touting itself as a digital scrapbook for designers and creatives alike. One thing that attracts me to processing, as it has attracted many others, is the simplistic nature of the programme. Not requiring a detailed knowledge of coding or of computers, processing allows the user to create their own programmes and simulate them instantly. Processing itself is a great way to introduce you to the world of coding with a list of commands listed on their website to make it much easier to work with. When using a computer to collect and compile data for an infographic, processing allows the data to be easily input and if changed will update the graph or chart instantly, saving time when working on a creative platform.
67
The advent of processing is seeing code become more and more accessible to designers and creative people, as the medium developers and it becomes easier to author content digitally using code, design work is bound to become much more interactive and user focused. Over the past 5 years we have seen mobile touch screen devices becoming more and more popular across the world, a tool that creative people now have access to when trying to communicate with an audience in the comfort of their own home. This opens up new prospects for designers, artists and engineers to work together to help engage the user in the narrative. Code allows content to be open ended and to offer multiple choices at relative ease, this is something a traditional book cannot do, meant to be read in a linear fashion with one ending, code allows a narrative thread to be run through many different scenarios and offers the author the chance to tell different stories with different endings.
Contextual Review // Logbook
‘Experiment #7’ British designer Bruno Imbrizi uses code as a way or organising and visualising different sets of data in a creative way. After looking at Procassing.org, I wanted to look at different ways that code could be applied. From a graphic designers point of view, Processing is an invaluable tool for the creation of infographics as a programme such as Processing can handle a much larger amount of data then I would be able to in a short space of time. Imbrizi’s work shows how real time data can be input into a computer as a way of live mapping. His piece ‘Experiment #7’ shows how the input of London Underground location data can be mapped in an accurate and visually appealing way. The code allows the user to rotate the virtual map watching as the trains move through the map in real time.
http://brunoimbrizi.com/experiments/#/07
69
Meeting with the Magna Carta Team: As this was our first visit with the rest of the Magna Carta team, I was eager to learn as much as I could, clarifying aspects of the original brief that had been left ambiguous. Including the confusion, I had had with the project being either a response to the Magna Carta or a direct reference and historically accurate piece of design. The project fits in nicely with my timeframe of learning on the MA, with the final design finalised before July 2014. The history team were keen to also incorporate Lincoln Cathedral in some aspect, building upon the already strong relationship that the Cathedral already has with the University of Lincoln. Clarifying that my design work should be a response to the Magna Carta rather than an incredibly well typeset history lesson, has opened up many ideas about incorporating the themes of the Magna Carta into my future design work, already working with the idea of justice and freedom, Mercy was mentioned, opening up another avenue of inquiry. At the end of the meeting I inquired about any reading that I could undertake to give me a better idea of what the Magna Carta really meant. Two books that were revealed were ‘Magna Carta’ by Nicholas Vincent and ‘Magna Carta’ by Ralph Turner.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Matt Pyke; Universal Everything: Article – Eye, 81/11 – Enforce Focus
http://www.eyemagazine.com/review/article/enforced-focus
An article I looked at in issue 81 of Eye Magazine ‘Enforced Focus’ looked at the designer Matt Pyke and his company, Universal Everything. The article focused on a ‘book in a box’ style eBook that allows the users to shuffle the pages of a book before reading it. The featured eBook, ‘Virtual Editions’ looks to challenge the perception of the modern book. Universal Everything created a digital book that is available for iPad at the cost of £4.99. The format of the book is unconventional although the concept of a lose leaf book that is intended to be shuffled before reading is nothing new, this is the first iteration of the ‘book in a box’ that uses a digital format. It seems the logical step to create an app that would allow the contents of the book to be shuffled at random, as it creates less disorder and the potential loss of pages by the reader. Much like a deck of cards or the roll of a dice, digital shuffling is also much fairer and takes a lot less time. The book can be shuffled and read instantly without the worry of the pages becoming lost or damaged.
71
This is a great example of how a designer produces a piece of work that has the participation of the audience as a core part of the design solution, one that I want to take forward into my own work as I progress throughout the MA. By asking the user to engage in this way with the process, it actively encourages the reader to manipulate the design work and use it in a creative and imaginative way. The process itself draws on tacit knowledge to relate directly to the audience, it is assumed that the user knows how to both read and how to interact with the iPad. This is an important thing to keep in mind when progressing with my own design work. If an audience is to participate in the design process, I need to be sure that they already know how to use the tools I provide for them. By making the process as simple as possible and by producing a piece of design that allows as many different people of different ages and learning ability I should ensure a successful response to the design challenge.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Messages: Turning an idea on its head.
Two points of view, one piece of design that can show off both points, much like a debate, allowing the viewer to make up their minds about the different perspectives presented in the narrative. Show how life and choices are combined. Programme for every outcome. Look at: • Multiple choice books • Video Games • Role playing games
73
Authorship of Content: Design that allows the use of content created by the public to be featured publications, blogs, posters and produce a way for design work to allow other users to add and engage with content to experience the design. • • •
Open source software Draw on table Project on wall
Contextual Review // Logbook
Individual responses created independently, combined with multiple answers and responses displayed together and interacting with each other. Projected onto Lincoln Cathedral
75
Collaberation: Working with the crowd to create a collaborated piece of design. • • •
Sources from social media Hashtagging Location tagging for photographs/Facebook updates
Ask 20000 people to describe their experiences
3000
2000
4000
9000
2000 Largest section will be responded to.
Democracy within Graphic Design
Contextual Review // Logbook
Magna Carta = Democracy
Converting a 2D image into someint much more physical. – 3D printing.
Jumble of Components Give people a selection of chosen words in a jumbled order to create a sentence based on the Magna Carta, possibly using randomly selected words to be arranged in any order.
3D Modelling from a 2D image.
77
Choices: Here is a choice: A B C User answers a question, to which the answer will determine the way that the content is then experienced. By choosing one answer you effectively exclude yourself from all of the other experiences. Much like a choice in life, by choosing one action over another you begin to limit what you can and cannot do. Two options over three, by introducing a clear devide between the choices, yes/no, good/evil, right/wrong, dark/light, heads/tails, black/white, these are very clear parameters that are easy to code for. They are the two extremes with no middle ground and no shades of grey, the experience would be able to show both states and to really focus on one, depending on the choices people make.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Create a mask of colour and text options using coloured disks to allow the user to make a choice.
Article – Eye, 30/98 – Content with multiple choice: The idea of an open ended narrative that concludes in several different ways is nothing new, with role playing games and dice books having been in existence for decades. When dealing with a complex narrative or one that has multiple outcomes, the idea of writing multiple endings seems to work well. The format is particularly popular in video games, where the choices of the player are reflected in the ending they receive. Endings in video games are often polar opposites; good, evil, right, wrong. This is often down to the coding, as it is not possible to code an ending for every possible scenario, if the player had slaughtered thousands of innocents but spared a few, they would still receive the evil ending. There are problems with this type of content, as due to lack of writing there are only ever polar opposites with no middle ground. As a society we lust for closure and will categorise our events into specific boxes of varying degrees of good and bad, this content is often guided by our moral compass but as a designer, everyone’s view of morality is different.
79
When writing the different content it is important to leave the morality up to the individual, as forcing opinions onto an audience may break the immersion in the content. There is often no clearly defined position of what is right and what is wrong; another example of this is the media. As the article points out, there are two different sides to the story and the media will always place a spin on the subject. This is partly because the media wish to control the emotions of the population but also because of the idea that society cannot accept the grey area, only what is right and what is wrong.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Two different animations playing together but can only be viewed one at a time.
Choice A
Choice B
Choice A&B Through development and testing, much more complex animation could be possible.
81
The narrative is defined by the choices that are made at the beginning of the experience. How to make the choice… User Choice: • Make a decision • Choice between two similar decisions • Chouce between two colours Random Choice: • Coin Toss • Cards • Dice rolls Should it be a choice made by the user? After all we are all masters of our own fate and out lives are defined by the choices we make, should this experience be defined by the choices the user makes?
Similar to dual language books, both points of view are explored and presented along side one another, without bias. Contextual Review // Logbook
83
Audience Participation:
Converting Senses:
Use visual clues to direct the content.
Image > Sound
Show a picture to someone and ask them to draw a response.
Sound > Written word
Drawing as a creative medium Draw what you see Describe something
Written word > Image
How does this relate back to the Magna Carta?
Written word > Sound
Image > Written word
Draw what you see
Sound > Image My input
User output
Contextual Review // Logbook
What to do with all of the user outcomes?
Audio Interpretation: Get people to read words aloud. Audience repeats sounds and words they hear through headphones, all sounds made by the audience are then recorded and used as part of a bigger project later. Playback all recordings together.
My input
Public space Popup shops
User output
85
Relating to the Magna Carta:
Collecting Data – Audience Participation
Words:
Survey style interviews
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Democracy Freedom Human rights Feminism Chained Unchained Power Politics Corruption Government Absolute Authorship Liberty Rebellion Revolution Taxation Law Royalty God Equality Devine right Election Freedom of speech
Contextual Review // Logbook
• • • • • • • • • • •
Respect Contract Justice Written word Education Foundations Protection Ownership Torture Privacy Monarchy
Website? Create a website that allows the public to contribute to the piece of design without leaving their own home.
1
2 Allow access to microphone.
Loading...
4
3
5 Royalty
7
6 Equality
8 Respect
Begin
Devine Right
9 Liberty
Justice
87
Chain of Events: Start: Author: Me, User 1, User 2 Author create website Author populates my website with words User 1 produces audio content Author places audio content onto headphones User 2 listens to audio content User 2 draws a response Author places product of both users onto website as a series of responses to original content.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Infinite Loop: Initial content converted into Words Word content converted into Sounds Sound content converted into Pictures Picture content converted into Words Word content converted into Sounds Sound content converted into Pictures Picture content converted into Words Word content converted into Sounds Sound content converted into Pictures Picture content converted into Words Repeat Repeat
All aspects of the infinite loop feed off one another, with the initial idea coming from the author but allowing the idea to run and develop as more and more members of the public become involved with the product, changing direction but still maintaining a clear and tracable narrative and history. The design is sparked off by one flashpoint, starting the process, the rest of the design is added by the user and becomes selfgoverning. 89
Infinite Loop: The aim of the piece is to document how one idea grows and develops over time and through the involvement of many different participants. Group D
Group A
Magna Carta
Group C
Contextual Review // Logbook
Group B
Infinite Loop: How can one idea be changed be three isolated groups of people? Possibly mix up the order, pictures responding to pictures, words responding to words, words responding to sounds and sounds responding to words. Sound – Group A
Picture, word, sound Group B
Picture – Group B Word – Group C Sound – Group B Picture – Group C Word – Group A
Word, sound, picture Sound, picture, word
Group C
Group A
Sound – Group C Picture – Group B
91
Guiding the Participants: By providing a starting point for the audience you can allow a chain of responses to form, as each response builds up from the initial idea that formed the chain. As a starting point, every response in the chain will relate back to the original topic, the chain is also a great way to track how the idea has been adapted and changed with each link. When a participant creates a duplicate of a response that has already been mentioned in the chain that loop is closed, this way there is a clear definition between cycles and allows more topics to be explored.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Collection Box: Collection of data using a booth style box, equipped with a way of capturing the responses of the participant, built to receive pictures, sound and words.
Outer view
Inside
1.5M
• • • •
Microphone T.V. Speakers Digital drawing pad
Make the box as tactile as possible to encourage members of the public to engage with the design. Create a room with a motion sensor to allow the user to communicate with the design through the use of gestures.
1.5M 93
Isolation from other users will enhance validity of the generated content. Groups are all responding to each other directly in real time. Allow people to collected together as a family or a group of friends to experience the instillation.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Separation: Each verse of the experience is closed after one of the participants generates an outcome that matches a previous outcome that matches a previous outcome. Verse I Verse II Verse III Verse IV Verse V Ect
Each verse would be accessible to the public via a website or public platform that links together all of the content in a the chain allowing for visualisation and other possible creative outcomes. It is important to allow the public a way to look back at the content they produced, by keeping the content in the public domain and accessible, other creative may use the data in their own creative work and help drive the project forward through audience and creative participation. Chapter – The day of the event Verse – The number of the event that day, that has been collected together after a repeated response How do I make the website engaging to visitors?
Chain number Image/word/picture/sound Proceed button
95
What, Why, Where, When? What? A piece of interactive design that allows users to respond to an initial idea or starting point that relates directly to the Magna Carta, in this piece of design users are encouraged to respond to the previous user, by either words, sounds of pictures. This idea could run potentially forever so to separate out individual sections, as soon as one of the creative outcomes is the same as a previous answer the “loop” is closed and a new word relating to the Magna Carta is chosen for the next cycle. Why? The Magna Carta itself is a starting point, the first step towards democracy and one of the most important documents in human history. Although originally intended to be a document to limit the power of the king. The document went on to spark off a chain of events that, over 800 years has lead to democracy. By exploring the ideas and themes buried in the Magna Carta I can begin to unpick themes and ideas that run parallel to the world we live in today, allowing for greater integration with design work that will be engaged with by the public. Much like the Magna Carta, the design work itself would be a collaboration of content from many different users, all building on one idea. The design would be driven by the idea of democracy, where many people can help build and shape it but no one person has control of the outcome or the content that has been generated. Contextual Review // Logbook
The content is split into sections or ‘verses’ and ‘chapters’ to allow the user much easier navigation of the content. Each ‘verse’ is created after the content loops back on itself and a repeat occurs. The ‘chapter’ closes at the end of each day of the event. Where? The design could take the form of may different outcomes. As an interactive piece of design that people need to visit, to take part in the collection of the data or as a social media and online based experience where the user can connect with the design in the comfort of their own home. The design could of course incorporate both of these approaches, producing content both physically and through online submission. Some responses may need time to set up and organise, where as others could take a fraction of that. The most important thing about the project is the content that is produced, and how people then respond to that content. When? The piece of design could and should take place in the city of Lincoln, the lead up to the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta in 2015 needs to be built up over time and to engage with the people both in and out of the city and bring the focus of the nation to the city itself.
Calling Card: When the event is over it is important to let the audience leave with some sort of memento of the event. • • • • • • • • •
Small card/Ticket Piece of engraved metal Keychain Book Postcard Certificate Business card Keepsake Wrist band
Website: Visit the website in order to view and chare your account of the experience you took part in, spreading the word about the event and also viewing your particular chapter and verse. • • •
Take part in the online experience See how the chain you were part of developed See how over chains have developed
97
Building Responses:
Tutorial with John:
• • • • • • • • •
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Lego Mechano Building blocks Ikea hacking Raw materials Folded paper Playdough Plastercine Clay models
Allow user to build and produce physical responses to the words, sounds and pictures. Add touch to the list of senses that the user could use, in order to respond to the themes of the experience. These models could then be photographed or put on display as a way of exhibiting the physical part of the outcomes; the models could be placed in the order of the chain, bringing part of the design work into the real world, alternatively, as a memento of the event the public could keep the models.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Themes Design process Changing relationship Content generation Analogus Use the design process to analyse what I’m doing Logistics Authenial practice Exhibitions, where? Proposal Placement of artefacts Curating Print outcome? Web outcome Digital poster? Workshops Talks Proposal before Christmas Reflection of project Explaining Testing Coalition of idea Lots of decay
3D Printing Workshop With Nikolas Maniatis: Maniatis aims to provide technology and services to the museum industry regarding 3D printing in its current state, his company provides services mirrored on the needs of the individual museum and the expectations of the technology in its current form vs. what and how it is applied. 3D printing has gained a lot of hype in recent years as the technology begins to become affordable to a consumer market. The work that Nikolas produces and the clients he works with are considered to be at the cutting edge of the technology cycle.
Throughout the talk Maniatis spoke about the future of the technology and how the market is beginning to change. With advances in the printing techniques and the quality of the finished product the technology is looking to become much more mainstream amongst artists, designers and conservationists. The technology is still in its infancy but there has already been an interest in the technology by almost every area of manufacture, with companies funding research into the creation of technologies with specific advances over material and production costs. Some examples shown included the scanning of a serfice to replicate a texture that would then be printed to repair anything from buildings to works of art, these textures would then be finished by different 3D printing techniques that could replicate the finish applied to an original. Maniatis spoke at some length about the applications that could support this new form of 3D printing but I wonder about its long-term viability, he spoke of how the computer could replicate the craftsmanship of the professional and mimic it to produce a final product. I feel that this approach damages the integrity of the craftsman, in turn damaging the market for the replication. There will always be a market for the real thing but when the real thing and the fake become so alike, it is a difficult thing for the discerning consumer to accept. 99
For the moment the market for 3D printers is still in its infancy, with smaller desktop 3D printers becoming more and more popular. These printers are still held back by the limitations of one material and one colour per model but in time this will change. Already, there are metal 3D printers that work by spreading a small amount of powdered metal onto the print bed, using lasers; this powder is melted into a specific shape that has to be built up over time. As a designer, I look forward to the day where 3D printing will be a viable option for the work I produce, whether it be a rapid prototype or final design solution. I feel that the work I produce should be complemented by the correct choice of production. 3D printing and rapid prototyping may be the correct solution for some design work but I would only want to use the technology where appropriate.
Contextual Review // Logbook
My first piece of 3D printed design work was created as a gift, using an online application developed by N-E-R-V-O-U-S.com that allowed me to design and manipulate a pre-existing template to create a piece of jewellery that would them be 3D printed. I used the application on the website and was given full control of how the jewellery would look, the design uses small built in hinges that are 3D printed into the overall design, requiring no assembly after the printing has taken place. The product itself is made out of 3D printed Nylon and feels very delicate to the touch. Because of the amount of hinges built into the product, it falls and moves in a similar manner to fabric, creating a piece of jewellery that is unique and unusual. The design process is unique to the piece I created, although working from a template I could choose from many different options to get the correct style I was looking for. The design I created is unique to the piece, with a unique serial code printed onto the design. N-E-R-V-O-U-S also allow for the design to be downloaded for free and to be 3D printed else where with any 3D printer that is compatible, with a new technology such as 3D printing access is opportunity. www. N-E-R-V-O-U-S.com
101
Contextual Review // Logbook
Working Through the Problems: When I presented my idea to the class, several problems with my project were un-picked and some aspects of the projects ambitions didn’t seem to be working. When trying to relate the project back to the Magna Carta I wanted to show how an idea could be adapted, changed and shaped by the crowed. One of the big problems that needs to be addressed with the project is the idea of participation, how/should I be able to edit other peoples responses and if so, is that democratic? Is this the essence of the peace? No matter the quality of work, it should all be able to be given an equal footing and equal representation when displayed against the other work. Taking the responses and ranking them in order of popularity, the better responses are bumped up in their rankings and would allow for the best work to be seen the most. This would allow the public to rank the content that they have created, this way it is assured that the bad responses will be filtered out, leaving the best to rise to the top. As the individual responses are ranked, the size of their node on the graphic increases. 103
Tooling: As the designer and director of the project, it is my responsibility to provide the tools for the audience to use creatively. If I provide the tools I can increase the quality of the responses but still allow the participants to maintain their creative freedom when responding. Apply a crop to artwork Use some sort of form to apply the freely created piece of design, much like a template, create a holder that could be applied to each response with minimal input from the designer. A ‘cropped’ effect to shape the raw creativity as a form of editing. What type of tools would I provide for the audience to use? • Colour pallet • Limited shapes • Limited line lengths • Limited canvas style • Limited line width Too much limitation to the user would damage the design process and the quality of the responses, the whole idea of the project is to allow the participants the freedom to respond in what ever way they want, if there are too many limitations the outcomes will begin to look the same. Contextual Review // Logbook
Art work cropped
How to make the work/responses the audience produce as visually appealing as possible. Embrace the idea that some of the responses might be sub-par, however any response is a good response. Should it be more about the way people respond to the work of others rather than the quality or quantity of the work produced? Audience can only look back at older responses, not to how their work has been responded to.
Virtual Aeroplanes: Audience create work for a predetermined contents and outcome.
Limit the responses and format.
Multi screen ‘virtual throwing’ the user generated planes Planes will interact with other planes
105
Choreography:
What is at the core of the idea?
Theatre performance.
• • • •
There is no script, the entire performance is improvised. • • • •
Would the audience produce a script? What is the role of the audience? What are we communicating? How will the audience respond?
Place people in a room with selected props and tell them to produce a piece of artwork/performance based on an idea that is either selected by me or by another source.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Group participation Public involvement Building on other peoples work People working together
Should it be avout the quality of the responses or make it about the experience the participants have as they engage through the whole process? The design direction should be informed by the participants, not the designer.
Fuel: Article – Eye, 11/93 – How the form of design effects us socially: The article suggests that, a part of human nature is to define ourselves by the choices we make in life and that design is no exception. It is clear that the choices we make reflect on our shortcomings, although I am unsure if design can truly reflect our very essence.
I believe that non-designers often see design as a form of vanity, ‘we define ourselves by the stuff we buy’ and the phrase designer conjures up images of luxury and expense, when in reality everything that has been manufactured has, at some point been designed.
107
Design itself is constrained by the tools we have available at the time, with some ideas needing to wait for technology to catch up in order to become realised. These technologies my require a specific manufacturing technique that may not have been invented or be readily available. Some software may require the processing power of a computer to become much more substantial before being able to be integrated into society.
The article discusses the fact that constraints themselves are a good thing for design, as they allow design to adapt and develop, always improving. This is an on-going process that feeds into the design cycle and the bettering of human nature as it is always adapting and changing to solve new problems.
Contextual Review // Logbook
‘Linking’ a Story: Working individually and as part of a group, participants would be invited to craft storyboards to a story that had no initial content, it would be up to the audience to shape the story through a randomly selected series of possible outcomes.
Chains linked together.
Storyboards become made into links in a chain, this chain would be a physical representation of the story in the physical world.
109
What are the boundaries of my creative practice? When working with non-designers it’s probably a good idea to let go of what the content will look like, most of the time it will be awful and completely un-designed. What is important are the that themes and messages are explored and an idea is produced and responded to. If I manage to do this, then my job as an experience designer is done.
It’s about the whole experience
Contextual Review // Logbook
Owning the Space: Taking control of the space by letting people respond in their own way and allowing a natural rhythm develop.
Public are invited to follow a narrative thread, as it changes and develops over time.
Curating a space that builds up responses over time.
111
Lines suspended above the publics head to allow for movement throughout the space.
All lines placed at head height to allow the viewer to easily look at the chain without getting caught in the lines. By overlaying the space, the viewer can see how their work fits into the rest of the chain of responses.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Tutorial with John: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Communication between Magna Carta and now, challenging the authority of the designer. Visible signs – David Crowe Apfel – Practice for everyday life Reception and how the design is used after the work leaves the designer What do you do with the generated content? Technition Curator Author/Co-Author Service provider Ideas person Power – challenging the power of the king/designer Who is in charge and how? What is a designer Studio culture How to be a designer without losing your soul Double layer Joining the Magna Carta with the design process Testing, what could it be? Two different things to think about Democracy
• • • • •
Undermining the professionals Change the power dynamic Role of the media Exploring the authority of the designer Costing’s
113
How has the relationship between the designer and user changed? Crowd funding: • Creates a direct connection between the designer and the audience • Backers of the product invest in a product that has not been fully developed • Backers are buying into the idea of a product • Advances in technology: • Speed of communication • Affordability of technology • Things I need to be careful of: • Beware of absolute comments • The project should follow the loose structure of “beginning, middle and end” • I need to be able to let my mind wander, look for alternative solutions that could inform the rest of my project work • Think through my process, do all of the dots connect and if there are any gaps, how do I fill them? • Designer-makers – public begin to manufacture their own products, superseding manufacturers. 3D printing and rapid prototyping • Pseudo designers • What are my weaknesses and strengths, and how can I use them to my advantage? • Can I use this project to explore the function of graphic design in order to influence a social change? Contextual Review // Logbook
• • • • • • • • • •
How can I change the perception of the audience through design and what would their pre-conceptions possibly be? Through the process of knowledge gathering and researching about my audience, what do I aim to learn from the interaction of the participents? Create a vehicle for the experience, how can I create a completely immersive experience that will allow the audience to engage with the design work Design Democracy Make sure the clarity of the design work reflects the issues raised, what sort of scope does the project have? Make sure I spend my time wisely, working out issues with the design work through practice and actively engaging with the project. Books are there to help develop the project, the reading should reflect the themes and issues I want to address with the project. This could be anything from content to art style Above anything make sure the project gets the point across Why am I doing the project and what sort of impact do I want to make on the participant. As part of the project I want to look at how democracy is present in both the topic of the Magna Carta and within design. The project aims to level the playing field and to allow a democratic outcome to the design solution.
Pseudo Designers: Due to the tools and technology becoming less expensive and the advances in rapid prototyping, non-designers now or will soon have the capability to manufacture and design their own products at home on a relatively small budget. Already with crowd funding, designers can connect directly with their audience and gain funding from the end user directly, eliminating the need for a client to commission the designer and fund the design process. The question has to be asked is if, as a result of the advance in technology and the tools for both design and manufacture that are now available or soon will be, are the days of the commercial designer numbered? Is Design piracy a threat to the industry? If all you need to print a 3D model using a 3D printer is a 3D file, there is the real possibility of the file being distributed illegally and the royalties not being paid to the designer for their work. If we take the distribution of media through peer to peer sharing websites as an example the idea of sharing a 3D file would inevitably damage the industry.
Non-designers now have the ability to print firearms, the only limitations are those associated with the quality of the 3D print and the materials available to use. Currently the only weapons that have been printed have been done so by professional gun smiths, with the ‘Liberator’ a single shot 3D printed gun designed and developed by Defence Distributed. The gun, developed in 2013 caused controversy across the world when the 3D file appeared on file sharing websites, allowing the gun to be printed by anyone with access to a 3D printer. As of 2013 the use of 3D weapons doesn’t pose a viable threat, as the process is imperfect and would be too time consuming as it takes over 24 hours to print all of the components for a single shot. As the technology becomes more advanced and the price of metal 3D printers lowers, the threat of people having access to working firearms of a high quality what would be the impact on society and how would the design community react?
115
Taking power away from the designer and client: The user becomes the designer, client and consumer. Restoring the balance • Education • Respect for design • Financial restraints Are these new tools going to allow the general population to design and make brand new products, inspiring a whole new generation of designers. Similar to what happened when PC’s and Mac’s first started to appear in peoples homes, the public now had access to image creation and manipulation at an industry standard. This boom in technology paved the way for a new generation of graphic designers without the traditional training but with access and knowledge to use the creative software. In some ways the software would speed up and simplify the design process, with computer programmes becoming much more powerful as new versions of the software would be released, adding new features that would again, save time during the design process.
Contextual Review // Logbook
This explosion in personal computing led to a huge creative boom that changed the industry forever, with computers and printing techniques replacing technology that had been used for centuries. Whilst at home, there would be non-designers creating posters and artwork for their own personal use.
What problems do pseudo designers cause for the rest of the design community? Problems with the client, when designers work with a client who thinks they could do what the designer does but for a fraction of the price by themselves, this undervalues the work of the designer. Printers and some companies might also hire a ‘freelance’ designer who has no training or design background, but has knowledge of computer aided design programmes. This causes trained designers to be undercut by someone who has no training. Due to the undercutting nature of non-designers invading the community, the prices other designers charge have to be inline with this to offer a competitive rate to the client. In many cases, the client is not usually design focused and does not understand the role of the designer. This makes it difficult for the client to separate out the professionals from the pseudo designers. • • •
Neville Brody – Anti Design Radio 4 – The infinite monkey cage How to make sense of the world
117
What is a designer? Designer
Freedom vs. Control Freedom
Where do you see Graphic Design?
Where public see designers Designer
User
Where designers see designers
Control Ask multiple people where they think design fits into the scale
Contextual Review // Logbook
User
Collect data from multiple sources and plot results on a chart.
119
Contextual Review // Logbook
How do I get designers to work with non-designers? Change the design chain into a conversation between the designer and the consumer.
Controlling the ego of the designer Design – doing things with purpose •
Play on the idea that design is something that everyone does.
121
Democracy: As the audience responds to the theme and work produced, how should the finished articles be used or curated? •
How do I use the idea of democracy to influence an audience?
Is just asking randomly selected people a good enough reason to justify the design work?
By telling someone to respond to something that will in turn will be responded to, what sort of message am I sending?
Contextual Review // Logbook
No matter the quality of the work produced, it will be displayed and curated. By taking objects out of the original environment and displaying them in a way that they were never meant to be viewed. Designer/Maker: Invite audience members to build and design something for the person next to them. By giving the audience a collection of objects and materials, ask the audience to build something out of them for the next person.
Crowd Sourced Typography: Ask 50 people for a sample of their handwriting, overlay the samples and outline the most dominant shapes that form. By layering all of the handwriting samples in Photoshop, reduce the opacity to 98% and use the selection tool to select the darkest areas. By outlining the darkest areas of all of the layered artwork I can gain an impression of the most common denominator Use the inherent knowledge everyone has about the shapes of letter and build up a collection of gathered letterforms to be combined into a typeface. • •
Letterforms are created using information from the lowest common denominator Think about using different pens to build up a collection of different weights to the typeface
Set lower tolerances to allow more grey to be absorbed into the body of the letterform. This should have the effect of increasing the weight of the letterforms.
123
Tutorial with John: Things to look into: • Sliding scale between the designer and user • Working through the design process, how can I manipulate each stage of production? • Understand the dynamic flow of designer • Think about how design can be chaotic • Paul Elliman – Eye • Bitzfont • Fuse project • Vernacular of design • People who aren’t designers • How are non-designers changing the face of design? What sort of things are they doing? • What is the role of the designer? • Are designers themselves aware of their role? • Work with different groups of people to produce different work, children, adults, designers, non-designers • Inkahoots • Mini projects: • How to create design that an audience can participate and engage with • Typography • Ask different groups of people to create a typeface from found objects
Contextual Review // Logbook
Article – Eye, 25/97 – Other spaces: In issue 25 of Eye magazine, there is an article about the work of Paul Elliman; a graphic designer who works with unconventional methods in an attempt to create intriguing and unusual work out of found objects. Examples of the work in the article show how Elliman’s approach to graphic design differs from the approaches of other designers I have looked at; there is a real sense of craft and physicality to his work. When talking about his craft, Elliman remarks about ‘embracing error and inconsistency’ a key phrase I want to take forward in my own design work, as when working with nondesigners I need to keep in mind that mistakes happen. I do not expect the responses produced to be of an ultra high standard all of the time and imperfections in the design work would also be celebrated as an important part of the overall experience.
125
Elliman’s work has been a big influence in the direction of my project and has informed some of the work that I produced mid way through the preparation phase. Elliman’s work also lends itself to the style of collaboration I have been working with, one that the rough nature of his work would complement. Although much of Elliman’s work is confined to typography I am reminded of a project that design studio Hat-Trick produced in 2009, the project titled: ‘Garage’ was a case study where designer, Jim Sutherland and his daughter created characters from pieces of scrap found in an old garage. The creatures produced were all created by scanning in objects found in one garage and were not allowed to be edited or manipulated in any way.
Contextual Review // Logbook
127
I want to take the work created by Elliman and Sutherland as a good starting point, what would happen if I let a group of non-designers work together to create responses to a topic of my choosing, how would they respond to the physicality of working in 3D with a box of scraps, rather than creating images using a computer? Even for designers I feel that this would be a challenge, with a non-digital approach that contained imperfections. The process itself could be seen as more of a social tool, with participants needing to talk to one another and as a tool for thinking in three dimensions.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Scrap technology: Collect materials from bins and skips that can all be joined together by non-designers to form typography. This project could be done on any scale, from 1 to 50 people all working together to produce letterforms.
• • • • •
3D models sculptures silhouettes 2D prints using scrap to print with
129
In addition to using the found materials to create a 3D response, the objects could be used to create a 2D graphic, for example, using a toy car and inking up the wheels this could then be used to create a letterform by the user. Other examples could also use a ribbon to that could be folded into a shape and then photographed to document the creation process.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Wood offcuts to create shapes: Use wood offcuts, much like Paul Elliman, to allow the nondesigners to create their own interpretation of a typeface or single letterform. This technique doesn’t have to be captured by a traditional camera, instead, could be done in a darkroom environment to allow the user to create a photogramme, a 2D flat image that uses light sensitive paper and a light source. The objects could be arranged on the paper to leave a void where the light cannot touch the paper. This technique works well with semi-translucent objects, leaving a shaded area instead of a black of white shape. Objects with different textures and complexity, put together to form a new letterform. The whole process would invite the participants to interact and directly change typography.
131
Design process: 1. Setting the task – Me 2. Creating the models – user 3. Curating the finished pieces – me • •
Challenging the design process Designer as author, designer as curator
Traditionally the designer has had a massive part in producing the content of their design work, this project is designed to that idea on its head, where the design work is created by the nondesigners and is then the focus of an exhibition.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Inkahoots: ‘Form Follows Purpose’ Inkahoots are a design agency based in Brisbane, Australia. Their approach to design is one of social change and working within the community and cultural sectors. With the belief that the environment is already cluttered enough with other design work that might not have the communities best interests at heart, Inkahoots want their design work to directly reflect the communities best interests at the core of the design work they produce.
When working on the Magna Carta brief, I want to be able to target a specific audience directly. Working with local people to bring the project to life and raise awareness of the events happening in their city. With the community behind the project and wanting to become actively engaged in the work and aid the development of responses to the Magna Carta, this local connection should prove invaluable when attempting to sell the project to possible financial backers and hosts of the venues I wish to exhibit.
When competing against such loud commercial communication, the alternative visual messages sometimes struggle to be heard above the din. For their campaigns to stand out, Inkahoots produce work that is specific to that community, allowing for a much deeper connection with their specific audience. By working on a smaller scale when advertising and focusing on pockets of the community directly, this deeper connection outbalances the commercial power of a much more general advertising campaign. This is what happens when, like Inkahoots, you place the community at the heart of your practice.
133
Making type out of household objects:
Accidental Typography:
• • • • •
• •
Printing Sculpture Photographs Photogrammes Arrangements
The act of tidying, cleaning and arranging cutlery or other household items could be a great example of meaningful design. Getting groups of people to all work together to create something creative. Should the objects be able to be turned into something new through gluing, melting or cutting into them or should they remain undamaged and able to be reverted to their original state? Using offcuts and other discarded items could be another solution, much like the work of Paul Elliman, I could take objects that are perceived to be rubbish and ask the participants to look at them in a new way, use them in a way that was never intended but as a creative solution to a problem that I set.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Looking for shapes of letters in random or unrelated objects Finding hidden letterforms in other aspects of design
Design that is Changed by the Environment: By placing a piece of design into the landscape, the designer effectively releases all ownership of it. Much the same as when a type designer publishes a typeface, they have no control over who will buy it and how it will be used. What happens after that point is up to the public or nature, how could this piece of design change as it lives in the real world?
Wax letters placed in an oven will slowly loose their shape as the oven gently heats the wax to melting point.
By placing typography on the street, the public can interact and engage with the type, walking over it will cause the letters to wear away over time, eventually erasing it completely. 135
How would the different elements affect the type? Leaving different letters under water to encourage the growth of mould and algae. Different materials would act differently, how would wood react as opposed to metal?
• • • • • • • • Contextual Review // Logbook
The sun melting typographic ice Frost on the windscreen of a car, slowly melting in the sunlight Mould shaped into letterforms and placed on a wall to grow naturally in the environment Type calved in mud and then walked over Rusting letterforms Typography that isn’t permanent Paper left to dissolve in water Sugar that melts
Tutorial with John: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Scope out design process, design practice Relationship between the designer and the user Who is in charge of the design process? Participants should be aware of their participation What the designer produces Hypothesis – What do I think will happen? Aim to disprove the hypothesis Will the audience do things by accident or by cause and effect? Definition: what do I think will happen, why and how? Set out some aims and objectives Objectives are measurable Aims are difficult to measure Create a project that allows both the aims and objectives to be explored What happens if…? Understand the power relationship between the designer and the user How do I get non-designers to create and manipulate type? Is it possible for a non-designer to create typography without being aware that they are doing so? How will these new projects fit into Neil’s sessions, are they easy to relate back to the different approaches of design research?
137
Designer and User: Themes: • User aware • User unaware • User actively involved • User as bystander • Designer aware • Designer unaware • Designer actively involved • Designer as bystander • User as part of a collective • User isolated • Designer as part of a collective • Designer isolated
User Aware By changing the focus of the design process, you could also change how design is perceived by the wider public.
Contextual Review // Logbook
User Unaware
Case study – Grafik, 06 – Beck In 2006 Big Active were commissioned to design the CD cover for Beck’s album, ‘The Information’. The idea for the album cover came about because of the state of the digital music economy, with the belief that his fans that bought a physical version of album were being ‘short changed’. Beck wanted to give those who bought a physical version of the album something that you cannot download. The album artwork itself became a ‘do it yourself’ sticker collection, allowing the buyer to customise the front of the album using stickers that were provided. This concept was aimed at improving the experience that the buyer would have with the product, improving the relationship that they already had with the music. The stickers included in the album were inspired by the ‘instant sticker’ graphics that are popular in Japan, as a quick way of tagging and graffiting an area. This approach would allow the owner of the CD to choose from a wide rang of visual styles that were included in the album stickers, encouraging more variety and different outcomes.
139
Contextual Review // Logbook
Big Active describe the work on the Beck album as ‘not designing an album cover in a conventional way, but curating imagery that would allow Beck fans to create their own.’ When designing the stickers, Beck and Big Active decided that there shouldn’t be one definitive art style, so during the design process, Big Active put together a shortlist of artists and illustrators they wanted to work with and who could produce artwork for the stickers. When creating my collection of stamps I want to be able to offer multiple art styles for the user to be able to choose from, much like Big Active, I want to work with different illustrators and other creative to curate a large and diverse collection of stamps. This collection process could be integrated into some of the different activities I want to take my stamp collection to. I could run a series of sessions that would invite the participant to create stamps, which in later sessions would be used by other participants to create artwork.
141
If, like Big Active, I work to curate a box of stamps that will then be used by the participant to create artwork, is there a way in which can I make this activity seem as fun and engaging as possible? The main driving force behind the Beck album cover was the idea of collaboration and the strength of the creative idea. The CD packaging itself becomes an interactive part of the music experience, with the buyers able to create their own work and participate in a different way than with other album covers.
Contextual Review // Logbook
User Aware: By making the user aware of their role in the design process, you shift the focus from the designer and place creative freedom with the user. It is then up to the sure to shape the design outcome, with little to no input from the designer. Aims/Objectives: • Allow the user to fully contribute to the creation of a design solution. – Aim • Produce a piece of design that has been shaped and manipulated by the user – Objective • Input from non-designers – Objective Working with an audience who is aware of their role in the design process, these participants are actively involved in the process of design and are aware of it.
143
Explore how the user interacts with pre-made templates: As the designer, it is my responsibility to create the templates that the user interacts with. It is then the responsibility of the user to use these creative templates in order to produce creative work. Activity: Rubber Stamps
Create a series of rubber stamps that allow different combinations of charters to be produced by the participant. Different combinations of stamps and ink allow the user to create their own work whilst using design principles and templates that I, the designer have created. The whole project is about the relationship between the designer and user and how the designer produces tools that can be used to encourage creativity.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Variables: Stamps: • Heads x 10 • Bodies x 10 • Arms left x 5 • Arms right x 5 • Legs left x 5 • Legs right x 5 Inks: • Blue • Red • Orange • Yellow • Green • Black
Book of Misfits: Curate the collection of artwork produced using stamps into a publication that can be given to the audience after the event. Allow the user to be as creative as possible with the selection of tools available.
As part of the project, visit different groups of people and allow them to create body parts and creatures, collating all of the versions and variations into a publication of exhibition that is specific to that group. This would provide an excellent study for comparison between the different groups I will have worked with, competing the responses created when different groups of people are presented with the same toolkit. 145
Use Lino to create artwork that can then be printed and stamped. Produce as many different variables as possible to allow for many different creative combinations.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Quality Control: As the designer, it is important to design elements that allow as much freedom as possible to the participant. From a quality of content point of view the designs and creations produced need to be of a high quality. The easiest way to do this would be to only allow the users to use stamps that have been crafted to a high quality by a designer, this should allow for the best possible marks to be made when used by the non-designer. Designer aims: • Produce a series of unique stamps for non-designers to create their own unique characters • Each stamp should be unique and offer the user enough options to give life and personality to their creations. • Each stamp should allow for ease of use, no matter what age group
User aims • Produce unique and visually engaging pieces of design using stamps created by the designer • Increase the understanding of the designer/user relationship User objectives: • Working with stamps created by the designer, characters only using stamps and ink
Designer objectives: • Produce 100 individual stamps for an audience to use • Allow non-designers the use of the stamps to help create their own work • Collect and display the responses
147
Alternate Approach: The Exquisite Corpse.
The whole point of the parlour game was to entertain and enrich the creative process.
Collaboration – Cadavre Exquis: Invented by the surrealists in the early 20th century, this parlour game involved the participants collaborating together on each others drawings. The process would ask the first artist to start a drawing without showing anyone else, this drawing would be folded over and kept hidden as the next artist continued the same drawing from the small lines that would join the two art styles together, without knowing what the rest of the content would look like. This project should embrace these surrealist foundations, to make the experience had by the user and designer as fun and engaging as possible. Staying true to the surrealist approach, I want to take the idea of collaboration and the unknown; with users stamping onto paper, folding; then passing to the next user to continue the process, completely oblivious to what has been stamped on the paper before.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Bringing the Exquisite Corpse into the Digital Age: By choosing from a selection of pre-made components, the user can now create a digital character from a set of designed components. These created characters would then come to life on screen, being able to interact with other pre-made component characters made by other users. Not only does the user create the look of the creation, but how it moves and responds to other creations it might meet. Touch device allows users to move and arrange different blocks to create their character.
Creating characters in this way would allow a 3D file to be created and 3D printed for the user to keep. This new creation could be shared by social media to spread the message about the project.
149
Real Life: Take a full length photograph of several participants and morph them together, this could be done both digitally and physically through cutting.
Create self portraits or a series of portraits with your head but with someone else’s body. A similar idea can be done using photographs of peoples faces to change the features.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Photographs: • Animals • Faces • Bodies • Buildings • Vehicles
• • •
Surrealism David Hockney Cadavre Exquis
Original Artwork to be Displayed:
To produce the initial stamps should I enlist the help of illustrators to aid in the variety of different art styles available to the participant when selecting their different stamps. • •
How would illustrators feel about their work being used in this way? Collaboration between designer, illustrators and users 151
Digital vs. Physical: Digital: • More freedom for user • Stamp a template multiple times • No smudges ink • Less mess • Clean images • Multiple colour options • Accessible to a wider audience • Instant digital image • Easy to compile imagery • Scale and rotation • Full control of form for the user • Possible undo feature
Contextual Review // Logbook
Physical: • Mistakes are expected • Much more interactive • Tactile, the feel of the stamp, the smell of the ink, the pressure on the paper • Variable pressure • Inconsistent inks • Inks bleed into one another to mix colours • As stamps are layered, interesting things happen • Better relationship between the user and the materials • Physical outcomes are better than a digital outcome of 1’s and 0’s
Interactive Typeface:
Physical Blog/Twitter:
Typeface designed by Public, as an interactive piece of design that allows the public to actively engage in the design process, as a collective.
Online communities where users interact with one another demonstrates the idea of democracy, by allowing the voices of the few and the many to be heard on an equal footing.
No one user can shape the outcome of the typeface, only contribute to it as part of a collection of inputs. This way the design process takes on a different shape, the shape of democracy.
Is there a way to emulate the same process that happens on Twitter but in a physical form? User as Author/Co-Author
Everyone has part in the design process is that democracy? Creased piece of code for the iPad that allows the user to easily be part of the design process.
Possible brief 1: Create an environment for people to communicate with, much like a real like Twitter but only use physical mediums, physical photography, pens, paper and blue tac. Possible brief 2: “Handwritten tweets”, invite users to hand write their tweets, take a piece of paper; write their “tweet” and then take a photo to share on Twitter. All tweets would be hashtagged to make it as easy as possible to collect all of the photographs together, which would then allow for an exhibition to take place to show off the generated content.
153
Possible brief 3: Physical conversations swapped between friends, instead of writing a text message, tweet or email. Invite the public to talk to one another physically, through an exchange of letters. Similar to brief 1, bringing the digital conversation into the physical world. User becomes author/co-author of the experience, while the designer is relegated to the curator. Aims/Objectives Designer aims: • Produce a piece of design that invited the users to contribute towards the design process and to take on the role of author/ co-author • Make the design is easy to engage with as possible • Design should be accessible to both designers and users of all ages Designer objectives: • To measure the success of the design we must look at the amount of people engaging in the activities designed • Create a survey to access the impact of design on the public
Contextual Review // Logbook
Collecting all of the responses and organising them in and engaging way is the second task of the designer. Through a process of collaboration between the designer and user, where the designer provides tools to the user to create their own content which is then given back to the designer to curate. The user should feel like a contributor to the design process, effectively changing the role of the user within the design process. Designer
User
Curator
The project could be used to show the designer/user relationship and how that relationship can change. Designer
User Designer
‘Wall of Physical Tweets’ 155
The Designer Should Allow the User to Feel Like They Are Contributing to the Process of Design: Aims for the user: • Allow the user to feel like they are an active in part of the design process • User actively engages within the design process • Objectives for the user: • Produce a piece of design using tools provided by the designer • Complete a survey about their understanding of the design process and how it felt to take part in the process
Contextual Review // Logbook
Books: • The relationship between the designer of the user • Collaboration • User generated content • Understand how users generally interacted with the design process • How the relationship has changed over the past few years • Understand how non-designers can author their own content and self publish • How do users the feedback to the designer?
Disrupted Typography Explore how the public can manipulate typography drawn on the street
How would this work be seen by the wider community? Objectives of the designer: • Produce a typeface that the public are walkover • Document how the type is distorted by the Public • Record the results Aims for the designer: • Create a piece of design that will be manipulated and changed by the public without their knowledge
The public are responsible for how the letters change shape through the act of walking. The user is also relatively unaware of their role within this process. Ethical dilemma: As a designer is ethical to produce work that has been created by the general public and have no idea of their involvement in the design process?
157
Public Type Manipulation:
How to get different creative to produce more responses:
Different coloured sand arranged in letterforms.
Interpretation: How to write a brief that allows other creative to respond to it. Should this brief be specific to other creative practice?
By using different types of sand or to fine material with two colours the distortion of the letterforms would be easy for the designer to document and there will be less mess of the public to take away with them. Each scuff would be documented and recorded by the designer, in an attempt to document how the public act on their own environment and how they can be a key part of the design process. Aims of the user: • Walk through the sand, displacing when each step changing the shape of the letter form. • Objectives of the user: • Distort the shape of the letterform by walking over it.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Assess how the different responses reflect and link together different aspects of the same brief.
Authorship of unique content: How are users and non-designers using social media to produce content and document their lives?
Public
Content
Online
Reality Crossover between reality and online lives
How could I use content designed or created by the public to curate an exhibition either on Twitter or in the real world? •
Curate an exhibition that used digital content submitted through social media to be crafted in real life.
159
Digital becoming reality: Digital mirror that mimics the user but slowly learns to act out of turn, predicting future movements of the participant.
Digital content that becomes physical: • Invite the public to digitally author content that is then printed out to become physical.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Article – Eye, 80/11 – Tangible Digital One of the biggest challenges to a designer today, is the task of bringing physicality to the digital world. One way that it is suggested is the use of motion to collect input data, to capture the movements of the user and translate that to a command that we see on screen. Already there are different physical inputs and outputs that can connect with the digital world, keyboard, mouse, webcam, controllers, rumble pack, touch screens, Kinect, but none of them allow the user to experience the digital world as one interacts with the physical. There have been attempts to bring the way people interact with the digital world much closer to how we engage with reality through 360º projections and much more immersive experiences built to blur this line.
161
Although an exciting prospect, I am unsure if the current market is ready, as some people already see the digital world as an escape from reality. In my opinion, there shouldn’t be as much focus on grounding the digital world in the real world, instead designers should focus their efforts on the way we communicate with the digital world, making it as easy as possible to interact with object on screen and for a designer to be able to easily spread their message.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Physical to Digital: User creates content on screen
Should users be asked to design content to a specific theme?
At the end of the process, the data is sent to a 3D printer to allow the user to take home a physical object.
Aims for the designer: • Make the application as fun and intuitive to use as possible • The application should allow freedom for the user to design whatever they want
User becomes author of their own content.
Objectives for the designer: • Users interact with the app in order to produce their own design work which will then be 3D printed Defining the parameters. A series of limited options.
163
Digital Gallery: Why are users documenting life in this way? • Narcissism • Proof • Sharing life experiences Design something that allows all the this content to be displayed in the real world. Ask public to town photographs or videos with a phrase that will be able to link together different users and more content. Photos and videos should be taken or filmed relating to a specific theme. #democracy #magnacarta All authors the opportunity to create and share their own content with others. Physical Prints of the medium that was only meant to be viewed digitally.
Contextual Review // Logbook
165
Digital to Physical: When working with digital content with the ambition to convert it into a physical format, how can I create content that will be easily transferred between mediums and yet still maintain as much creative freedom for the participant? • • • • •
Photography Filmography Music Animation Video games
Place a user in a room to play a video game, when the player gets hurt on the game, the participant in real life will be given an electric shock as a form of tactile feedback. Tactile Feedback Glove
Contextual Review // Logbook
Article – Eye, 85/13 – PolyArc In 2011, Lust created an interactive exhibition that took place at ‘Festival International d’Affiche’. The exhibition named PolyArc was a digital experience that combined the physical world with the digital and then back to physical. The exhibition took place in a chapel populated by artwork, as the user walks around the exhibition looking at the individual pieces a computer compiles individual data on each guest and at the end of the exhibition their interests and journey is mapped onto a screen, building a tailor made experience for each individual guest. This data is also sent to a printer that will populate a poster with the users ‘browsing history’ of the experience in the exhibition and will drop the print from a height, to gently drop into a pile on the chapel floor where users are encouraged to collect their individual print. The physical prints dropping from the ceiling add an additional dimension to the exhibition and invite the user to get involved when retrieving their poster, giving the audience a sense of activity and something that they can take home with them.
167
This is the sort of experience I am interested in, by allowing the users to become involved in the practice and for a bespoke piece to eventually become theirs, the users are given a much more inclusive experience. This is a good example of what happens when you allow the user to populate the design work with their own content, by stepping back the role of the designer, we are able to invest much more focus on the content creation and how non-designers are able to author their own and feel like they are part of something bigger.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Physical Interactive Experience: The participants who created it should experience the design work when exhibited, in an attempt to help the users to engage with the project as they experience all staged of the design process.
The authors and content creators have instant access to the physical versions of the creative work they have just produced. Printers located on the first floor will slowly print out the user generated design work, which will drop onto the floor below.
169
How will the users respond to the style of the exhibition and their media? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
User “Tweets� photo Photo is selected by printer Printer prints photo Print will drop into trough User watches photo fall User can now retrieve their photo, pin it on the wall or leave it in the trough
Contextual Review // Logbook
Collection Trough:
A collection point for the dropped media, created by the user.
171
Physical/Digital: There is something beautiful about taking a medium or piece of design work that is intended to be viewed in a digital format and making it physical. Exposing this concept to an audience and then allowing them to take part and interact with it. This piece of design would negate the need of a designer in favour of content created by the user, with this approach the user would be much more involved in the design process, from the creation of content through to the exhibiting of it, leaving little room for the designer.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Thermal Dot Printing: This would be another digital exhibition that would require an input from the public to function. The individual printers would be given a specific name, that one tweeted would respond by printing out the tweet. As the exhibition relies on Twitter to function, the printers could receive input from all over the world.
One variation could be the printers are hooked up to celebrities or well known twitter users and would print each mention of a specific user name, this would be a fast way to quickly populate the exhibition with content, most of which would be supplied without the author knowing.
Multiple authors can create content.
173
Brief Creation: Cadavre Exquis: A fresh take on the surrealist parlour game, this brief requires the designer to produce tools for non-designers to create content. These tools may take the form of rubber stamps, the user can choose from a selection different components to make up their own characters. Participants can choose to work on their own creations individually or work with a group. Stamp making is generally a fast passed process and I expect users to be able to produce a large amount of prints in a short space of time.
Contextual Review // Logbook
Aims for the designer: • Produce a collection of unique stamps for non-designers to use and create their own unique pieces of design. • Each stamp should be unique and offer the user enough options to give life and personality to their own artwork • Each stamp should be designed to be as easy as possible to use for participants of any age group. Objectives of the designer: • Use 100 individual stamps for the audience non-designers to use • Allow non-designers to use the stamps to author their own content and produce their own work • Collect and display responses
Brief Creation: Audience invited to create content from pre-defined tools. Aims: • To allow a non-designer to create and author unique artwork using a selection of different stamps created by a designer. Objectives: • Working with stamps created by a designer, the user will produce a character using only stamps and ink. Hypothesis: By using tools created by a designer the participants have access to a large amount of different stamps that can be combined in a vast number of ways. By allowing the participants access to this many stamps, the combinations and positioning of the stamps allow for the quality of work to be high whilst retaining as much creative freedom as possible for the participants. By inviting different age groups to participate, I predict that the results will vary drastically, with more creative characters being created by a younger age group and more conservative designs created by an older age group.
175
Examples of the stamp box
Contextual Review // Logbook
Box
Stamps
Stamp tray
177
Testing the relationship between the designer and user:
Materials available to the designer:
If the non-designers are expected to author creative content, how am I to ensure that the content they produce is of good quality?
As an issue of quality, the tools developed by the designer for the participants to use need to be of high quality and ergonomic in some way.
• •
If the designer is to provide tools for the participants to use, these tools need to allow options for the non-designers to make their creative mark Different briefs to test the different types of user involvement - User aware of their role - Unaware of their role - User as author - User has co-author
Contextual Review // Logbook
This approach should allow for the responses to resemble a constant quality and to allow for the easy association of “types” when placed together during the exhibition.
179
Contextual Review // Logbook
181
Contextual Review // Logbook
183
Layers: As the designer I want to give the participants as much choice as possible when it comes to the selection of their stamps, I don’t want them limited to one art style or specific illustration as this will take away from the ‘patchwork’ aesthetic I want to achieve. One option I could explore is the use of found objects, going back to the work of Paul Elliman, who designed much of his work from scrap. I want to be able to choose anything from nuts and bolts for type I find on the pavement to be able to generate stamps for the user to work with. • • • • • • • • •
Letters Numbers Typefaces Glyphs Objects Scrap metal Children’s toys Textures Fabric
Contextual Review // Logbook
Soft Lino Stamps: Created by cutting into lino with a lino-cutting tool, this process cuts into the lino to leave anything not cut as the stampable area. For these examples I drew an image onto the lino and then cut along the lines, leaving a void where the image would be. Other alternatives could be to cut the lino to leave the outline and remove the void.
185
Different body parts to create a collaged effect. Different colours allow the stamp to be used to overlaid to produce a patchwork effect. Contextual Review // Logbook
Impression vs. Depression: Due to the crafting methods, the stamps would be used to create either an impression or a depression of the image that would be stamped onto the page.
By using a stamp that has been cut into to leave a void, the generated artwork allows for more ink to be shown on the page.
I am not opposed to the idea of only using one style of stamp making to make up the stamps I produce, in fact I feel that the project would benefit from the inclusion of multiple different styles, adding to the bohemian nature the project is developing. Adding more diversity to the collection and multiplying the variety of responses, the audience would be able to produce.
187
Styles of Illustration: As the designer, I need to be able to allow the participants as many different options as possible to increase the verity in the responses.
Collaborating between myself and other illustrators, I aim to produce different features that will be made into stamps to increase the amount of variation to the users. Contextual Review // Logbook
Taking Impressions: Part of the project is about using found objects and discarded imagery to create the stamps that will make up the collection.
This process would be a very easy way to build up a variety of interesting and diverse stamps for my collection.
I will take my impressions from an original source such as raised type on a drain cover, using a form of putty I would be able to make an accurate impression, which would be filled later with silicone to form a positive version of the stamp. 189
Impressions of Objects:
Take object
Cover in mould solution
Create a duplicate version out of silicone
Cut stamp in half to create a printable surface
Contextual Review // Logbook
Etching: A way of replicating texture and technology that is difficult to cast out of silicone, etching could offer an alternative solution through the use of photography.
Photograph of the texture or artwork to etch and create stamps. Print directly from the etch
Pour silicone over the etching plate in an attempt to gain an impression on the silicone that could later be stamped.
191
Using a grip with the lino stamps:
Contextual Review // Logbook
193
Contextual Review // Logbook
Mixing Components: Part of the beauty of the exquisite corpse was the unknown as an artist would create his or her own work joined directly onto the work of another artist.
When finished, the piece would usually be a patchwork of many different styles, mediums and impressions. This same aesthetic quality is what I want to take forward into my own work, using different stamps and non-designers to produce work. 195
Production: My first series of stamps, made from soft lino, cut to leave a void and then attached to a block of MDF to increase the grip. This process is relatively fast and has allowed me to produce a large amount of different, detailed stamps in a short amount of time. Although cutting the lino by hand does create some errors and slips with the tool, generally, the results have been good and I have been able to print with them. Shopping list: • Soft lino • Lino cutting tool • Series of blades • Scalpel • Ruler • 20mm MDF • Double sided tape • Ink pads • Pencil
Contextual Review // Logbook
Tutorial with John: • • • • • • • • • • •
Studio Orta Interaction Design Design interactions RCA Colour Models - Trolley? Sizes of blocks? Materials Industrial throwaway Photographs of project as it develops Plan the exhibition Series of 3 events, make the draw, make, stamp
197
Stamp Trolley: When designing the stamp trolley I wanted to explore every avenue when it came to the storage and transportation of the stamps. I wanted the whole process to be theatrical, with a box that would shout personality and attract people to participate in the stamping. I needed to think about the sorts of things that the box would do, besides storing paper, ink and the stamps themselves. I wanted to include an area where the public could stamp, possibly use a letter press or rollers to apply pressure to big stamps and another number of specifications that would make the trolley a one stop stamping shop.
Contextual Review // Logbook
199
Contextual Review // Logbook
201
Contextual Review // Logbook
Version 2.0: The second version of the stamp trolley was intended to make better use of the doors and lids, with areas able to fold out to create more stamping space for the users. The whole concept was to take a huge box to an event and unfold it into a table where stamping could take place.
203
Contextual Review // Logbook
205
Contextual Review // Logbook
Version 3.0: Much like version 2, the third iteration of the stamp trolley was intended to allow more stamp space to be created. This would take place by designing the lid in a way that it would slide forward to revile the inks and stamping area. This version also uses ‘cupboard like’ doors concealing the stamp draws allowing for easy access.
207
Contextual Review // Logbook
209
Contextual Review // Logbook
211
Contextual Review // Logbook
Initial renders of the first version of the stamp trolley, here you can see how the lid would lift up to reveal the inks and stamping surface.
213
Paper Storage: So far, my initial sketches and models of the stamp trolley haven’t included an area for paper to be stored. I want the paper to be easy to access for both myself and the user, it should be just as easy to access as the ink pads so in these sketches I have placed them side by side. The paper tray would be angled slightly to allow the paper to fall naturally and be easy for the user to take the sheets desired.
Contextual Review // Logbook
215
Contextual Review // Logbook
What Next? As the prep phase has now come to an end, I feel comfortable in where my project is headed. From it’s beginnings as a project aimed to educate people about the idea of democracy, I feel that the project has stayed true to it’s roots and once finished will allow people to engage with the design process and create their own work through collaboration. I have several aims and objectives for the next phase in the MA, some are personal and some are based around the project and where I want to see it at the end of the next phase. Aims: • Produce a series of stamps and a way to transport them to locations where they will be used by the public to produce new content. • Inspire both individuals and groups of all ages, encouraging the authorship of content using the tools I provide • Gain more confidence in front of other people, especially when I will be leading group activities. • When running workshops with non-designers, allow them to become aware of the content they are creating in a broader context; from drawing, to stamp making, to using other people’s stamps to create new work.
Objectives: • Produce a series of over 500 individual stamps • Create a box that will be able to store and transport the stamps to different venues. • Take my work on the road, a big part of the whole concept is the involvement of the public, by gaining access to a venue I will be able to host an event that will invite non-designers to author their own content. • Host a stamp making workshop, taking place in three sessions, the workshop would allow the group to first draw out their designs, the second would see those designs transferred into stamp form and the third workshop would allow the participants to create content with all of the stamps created during the sessions. • Once I have collected a large collection of responses, collate them all together into a publication.
217
Bibliography: Architectural Design, 77/4 – Illuminating Embodiment
Digital by Design – Troika
Eye, 11/93 – How the Form of Design Effects Us Socially
Design for the Real World - Victor Papanek
Eye, 25/97 – Other spaces Eye, 30/98 – Content with Multiple Choice Eye, 34/99 – Non-Places Eye, 65/07 – Grow Your Own Eye, 80/11 – Tangible Digital Eye, 81/11 – Enforce Focus Eye, 85/13 – Lust Eye, 85/13 – PolyArc Grafik, 06 – Beck Responsive Environments – Lucy Bullivant
Contextual Review // Logbook
219