cabinet of curiosity
tommy britton
http://tinypic.com/r/2lsw56e/5
mindmap
joseph cornell
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oseph Cornell was an American artist and sculptor, he was known for his efforts with the pioneering of assemblage, he was influenced by the surrealists.
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is work consisted of boxed assemblies, he would take a small box fronted with a glass plane and assemble found objects inside, in a way that combines constructivisim and surrealism, most boxes are meant to be handled but some are very expensive and on display.
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e would also give out these glass windowed boxes to neighbours and friends and let them fill them with their heirlooms and other experiences.
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is work is incredibly intricate and detailed with objects varying from photographs to antique bric a brac. The placement and arrangement of each object in comparison to the next draws in a viewer for a pleasant, personal experience. I am hoping to use this formal arrangement and way of displaying in my piece.
info
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ore than 5 persons of the previous 2 generations of my family have been in the uniformed services, this resulted in my childhood being revolved around the military and a regimented lifestyle. My father was in the Royal Navy so i travelled alot and visited him in different ports across the UK and the globe, and my mother was in the Terrortorial Army whilst bringing up my brother and sister, with help from a former staff sergeant in the Royal Artillery, ,my grandfather and my grandmother who was also involved in the Royal Navy offices.
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ot forgetting my Uncle, these figures in my family bring many stories, accomplishments and much memoribilia into my possessions, my project is structured on these wares. I have attempted to produce a modern, immersive and creative solution to the brief given, whilst retaining the rustic, vintage feel of the photos and objects given by my parents and relatives.
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y project revolves around one very important object kept by my father through 23years of Naval service, his suitcase. His suitcase contains over 50 photo sleeves, 3 photo albums, his naval record and kit book and also documents of hobbies and accomplishments. On top of this i had access to his kitbag, which has each piece of uniform in, including a 80s Gas Mask, and also the equipment from the rest of my family.
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y family are very modest, between just my father and grandfather they have recieved 9 medals. They keep these commendations quiet, not hidden, but they’re not bragging about them and they live by the motto that whatever they do it’s just a job. I wanted to show my respect for my family by including them in this project, and that their efforts are truly appreciated however much they try and avoid compliments.
gary britton
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ary Stephen Britton was born in Burnley, Lancashire to parents; Granville and Jennifer Britton.He grew up with his 3 sisters around Clitheroe, and graduated from Ribblesdale comp before enlisting in the Navy at the age of 16. He completed initial training at HMS Raleigh, and was sent to HMS Mercury for his specialist training. He served in the Royal Navy as a Chief Petty Officer Radio Supervisor until being medically discharged in 2004. He married in 1997 to my mother, Clair Harrison, a former Lance Corporal in the WRAC. During his 23 years in service he collected various items, took plenty of photos and treasured his medals.
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ary served on board more than 10 different ships. 19 Sep 78, he started as a Junior Radio Operator on board HMS Raleigh, soon after moving to HMS Mercury in which from there he moved up rates until achieving rank of Chief Petty Officer in 1994, at HMS Sherwood.
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PORS Britton was given 3 medals during his service, within 6 years of enlisting, he was awarded a general service medal for his efforts in mine clearance in the Gulf of Suez, as a 22 year old he was relaying vital communications between 3 boats, which were sailing across mine infested waters between Egypt and Africa. he was also given the Queens Golden Jubilee medal
and the long service and good conduct medal for completing 15 years reckonable service, you must hold all 3 good conduct badges and your assessments must not have been lower than a very good.
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ther achievements include climbing Mount Kenya, being invited to the Queen’s Garden Party with formal invite and being awarded (with compliments) the HM Armed Forces Veteran’s badge for recognition of his service to the country.
david harrison
his efforts in N.Ireland, keeping peace against the avid Harrison is my different causes and been I.R.A and following on he grandfather and father-in-law awarded 6 different medals. His was gifted the Meritorious a very to dad, he was born in Newstead, first experiences were liberating Service Medal, Nottingham and enlisted in the Malaysia, alongside the Gurkhas, prestigious medal of the Royal Regiment of Artillery of from communists in the Taman services. The meritorious service the Army in 1957. From there he Negara; for his efforts he was medal is appointed to a limited trained as a Dispatch Rider, a driver given the Pingat Jasa Malaysia number (not exceeding 100) who drove in front of the artillery, (for Commonwealth forces.) He of servicemen and women per but ended up going through was also awarded the General year, across every uniformed the ranks until Staff Sergeant as Service Medal w/ Malay Peninsula service. an individual must have a Surveyor, he also served as a clasp for service in Malaya and good, faithful valuable and Command Post Operator and Singapore against communist meritorious service with conduct Observation Operative when in guerrilla forces. He served for the judged to be irreproachable Malaysia. He came out for his British Army of the Rhine after throughout, and must already family in 1968 shortly after his the Second World War in which hold the long service and daughter was born, but returned he kept peace and controlled good conduct medal; which 2 years later and served in corps districts which were running he does. They also must have N.Ireland and as a Recruiter until military government of the British reached the equivalent rank retiring at the age of 55 in 1992. zone in occupied Germany. of sergeant. It is the highest appointed decoration for uring his 33 years service is next medal, the General long service and efficiency. he has visited more than Service Medal w/ N.Ireland 27 countries, fought for 5 clasp was awarded after
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mentions
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lair Britton is my mother, and joined the army in 1984 in the postal and couriers of the Woman’s Royal Army Corps which was attached to the Royal Engineers, in her 4 years service she was appointed Lance Corporal before being discharged due to pregnancy but after giving birth to my brother over in Germany she served in the Royal Signals of the Territorial Army. She returned to the UK to her husband, she gave birth to Katie, and seperated a few years after. She met my dad through her mother, Shirley Harrison whom cleaned HMS Sherwood whilst my dad was stationed there. They were married in 1997, 18months or so after i was born.
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harlie Harrison is mum’s brother and my uncle, he was also in the Army as an Observation Post Operator, a soldier who sits on the frontline and observes but also directs artillery and fire. He changed jobs later down the line and became a Clerk, he proceeded in becoming a Quartermaster’s Clerk shortly after, within a nice warm office. He came out the army but remained close to the military life, due to his father and sister.
idea
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wanted to show my respect to my family through some sort of permanent media, with so much information and items to show it would be hard to present it all suitably in person, so i chose to go digitally; this somewhat takes away the feel of the suitcase and items stored within; but it would be more professional looking and suitable for presentation if it were to be a website or a online portfolio. I was also thinking of contrasting the digital media with the original box anyway, sort of like putting the suitcase infront of the monitor and having the website behind to showcase what is inside and give more information about that thing rather than me slaving away at every object describing it in detail.
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his lead me onto thinking of designs for websites/blogs and also to incorporate some graphic techniques in there to make some of the more bland treasures a little more interesting and involving, such as documents and old passports. I would do this using illustrator and photoshop, adding patches of colour, text and manipulating the image seems suffice, there’s loads circling the internet; vintage photos with boxes over their eyes and stuff like that; just something small but enough to catch the eye.
graphics
graphics
scans
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pon scanning images in to use in my work, i slightly nudged an image whilst it was working and on the finished image it dragged it along the screen. I then played around with this with my dad’s gas mask and other photos to create a weird, distorted effect; kind of like it was melting.
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thought this would be a good addition when displaying my findings, it creates an interesting image and especially with the gas mask. with the gas mask it brings themes of death and also looks like gas is infront of the viewers eyes.
graphics
graphics
graphics
julie cockburn J
ulie Cockburn takes found, old photographs and through cutting, embroidering and collaging makes them her own, her work is resolved around combining the past and present.
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n the work I prefer, she would take a desired photograph and cut away at a certain part in a sort of Kaleidoscope style, focusing heavily on pattern and making it symmetrical, she will then manipulate the pieces and arrange them in a different order to create a distorted flower look.
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his technique works really well, displaying confusion in one’s mind, it also brings an artistic twist on vintage photos. Seeing as i have a load of old photographs, if I were to display them in a modern way, this would be a good twist to use to make the webpage a little more interesting when browsing, than just an archive of photographs.
graphics
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ll these graphics are simple and easy distortions of the original images all done in Photoshop, they add a little more to just a photo, i wouldn’t say a little more interesting but a little less bland, and from an outsiders point of view; when looking into this project when reading none of the information or back story, the photos will still appeal to them as photography
blogs
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harri23532024.wordpress.com
hen thinking of ways to archive all the material given from my family, i thought using wordpress; something i’m already familiar with would be a good place to start; it’s not the most beautiful looking blog creator, but it does the job and it’s somewhere i can store all the information and photos i’d mainly be using throughout the project, plus it’s on the internet which already checks off the permanent side of my goal.
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chose a simple free theme called Spun which presented posts in small circles with a desired picture, i thought this was perfect because it gives a minimalistic look whilst still retaining lots of information if youre willing to click through the posts, I made one for my father and one for my grandfather, they both match and are linked together through hyperlinks.
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t the moment these are tests and not what i’m wanting my finished piece to be like, i’m wanting a more professional, immersive experience to browse through my families military past, sadly i’m no good at coding or creating websites, so if my attempts fail to create what i want, i’ll be representing it through created images of illustrator or photoshop.
d173531b.wordpress.com
initial websites
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y first design for my website, i’ve expanded on the theme used for my blogs but used rounded rectangles to show more of the image, i’ve also incorporated my altered images which i believe works well in between the un-edited ones.
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’m now wanting to go further and maybe detract from the grids and possibly use more typography, i’m also thinking of doing a homepage and having pages coming off from that.
initial websites A
nother adaptation of the grid theme with inspiration from designspiration. com, I wanted to add more features and not just keep it as simple and basic as possible. i’ve also included some more of my graphics too.
my idea relooked
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ssessing my work this far, i want to build on what i already have and represent more than just the obvious which is that i’m proud of my family and that i want their accomplishments to be shared creatively and documented more permanant. I want to compare old and new, show how my father documented his life; with all his memoribilia in a suitcase, carried with him around the world, and how i carry my life around on my laptop and phone, shown through my creative ways and work.
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lso adding to these new themes i also want to introduce the stereotype of military famimilies; this being that if one generation were to do something different than join the services, that the previous generations wouldn’t be proud, or happy and feel that they’ve failed. This isn’t the case, nowhere near the case in my experiences. My father and mother both accept my interests and are interested in my work as much as i am in theirs, we share this respect for eachother however i’m always pushing my self in self guilt that i’m not living the military legacy my family have.
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inally, i want to look at the relationship between me and my father, it’ll be hard to document that visually as with him being gone most of my childhood i have no photographs or memories to expand on, but i’m hoping that most can be explained and symbolised through description. I was never close to father growing up, not untill he came out of the Navy when i started secondary school, by that time i had a close friend group and was under my mother’s wing, i had no time for him and we found it hard to bond and get along. Through secondary and college our relationship grew stronger and me growing up, i matured and all the rest, i started appreciating my father more and there’s not much else to it. It may seem like a simple sob story of a son not seeing and hating on his father when he’s finally back, but him not being there and me fending for myself more or less when it came to growing up to become the man of the family i grew indepence and knowledge. Thats what everyone does though right? Yeah, but relating back on choosing my own direction in life and not being filtered into the military, mine and my father’s younger years are pretty much similiar. We both didn’t get on well with our fathers, we both chose at a very early age what we wanted to do, and through the experiences we had along the way we both taught ourselves; with a little help around us to become who we are. And after all that i’m proud of my father and he’s proud of me.
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ummarising, i’ll be highlighting and blatantly comparing the two ways of documenting life in my website design, using old photographs and organising techniques on a modern, simplistic layout. I want to include more of myself and not just make it a fancier version of what it already is, show my experiences too and also include my family’s opinions; especially highlighting mine and my father’s relationship.
final website
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his is my final website design, it consists of a front page which acts like a hub, containing all the links to the other pages.
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he user will use the mouse to browse over and select which part of the suitcase they want to explore, making the experience truly interactive.
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hen they highlight an item of interest, a small glow will appear and that will indicate it is selected, upon clicking a box will popup.
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his page also consists of formal links to information about the website, links to references and my other blogs and also credit to my family and helpers.
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believe this type of format makes what is a pretty dull learning experience to something more fun and memorable, it’s also very easy to navigate and very aesthetically pleasing so it appeals to a wider audience than before.
final website
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his page appears when a singular item is clicked, such as an object of clothing or loose items scattered ontop of above.
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n the right it displays the item in various photos showcasing noteable features.
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n the right a large text box contains the item’s name and a short descriptive and informative post. This post contains the usual why, what, where, when style of presenting.
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lthough this layout and way of writing is very simplistic and minimal, it’s an advantage rather than a dis-advantage. Nobody wants to sift through pages of useless information and clicking link after link to find different pictures. This simple design contains all of the above in a easily navigated, p ro f e s s i o n a l looking popup.
final website
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his page appears when a group of items is selected, this includes parcels and envelopes, also books of documents, but not photographs.
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video starts playing showing hands opening the envelope /parcel and holding each item inside up to the lens, rotating them and generally showcasing it in a 3d view.
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o get information on these items the visitor would click on the photos beneath the video player of the items in cronological order, having them like this makes it easy to find what item you’re looking for.
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o browse the photos at the bottom, you’d hold your cursor over the right hand side of the row and it would scroll automatically, you’d then move your cursor to stop this motion. Once an image is selected, the previous single item window will popup.
final website
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his page appears when a pack of photographs is clicked, along with the the place of where they were taken, a 3 by 3 grid of them come up, you can see more by hovering your cursor to the right or left like before, and if you were to click on one it would come forward and become bigger, and also more details about it would appear.
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gain i feel this is a little more interactive and interesting than just a slideshow, and shows more of my way of designing and thinking.
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inally, for the items underneath which are out of view, a similiar popup opens up but instead of photographs , it’s the colection of items in the pile. From there one would simply click which they want to view and the relevent layout will open.