A LITTLE BIT OF NOSTALIGIA...

Dear You,

So, whilst having a rather productive weekend I've had this frustrating element of not knowing the name of a program I used to watch when I was about 7 whirling round my head. I'm sure you'll all be very happy to hear I figured it out with the help of some friends and family... ha ha! It was Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders... classic!

Hope your having a lovely day

THI INSTALLMENT PLAN, IT'S THE CURSE OF THE WORKING MAN...

Dear You,

A clip from a film called Salt of the Earth. I stumbled across this whilst rifling through all of my research to do with 'classes'.


Adios!

YOU THINK YOU CAN DEFEAT ME WITH YOUR REBELLIOUS BEARD...

Dear You,





enjoy!

ONE IN A MILLION...

Dear You,

“People in my neighborhood don’t like the phrase ‘working class.’ The guys I grew up with, their mothers mostly didn’t work back in those days, and their fathers didn’t go to college. But they were proud, and if you asked them what they were, they were middle class.”
–Joe Biden, video presentation at the Democratic National Convention

...an interesting quote, and one that may inspire the continuation of my project. I think it's important not to consign (the act of consigning, which is placing a person or thing in the hand of another, but retaining ownership until the goods are sold or person is transferred) a group of people into one category as this can create division. As a result I am going to aim my design at a wide range of people, both age and gender. The way in which I will aim it to my given age range and gender is to look at the places in which I display the final product (maybe on building sites, bus stops, bars etc), and the way in which I display it.



This web page above, The Million Dollar Homepage, was the inspiration behind the Sandberg Institute's installation below. Advertisers can buy advertising space buy the square centimeter for a set amount of days, as the display is an ever changing swirl of logos. Slightly ironic/baroque.


The Baroque Branding Building above was made in response to a directive that the art schools needed to be acquiring more funds to cover costs. Not content to solve things in a crass way, the school turned into a design question for the students and faculty like any other make believe project.

Now that I'm in the process of designing the final piece, I should really figure out how I'm going to display it.

Questions, questions, questions...

FRIENDS WITH YOU...

Dear You,

FWY REEL from FriendsWithYou on Vimeo.

Natural Communications - MTV Times Square from FriendsWithYou on Vimeo.

SMILE!

PRESSURE PRESSURE PRESSURE...

Dear You,

So, typically for me, I haven't posted for a little while. Since my last post I have mainly been working on my latest project in which we were given 3 elements to work to (client, message and target audience) and create a brief. It is then our job to design something... could be almost anything communicating these 3 pointers.

CLIENT: Pressure group
MESSAGE: Appreciate culture
TARGET AUDIENCE: 30-50 year old working class men

Culture is a huge part of modern life, in terms of the diversity and influences imposed on us in every day life. Having said that, all around the world there are minorities that are being 'forgotten', and I hope in my project to inject a new awareness of these on the Western world with a distinctive design. Cultures and elements of cultures I have started to look at include; people of the Navajo, Aborigines, the Day of the Dead from Mexico and the Rathwa clan (see below), among others.

photo credit: Mint

Album cover: Lord Newborn and the Magic Skulls
Below: Sugar Skulls from the Mexican Festival Day of the Dead

Below are some pictures I took whilst sitting in the library the other day. I read 2 very interesting books, one on global design and one called 'Indi Fonts' which featured lots and lots of different typefaces designed by independent design houses.

Blakely typeface: Indi Fonts

Bfrika typeface: Indi Fonts

A greetings card: Reza Abedeni, Iran 2003

Poster against French nuclear testing in the Pacific Ocean (Japan) 1995

Illustration for poster entitled 'America 500 years later', Mexico 1992

For me, these pictures are fascinating and give a true insight into the separate cultures. Colour and line are very important, and I hope to portray this in my poster/billboard/stickers/canvas I finally create.

Anyhow, I am off now to finish uploading and editing my photos and gathering research. There will hopefully be a flood of information on here over the course of the next couple of days...

Watch this space

SUEDE SHOES....

Dear You,

One of my alltime favourite music videos is this little number by Prefab Sprout for 'The King of Rock 'n' Roll'. Just thought I'd add it in...



enjoy!

GETTING BACK INTO THE SCREEN OF THINGS...

Dear You,

I am a massive fan of screenprinting, and was super excited when I saw there was a sign up workshop we could go to and get our hands dirty... so, of course I put my name down! Picture proof below...

Looking at examples of Screens

Step 1 - Prepare your screen.

Step 2 - Sort out your paper.

Step 3 - Stand around chatting/ decide what your going to do.

Step 4 - Start printing.

Step 5 - Final piece!

And hopefully I shall be creating some works like this...


I'm off now, see you later...

A SIP OF JACK TO SOOTHE MY THROAT...

Dear You,


Blimey, I really am reeling out the last couple of weeks in one night... not really the idea! OOPS!

At the end of the 4weeks, our colour groups (mine being Red) from morning and afternoon joined together and did a set of 3 45minute workshops to help us with our final PDF that we were going to create in the afternoon. One of these was talking us through layouts, another was showing us how to use In Design and the other was a pretty fun practical workshop. We were asked to get together with 5 or 6 other students and design a presentation to show to the rest of the class based on a workshop from the last 4 weeks.



My group was given 'Collage', from which we formed a 'cheerleader style' showcase of what we had learnt. It went down really well, and we had a few laughs along the way. Below is a picture of 'my letter' (I was given 'A' out of COLLAGE).



Another group was given 'Typography', and made a very effective presentation where they put together 3 identical pictures of a guy, with letters underneath in different fonts, symbolising the significance of typefaces influencing how people convey an image in different ways. Very nice and right to the point!


'Cropping' made interactive...


This 'PDF Day' was a handy way to meet people you hadn't met before and realise things you hadn't thought of before in previous workshops. Thrown in was a well- timed fire alarm at lunchtime, causing some people to disappear. Lucky for me, my group stuck around and we had lots of fun making a cardboard Mac (a.k.a. 'the Eco Mac') as a bit of a laugh, as well as the PDF we were meant to design. It all worked out in the end and our PDF was a success!

*PDF to follow shortly once I've got it off Ollie/Matt*

See ya later alligator!

SNAIL MAIL...

Dear You,

A nice little exhibit downstairs in LCC...
Loving the shapes and fonts!

There was another exhibit showing pieces done by tutors at LCC, and from that I picked out these pieces... my favourites!

Bye Bye!

SO, IT'S BEEN A WHILE...

Dear You,

Appologies for the delay in posting anything... I don't really know what happened... The last couple of weeks have felt rather hectic, but I have learnt alot and enjoyed every minute! I went along to the Tate Modern to see the Pop Life exhibit (as I said in the last post... BLIMEY, that was a while ago!!!). It was amazing, and the new installation in the Turbine Hall is impressive!



I remember a couple of years ago doing one of these postcards (see the second one below) and it being put up on this wall... These ones looked pretty neat too, and a particular favourite of mine was the one below.



We also had a number of workshops, including a fascinating one on "Research", which I have included a picture of below. We were looking at the different ways of gathering information and came up with the idea of looking at each of our sketchbooks, keys and contents of our pockets to define our personalities.


We were then asked to split into pairs and carry out the research individually. Bianca (my partner) and I decided to ask each person to make their favourite noise, whilst we took a picture of them. I'm affraid I have not got the final production as it is still in editing, but it worked well I can assure you. The only thing I would say is that I would, in future, edit the final roll properly and maybe given them props to work with...



We also had a Typography workshop, which I thoroughly enjoyed as I love hand drawn typography. We had the chance to design our name with the typefaces we were given. Here is the one I designed below. Predictably, even though asked to put our first name above our surname, I accidentally put my surname above my first name. OOPS! It worked well though, I think...



As well as these workshops, I decided to sign up to the Photoshop/Illustrator class held in the afternoon to help me speed up in that area. After a slow start, I created a picture, taken from a photograph taken when I was walking on the beach back home... but I can't find the file... booo!

Whilst doing that, I have been doing some design work for Marc B handbags which has been pretty exciting! Here is some of the work so far...



'till next time...