End of Module Evaluation OUGD406

End of Module Evaluation OUGD406   

                                

Throughout this module I feel I've really expanded on my skills, as well as develop new ones. These being mainly to do with the more practical side of graphics, from studying OUGD404 I've been able to apply my knowledge of layout and format in particular, starting with the Penguin book covers, I was originally unfamiliar with grid systems like the Marber Grid used on classic penguin book covers, I've always preferred not considering layout in terms of aesthetics concerning such things as the Rule of Thirds. However knowing and applying this I can see already even down to things such as design boards I'm now producing they're cleaner, more consistent and professional looking.

My favourite but simultaneously most challenging studio brief was the last. I really enjoyed the freedom of interpretation, and I love being given a chance to showcase something more personal as I feel I always thrive and become more passionate and ambitious. This worked against me with this project however I managed to continually adapt my choice of medium, without loosing the conceptual context. I was really pleased with the outcome I made, tying in spoken word by Will Fraser with a gritty video featuring clips about the honest truth of drinking during first year, what was initially meant to be an amusing project naturally came out the way it did and felt more like I was highlighting drinking was used as escapism. I love the way this progressed almost without me realising as I feel work like this is far more honest and powerful, especially the homemade feel it has to it as I don’t like working with HD software, the shakiness and quality furthermore mirrors a drunken state. Next year I hope to be able to do more conceptual work like this. 

Working in a group for brief 3 was interesting as well, it proved to me that what I had initially dreaded can infact be incredibly helpful and supportive, it cut time we spent on things and a mix of ideas helped our ideas develop, rather then clashing which is what I had originally expected. Everyone in my group contributed in their own unique way, I was worried at first as everyone was tied down to their laptops creating digital logotypes, however I then realised it could be my role to do something more handmade, so using my strengths which in some cases were their weaknesses was mutually beneficial, and vice versa. Our final outcomes were really strong, despite them being very clean cut and not the style of design I favour, I was happy they fit the brief well and my personal job of wayfinding I made somewhat more my chaotic style, but still in keeping with context of minimalism. 

Studio Brief 4 Video

I decided to do a video and play to my strength and passions which seemed fitting to wrap the year up with. Using the bottle as a prop it seemed only natural to use the notches / scale on the side of the bottle so I chose to focus on how much I'd drink for certain things. I started filming shots that were just seconds long, showing me topping up the bottle each time with the same amount of 'vodka' I would normally use per drink. I aim to then get Will to say his poem over the top and strip the audio from the clips. He decided then to change him poem so it was more in keeping with the context, less conceptual and less ambiguous. The poem also uses numbers, in this case dates as some kind of scale which is fitting with the measurement theme.

One night, two nights, 3 nights more,

Five freights from the first night, submissions at your door.

Drunk 6th n 7th an it weren't even eight, 9 more minutes but its 10 & you're late.

1 all nighter fits in front of your fail,

10 mark pen picks apart your plan,

1 more month & it's already Jan

It turned out I was the one reading the poem through shyness of the poet.. but I feel it turned out well still and I was playing around with editing my voice but felt it sounded more real and fitting with an honest feel to the overall video, with minimal alterations. I had originally applied some heavy varying alterations however when played alongside the other clips' audio (which I had reduced) feedback came back that it was too much and without these edits it sounded clearer, like a voice of reason.



I proceeded to speed up the video clips I had, so that it fit around the length of the audio, and recorded the audio a few times altering it to the length of the clips and so forth, until I feel it blended well. Also by speeding up the clips it gives you a clearer image of the bottle emptying, without it being too fast that its a blur, and not too slow that it's just a constant string of the water slowly splashing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQWvLNbHylo

Feedback:
Could've made the clips shorter and more abstract
The poem is ambiguous and mysterious, the clips could've reflected this somehow but it's quite obvious using effects on the video
The voice works really well alongside the clips
Really interesting concept
Could use different coloured drinks

I'm really happy with the outcome, especially considering my initial idea was so different and I had to adapt my idea constantly due to mishaps. Considering the feedback, I'm glad I didn't use different coloured drinks as this would've looked inconsistent and I wanted the bottle and liquid to remian the same so as not to be a further distraction from the ever changing background. If I'd have more time it would've been nice to experiment further with locations, possibly highlighting lengths some students go to to get drunk, and weirder places they do so. I'm glad in the end I used my own voice despite being intially nervous about doing so, feedback proved it worked well.

Exhibition Contribution

 

Mishaps

Initially the vinyl cutting was working, not with the hand drawn one, but the poem however the lettering was just too small and many figures got lost. This was incredibly frustrating, I furthermore chopped up the drawn one a little so as to shrink the area that would be printed however the lines were still just too thin. As shown above, while the vinyl cutter was working, all the pieces I needed to be stuck down had come away from the image, leaving the negative I didn't need. Even figures from the last remaining design weren't intact, I therefore had to improvise and take letters from the poem design and replace lost letters on the image with the notches. 

As a result you can see all the letters vary in size, angle and so forth. I originally tried to maintain the angles in keeping with the previous warp design however it was hard to align them perfectly so I chose a purposely messier layout style and put purposely varied letter sizes alongside each other at different angles. I feel the outcome adds to the 'drunken state' effect. 

I then took this bottle to go sandblast it, only to find that I could've only have done so if I'd used specialist sand-blast proof vinyl. This was incredibly frustrating as I'd only been told I would need vinyl and had queued for 3 hours alone to get that printed. The technician suggested I shouldn't unless I don't mind the risk of the letters being blasted off, which would have ruined the whole design. Due to time constraints I thought it would be best to choose a different path. 

An earlier idea came back to mind of a photo series or video of some kind. This way I could utilise the bottle I'd made and use it more as a prop than a final outcome, the video and audio editing which I'd like to think is one of my strengths will therefore utilise my skills better, rather than sandblasting which I'd never done before, I want to try do that properly when I have more time because at least now I know the requirements and when I have more time I can execute it properly. 

Design Principle Design Boards OUGD404- ISSU Presentation

http://issuu.com/alexandragray/docs/finalllll_404_design_boards_3

Design Principles- Museum Poster

 

For this brief we had to create an A1 poster that you could fold down into A4, the concept I had was that I could fold this down into an origami frog as featured on the poster, however this was too ambitious a task particularly as I was unfamiliar with origami techniques as this frog was my first attempt into this however I had had help from my Dad who likes to think he's a pro.  

Researching History Museum posters I found most designs were really simplistic and used a minimal variety of colours. I really like the latter where the text becomes apart of the imagery, I aimed in my poster to incorporate these elements and have the focal point on these two with no cluttered background to act as any kind of distraction.

The content was just a basic museum poster format, including the dates, title and location. In terms of format I wanted the typography to fill the spaces, making the most of the larger paper dimensions. The type I felt therefore not only looked like it was part of this miniature landscape I've created, but it's large and intimidating, due to the nature of the condition Ranidaphobia whereby people have a fear of frogs. Therefore the lack of kerning and general space in the poster is meant to be symbolic of this kind of suffocation created when fear arises, this sense of being trapped I hope is clear. 

In terms of colour scheme, I used colours featured in the mini scene I created, favouring a darker murky green for the header font which I feel works well as anything brighter would appear too friendly as the connotations of green are often earthy, natural, reliable. I wanted maintain the earthy, nature connotations but by darkening it it not only looks more like the typical colour of a frog, but also appears less friendly which obviously this condition is not meant to be.

My final design was an alteration from the first as I was initially unsure about the garish yellow background, I thought initially as it clashed so much with the murky green heading and I thought it I should feature one of the colours featured on the duvet in the imagery, so I chose the yellow, then linking it to the Yellow Banded Poisonous Dart Frog as I thought it was particularly relevant especially as this gives the fear of frogs a reasoning, as this yellow colour is representative of poison. 

However upon reflection it didn't seem appropriate for the context of the Natural History Museum, and for me the text didn't look right on that vibrant background so I wanted to strip it back like the posters I'd seen whilst researching. The final outcome is cleaner and more suitable. The sense of fear is more subtly portrayed through the text rather than the background which was more of an eye sore.

Pantone Your Street Colour Theory Booklet Reprinted

 Not only did I reprint my Pantone booklet, I also made a slight alteration with the page above, adding simplistic lines to create the illusion of a square mimicking one of Albers' squares. I used one of the colours from the colour swatch I'd done myself of an area of Leeds I walk past regularly. I thought the colour choice highlighted the overall mood of this dingy abandoned building, it also works well with my choice of updated imagery of Albers' work. I found the previous images I'd used too garish, while this murky green fits better alongside the next double page spread, using Klein Blue as the background. I then continue using this blue in the next spread focusing on Pantone, this page also features Rose Quartz my favourite colour I came across when studying the Pantone colour series, this furthermore compliments the Marsala used on the facing page.

As the binding I sewed the pages together which was visually a lot more subtle and clean that my last booklet with wonky staples ruining the spine. However as soon as I folded my booklet carefully, this was irrelevant as a small amount of definition in the colour wore off due to a spine being created so it looks patchy which was frustrating. However you can only see this if the spine is observed and not when reading through the booklet. I was really glad to learn how to print out booklets properly, this will be incredibly useful and stop me from misprinting everything like I initially did.

Bottle 3: Notches

On my third bottle will be the notches down the side of the bottle, with notes corresponding to how much has been drunk after a certain event/ feeling etc. 

After peer feedback it became apparent I should distort the text as I had done with the poem to maintain consistency as "the font almost appears to be completely different" prior to this manipulation.

Each notch is meant to be symbolic of a milestone/ beginning and ending of a certain 'drinking chapter of my life'. I wanted to choose slightly satirical comments to go alongside the notches suggestive that it's not all doom and gloom, for example missing my cat takes up only a small portion of the bottle and is light hearted. Frantic fresher naturally is the largest section just as a little warning for the new freshers!

Speaking From Experience- Bottle 2: Poetry

I originally tried to find the typeface of the Tamova vodka, this is the litre bottle from Aldi I always buy.. I experimented with the typeface featured underneath the header as well which is similar on almost all vodka bottles, the swirly serif typeface however realised later this wouldn't look so fitting alongside my drawings on the other bottle so I thought it best to pick a more robotic, contrasting typeface. 

 I experimented with a neutral typeface similar to another font featured on the bottle.

I decided upon Krungthep regular as I thought this was most fitting to the numerical style of font used when describing the bottle's alcohol contents and ingredients. It also will work well with the context of the other bottle with notches on it as this will indicate further a metaphorical measurement.

I then had to configure it onto the correct dimensions of the circumference of a wine bottle. Using measurements i adjusted this. 

Upon doing so and resizing the font etc this happened and I almost left it so because I really liked the mystery and further distortion but thought it would distract from the meaning and impact of the poetry.

Speaking From Experience Development

I started off experimenting with different sketching styles. The first being the one shown in the bottom left corner where I traced over an image of me and Will, the other being my own drawing style previously explored.

I used guides so that I could create a continuos pattern, so either side of my design had to align so at no point in the pattern would it appear split as I want the pattern to stretch around the whole bottle with no gaps. I found out that by keeping this guides on whilst drawing around them, it effected the sketching and left lines are produced limitations, I found the effect fitting thanks to the distortion, mirroring also the effects of alcohol on mood. 

I was really flattered when a classmate told me the illustrations looked like one of Basquiat's line drawings he'd seen:

Basquiat being probably my favourite artist, this was really motivational and aided my decision this was the most appropriate drawing style.

This is my final design, I'm concerned however that the lines may be too thin, I'm going to print it out on vinyl and experiment on a large bottle (which it's been formatted to fit) and sand blast the design on, providing the lines are thick enough to work with vinyl. My plan as this design is more decorative than anticipated, is to have a series of bottles, possibly three. On one will feature this image, the other being my original idea with the notches marking how much I needed to drink after Cop handin and so forth... the last bottle I plant to print Will's spoken word onto. 

Speaking From Experience: Idea Generation

I began thinking about using three bottles, originally I thought vodka, white wine and red wine. I concluded however red wine would look too out of place but mainly wouldn't look as clear or effective once sand blasted. It would be a lot more aesthetically pleasing having two white wine bottles either side the larger vodka bottle in the middle.

In order to make the vinyl wraps for my bottles I've got to ensure I've got the right dimensions, especially for the bottle that will feature my drawings as I want to make sure it's an overall pattern meaning the edges should match up so there's no breaks in the design. 

Sand Blast Artist Research

HIDEYUKI KUBONOKI


Looking into sandblast art i came across Hideyuki Kubonoki. I think these are stunning, they are intricate but they almost inspire me to branch out and move away from just type and actually have drawings on these bottles, makes me think about drawing faces using a graphics tablet and printing this out on vinyl, this would then act as the stencil for the negative space on the bottles.

Will my partner has previously done spoken word style booklets so this may be a good point in collaboration, whereby the text featured is written by him and drawings entwined done by me. This would be a more abstract subjective approach and probably wouldn't require as many bottles as they would be more detailed and time consuming to produce.

In terms of the drawings, I was thinking of having roughly sketched outlines of faces with mixed emotions, a documentation of feelings expressed throughout the year.

Similar to this style I've previously adopted with these two commissioned pieces for musicians:



I was thinking for reference I could take images of me and my friends or just me and Will drunk throughout the year and trace these in this style. Will did a photoshoot of him holding a wine bottle which I feel would be particularly relevant, as well as it being an inclusion of work done this year.

This piece by P&M Dabner featuring jazz artists would be a similar style I'd hope to achieve, as I'm inexperienced with sand blasting I wouldn't be able to create detailed shaded pieces like Hideyuki. It would be more fitting also to work without shading as I want simple line work.

I also really like this piece of the Beatles by Area Glass.

Another interesting approach I found was by artist Tasmin Van Essen, she's fascinated by "the fragile boundary between attraction and repulsion" a place where tension is highlighted by the obscure. This being named the 'erosion' series is compiled of layered blocks of alternating black and white porcelain which she then sandblasts to mimic biological forms similar to a parasitic virus in the process of devouring the host.

This more 3-dimensional approach to sandblasting is what I want to achieve as most pieces I've seen are 2-D, usually on mirrors or as decorative panels of glass in restaurants and hotels.