alias design @aliasdesign - Tumblr Blog

Visiting the Triceratops

I visited the Melbourne Museum to see the newly arrived triceratops. It’s safe to say that this is the only triceratops in Victoria. A brief introduction to the exhibition: the exhibition is built mainly around the triceratops, to show its skeleton and its life thousands of years ago. The exhibit is divided into three parts: before the dinosaurs died, from Montana to Melbourne, and back to urban Melbourne.

Some of the interesting exhibiting methods I see include photogrammetry scan of the skeleton parts, cage-space to talk to birds from the city, and projecting videos to hide walls.

''Creating a space without walls''

During the design talk by the exhibition designers, they told us that they want the walls to disappear. Actually, they want all the traditional dinosaur exhibit things to go away. That's why they used huge Epson projectors to project the dinosaur biosphere onto the walls and floor. These videos were created by 3D artists to provide an immersive experience for kids to walk through. I think the not so realistic 3D models are intentional so that kids won't get scared by a live-like T-rex popping out from the back.

"3D movable model through photogrammetry scan''

One of the best interactive parts of this exhibit is these two photogrammetry-based devices. Basically, you can use your hand to rotate, flip to see the skeleton/rock/bones from the triceratops and that time of history. Compared to the second one (which has a layer of texture mapping) I prefer the white-dots version much more. This version feels like a more sci-fi style projection, and the rotation through the small wheel-thingy is very smooth.

''Talking to the surviving dinosaurs''

In this area of the exhibit, the designers made three circular room with wood, to assemble the sense of a cage - in order to let us talk to the living dinosaurs, which is birds. there are three kinds of birds. when you step into the area, motion sensor cameras will detect you, thus start to play the interactive program on the screen. The program is about teaching you how to speak dinosaur language - basically how to make bird sounds. When you mimick the bird sound, the microphone collects you voice and tries to see if you're correct.

I think this interactive area is very interesting - it uses many hidden technological devices yet only uses to teach you how to make bird sounds. i can think of many different possibilities in how to uses these devices to create different games. According to the designer, the motion-sensor camera is not achieving its potential, but in the future they are hoping to implement more interactive games in this area that uses the camera.

It is crazy to see how many people are involved in creating an exhibition on this scale. They have been planning this for years, from finding the dinosaur, purchasing it, then getting it sent to Australia on its own during COVID and assembling it with Zoom help from professionals in the US. This also shows that future exhibit design is no longer only involve offline planning, but will always be accompanied by overseas professionals and all sorts of Zoom, facetime, artifacts travelling alone etc.

Finally, the exhibit is gonna be there probably forever, so everyone should go and see it sometime.

yourzephtang-blog

Finally

I finally finished my design work. In my interview, I have lots of favourite parts. I think these experiences are unforgettable. I am very grateful for all this, and I passed it too. The design of others, to learn a lot of experience, I want to learn from each other is very important, in all classroom lectures, we have learned a lot of design stylwaywn work is more affected by the fourth-week address. Finding a way to break through the ego in the traditional style is more precious to me.

zimochen-jasmin-blog

excellent design!

aliasdesign

omg i lovvve the calligraphy i love it

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Reflection

This is the most relaxed class in semester one, because we dont have many rules, the class is not serious and teachers are friendly. Lectures are like a new finding classes that I can know some histories of design industry. And know how the original and famous design worked. Tutorials are doing actual activities to feel how design works by ourselves. I learned a lot from all my creative classmates when sharing our ideas. In general, the tutorial of this semester taught me most about typography that I find my ideas of creating unlocked letterforms. Additionally, I got more experiences in every group work that improve my communication skills. The challenges maybe my laziness because some of my post are not in time order because I wrote it in my phone’s reminder and I always forgot to post it on Tumblr.

1. 13

2. 2

3. 0

aliasdesign

Keep up the good works Florence dont be lazy

lawnmall

Chair designed by the Memphis Group

theprofounder-blog1

The idea’s that came out of this group was ahead of there time.

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XXX

Collage exercise where we were asked to create letterforms from objects selected from magazines. I was able to create this effect by repeatedly scanning and cutting out parts of this acrobatics photo till the X revealed itself. The entire effect of this work is altered again and again by changing the background of the cut outs.

theprofounder-blog1

great use of different textures used in the background to create a dynamic collage!

Reflect reflect - reflection

In the communication design studies, I was looking forward to learning about the history of communication designs backgrounds, and I did. The lectures of Karen and Andy on Friday were inspirational and taught me a lot. In this two semesters, I have got to know many classmates that have helped me in different ways. One of the things that got most of my interest is the Early-print and the black letter. This particular typeface is so unique and, it just feels like it’s from an alien language. It is also fascinating how public hated it because of its relationship to the propaganda campaign of Nazi Germany. Another thing I learned about is the Bauhaus. Before the lecture, I only know it as the art movement, but I discovered that the Bauhaus was a design school in the 20th century. In the workshop, we have mostly discussed and practiced about printing and typography. We assembled characters from papers and objects, and we also did zine printing. All of these are new to me, and I appreciate Andy and Karen have been patient with us even when we are a large noisy group.

cielziyunn-blog

Week 13

Final piece of zine making:)

What’s next for design?

In 1989, Japan’s Shinkansen Bullet Train had a problem. It was fast — really fast — like, pushing 170 miles per hour fast. But every time it exited a tunnel — it was loud. The noise was coming from a variety of sources, but whenever a train sped into a tunnel, it pushed waves of atmospheric pressure through the other end. The air exited tunnels with a sonic boom that could be heard 400 meters away. In dense residential areas, that was a huge problem. So, an engineering team was brought in to design a quieter, faster, and more efficient train. And the general manager of the technical development department — was a birdwatcher. The Kingfisher is a bird that dives into the water to catch its prey. The unique shape of its beak allows it to do that while barely making a splash. So the designer took that shape to the design table. When the redesign debuted in 1997, it was 10% faster, used 15% less electricity, and stayed under the 70 dB noise limit in residential areas. There’s a name for designs like this. It’s called biomimicry.

In my opinion, the future of design is going to be how people help the world by using what is in the world. It may sound confusing, what it means is that in the future, designers will use how the animals adapt the nature and how the nature changes in designs.

#design

a gif I made with photos of my zine. Sadly I didnt get a chance to scan it.

retroavangarda

Bauhaus

jamietung

The Marías

ASK ME ANYTHING // CONCLUDE

Oh how this assignment has been so much fun yet stressful at the same time. BEFORE i get into the GUTS of how i used my hands to make things, i’d just like to congratulate everyone for making it through these 12 weeks and how amazing everyone’s ask me anythings look. Im really blown away by how our cohort can produce so much creative work. M I N D B L O W N

ALRIGHT!

So the The Marías are a band who formed in LA late 2016. The members include Maria, Josh, Carter, Jesse and Edward. Their unique style of music fits under the genre psychedelic-soul. I was introduced to them last year by a friend and fell inlove with their dreamy like composition. The reason why i decided to do a band instead of a Graphic Designer or Illustrator was because i realized that music plays a major part in my everyday life. The amount of music i consume some would say is unhealthy but i just find so much inspiration through what i listen. So when we were given the assignment of Ask me anything, The Marías was immediately on my list.

The creation of this small publication was probably the most fun ive had designing something. Since this task was driven on more interest in your artist rather then criteria, i knew this would be a great way to explore and really experiment with various medias. I started of searching my local thrift stores for items that could be of use. I happen to come across a few old books which had wonderful hard covers. I was lucky enough to find one that was red! This started the ideas flowing on how i could construct everything.

I had also found myself very interested in cassettes and cassette players. Growing up i never got to really experience the period where cassettes were booming. I found the concept of having physical music to be fascinating and oddly satisfying. Also i had no idea how tape worked so im pretty sure it was magic. Since The Marías had only one album out, (Superclean vol.1), I was determined to record it onto a cassette and find out how to do it. (with their permission ofcourse). After some research on how to record onto cassettes, i borrowed a old stereo player from a friend which enabled me to experiment with recording ontop of old cassettes from spotify. I experimented with different recording settings and Type 1 & 2 cassettes. After some frustration, i recorded the album onto a cassette and sliced the tape so it would only be the duration of their album. With 6 songs in their album, i split 3 and 3 and recorded them onto both side A & B. mmm quick math

The second medium i tried for the first time was Embroidery!!! After having difficulty finding a method to create a foil on my hardcover, i decided to give embroidery a try. With the help of a few youtube tutorials and Matilda’s wisdom, i recreated The Marías logo (which was already an embroidery but on a larger scale). and stuck it onto the front of my cover. Embroidery was alot of fun but it was definitely a risky pathway as it was my first and anything could have gone wrong. It also took a long time so a few ghibli films passed the time :’)

Designing the content within the booklet ran pretty smoothly. I knew i wanted to implement this psychedelic theme into the design aswell as their signature red. What was slightly stressful was the replies coming in 2 days before the deadline. It was another very risky gamble however it was all worth it. Since i had designed everything else, all i had to do was plonk the answers into the slots and rush to dinkums. Note to self, if ever creating another booklet, set up your documents as individual half pages instead of two pages on one piece of paper. Deciphering the correct order on what goes where is a nightmare.

The whole concept of my project was that while you listened to the music, you would read through the booklet and create a connection between the two. I found that the experience of sitting infront of a stereo and having to listen through each song and then flip the cassette, a very warming and meaningful experience. I guess you cant really skip a song forcing you to listen to what the artist has to express. I shrink rapped everything together at the end to give the user (Andy and Karen lol) a real experience of something you would purchase from an artist.

Overall it was SO MUCH FUN creating this and learnt so many new things from it. Id like to thank everyone who helped me with feedback and advice on making this and ofcourse, The Marías for giving me this opportunity and answering my questions.

If you were curious on what they sound like: https://soundcloud.com/themarias/sets/superclean-vol-i

Much much love

-Jam

stav-ros-deactivated20190312

Well done

aliasdesign

Stavros always has the best idea

joannetriesdatavis

design ethics: what i think of benetton’s controversial ads

When Luciano Benetton met photographer Oliviero Toscano in 1982, he was shown that a focus of message over product could be more effective in launching billboards and advertisements. It was during these years that United Colors of Benetton started publishing their controversial ads, with strong messages surrounding race, gender equality, to even world hunger.

Do I fully support putting a corporate brand identity onto an image that speaks in a very confrontational way about certain social issues? Not entirely.

It’s not that I’m offended; these were taken thirty years ago and taking offense to them would be a bit too late anyway. I just think that with this PR reality, as much as the world might think that Benetton was “speaking for justice” and kind of became this social, activist warrior name who confidently pushed these issues forward, I don’t think it was their main focus.

I imagine a meeting room where the executives and creative directors discuss their next campaign, and let’s be real: Everyone’s thinking about how to sell the brand. What message they can use to spark the most public reaction, and therefore place attention on their brand. What picture will be the most talked about for a long period of time so people remember that Benetton did that.

Surely some may disagree but for me, at the end of the day, their motives were probably just 90% marketing and 10% social activism.

But it worked.

And this method still continues to work to this day.

How many times have we seen ads that are controversial these days? How many times have brands poked fun at certain hot topics or news or even political matters? How many times have brands used more “diversity” in their models to make a statement towards the fashion industry?

The nature of marketing and advertising is rapidly evolving more than ever, and this includes them being braver to find unconventional ways to appeal to their target audience. They might still be within ethical rules, but to be fair, they do enjoy floating near the borderline.

Do I hate it though? No. In fact, I respect and admire it. Because at least they’re bringing some meaning to what they’re putting out there. Instead of being bombarded with product sales, I think being bombarded with strong, clear messages that encourage people to think socially is a much better world.

And at the end, if it does the job, which is to sell,

they have no reason to quit.

source: http://www.alistgator.com/top-ten-controversial-united-colors-of-benetton-ads/

alice---18

I totally agree with this. Yes, these ads are making humanity question and think about certain social important issues that we are still facing today, but also the main object/motive behind these confrontational ads are unfortunately all about the marketing strategy. It’s ads like these generates a discussion around certain topics, but also at the same time increases a certain brands popularity, thus increasing sales and convinces consumers that if they purpose something from this company, they are also supporting the brand and what it stands for.

purpl3rainb0w-blog

Totally agreed.

#True

week 10

I thought it would be fun to dive deep into the Guerilla Girls topic from the week 10′s lecture. Basically, they are feminist activists that use facts, humor and outrageous visuals to expose gender and ethnic bias in the public. Their works are ironic and funny, all focused on the feminism.