Theory as Practice

Amani Kamila Ali 

[amanikali]

Peter O’Toole

This guest lecturer recently had the privilege of illustrating his own book and designing his own shoe for Adidas Originals. He incorporated the three stripe trademark of Adidas within his design. Using a suede material, the shoes are a combination of red, blue, (off) white and little bit of purple. He even has his own face on the tongue of the shoe.

He uses the same colours inside the book he wrote that goes with the trainers which maintains his brand identity. It has always been life goal of mine to design my own shoe within a famous brand so Peter O’Toole ‘s work reminds me what I am working towards.

[amanikali]

Prequel – Sequel

A prequel is a literary, dramatic, or film work whose story focuses on events that occur before the original narrative. A prequel is a work that forms part of a backstory to the preceding work. A sequel is a literature, film, theatre, television, music or video game that continues the story of, or expands upon, some earlier work. The quote, ‘Nothing is new under the sun’ taken from the Bible, basically means that people have been and are well aware that nothing is actually new or completely original. All creative works have been inspired by something that already exists. This makes it difficult for artists to find their unique style whilst making it look good. Finding your own style comes through trial error, all you have to do is try. Allow yourself to come out of your comfort zone and do things that you would not usually do; doing this will allow your skills to grow. 

[amanikali]

Bauhaus Stencil Lettering System

This is the stencil inspired by Bauhaus that creates the entire alphabet with these shapes. The stencil consists of a circle, two different sized rectangles, some semi circles / oblongs , a quadrant and rectangles with one curved vertex. It was hard to attempt and complete the alphabet without changing the original pieces. We were given this stencil on paper and had to cut it out to recreate the Bauhaus alphabet. I traced the shapes with a pencil because you can not change or add anything extra to the typeface you create. 

My attempt was completely different to the correct Bauhaus way and I could only manage to get up the sixth letter of the alphabet. Inevitably I broke the rules and did not follow the shape of the stencils because the choices were very limited and it did not look right without modifying. 

[amanikali]

HOLOGRAPOCOLYPSE

In this seminar we worked in groups and was given the statement ‘Holograms are real and very cheap’ and was given a task to come up with a product. In order for the product to benefit the public we came up with an alternate universe where a hologram apocalypse had occurred and the major problem was differentiating real people from holographic ones. This was fun seminar that got a many silly suggestions but we decided to go along with this idea as it was the simplest one. We created a stick that was able to tell the difference between humans and holograms. We played around with the idea of a zombie apocalypse and the name of the product. 

[amanikali]

The Medium is the Message

 "The medium is the message" is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in any message it would transmit or convey, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived. Erwin Panofsky was a German-Jewish art historian, whose work represents a high point in the modern academic study of iconography. Iconography is the the study of symbols depicted in art or design that are traditionally derived from a recognisable common currency of experience; its the identification and description of the content of images; the word itself comes from the Greek words ‘image’ and ‘to write’. He developed three levels of art-historical understanding. 

Primary Subject matter: This consists of the perception of the work’s pure form. 

(Conventional) Iconography:This goes a step further and brings to the equation cultural and iconographic knowledge.

(Intrinsic) Iconology: This attempts to take into account personal, technical and cultural history into the understanding of a work. It looks at art not as an isolated incident but as the product of a historical environment.

This lecture helped me discover the process of how we interpret things we see and how we can recognise a symbol of something that may look completely different to what it looks like in person or as a piece of art. The image of the two cats above are both interpreted as a cat in my brain even though the two do not share anything in common other than the basic structure of a cat. Hello Kitty is a well known brand across the world and even though she basically has a human body, she is recognised as a cat (despite her giveaway name) through the ears and whiskers on her face and her tail. The second illustration has the four legs and the ears of a cat. 

[amanikali]

Helvetica

I did not want to just recreate the word or rearrange the letters to create new ones; I wanted to Taking the word ‘DECONSTRUCTION’ written in Helvetica regular and highlighted, I created a three characters and wrote ‘Damn Son’. I think that Helvetica is a very versatile font that can used as a base to inspire new typefaces or even character development. I created a stick man using the letters C, t, l, v and i. I created a small emoticon looking face using the letter u and two black squares I cut out the highlighted ‘DECONSTRUCTION’. I then created an abstract face using various letters that makes a symmetrical face despite the I as a nose.

[amanikali]

Neotribalism

Jonathon Lindley talks about his quest on finding what the definition of Neo Tribalism is. The dictionary definition is that Neotribalism (a.k.a. neo-tribalism and modern tribalism) is a sociological concept which postulates that human beings have evolved to live in tribal society, as opposed to mass society, and thus will naturally form social networks constituting new "tribes". That we are all from different tribes/societies/people coming together to form an even bigger tribe or group. Safe place for people to go, artists to bounce off each other.  That he created a recording studio, bar, venue, studio, shop, and practice space for artists called SunBird Records. The brands logo is a simple red dot resembling the record button / light. He created a space where all artists from any field can come together to enjoy the creative arts. This correlates with his journey to understand neotribalism as this venue will host all kinds of people from different paths of life. This has inspired me to the owner of my own venue to be able to showcase my own work and local artists who want to promote or share their work with the public. 

[amanikali]

Music Influences

In this seminar we discussed our music interests and how musicians and bands have an impact on visual communication through media. Jaden Smith is a young public figure who acts, sings and raps. He released his debut album in November 2017 and I have been obsessed with him and his music ever since. For this seminar I decided to use his branding for his album ‘Syre’ as inspiration for my work. 

Jaden Smith album cover for ‘Syre’ has a photograph of him laying down in front of a sunset as most his music videos and theme on Instagram is based around pink and purple sunsets. This inspired me to create a similar theme of my blog.

I recreated this on Photoshop with a similar font and colours to mimic the typography on his album cover. I have taken photographs of Castle Hill during a sunset to use as a background and added smart filters to change the hue and colours of the sky to match with Smith’s. I also sketched him out of appreciation.

[amanikali]

Storyboards and analysis

In this seminar we watched a short animation called ‘Father and Daughter’ by Michel Dudok de Wit. We were asked to create four scenes that resonated with us and sketch them into a mini timeline. 

To understand the concept of analysis in depth, we watched the eight minute video in segments of two minutes to give us enough time to sketch four of the most important scenes. The animation is about the relationship between a father and daughter (as you can tell from the title) over the course of the daughters lifetime. The first scene demonstrates how close the two were as she were a child. The second scene illustrates how her father has departed from her and that she is now alone. The third scene shows how she has grown up and she has her whole life ahead of her but she still thinks of her father as his bike is still parked upon the tree. In between this scene and the last, she grows older and returns to the same spot her father had left her and realises that the river her river had departed from has now dried up. She discovers her father’s boat and understands that she has lost him forever. Interpreted the last scene as the daughter becoming an old woman who had passed away and finally meets her father in heaven.

[amanikali]

Essay writing structure and peer assessment

In this seminar we brought in our essays and peer assessed them. This is a paragraph from my essay that I have deconstructed to label the discourse of the paragraph. I also created a colour coded key of what the paragraph consists of to help my peers understand the structure that my essay follows. Sharing the ‘PEEDL’ paragraph structure (point, evidence, explain, develop, link) allowed me to help my peers to understand how to answer the question they had chosen for their essay. 

This is the feedback I received from my peer. My essay is about the influence of the subcultures within Hip Hop in the visual communications industry. My peer had said that my essay was well written however she thought that I did not mention the subculture I was discussing throughout the essay and that sometimes she could not follow what I was writing about. I had asked James to help me with this problem and he came up with a possible way to address it. He gave me the idea to highlight every time I mentioned the name of the subculture I was discussing to get a visual representation of how often I stayed on topic. I discovered that I did mention Hip Hop frequently throughout my essay and maybe the issue was within something other than mentioning the subculture.

[amanikali]

The influence of Social Media

Kylie Jenner is one the most influential persons on the internet as she has a great following on all of her social media platforms and being a part of the Kardashian family also plays a part in her fame outlet. The Kardashians are known for being the most popular American TV show personalities as they use their money and fame to get up to all kinds of antics. Kylie Jenner is known for transforming from just another Kardashian sister to becoming one of the most desirable women on the planet. Her transformation began with getting lip fillers / injections and for this practical seminar, I wanted to illustrate that process. Beauty has no definition and is constantly evolving but upon saying that, the fascination the world has with Kylie’s lips is as if she invented plump lips is ridiculous. The ‘KylieJennerChallenge’ had everyone sucking on shot glasses to achieve ‘Kylie’s look’ when really, its plain racial fetishism. Historically black features were considered undesirable but when white women turn it into a trend suddenly they become icons in the beauty industry. I did not want this to look like an attack on Kylie Jenner, which is why I did not illustrate her face, as I am trying to express a comprehensive tendency of how the whites take credit for trends that have been evident black culture for decades. 

I wanted to illustrate this in a lighthearted manner, despite the loaded meaning behind this short animation, without too much detail. In the sketches I created, I began the story board with a pair of average thin lips that blew up to be plump and full. However to display the message I want to convey, the lips eventually blow up to form a bubble that eventually pops as a metaphor that can be interpreted in different ways. 

[amanikali]

Chris Ware Building Stories

[amanikali]

Post Production

Digital media is something which is encoded and machine-readable which can be created, viewed, distributed, modified and preserved on digital electronic devices. The internet plays in important role in the distribution of media and what people get to see when browsing online. Nowadays most internet browsers will track what websites and pages you visit to recommend similar media for you to view. Digital media contrasts with print and other traditional or analogue media, such as film or audio tape.

Post production can be defined as the stage in the production of a media output, typically involving editing and the addition of the other elements. another definition of post production is that the set of the processes applied to recorded material e.g montage, the inclusion of other visual or audio sources, subtitling, voice-overs and special effects.

Post production might be interpreted as a sequel, reinterpretation or a staged dialogue or discourse. Bricolage is a french word that means the process of improvisation in a human endeavour; this has been used in visual communication to define how we take inspiration form other people work to create our own. Taking data that has been captured and cutting it up, moving it around, filtering and shaping it into a finished work is an approach to creating a reinterpretation. In art bricolage is the construction or creation of something new, from a diverse range of available things.

[amanikali]

Postmodernism

Modernism is movement that has no fixed beginning or end; the Bauhaus was the most influential Modernist art school of the 20th century. Modernists spend their time trying to better the world through science and facts. I believe Modernism is better understood through visual communication; Picasso was praised upon his artwork during the during the 20th century as he created pieces that were based upon predetermined principles of art. Modernists believed that ‘Less is more’ (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe) however Postmodernists created a movement where there was more than style or method when it comes to creating. This was a movement that allowed endless ways for artists to dynamically express themselves without limitation. Postmodernism is a critique of Modernism and is constantly on the path to analyse, challenge and question everything to understand why things are the way they are or why things are not the way they are. I think this quote stated by French sociologist, Jean Baudrillard summarises Postmodernism quite well. ‘It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real.’

In an episode of The Pink Panther created in 1967 by Blake Edwards and Friz Freleng called ‘The Hand Is Pinker Than The Eye’ the cartoon universe undertakes various events without following the rules of the real world. Gravity and perception alternates under the control of a white rabbit between mediums such as mirrors, doors, mats and a painting as shown below. The Panther exits the yellow door and notices a mounted painting on the wall that is slightly slanted. He straightens the painting to be parallel with the frame of the animation but inevitably changes the angle of the ground and begins falling for period of time in the angles ground and the stairs in the painting. I think this episode is prime example of how Postmodernism was cultural shift from Modernism in creating animations.

[amanikali]

Surrealism and The Uncanny Valley

I think this alphabet by Jindřich Heisler (1952) (Arranged by Pierre Faucheux for Les manifestes du surréalisme, 1955) is visual example of how surrealism is in relation with graphic design. Surrealism is a 20th-century movement which allowed the the creative potential within the unconscious mind to be expressed in art and literature, best known for illogical sense and unnerving visuals. Features of surrealism involve contrasting concepts into one idea / art piece. ‘A juxtaposition of two more or less distant realities, The more the relationship between the two juxtaposed realities is distant and true, the stronger the image will be - the greater it’s emotional power and poetic reality’ Pierre Reverdy, Nord-Sur. I was not until the 1960s when there was solid evidence of surrealism within graphic communication and I think this alphabet by Jindřich Heisler (1952) (Arranged by Pierre Faucheux for Les manifestes du surréalisme, 1955) is visual example of how surrealism is in relation with graphic design. The style of typography can be associated with historic, biblical and symbolic references as you can see angel / gargoyle features such as wings. The letters act as an object underneath a light and they all have individual shadows according to the shapes within the letters. Max Ernst was known as the artist of psychoanalytic Surrealism. He was a pioneer in the Surrealism movement and created this piece with oil on canvas. 

Originally created by Masahiro Mori in 1970, the phrase “uncanny valley” describes our unusual revulsion towards things that appear nearly human, but not quite right. This strange reaction usually involves 'living’ robots or androids, and computer-generated animations. This graph is a visual representation of how the human reaction varies when seeing different interpretations of the human aesthetic through empathetic response of how real something appears. The graph begins with a drawing of a stickman, the very basics of human anatomy which is why we do not have much of an empathetic response to it. An early Youtube series ‘Stickmen on Crack′ is a series of animation featuring a homogeneous group of stick-men getting up to random and often violent antics. The series is only humorous because we do not relate to these characters and we understand that none of the actions are real. However if the same violent scenes happened in a filmed movie with real people we would have a much more empathetic response upon seeing humans like us go through pain. The graph demonstrates this at the end where the empathetic response peaks when seeing a human being. The rectangle of a gray gradient is the ‘uncanny valley’ as the graph plunges down to nearly zero on the empathetic response scale upon seeing the Cubo girl.

[amanikali]

Documentation and Layout

Laura Hett and Luis Cook use different techniques to document their ideas and work through a sketchbook. A good structure for the documentation of a brief is by starting with research that is relevant to your ideas for the brief. This will give the client an overview of how you became inspired and where the foundations for the brief began. Providing four to five artists with pieces that may have inspired a visual outcome will give a great insight to the client. Then listing the different ideas that you imagined from the research gives the client subtopics to follow through the development of the final pieces. Development can be shown through screenshots and early sketches. A project layout is essential to work within your own guidelines especially when done by hand on paper. Sketches show that you have taken the time to think about what you put into the brief. This gives you the opportunity to guide you through the process of creating. 

I created a few layouts for a blog using different kind of borders, post counts, and columns. I chose my favourite design to create a sketch of a potential layout for my own brand. I decided on the name A.K.A Graphics because my initials are AKA (Amani Kamila Ali) and made sure that I had the essentials on the sidebar. I created permalinks for my contact information, general information about what I offer as a graphic designer / animator and an ‘About’ page if anyone wishes to get to know me in a more personal way. Clients are only interested in that if they desire my work and the extra permalinks below the blog description allows them to explore which department of Graphic Design / Animation they wish to see my work in. 

[amanikali]

Triangle, Square Circle

The shapes inside the box are Kandinsky’s equation (red=square, yellow=triangle, blue=circle) which he believed that everyone would able to perceive as the correct predicament. 

In seminar five with Anna, I participated in 1990 Kandinsky’s psychological test where you fill in a triangle, square and circle with solid primary colours. Here are my results.

I coloured the triangle red because it is the strongest shape known to man and I associate the shape with a warning sign. In my opinion combining the colour red with the strongest shape correlates logically because red is associated with danger and power.

Four sided shapes are the most common shape in man-made objects and a square also represents the cycle of the four seasons. The colour yellow seemed to match the square the most to me as it is a colour that represents the intellect and spontaneity that is a part of the thought process for architecture. It can also represent the four seasons whether it is the bright flowers that bloom in the spring, the blinding sun in the summer, the crispy leaves that fall in autumn or the sparkly snowflakes in winter.

Circles are centering and calming, and are associated with infinity. An ongoing cycle represents consistency and a zone of comfort. the colour blue is known to have a positive impact on the body and mind and is often associated with open spaces such as the sky and oceans. I associate the colour blue with a calm atmosphere which is why I felt that the circle should be filled in with blue.