becca jones

graphic designer, saxophonist, tea drinker

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Architecture in Bristol

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Physical typography: the letter F cut out form paper and layered

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Photos from Berlin

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Some page layouts from an interview publication with employees of Artworks Solutions Ltd.

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25 things about my book project on the urban design of Milton Keynes

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Monogram designs for the initials JC and PJ

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Typographic response to a 5 hour research task completed in one location.

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Logo for the Royal Wootton Bassett Academy Swing Band the I am a part of.

Designed for use on hoodies and promotional posters.

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Practicing light trails for a motion piece.

Final video: https://vimeo.com/267259583

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Can you really concentrate on two things at once?

A poster relating to an issue that irritates me: people using their phones while driving.

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Select 2 images that could be the focus of your essay

Arctic Monkeys Do I Wanna Know music video

Back To The Future film poster

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Make your own top ten list of your favourite practitioners in your field and consider what it is about their practice that you value.

Leif Podhajsky and Dan Hillier (1 & 2) Graphic designers who’s work has been commissioned by bands and used for album artwork. Podhajsky’s clients include Tame Impala, Foals, Grimes and The Horrors, Hillier produced the cover art for Royal Blood’s debut album. I appreciate the visual connection between the two creative industries of design and music and how they are able to reflect each other through different mediums.

David Wilson (3) Describes himself as a film maker and artist and has directed music videos for Arctic Monkeys Tame Impala and Arcade Fire, amongst others. He often presents animated cartoon drawings again showing an appreciation for the visual art that music can create.

Daisy Emerson (4) Illustrator and sign writer who uses a consistent style of typography and colour reflecting a feminine aesthetic while the words remain to appear strong and bold. The signs are simple using a minimal but complimentary colour range and are produced by hand painting. I think it is important to appreciate work still done by hand without digital impact as it is still as effective.

Matt Blease and Kot Bonkers (5 & 6) Illustrators reflecting modern day issues and thoughts in simple drawings with accompanying lines of text. Matt presents humorous illustrations that consist of simple pen drawings. Kot’s work is also produced by hand and reflects a range of political opinions as well as motivation mental support. The simpleness of these illustrations alongside their effective messages shows to me that the amount of work that appears to have been out into the final piece is a minor part of the process.

David Carson (7) A graphic designer emerged in surf and skateboard culture, I was first attracted to his collage work which suggested a blend of hand and digital rendering. Through research for a project on my foundation course I researched him further and appreciated the irony in his often illegible work, which he admits to and promotes in a TED talk he presented.

Lawrence Herbert (8) Founder of Pantone, a company best known for the universal standards and multinational colour language. Pantone present colour as something that can be fun in itself as well as the uses the company’s colour schemes have globally. The simple design of it’s colour charts have become a signature of the brand and the minimal design and focus on the pure colour attracts may interest.

Harry Beck (9) Designed one of the most familiar maps in the Uk, the London Underground map. This schematic diagram is not geographically accurate, however the simple combination of colours and lines has made this a successful template for other similar travel systems around the world.

Annika Berger (10) Swedish fashion designer behind Weekday’s Zeitgeist printed T-shirts reflecting current global headlines from the week. Annika never studied fashion yet has worked with the fashion brand for 8 years. This gives me confidence that I may be able to stray into other disciplines of design to create the work I want to.

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Using the lecture content to help you, write 200 words on what you would describe as the key features within the current phase of participatory culture.

The current phase of participatory culture (2011-2017) reflects our desire to connect to the world of celebrity alongside the increased exposure to edited information and imagery. These features of our culture are commonly linked and represented in situations we would have previously thought ludicrous, such as an unqualified celebrity businessman taking the role of arguably the most important job in the world- Donald Trump becoming the American President. Our obsession with knowledge and power of information is edging towards becoming useless and irrelevant to our own lives as we focus more on those of others who we don’t know personally. The development of this in previous phases through celebrity culture promoted in magazines and the launch of social media sites such as Facebook enabling us to connect on a global scale by only moving our eyes to a screen has expanded our ability to participate in culture yet hindered our ability to absorb what is real around us. I see the key feature of participatory culture being the conflict between what people want to know to feel involved in a saturated society and what people need to know to progress with what consequently feels like their underrated ambitions.

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Select an image from the mass media and discuss its relationship to the hyperreal.

Tame Impala’s Innerspeaker album cover by Leif Podhajsky based on Jean Baudrillard’s theories.

Hyperreality is the process of failing to distinguish between reality and a simulation of it and the point where the two blend together with no distinction between which is which. I feel digital work by designer Leif Podhajsky visually represents this idea of the hyperreal with a combination of photographs, colour and textures, creating something that seems familiar to what we know, but may not accurately represent its true form. Innerspeaker was the first album artwork Podhajsky produced fro the Tame Impala and features an image taken in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina, USA, infinitely repeating towards the horizon. Having not personally visited this place, I could imagine that this is what it actually looks like. I also don’t know how much alteration has taken place on this image so there could be any point where the exaggerated colours fade into natural tones- the saturation could be high or low. I also cannot say that the valley doesn’t go on looking like that into the distance. Representative photos may suggest different and appear to seem more representative and accurate, but I would not know if they too had been edited to reflect something more fictional than what actually exists. The artwork is designed to reflect the psychedelic style of music produced by the band. Similar to the artwork, the music is not representative of natural instrumental sounds and voices, yet this is not what we hear from the album so these sounds are able to exist in a manipulated way alongside the image.

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Over the past 50 years, has there been a social and cultural shift away from the verbal/textual and towards the visual? If so, has this shift accelerated during the past 10 to 20 years?

In my opinion, there has not necessarily been a shift away from verbal/textual but more of a branching out from this form and an expansion into the visual to assist and compliment. Verbal and textual has not become any less available it has just been overtaken by the availability of visuals through the technological advances and the increased ease in the way we view images.

It is likely this shift has accelerated to coincide and correlate with the acceleration in internet accessibility and the impact advertising and imagery now has on our routines and decisions. The introduction of smart phones is also a likely cause of this acceleration as we develop communications through photos and images shared online on social media as opposed to writing.

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Consider all the readings and write a synopsis of the most interesting/challenging idea. Think about the ideas and issues that the texts have raised in relation to your own practice. Which ones do you want to find out more about and why?

From the three texts I have read, this week’s ‘Drift and Float’ about the work of April Greiman evoked the most thought in me to consider my aims in design. While reading this text, I picked out three quotes that made me question how I work.

Where does graphic design stop and art begin?

Am I making a more meaningful message by reducing and simplifying it or by throwing it all in?

She regards the computer as ‘just another pencil’

The first point was addressed in the group discussion, highlighting that graphic design is no longer unique to a profession and anyone has the ability to access software to produce a poster. In my view, graphic design is art with a purpose within to society to connect and communicate with public. I believe everyone can appreciate graphic design as it conveys a message that should be understandable, whether it is relevant to them or not. In contrast to this, I believe ‘art’ is something that can be interpreted if chosen to, it is not forced into our day to day existence as graphic design is and even I find it difficult to appreciate elements of fine art.

For me, the second quote I have highlighted relates to the current trend of minimalism and whether the impact of deign would be greater if current trends were used or abused. The third is more personal to my own work. Even though the text is now outdated at least 20 years allowing technology to have progressed exponentially since, I still prefer to develop my work by hand before enhancing it with digital software. I would like to read more into the techniques Greiman used and how these were accepted as new advances in the design industry, in order to develop my own practices.