above: collage of all the doodles I did in the lectures
below: proof I actually listened in the lectures
When I started this course, I hadn’t really set any specific personal objectives, except to make stuff and continue to develop my own style of making stuff. I definitely feel achieved in both of these goals. We were given so much freedom within the ‘ask more questions’ and ‘ask me anything’ project, and I think it was because of this freedom that I was able to develop my own style of making stuff. Especially in the first assignment, I feel like the questions we wanted to ask = the things we’re most interested in = a reflection of the way we think, and therefore the way we make.
Prototyping and publication design were the biggest practical takeaways from this class for me. We explored a lot of different prototypes, from initial layout prototyping to comprehensive image and visual prototyping. This also pushed us to experiment as much as we possibly could, which I think led to great outcomes in our final zines. I’d love to experiment more with publication design and making all different types of zines, if there’s one thing I learnt it’s how many types of zines you can create!
The lectures also added some really great context to the activities we were doing in the workshops. I loved learning about the Bauhaus school of design, and particularly the amazing women that came out of it. For example Anni Albers, I saw a comprehensive retrospective of her work last year and didn’t know that she was from the Bauhaus! I had such an appreciation of her work back then, and now learning about how the Bauhaus and how they restricted the women from creating to their full potential really disappointed me. On the other hand, learning about the Guerrilla Girls was really uplifting for the future of women in art and design!
The collaging activity that referenced the style of M/M Paris was something that made me think differently about the way we design. I think this activity really took me out of my own head and stripped away any preconceived ideas of how to create and design. Mixed with an element of risk and surprise, the letterform outcomes from this activity were all so varied and interesting.
The people that inspired me this semester:
Beci Orpin, the creative I interviewed. Super inspiring to see a creative at work, and the type of ‘at work’ where she loves it but it will also pay for her meals and rent.
Karen and Andy, thank you so much for sharing your wealth of knowledge and hands-on experience.
Everyone else in the course! Everyone thinks so differently and it’s been super cool to see what everyone can create when they’re working in the same space - from things as simple as the workshop activities to the fact that together we’ve now produced 200 professional interview publications, which are all completely unique and so different from each other that you’d be surprised we all just went through the same course.
