UNIT X @bethanybakerunit - Tumblr Blog

Kaleidoscope Asia #3

As we’re going to be doing an editorial project I saw this and thought I quite like the simple look of it. One really nice image, a sort of ‘different’ logo and less tesxt on the front than you might usually get on magazines that aren’t really independent. I really like the white edge around the image, giving everything space.

Our Final Zine - Blood Donors Wanted

We finished! I’m really happy with what our final zine looks like, it’s exactly how I pictured it from the start and it’s been pretty fun putting this together with the group! There hasn’t been any major hiccups with this project which is really good but admittedly I think we’re all kinda relieved that it’s finished, creating something based around black pudding and glasses wasn’t easy! I think we did good considering what we had to work with so I’m pretty proud of us for all coming up with artwork each that was unique.

I think the only think I would change would be my work as I probably could’ve been more creative with my pieces, although i am happy with them and slightly surprised that I actually used some of my drawings for a final piece so maybe I wouldn’t change them. I did enjoy creating the zine and i look forward to creating more of them in the future as publications are something that I really like making.

The Unit X Exhibition at Federation House

I really liked the work at the exhibition, it was nice seeing what the other courses get up to. It was a shame that we only had postcards there but i still think it was nice because people got to take away our prints and that gets our work out there a bit more. plus, doing more for the exhibition probably would’ve been hard to juggle with the rest of the work we have to hand it etc. My favourite was the 3D Design floor, especially the ceramics by Rhiannon. I’ve always wanted to get into ceramics and make my own planters and mugs, maybe one day I’ll try it out!

Zine Progress

We started putting the zine together this week in InDesign, everyone has been sending me their work to put into the file and it didn’t take too long for everything to be together and work. We had a few struggles with photo quality, sizing and missing links but other than that it didn’t take too long at all.

There is a mixture of styles throughout the zine and I think thats quite nice to see, we all have very different tastes and that may clash sometimes but I think it hasn’t been too bad because we’ve all been working on our own pieces and not one whole finished piece of art work.

I like how it goes from illustration to photography and typography pieces because it’s not just sticking to one technique.

Once the pages are all done we’re going to scan in some meat for the front and back covers to make it look like an actual slab of meat and then make a belly band with the title of the zine which will just be created in illustrator and printed on either tracing paper or white paper.

We chose some really nice blue marbled paper to print on and at first we didn’t really think about the clash of the blue paper with the blue illustrations so we had a little panic and quickly edited our files so they would suit it more. In the end it printed fine, well, after a few failed attempts but it looked really good! We decided to bind it with white thread and did that down in the book binding room. We had it cut down and we’re all pretty happy with the final outcome.

My final pieces that I have put inside our zine, doodles of spectacles and black pudding. I quite like how simple they are, I could probably have been a bit more creative with them but I may have another play around with them. I’d drawn the black pudding ones whilst sat at my mac panicking about what I should create for the zine and I guess it was a happy mistake! I felt like i wanted to stick to the same style so I created the spectacle doodles after ages of brainstorming what to do.

5-8th May

We put together a plan for our zine, taking all of our ideas and combining them to make something we all agree on. By Hannah creating this plan we all know what we’re doing and where we’re going to be and what everything will look like. I think something like this was needed as there was a bit of confusion at first and a lot of questions being asked, now we all know what everything is supposed to be.

We’ve all decided what we’re going to contribute to the zine, we’re all doing about two double page spreads each. i’ve decided to create some doodles of spectacles and black pudding. I must admit I’ve been struggling with creating things and getting motivated recently. It’s been really hard keeping on top of things but I think now I’m feeling more positive about what I’ve done, even if I’m not 100% happy with what I’ve done. I’m quite in between styles at the moment and I don’t really like it. It’s either vector images created on illustrator, bold, colourful pieces or fine liner doodles done by hand but I’m sure the more projects I do i’ll find a good balance.

I took on the responsibility to put the zine together using InDesign as I haven’t used it in a while and wanted to familiarise myself again.

Sticker and Post Card Designs

I created these doodles for one of my pieces for a our zine and decided to use it for my post card design. I also had a few ideas for my sticker, I didn’t know it had to be black and white at first but I’m happy with my final design. I chose a mix and match/simple design because I think it quite represents my style at the moment, very mix and match.

24th March.

“Blood Doners Wanted”

Hannah made this sheet showing that maybe we could make it very sarcastic and play on the fact that there is nothing connecting the two at all, indicating that a zine would suit the randomness of our objects, not expecting people to get what we were really on about because we didn’t really get it either.

We all felt that zines were mostly created for satire purposes and would kinda fit our whole playful idea so we’re thinking about going along the route of a zine. At first I wasn’t so sure because it could possibly be a super easy option and may or may not look how we all expect it to but I think once we brain stormed and started finding bits of inspiration as in colour combinations (blood red and a medical blue, pictured above) and decided to all contribute different things into it I’m quite excited for us to brain storm further and start talking about the appearance of it all.

During our crit with John W and Adam we realised we could probably do more with our objects than we thought. They opened our eyes to the animal route like cruelty and how the materials to make the two objects could be harmful to animals, leading to maybe creating campaign posters etc promoting the negative sides to these things. And that the glasses didn’t have to just be an item it could be a perception, so meaning we were using the glasses to look deeper into the behind the scenes of the meat industry etc.

I think we all liked that idea and decided instead of just making a basic looking zine, why not make it look like it was a part of the meat industry, focusing more on the packing and overall display of the zine. I came up with the idea of creating a butchers like set for the zine, so it would look as if you were in a butchers and the zines would be packaged in polystyrene trays covered with plastic and string and placed on a counter that looked like a butchers. so the front covers of the zines would be images of the meat textures up close, there would be posters of meat cutting diagrams, striped butchers aprons and other things to make it feel realistic.

We’re all going to create two pieces of the zine (so two pages each), using only the colours red, blue, black and white. Focusing not only on illustration but photography, 3d design, patterns, type and printing techniques.

After coming up with all the details for this i think we’re all quite excited and can’t wait to get stuck in and see how it’ll turn out.

21st March.

Hannah made this cool little info graphic sheet showing links between the two and as there was basically no obvious links between our objects Black Pudding and Glasses we were a little confused as to how we would be able to present the two. I think it was an idea to just focus on the fact that there was nothing connecting them.

At first we thought it would be fun to link the two together medically so the name “Blood Doners Wanted” came up, taking blood from the pudding and the prescription part of getting glasses. It was quite a quirky name and I think it’s stuck because it does make you question what the project is about.

I think we like the idea of creating a comical zine to show the complete lack of connection between the two

So we were given black pudding to research as well as our chosen object, Spectacles, aren’t we lucky?

REASEARCH:

INGREDIENTS:

4 cups fresh pig's blood 2 1/2 teaspoons salt 1 1/2 cups steel-cut (pinhead) oatmeal 2 cups finely diced pork fat (or beef suet), finely chopped 1 large yellow onion, finely chopped 1 cup milk 1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper 1 teaspoon ground allspice

FACTS:

- Black Pudding has been around since humans have farmed and kept livestock. - The dish has become very popular in France where it is know as Boudin Noir. - Also known as Blood Sausage - Made from pig's blood with some thickening agent, such as cereal, and spices. - In England, the Midlands and the North are the great areas of black pudding appreciation - Elsewhere in Europe a black pudding is a blutwurst (Germany) or a kashanka (Poland) - The very first time that the black pudding appeared in literature was in 800 BC - Another kind of blood sausage called a white pudding

PER 30G SLICE: 75 calories, 4.5g fat.

WHY IT'S HEALTHY: With three times more iron than grilled rump steak, a judicious serving could be just what you need to prevent anaemia, with symptoms of lethargy, poor concentration and pale skin.

But it is high in salt and saturated fat, which is why it's advisable to keep portions small.

HOW TO COOK IT: Dry-frying it is the only way to keep calorie levels anywhere near reasonable.

HEALTHIER STILL: You could swap black pudding for grilled kidneys with an equally high iron content, but much less saturated fat and a calorie content around 40 per cent lower.

Our research on Spectacles

Here are our chosen objects that we had to choose from:

Beer Labels, Spectacles, Cameras/Polaroids - MOSI

Balloons - The Whitworth

Buddha, Moccasins, Butterflies and Flourite Stone - The Museum of Manchester

We really liked these objects but we decided to go with spectacles as we felt there would be a lot of history and could be quite a versatile object.

HORT - Eike König

I really really really enjoyed this lecture. It had my full attention, it was great. I felt super inspired afterwards and I feel like I really just want to spend my summer in Berlin doing an internship or something. Hort has such a big portfolio of clients including the Bauhaus, I mean how amazing is that!

Everything Eike had to say was golden, like the part about how collaboration is essential is 100% true, in my journal I wrote “I think working within a group is very important. It’s crucial that Creatives know how to work together as collaboration is so important right now. Half of my favourite designers wouldn’t be my favourites if they hadn’t collaborated at least once in their design career.

You’re challenged when working with others; it drives you to do better than you would usually because you want the project to be great and you can’t let down the team. You can bounce ideas off one another, combine skills that you have but someone else might not, brainstorm and even develop strong relationships/ connections for the future.” And I think people become better designers because of it like he proved that during his talk. Me and Hannah have decided to collaborate and create our own series of zines based around colour and filled with all of our favourite creatives from the internet and to be honest I’m glad we decided to because i think it’s super important to have side projects where you can have fun and not need to critique yourself too much.

I really appreciated Eikes honesty and bubbly personality, it made me feel like I chose the right industry to be in and I left feeling very happy and excited.

The Poundshop

As soon as I read that The Poundshop were coming in to give us a lecture I was so so excited. I’ve been following them on social media for a while now and really love their whole idea and vibe like i’d love to do or be a part of a cool and clever idea like this some day. It’s such a good way for you to get your work seen by people, even if you may not feel it’s entirely worth it when you’re only selling your work for a small amount but plenty of people have been noticed from The Poundshop and have gone on to better things.

A couple of things that stuck with me from this lecture was that if you create a set of something people are more inclined to purchase to collect the whole set, especially if they all work well together. Another was the design of their pop up shops, if you make something beautiful to walk into you’re creating this surreal shopping experience that draws you in and if you like the atmosphere of the store you’re in you’re more likely to purchase things. As soon as i walk into the & Other Stories store in Covent Garden I HAVE to purchase something, purely for the design sometimes like it’s just how it is.

I enjoyed this lecture as it’s a pretty good idea that helps emerging designers and illustrators get themselves out there and I will always back ideas that do that.

Le Gun

I really enjoyed this lecture, it gave me a lot of ideas and it did kinda make me feel like i wasn’t doing enough as a young graphic designer. like i could be taking my magazine Honest Blog a lot more seriously but i haven’t been, I wanted to fundraise for it so I could print another issue and get tote bags and give it a nice identity but i just haven’t. This lecture did give me a little push though, to start thinking about collaboration more like maybe with my class mates or with others from different courses at the uni.

I was really inspired and I definitely have taken something away from this lecture. To just go for things and ask because you’ll never know otherwise.

Human After All - Paul Willoughby

This lecture was really really interesting. I loved hearing more about Little White Lies because I’d heard of it but wasn’t sure who was behind it and what it was entirely about because I’d never purchased a copy. I loved seeing the processes like the videos they made when creating each issue, it was so inspiring and nice to see. I also liked hearing about Pauls journey from LWL to Human After All and being told his inspirations and the techniques he uses for working was really cool because It’s good hearing tips like that from actual professional designers because it must actually work.

I feel like I got a lot from the lecture and the advice was genuine and very helpful, especially all the magazine related talk because I’d really like to work in editorial design one day and curate a magazine that will be super helpful to students

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

UNIT X