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Journal Log #11 (8th June): “Final reflection”

What a rollercoaster of a semester this has been! Never would I have imagined to be spending my first semester of my Design studies at home – really was a shock. Adjusting to online studies was a bit of a learning curve: learning how to operate out streams, awkwardly shying away from talking on mic, and learning how to collaborate with each other virtually. However, as the semester went on, everyone slowly came out of the shells and embraced the online studies and soon class was running like a normal classroom.

I’ve loved Communication Design Studies. I’ve been able to view the world differently, to always question why things are made the way they are and if there’s ways to improve it. Looking back at the first assignment “Hello, My question is…” I asked “What is Good Design?”, throughout the course I’ve learnt that ‘good design’ is always about using whatever resources you have to make the best possible outcome, and there I made my question out of items in my house because that’s all the resources I had in Isolation at home. Coming up with the best solution is best worked out in teams as the more ideas you have the better, and I thank my teacher Bailey and peers for the constant feedback on my work, and not only that I’ve been exposed to the countless creative ideas from my peers that I can use as inspiration for future projects. Thank you!

Thank you, Andy and Karen, for the insightful lectures. I’ve learnt so much about the history of design - the origins of design from different cultures, and how the past has influenced todays design.

We may have spent our first semester of Design at home, but we sure did remain positive and made the most of it. We need to continue to work as a team and get through this strange period together. Soon enough we’ll be back working collaboratively in class face-to-face, but until then stay creative in Isolation!

Remember to communicate, keep learning, eat well, and exercise.

*GIF I made for Colour and Information Design

Journal Log #10(May 29th): - “Zine is ready for publication”

I’ve learnt so much about the life Keith Haring lived and his legacy he left us through his art. Haring was able to bridge the gap between High Art and Street Art. He was a social activist who made art that fought against what he believed in. From sketching on blank billboards to then play a main role in protests speaks volume to what this man could achieve on his own.

Going back to my zine I can say that I’m not fully proud of what I made… This assignment was a struggle for me to present an Interview in a creative way, to make something in the style of the interviewee. If I was to do this project again, I would take a different approach by trying to fully understand the perspective of Keith Haring, to actually make my own art the same way he did. It’s not enough to just read information on his life from the internet.

However, I believe I’ve learnt new ways on how to present my information that I didn’t know of before. That’s what I really love about Design, nothing is seen as black & white. Instead, there’s always a constant of presenting an idea. This assignment has also given me the opportunity to brush on my photoshop knowledge and also learnt a few neat tricks as well.

Journal Log #9 (8th May): “Adding content” – A lot of progress made with assignment this week

This was a very productive week with the making of my zine. I’ve decided layout my magazine with images of the past of Keith and his artworks in a collage style to fill my up pages. This is similar to magazines were laid out in the 80s.

I designed my zine in Photoshop, mainly because that’s the application I’m more familiar with compared to using Indesign. Using an A4 page layout, I made separate artboards for each page and slowly added content. I found this process quite tedious as I found it difficult to make a layout that I liked. Nonetheless, the more practice I had with Photoshop meant that I had more practice/experience with the application (familiarising myself with shortcuts and neat features).

*Also, computer was struggling to run at the end with the amount of images and layers I had. Note for next time to make separate Photoshop files so that it’s not all on the same document.

Interview Zine - Inspiration

I’ve taken inspiration from 80s Magazine RollingStone. I love the use of large images to fill up the page. It’s as if though the image is enough to tell the full story without the need of a lot of text. I also like the use of large bold text, which gives a heavier and darker style than the regular type. Using bold font gives emphasis to make certain words and phrases stand out from the rest. I hope to replicate this aesthetic throught the contents of my zine.

“I am driven by the hope that I haven't made my best work yet." - Paula Scher

This week I came across an episode from Netflic series ‘Abstract: The Art of Design” - Starring Paula Scher on this particular episode. It delved into her design world, from where she started and where she is today. Her ability to understand her surroundings to find the right Typography amazes me. There’s so much planning that goes into her work, and in general all design. The process may be slow, but It’s the trial and error that makes sure that nothing goes wrong when released to the public - as seen with the election voting system failing because of bad design. Paula is always creating and is “driven by the hope that [she hasn’t] made [her] best work yet” and that is something I want to live by moving forward.

Journal Log #8 (1st May): “Issue #1 of BLUUPRINT″

I’ve decided my artifact for the Interview will be in zine format. I’ve taken inspiration of the 80s for my aesthetic of my zine, such include: Rolling stones Magazine, and Time Magazine. I also went back to the zine copies from the Book Fair at NGV earlier in the year for examples of formats. I took time to understand the artistic style of Keith Haring, with his bold black outlines of his characters and he fills them in with mainly solid primary colours for simplicity.

Overall, I’m qute happy with the format of the front cover. I believe it replicates the 80s era with large bold text and vibrant colours.

“In 1984, as his star was on the rise internationally, he visited Australia where he undertook art projects in Sydney and Melbourne including a large scale outdoor mural at what was then the Collingwood Technical School. The Collingwood mural is now one of only 31 known murals across the world by Haring that have survived, and one of only three that hasn’t been significantly over-painted. In recognition of its local, national and international significance, it was added to the Victorian Heritage Register in 2004.

In 2010 Creative Victoria (then Arts Victoria) took over management of the Collingwood site where the mural is situated and a project was initiated to conserve and protect the mural.”

https://cv.vic.gov.au/stories/creative-life/keith-haring-mural-collingwood/

Journal Log #7 (24th April): “Keith Haring. A man who drew his way to the top”

This week I made great progress with my Interview questions to ask Keith Haring. I researched many articles about his art career. A man so young was capable of starting an art movement. Haring explained that he had always loved art ever since he was young with his father playing a big influential figure as he too was an artist. Haring took his art more seriously in his late teens, wanting to take it to the next level. Haring observed his surroundings and being in NYC, known for being flooded in billboard advertisements, he noticed that in the underground subways there were blank empty billboards and there he realised that would be his canvas. He would use chalk to quickly draw his sketches, in the act he would catch the attention of the public and gain a new audience every time he painted there. That is how his career started off.

Journal Log #6 (17th April): “Understanding the origins of Art and where we are today”

This week I began my research for “Ask Me Anything” project. We are required to ‘interview’ a historical figure in the design field or a particular art movement. I started off my brainstorm by listing 5 potential design figures. I went with artists that gave me inspiration, such artists include, Banksy & Shepard Fairey known for their stencil graffiti art, Van Gogh for his expressive paintings, Keith Haring for his doodle style art, or just the Pop Art Movement as a whole. I did some brief research on the inspirations I’ve chosen and discussed with my peers and teacher. In the end I decided to interview Keith Haring and his body of work.

Journal Log #5 (3rd April): “No Hugs”

In this pandemic time, we still need to all take part in social distancing. This fight isn’t over and with the whole world being affected it would be selfish if there are those that flaunt the system and end up affecting us all. My stencil piece ‘No Hug’s’ emphasises the need to social distance. Take care of yourself and the whole world.

“Hello, My question is...?” FINAL

“Hello, My question is...?” progression

Overall, I was quite pleased with the final outcome. It was pretty much spot on to my initial sketch. The letter shadows were bold and could be read clearly. However, one problem that bugged me and my peers was that the aesthetic seemed a bit eerie… to fix that I decided to place vibrant coloured filters to give a more positive vibe to the overall piece.

Lecture #3 (Mar 28th): What is writing?

This was our first week of transitioning to online studies. Very interesting to say the least, but it’s something we have to work through together to ensure we can come back to Uni and work as a team again. This week’s lecture we continued learning about the history of typefaces in different cultures. For example: Italy with their hand gestures, Ancient Egyptians and their own engrained typeface on walls, and Japan with their fluid brush stroke letters. It’s truly beautiful to see how the world communicates so differently with their own unique typefaces and how it’s evolved over generations, but what remains is the original concepts.

Journal Log #4 (27th March): “Resourceful Solutions” – Building my project question concept.

I really enjoyed the process of seeing my question come to life. I began by noting down the objects that would spell out each letter of the question in my journal. This was a tedious process as I had to think of each item to use for the letters, also the fact that I didn’t want to use the same of object for duplicate letters.

After that time-consuming process was over, I could finally start the fun part of actually making my scene for my question. Using my garage as my set I began tying my objects with rope to be hung from the ceiling. My first try of hanging the objects from the ceiling didn’t work out so well with using duct tape to attach to the ceiling it wouldn’t stick because the rain on the roof. I had to improvise and used long rods of wood to slide in-between the ceilings wooden support beams and there I was able to tie the rope around the rods of wood. Positioning the objects took quite a bit of time. I spent around 5 hrs in total playing around with the depth the objects needed to be at in order for the question to be uniform.

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