Data Viz Through Art: pty-ltd.tumblr.com
Wot is a book?: wot-wot-wot.tumblr.com

pixel skylines
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
styofa doing anything
RMH
todays bird
Monterey Bay Aquarium
$LAYYYTER

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d e v o n
Keni

blake kathryn
Sweet Seals For You, Always
almost home

titsay
Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
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roma★

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ojovivo
seen from United States
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seen from Malaysia
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@dicaprio-tears
Data Viz Through Art: pty-ltd.tumblr.com
Wot is a book?: wot-wot-wot.tumblr.com
Quick update on what we’re thinking for the layout of the event
Key: 1. Long table 2. Square tables 3. Benches inside tent 4. Food Prep tarp (see @notrealmia ) 5. Side benches (always there) 6. Beanbags
The intention is to create a sense of movement and flow throughout the event, keeping people moving amongst the activities while also giving them plenty of opportunities to sit, relax, and most importantly eat. Our initial idea of a single table didn't work as it wouldn't have been large enough for everyone at once. In retrospect a single table would have restricted movement too much, by offering several options we can offer people the opportunity to enjoy the event at their own pace. In this sense the long table becomes more of a symbol or gesture (ie. pointless but we like the aesthetics of it) We've decided to repurpose much of the existing furniture in the courtyard; while we liked the idea of making something special for the event we found it wasn't very practical (and um we're running out of time). Keep in mind this is all in flux - if you've got any issues or think we've missed something please contact us!
What Instagram Would Be Like If It Ran on Windows 95
Pay your interns.
dodgy gif of my zine
Some spreads from the zine
Interview Reflection
This was perhaps one of the more stressful assessments I've done, the whole contacting a creative we admire perhaps left me feeling a little daunted. Which is why I kind of kept putting it off at first. It didn't help that the first person on my list was David Lynch. It was more of a thought experiment though, there was no chance that he'd actually reply but it would've been amazing if he did. (Better he didn't, I can't imagine what I would even ask... How's Annie?)
I also tried contacting the designer Peter Saville and the musician St. Vincent, both didn't have public email addresses, and I felt uncomfortable requesting an interview via Facebook/Twitter/Instagram. Not hearing back from their managers after a week I made the decision to jump down to the last person on my list, my mum's cousin Silvia.
She's an art teacher and visual artist, but she also curates a café with her husband that doubles as a small gallery space. Having these three different viewpoints on creativity and art I thought it would be really fascinating to interview her, I wanted to pose my questions around these three roles, how they intertwined and related to each other. While having someone famous could've been nice (I had the idea of presenting the interview as a CD case and lyric/questions booklet as the above two have connections to music) I felt that this was a great opportunity nevertheless.
I decided to conduct the interview over the phone, that way we could have a discussion around the questions, something that flowed naturally rather than just a straight question and answer format. Unfortunately my laptop's microphone kept dropping out, meaning every so often I lost a sentence or two from her responses. I was able to fill most of it in from memory (or at least approximate what she was trying to say). Other than that I chose not to edit her responses too heavily, keeping in most of the "You know"s and "I think"s as I wanted to keep it as natural as possible, to make it sound as if the reader was conversing with her themselves. Part of this assignment was the challenge of figuring out how to convey a sense of the subject in a visual medium, and for that reason I chose to present it as a zine (even though just about everyone else did the same). Seeing as Silvia often works in collage I also wanted to bring that across.
Questions I asked:
How instinctual do you find your creative process, or do you feel the need to rationalise certain aspects?
Where do you feel that art education exists today. What does it provide that other subjects can’t?
You work in a number of different mediums, how do you feel that affects your work? Do they inform certain qualities?
To what extent do you find it necessary to discuss your work in terms of identities, so being a mother, being a woman, your heritage etc? Is it something you find that consciously informs your work?
What drove you to establish a space to display and support other artists, at the café? How does that connect to you being an artist, educator, and mother?
I was able to go past her house and take some photos of her studio and working space. I wanted to provide some context to the text and I believed that the space carried a sense of who she was and how she worked. Being a mother the studio often bled into the rest of the house, such as the kitchen or lounge room, and it was this notion of the mother and artist, domestic and creative aspects merging together that I wanted to capture in my publication.
My initial attempts to lay out the booklet on InDesign didn't quite achieve the tone that I wanted, so I decided to 'unmake' my designs by printing out the text, some images, a grid layout and essentially 'collaging' the zine (similar to the idea of 'paste-ups': how designers created page layouts before desktop publishing). My shitty 20 year old black and white laser-jet printer often produces faded prints, and that helped add some warmth to my designs. I found working this way quite fun, and despite being limited by certain aspects I found I was able to create much more exciting layouts than what I was attempting on screen. (The only problem is you can't fix spelling errors you missed!) This way of working probably isn't for everyone, you've got to be happy with a lot of imperfections, but I would defiantly recommend it even just as an alternative to sketching.
Having completed the collage/layouts, I scanned them back into an InDesign document to arrange them as a booklet. I also added some more imagery, this time with a duotone red-orange filter and multiply blending mode, which almost resembled a screen-print. It was this sort of hand-made, lo-fi aesthetic that I wanted to pursue as it felt in keeping with her artworks and style. Speaking with Andy and Bronwyn I decided to try and print on newsprint paper, or at least something similar, so that the finished product would retain at least some of the softness I had tried to carry through. Unfortunately most printers are wary about printing onto such thin paper as it tends to stick to the rollers, fold over itself, or not take ink very well ( A+ quality paper it is ;P). However the thin recycled paper I had sourced worked well enough at Dinkums. I would have liked to try inkjet as it produces a less shiny image, however commercial inkjet inks are quite thick and this paper wouldn't absorb it quite well (It's also more expensive).
Despite my initial hesitations I found this to be a really fulfilling experience. I enjoyed the process of interviewing a creative and then attempting to interpret what they had said into a visual form. Also I was just in a book-making headspace (100 Qs book coming soon. Hopefully) so that was nice too.
Reflection
So, tumblr. To be honest I groaned a little on the inside when I heard that we had to maintain a 'reflective journal' as part of this course. Just something about the combination of design students, tumblr, and 'our feelings' felt a little too clichéd for my liking. Nevertheless with my suitably ironic, relevant-at-the-time pseudo-dada handle at the ready I began this weird experiment. It took me a while to get into it. Having used tumblr before I understood the mechanics of it, just figuring out what Andy and Bronwyn wanted us to say took some time at first. Oh and actually remembering to post, that was the real struggle. However once I started using it to record my process for the 'Hello My Question Is' assignment I began to start seeing some value in it as a tool. Being able to collect and organise what you've discovered/made/learnt became quite useful. I found that the post format was a natural way in which to structure and order my ideas, it didn't feel like I was awkwardly squeezing my thoughts into blog shapes (Maybe it's a side-effect of growing up with the internet that I think in these blog-sized thoughts). As opposed to a less visual-inclined tool, tumblr was very useful when it came to discovering and posting images, important as that's kind of the point of our course.
The sheer volume of content everyone in our course was producing was phenomenal, my dashboard soon became a near constant stream of inspiration, new ideas, side-ways angles into old ideas that I had never considered, and so on. It was interesting to see how well reblogs lend themselves to fostering discussion and dialogue, people were discussing things in a way that we couldn't really in class or the lectures, and in so much detail and depth. Having this pool of crowd-sourced knowledge at my disposal was great. I felt apprehensive at first about being able to discuss in such an open way, only in the past few weeks have I really tried to engage and contribute, but it was fascinating to see how a couple of comments might then be integrated into the next lecture, which would then create even more ideas to write about. I'm not that into social media, it can seem a little disingenuous at times, but I'm interested in the way that we can use these tools we have around us in interesting ways, misusing them so to speak but creating value with them nevertheless.
So, tumblr, at least you're not Google Plus.
Lucky Peach (San Francisco, CA, USA)
does the guacamole spilling out of the burrito remind anyone else of that rmit building? maybe that was the actual inspiration behind it: the designers were like “??? what do we do ???” and then one of them looked down at their lunch.
anyway, i really enjoy this cover. i mean, half of me thinks it’s absolutely hideous, but i feel like that’s just part of the appeal. the gaudy 3d rendering of the illustrations, the graphic font choice of the title, the clashing baby pink of the background, and the uncomfortably intense stares the burrito and pizza slice are directing towards each other, all combine to - at the very least - scream “look at me!” whether you decide to avert your eyes after is up to you, but i personally would probably find myself heading towards the cash register with the magazine in hand.
Yeah, it is hideous and yes it does make me like it so much more.
I keep seeing more and more ‘purposefully ugly’ designs these days. And I don’t mean lazy doesn’t-know-any-better ugly but considered, i-know-exacly-what-im-doing ugly. half of me enjoys it and the other half just knows that in ten years we’re all going to be looking back on this phase with the remorse of a collective design-hangover.
I don’t know if there’s much more to it than designers getting bored, over the past 5-10 years simple, clean, sexy, tasteful designs have become a lot more prevalent, so it makes sense that this would be a natural reaction against that.
Collage Workshop
After having discussed the Post-Modernists at last week’s lecture, this week’s workshop was based around appropriation. Looking at the work’s of M/M Paris, Sergei Svaiatchenko (Who’s style I’m happily ripping off above :P), and Melinda Gipson, Andy encouraged us to discover the letterforms embedded in the photographs.
Building on from previous workshops I thought it might have been interesting to explore how negative space could also work with the collage medium. As can be seen from the first photo an amazing variety of possibilities could be made using very simple tools and techniques, some more abstracted and others more recognisably still human.
I enjoyed the tactile nature of putting together a collage, as Andy described it the medium is flat yet it contains a trace of depth in the way that the paper layers sit on the page. This idea is exploited by Sergei’s series where he photographs paper cutouts in real life situations, creating a “slippage” in the viewer’s mind.
Gentle Waving II, 2009. Sergei Sviatchenko (via sviatchenko.dk)
Gender Inequality in Design
Today in our lecture, was the mention of the gender inequality within the design industry. Something I found extremely interesting. At first, I suppose my ignorance drew me to thinking that this can’t be right. I have a 50/50 split in gender of design teachers, and every one of my classes is female dominant, in fact, sometimes I’m the only male in the room. However when talking about Bauhaus and the gender inequality there, and the fact that many highly successful designers are male, everything became a little more clear.
In society, we have this “new age” idea that women can be anything. That they should be allowed to be whatever and whoever they want to be. And in my mind, that’s 100% correct. If you want to be the prime minster, feel free. If you want to be a stay at home Mum, feel free. If you want to be CEO, feel free. If you want to be an escort, make sure you’re well paid ;) My point is, society at this current stage, puts into the minds of young women that they can be anything. And they’re told to idolise the women who have been successful. However, in practise, I don’t believe this is correct. This isn’t realistic. I truly wish it was. But for some reason, our society is fine with women working behind a desk, but not fine with them going any further. And it’s quite disgusting actually. We say “yes! go women! Be successful!” but then we don’t let them. It’s quite strange.
Over the time frame of this semester, I’ve been silently taking note of all the conversations had in class, and who is the leader in them, who is the most dominant person. I mentioned it to a few people in the first week of class actually, and I think that the realistic answer of who dominates the conversations in class, isn’t that surprising. Think about it. We have 2 lecturers, and who does the majority of the talking in class? Andy. Or if we’re tasked with starting a group activity, I’ve physically seen men become the predominant talkers. Who leads the group activities? Think back to all of the group activities we’ve had. Who dominated? In Week 1, we took things out of our pockets and made a typeface. On our table, Sam lead the group. In any class topics with David, I’m usually the one questioning things and putting my opinion across. If we’re ever talking about a theoretical topic, Atticus is always there adding in a view point. If there’s ever a discussion had in a lecture, Tristan seems to always have a great viewpoint on things. Is this subconscious or is it somewhat biological? I don’t know. Is it a mans physical strength and deep voice that asserts dominance? I’m not too sure. But I just found it curious that as a class, we were talking about the outside world as if was disgusting and should change, but I don’t think we are much different at all.
During a discussion about gender inequality in design, in a room dominated by women, very very few (like, 2) actually voiced an opinion. 2 women that seemed like they knew what they were talking about and had definitely had discussions about feminism in the past. But why were so many women sat back and not talking? I don’t know. For once in my life, I didn’t join in on the discussion, but it was interesting to sit back and listen.
I do think that Atticus had a very good theory. What if we deleted the gender walls, and paid less attention to biological sense, and introduced everyone as a person and not as a penis or vagina? What if we stopped dividing everyone, and brought everyone together as the human race, by not labelling everyone and making everyone tick a “male” or “female” box. Why are we so dependant on gender? Although it’s somewhat unrealistic for this modern day and age, it’s a good question. What if?
Perhaps I should start wearing high heels to Uni in protest. Hm.
And today’s topic and discussions really evoked me a thinking: Objectively, are males really masters of any domain than women are? As we can observe that not only in the design industry, others like music, arts, literature and cook… Most masters in these domains are males. Certainly it has historical factors and influences as in old days women’s ability in workplace were greatly restrained in the patrilineal society, therefore less chances for them to develop and confirm higher status in most industries where males have been practiced and domain for thousand of years. But I am questioning, whether it is because men decides almost every thing (well, in old times), that for a long period of time our standards and system of appreciation on design is potentially developed and built up based on their mode of thought? In other words, female and male are essentially different in both mental and physical aspects. If all requirements and standards of been a master in a field towards a foundation of male thought, this can even refers to their gene, then does it possibly mean females can never reach as high as men does because they are radically different? Alternatively, I started to wonder if it was women who domain the society, would all of our recognition and appreciation towards design radically changed as it would based on female thought? would it be a parallel because it is not comparative as two totally different structures?
(Sorry for my poor English, I am trying my best to explain such a big topic XP)
I like this perspective! To drive even more conversation, what are some of the genetic mental and physical differences that you’re referring to that may have influenced how things turned out in history?
Your english is very good, by the way.
Thanks Tommy :) And it is a good question that I need to have further researches on the topic to answer. Here is a description I found in an article written by Michael G. Conner, Psy.D in 1999 [1] which helps to explain one potential genetic mental difference that may have influence on design:
“Women tend to be intuitive global thinkers. They consider multiple sources of information within a process that can be described as simultaneous, global in perspective and will view elements in the task in terms of their interconnectedness. Women come to understand and consider problems all at once. They take a broad or “collective” perspective, and they view elements in a task as interconnected and interdependent. Women are prone to become overwhelmed with complexities that “exist”, or may exist, and may have difficulty separating their personal experience from problems.
Men tend to focus on one problem at a time or a limited number of problems at a time. They have an enhanced ability to separate themselves from problems and minimize the complexity that may exist. Men come to understand and consider problems one piece at a time. They take a linear or sequential perspective, and view elements in a task as less interconnected and more independent. Men are prone to minimize and fail to appreciate subtleties that can be crucial to successful solutions. A male may work through a problem repeatedly, talking about the same thing over and over, rather than trying to address the the problem all at once.”
So here he clearly states the differences as women tend to be more intuitive when solving problems, able to collect, considerate information at the same time and find interconnection within elements, while men are more single-minded that one specific problem at a time, then move on to the next one. I’m still rather struggling to imagine and tell what it would be like for a design system or structure established by females, maybe that’s why males dominant the society as women are more likely to be in an equal, uncontested relationships and situation where classes and hierachys dismissed. Anyway back to our topic, here I can find a strong connection in thinking pattern between the way males solve problems and the way we solve problems in design process. Our I&I course is just a good example - We are asked to follow the steps one by one: you think of an idea first, then you draw drafts, then you get advise from other, you craft it, you color it, and finally it comes out- Perfectly clear and linear order that divides designing process into independent sections in orders to minimize the complexity. To be honest, at this moment I kind of find out why I always have confusion when I design, because I myself, as a female, often consider all the procedures at the same time, I need to make sure the idea is practicable and feasible enough before I even start it, so when I decide on one idea I actually have also decide on the color scheme and even the final look. It sort of conflicts to the order what I have been taught, and that is where the confusion came from. I don’t know if I am particular one who act like this, but I believe myself as a case to test the hypothesis I made above. And I am reversed of saying that the design process approaches implemented by the college is definitely better. Let’s say maybe they are just different, we may also reach another totally different outcome by shifting the designing process, and who knows what would happen?
Wow it’s really interesting to investigate in such a hypothetic topic! :) Hope my answer isn’t too long.
Extra thinking: SPAMMING WITH UGLY
In making this post I am interrupting a feed of carefully curated pretty images. I am intentionally ruining your feed to get you to think about ugly and whether or not it has a place in our world of design. Ugly is seen as the ‘evil’ of design; but can it be used for good? Does is have a place in our design world, i.e. to deter people from smoking?
I think that too often we steer away from ugly, ultimately we aim for ‘good’ or beautiful design. However, I think ugly, even if it is not present in a final design, is integral to the design process.
It is important that we explore and experiment - even with the ugly - to reach our final. As without a comparison how do we know what good design is?
Above is an image from Wim Delvoye: Introspective. Below is an image of cigarette packaging.
(Going through my old tumblr likes, thats why I'm reblogging this from a while back)
Ugliness is really an interesting concept, much like notions of ‘good’ or attractive design it can be quite subjective. Personally I find that ‘uglier’ (or weirder or stranger or off-putting) things can often be more fascinating than something that is just perfectly pretty. Adding that element of something being ‘wrong’ or ‘off’ can add so much to a design I think, a sense of mystery perhaps.
Ugliness can also lead to a more guttural reaction don't you find, the cigarette packaging is a good example. In that sense ugliness can have just as much power as so called ‘good’ design if its causing people to pay attention and engage (i.e. reconsider their smoking habits).
At the same time I often feel afraid to pursue something intrinsically ugly, something that’s just straight hideous or ill-considered (or dumb). Maybe that’s my own internal critic, I don’t know about anyone else but I’d like to try and push against that some more.
Edit: This is brilliant!! What would you fill in the gap with??
Agreed, I think this is truly brilliant! I would have filled the space in with “subjective”, much like I think the answers could be depending on perception, conditioning, feelings and one’s own opinions. You could ultimately fill in anything here, each of us view art differently, it’s beauty and appeal is up to the eye of the beholder ;) I love the things you find Kate! They are truly great!!
yeah, but what isn't art oohohooohhh
This reminds me of last week’s lecture where Andy showed us a number of weird and unusual design collectives, many of them working outside of the typical roles one might associate with graphic design. It’s interesting that this space seems to be growing in that way, its rather exciting.
So in other words, you could also put down: Design is ___
Ray Gun and David Carson
It all looks a bit 90s grunge right now (but hey what do I know the 90s are back apparently) but at the time David Carson’s work on the music magazine Ray Gun was highly influential on graphic design. By breaking away from typical page-layout and typographic conventions he was able to push the practice into more expressionistic, less utilitarian directions. I think its important at this point to mention that he had no formal training, a fact that probably helped him discard many of the rules we take for granted now and what led him to creating such freeform, visceral designs.
I try to reinforce visually whats written, spoken or sung. I want the work to connect with people on an emotional level, which is where I feel it’s most effective and lasting. [1]
Often messing with kerning, leading, alignment, grid spacing to the point of illegibility, Carson claims that these stylistic choices were always drawn from the article, music, or brief he’s been given, following “where it took [him] visually and emotionally”[2]. This kind of design can perhaps end up being more egotistical than Tschichold’s or Ruder’s vision of typography, it tends to reflect the individual tastes of the designer rather than letting the content speak for itself. However I feel that Carson’ quote reveals a different interpretation of a graphic designer’s role; namely that of an interpreter, internalising what they’ve been given and spitting it out in a manner that’s appropriate to the content.
Communication begins, as always, way before anyone actually starts reading. [1]
This quote I feel touches on the importance of establishing a visual, emotive connection between the design and the viewer/reader/user. A beautifully set out typographic masterpiece might look lovely, but what effect is it going to have on the individual on the other end? Surely not everything has to be in this super-expressive, grungy style to evoke feeling, but I think this kind of thinking can help to open up how our own designs can work on a more visceral or emotional level.
Otherwise, we don’t really need designers—anyone can buy the same programs and learn to do ‘reasonable, safe’ design.
This quote only feels more true today, while the democratisation of design has been a wonderful thing anyone can now be a graphic designer in a few clicks. How do we work with that, how do we establish ourselves as worthy of, you know, getting paid and earning a living?
[1] Garland, C. (2014) Interview with graphic designer david carson. Available at: http://www.designboom.com/design/interview-with-graphic-designer-david-carson-09-22-2013/ (Accessed: 10 May 2016).
[2] Westgate, A. (2014) ‘An Interview with David Carson’, 27 August. Available at: http://layersmagazine.com/an-interview-with-david-carson.html (Accessed: 10 May 2016).
Images 1 and 2: http://www.designboom.com/design/interview-with-graphic-designer-david-carson-09-22-2013/
Image 3: http://www.theawl.com/2012/08/grunge-typography
Printed poster for exhibition “Bernd Kuchenbeiser : Black White Type Things”. print gallery Tokyo.
The overlaying of text in text and black ink is quite an interesting approach, it really helps build up texture and noise in the design.
Chris and David mentioned it in I&I, but texture really is an under-utilised design element, obviously that’s because digital graphics lend themselves to that certain sharp, hyper-clean aesthetic. I’ve been wanting to try and break away from that (not that there’s anything wrong with that) if only because I find textural works more exciting. Taking things out of the computer and working with things irl defiantly helps with that.
Gig posters by Konstanz-based designer Fabian Fohrer. Check his behance.
I find it interesting that although a number of these designs utilise a grid system in some capacity, a sense of motion and dynamics is still retained by the way in which they disrupt and break out of the grid.
ZEBU - an illustration & art duo from Berlin created these lovely little screen-prints. Check out more of their work here.
Wonderful character in these prints, a very joyful and playful aesthetic. Using the strong pure red and blue defiantly add to that.