My strengths this year have shone brighter than last year. I became a lot more fearless, wanting to take the challenge of revealing a new medium to the world of Graphic Design. Although this was a stressful challenge, I had the support of friends and family to keep going regardless of the words being thrown out.
My weakness stemmed from the loss of my grandad. Throughout the years, my grandad has been a big inspiration. From You the Curator, to essays, to Initiate, my commercial designer relative kept me driven. During point five, as I discuss and praise his design work transformed into a whole new perspective with 3D printing, it was his birthday. The morning after, a phonecall changed it all. The words âToo lateâ hit me hard.
Thatâs where it fell. Support and comfort lost, stress from essay, illness, front-row funeral, then being thrown critiques that made me question my own purpose, let alone my workâs. The toughest challenge Iâve faced was the loss of a great man, and thatâs where all my weaknesses arose. A heavy anxiety I highly doubt Iâll get rid of. This caused my work to be slow-moving to how I wanted it.
From what I said last year, I hope to show Art coming into Graphic Design in some form or way. Of course Iâm still doing that today, only this way itâs through 3D printing instead of collaging. I still hope to achieve this challenge, it keeps me enthusiastic and going forward.
My improvements this year were to be confident with my work. To go âNo youâre wrong, this is how it isâ. Making sure my voice was heard both as a student and as a customer buying an education. I made sure my creativity shone throughout the rest. It was also the idea of managing time. Iâm never the best with this, so this year I made sure I did everything in the beginning so the ending wasnât as hair-pulling. Although this caused stress in the beginning, it let me just watch people around me do stuff at the last-minute while feeling relaxed that I already did it.
A freelance designer based in Bee Hive Lofts in Manchester, Sam Bloomfield, gave me more advice on my portfolio making rather than looking through my stuff.
1. The line between confidence and employable
Sam and I disucssed how to present a portfolio. I asked him âWhere do you cross the line of looking like yourself and looking employable?â
Portfolios depend on whether you want to show your personality confidently or whether you want to be safe. Itâs best to show work that youâre both proud of and believe is showing what you can do.
2. Donât lose your creativity
Sam talked about how easy it is to fall into doing nothing but standard stuff to make a client happy. A Sam put it, âClients are mysterious creaturesâ, as itâs a rare occurrence for a client to pick your brain and want your work.Â
To tackle this, donât forget to work on your own stuff. Even if it is just a challenge for yourself (A series of posters using only certain colours). As well as distressing your mind, it can also build a stronger portfolio as it shows enthusiasm for design.
3. Hint what you can do
Myself and Sam debated whether to show personal work and client work together. Sam replied that he puts a link in his website that shows all his personal styles and independent work which hasnât got much context. Again, this can imply you are excited for art and design.
Laura and Sarah from ___ looked at my portfolio. They asked me quite a few questions on what I wish to do after University, and were intrigued about my favourite works and 3D printing.
POSITIVES:
3D Printing stuff was really interesting, especially Printing Calories project. They recommended a design group who may be more interested in it.
Issue One was also a fun publication to look at, they mentioned that someone else did a similar project in Venice (thanks for the comparison).Â
NEGATIVES:
Not much time to mention negative things. Maybe layout of the 3D printing booklet.
IMPROVEMENTS:
Work on making the 3D printing portfolio equally as interesting as the main portfolio, so people will look at both in the same amount of time.
Stuart Bradley, managing director at Trust, was the next designer to look at my portfolio. He spoke a bit more about my 3D printing, and offered for me to send him an email for any other advice/queries I may need.
POSITIVES:
Admired how Printing Kruger had a purpose. He thought the Kruger prints needed a place, like a collection. I then showed him the publication I created and he highly admired it.
The layout/presentation of the portfolio was professional enough to be sent out to other places. The binding was cleverly done.
NEGATIVES:
The 3D prints looked flat on the page considering their 3D dimensionality.
Typography needs work/improvements.
Printing Kruger needs a better front cover.
IMPROVEMENTS:
In order to improve the 3D prints, learn and study more into Typography. This will help develop the idea of using typography in 3D printing.
Use a picture from the Printing Kruger publication to add onto the cover, or create the cover similar to the pages inside. It might not even need a title.
Vicky from Textbook in Manchester was the first to review my work. Right off the bat she gave me a lot of tips and tricks for my portfolio. She mentioned my solid eye-contact is a strong technique when it comes to design interviews, and I explained my portfolio quite well.
POSITIVES:
Loved the Collage Zine, an A3 zine of mixed collages in different two-tone colours. She mentioned I should create the publication to have as a physical book for employers to look through.
The binding and layout of the portfolio was strong, each section had something different and showed my work ethic well.
3D Printed business card was cool.
NEGATIVES:
Typography. Headers were cut off the page, some didnât need to be as close to the edge of the page as much as they were.
One project wasnât as strong as the rest but couldnât figure out which one.
IMPROVEMENTS:
Find a good, contemporary typeface that matches with the theme of the portfolio. Perhaps look at different layouts to create a better editorial style.
Ask someone to look in the portfolio and see which project is the odd-one-out.
I really enjoyed the Alumnight event, which consisted of a few talks by Alumni of Stockport College and a small speed-dating styled portfolio reviews. I gained feedback that I took home by three design teams.
Iâm not sure whether you mightâve experienced this, but there are times where Iâm in the car with my parents and you hear them complain or sigh about the tiny learner driver infront of them. The new driverâs slow moving, random stalling, using the indicators too early seems to irratate my parents quite a bit. I then go to say âTheyâre learning. Remember that you were in their shoes years agoâ. If youâve had one of those experiences then I can safely say that feeling is exact to the Alumnight event. A learner driver in a room full of fully-experienced and settled drivers.
When taking in the portfolio reviews I realised some of the alumni I spoke to did not see me as a true creative. They saw me as a student and nothing more. I felt as though their egos were boosted by me just listening to their critiques. It wasnât positive improvements either. Let me explain:
Thereâs a difference between positive and negative advice. Positive advice would sound like âThis part is great, this part is good, let me give you some advice for this partâ. Negative advice is âThis is bad, hereâs what you should do to itâ. The negative advice sounds abrasive, rude, almost like the person giving it to you thinks they are the best at their job. The first thing I had said to me was âHereâs what you need to doâ, and gave me a list which they prepared it way before the event, as though they didnât listen to me.
Put it this way: Just because youâve been on the road a lot longer than I have, does not mean you know the road better than me. I heard one person say to a student: âWho are your top 3 designers?â. If you canât name any, that would be worrying. But to me, top 3 is not important. You can have your own style and ways without looking up to someone else heavily, top 3 anything does not always describe you. Thatâs similar to me asking âWhat are your top 3 shapes?â, âYour top 3 artists?â. I love Francis Bacon but you donât see me painting pieces of meat hanging from a butchers.
Although the feedback was blunt, I got to learn some things about the design industry. I took home quite a lot of advice and perhaps it was a learning curve of what I want to do for the future. Regardless, there are some things that will stay the same. I like Futura and I will still use it, I doubt Iâll change that.
2+2 was an event in Manchester that I was chosen to be a part of. The aim of the game was to create something that would aid or raise awareness of loneliness in young people. My team, âRed Dogâ, were the Wild Card, a last-minute joiner of the shortlisted groups. Unfortunately we were not 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place, but honestly I didnât want to be. Let me describe the experience:
Letâs talk about the group.
The group that I was put in with were amazing in terms of ideas; two marketers and one advertising. Although once they found gold in their brainstorming, as they developed further it drifted away from the purpose. It started off as an app dealing cards of different distractions, where if one who felt lonely wished to do something to look away from the feeling, they would take a card and do it. This could be from walking in a park to joining a club. However, as I joined back after designing the logo for the brand, I found that their idea suddenly transformed into a social media app, which I encouraged them to stay away from since no social app will be up there with Facebook and Twitter anymore.
Marketers have a purpose in their career, to push things. To push an idea out, to push merchandise and adverts and just get the ball rolling. When both a marketer and designer are together, it becomes a different game. The marketer pushes, the designer guides them on where to push, how to push it, and who to push it towards. So being in this situation, I noticed that one of the marketers just wanted to push so desperately that they did not listen to how simple it could be. Like an ant pushing a rock uphill.
And did my group care about the design? No.
So letâs picture the scene: Large room filled with 50+ students, designers, mentors.. Judges staring at you, and two minutes on the clock to explain your shortlisted idea. The marketer hands me my microphone, designs in-hand ready to speak about this really sweet logo design and the setup of the app. As soon as it gets to my part, after the confident marketer describes the now âsocial appâ, she decides to end the presentation with a minute to spare. The audience claps, and Iâm there stood like an idiot.
Not once did I get to speak about the design. We rehearsed it, we spoke about it, I spent five hours creating this damn thing, and nothing. Not a word was said about the design aspect. Thatâs the most important part!! You canât make the greatest tasting cake in the world and make it look like someoneâs thrown mud on a plate!
The mentors said âThe strongest part of your group is the logo. That logo is amazing. Nothing is as good as âUPââ. The logo was a joined âUâ and âPâ in a flowing manner, a one-stroke like to represent the relaxing state. I always believe that if a logo is successful in black and white, it can work with any other colour. Therefore this âUPâ is a solid black with a white background. I loved it, at least.
The unfortunate part of the event were the facilitators.
These were mentors throughout the event that would help âguideâ you through the brief and give you advice if needed. Sadly these mentors did not mentor at all, rather became those irritating, slow-moving flies that you couldnât get rid of no matter how many times you wafted your hand.
It wasnât that they were doing anything wrong, it was more the âcatch upsâ. Youâll explain where your group were up to to one, then another comes along wanting the same answer. It came to the point where there was no progress happening because of the constant interruptions.
According to my father (who has been in a similar position to these mentors), being a facilitator can be difficult, especially if there are more than two hovering. In my case, there were seven along with other random people. He told me to, next time, work with the âSacrifice one, carry onâ system. This meant that if a mentor came along, one member of the group would speak to them while the rest carried on with the work. The next time another came, a different member would speak, basically taking it in turns. I wish I knew that sooner, as I was the only one quietly designing the logo and setup of the app next to the empty chair.
Overall...
For a first-time event, they did really well in terms of organisation, team-tutoring, time management, and more. Itâs difficult to move a herd of 50+ students around a fairly small building. I had a great experience, definitely a learning curve for me.
3D printing is a new thing to step into the huge, developed world of Graphic Design. In my case, it was a struggle to even pitch this to tutors at the beginning of the project.
However, the amount of designers who admired and became excited over this new plastic style at the point five show was a surprise. Creatives loved the idea of a physical thing coming out to the audience, and how fun it looked to have different techniques and boundaries in the 3D printing world. I felt like the pitcher of 3D printing as a whole, as I was educating others on how itâs done, what it does, how it can be brought into certain creative fields.. It was an interesting experience.Â
The creatives who looked at my work all said a similar thing. âYeah itâs alright, this.â, âThe physicality is niceâ, âCan I hold it? Oh thatâs niceâ, etc. It became a little tiring that I wasnât really getting improvements or even just a slight path to walk down. It felt as though I was forcing them to look at my stuff. Perhaps it was the time frame or the fact they had a few drinks beforehand.
For any form of Graphic Design to be shown physically can be a weird experience to some. 3D printing has barely scraped the surface of any form of design, let alone the Graphic Arts scene. I felt similar to the impressionists when they tried to showcase their rebellious work in the 1860âČs, where they still kept their paintbrushes and paint but instead worked in a totally different way to the Artsâ rules.Â
âIt doesnât really feel like we think of them at all. It feels like we find themâ - Damian Kulash
OK Go are widely known for their crazy music videos, all different and with a twist. Recently the group appeared on my Recommended on Youtube, with a recent song called âObsessionâ. This music video consists of exactly 567 printers positioned on top on one another, printing out thousands of designs that will sometimes collaborate together to create beautiful patterns as the background of the bandâs video. As you watch this, the video is either slowed down or given a stop motion to fit the printingâs timing.Â
OK Go are more famously known for their music video, âHere It Goes Againâ, where they stand, walk, jump along eight treadmills throughout the song. This video got over 39 million views and also how I found out about them. Their videos have become more and more crazy ever since, from riding on Honda UNI-CUBâs through a Tokyo carpark, to throwing paint balls in zero gravity, to slowing down a 4.2 second shoot.Â
The band posted a Ted Talk that I watched straight after this video. As a fan of their videos and music, I had to find out where they get their ideas from. Singer, Damian Kulash, is the talker in the video along with the other members holding up boards that explain visually his speaking.Â
Kulash speaks about the idea of finding the feeling, âWonderâ. He explains this feeling by telling a story where he was in a restaurant with his wife. As his wife is trying to speak to him, Kulash is âbobbing and weavingâ, trying to level his eye perspective just enough that the âficus plant is coming out of her head like a ponytailâ. This, to him, is a perfect way of explaining how one finds ideas. There are so many ideas, so many possibilities and thoughts, you just need to find that perfect angle that sits them all together in a perfect harmony.Â
In a small way, this links to design. Design needs a sense of wonder, it needs that perfect angle or spot which just joins it all together for the viewer to see itâs meaning and viewpoint. I hope to work with the idea of perspective, how 3D design can change with just one tilt or a slight rotate. Like OK Go, I hope to find that one perfect idea.
I remember my first experience of the Buy Art Fair in Manchester. It was inside Granada Studios, filled with small artists around the UK showcasing their talents in hopes of a sale and a bit of recognition. After winning competition tickets to the art fairâs preview night, we decided to attend again for the fourth time. It was a relief after leaving that we didnât pay for the tickets, it would have been a loss.
I wonât talk about the pretentious humans wearing stupid outfits to look ârichâ, their breath stinking of the cheap wine which was complimentary as soon as you walk in, or the big collectives praying on the innocent small artists, letâs just discuss the artwork for the time being.
I understand that past artists like Picasso, Hockney, Basquiat, etc are huge influences, but when one supposedly said âGreat artists stealâ, they didnât mean blatantly copy the work to make you brilliantly-minded.Â
This art fair used to be an astounding place to meet emerging artists who are just getting out there. When we first visited, an artist named Nathan Pendlebury was there showcasing his work. Pendlebury is someone I have met a few times and bought a few of his pieces. He is a freelance abstract contemporary artist, who has worked with John Lewis and painted Jake Buggâs latest album cover.Â
When myself and dad went to Skiptonâs Art In The Pen fair in summer of 2017, we came across Pendlebury. We got onto the topic of the Buy Art Fair and how we wasnât attending this year. When we asked why, he said âIt isnât a fair anymore. You pay ÂŁ1000 for a stall that is really a gallery for visitors. We only just broke even last year, canât take that risk again.âÂ
Another artist we met was Tom Lewis, whom is a prime example of how these Art Fairs can help you in your career. Tom Lewis is, as he writes, a âpremium degree pencil wizardâ. His work revolves around characters along with building an urban Tokyo atmosphere filled with graffiti and neon wires. My dad and I met him when he was just a small artist, with this tiny stall in the corner selling prints lined up in boxes and a few large pieces. After this fair, only a few weeks later, we found out Lewis was signed off to a large art collective in Manchester named Wishbone.Â
But now, sadly, these beautiful hard-to-find artists are now put last on the list, as these copycat abstract Picasso wannabeâs are picked first to show their standard âehâ work.
However, not all hope was lost. I found a stall named âHot Bed Pressâ, and there they were. Two obscure yet fascinating screenprints of ghosts. One called âDrink Meâ and the other called âGhost with someoneâs brainâ. Thanks, Samuel Horsley.
âThereâs 7 billion 46 million people on the planet, and most of us have the audacity to think we matterâ
George Watsky is not an artist, nor a graphic designer. This young man is a rapper. Not a rapper who reads off a piece of paper someone else has written for him, not a rapper whose words speak no meaning or doesnât delve into any emotions. Quite the opposite. Watsky has grown up with poetry. His art, his design, his love is for poetry.
As Watsky writes in his bio on his website, he is âa versatile lyricist who switches between silly and serious, technically complex and simply heartfeltâ. His winning of the National Poetry Slam in 2006, and his numerous trips around America performing spoken word, his young adult life has revolved around the ideas of emotion and word play combined together.
âHow to ruin everythingâ is a series of essays he has written about his life. This video above visualises the bookâs telling, with Watskyâs narration in the background. All words that are spoken by other characterâs are also written in the book, therefore the whole video focuses mainly on what the book reads.
Regardless of the picture in your head, as we read, the creative mind we have is slowly working on how to visualise the printer the author has spoken of, whether it is our own printer or one weâre seen in our past encounters. The video provides an excellent and close cinematography which has a similar design to how one would imagine a prop, character or scenery when reading.
Some well-known directors take a similar approach. To name one, Wes Anderson. His filming of The Grand Budapest Hotel was notably inspired by the idea of X and Y axis combined with symmetry. Anderson worked with a cinematographer named Robert Yeoman. Yeoman hand operated the camera, the crew pull, push and slide him along on a trolley as he holds the camera perfectly still for the right shots. A fascinating thing to watch him do.Â
These scenes are almost like how one would imagine the scene in their head whilst reading the book. Perhaps the cinematographer for Watskyâs small book excerpt was inspired by these techniques, and used them time and time again.Â
Letâs look at two scenes from the two medias. On the left, we have a screenshot of one of the scenes in the excerpt. On the right, a screenshot from Wes Andersonâs The Grand Budapest Hotel. The similarities of the two scenes would be the level of saturation and contrast, along with the almost symmetrical camera angle. The differences, although not that much, would be the idea of focus points. On the right, the focus point would be the character, therefore her position will be in the middle for the audience to immediately draw to her. However, the screenshot on the left doesnât really have a focus point. Although the three postboxes are different to each other, the audience is not forced to look at just the middle one. Perhaps it is to do with the use of colour. Because all three postboxes are blue, there is no spotlight point or true difference; whereas the right one has a colour difference, the model is in orange clothing and appears brighter to the rest of the colour palette around her.
âArt washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.â - Picasso
While trying to find a good artist showing their expressive style in an art video, I came across this. A video about 5 subjects tested to see if art therapy can heal the soul.
Before the few subjects begin painting, they are given two questionnaires: One to show their level of happiness right now, and another to show what makes them happy/supportive. Afterwards their bodies are traced around a canvas, and they begin to paint. I wonât spoil the whole video plot.
The main conclusion to this experiment was how painting can fully relax a person. It can not only help the soul, but help regulate blood pressure and heart rate. It can reveal true feelings about something you wouldnât even think was inside you. Sometimes, painting or any form of art does not have to be about the final piece. It can be the creation, the feelings that were used, the time taken, the colours, the references, the story. Personally, art is an escape. It could be imaginary world, a fictional world that escapes the real reality.Â
As Julian says in the interview, âWhen you engage yourself artistically and use your imagination, you can help regulate your blood pressure and your heart rateâ. He follows on by saying âYou donât have to be an artist to do thisâ. This is a very important point, you donât. Art isnât like design, anyone can become an artist. Being a successful artist is another thing, as you need to find something no one has ever done before and can be perceived as âartâ by the top artists/art world. More importantly, art is a feeling. It is an emotive response to a feeling, an experience, the future, and much more. It is a feeling towards something. Art Therapy doesnât have rules or restrictions, because it is all about you. Your feelings towards something. Revealing the something is what helps patients during this exercise find what they are thinking about the most, where certain feelings are circling and how it can be changed for the future.
Art Therapy shows the imaginary world inside your head, and in this video, it shows the most important things that makes your world happy or feel supportive. Art can show your problems, your achievements, your worries, your mindset.. It is a phenomenal thing. No rules, no right or wrong. It is you.
Instead of creating a booklet with my work, I decided to design flash cards, each with one project from either first or second year of University.
The work I chose are the ones that describe me the most in regards to style. Hands on, cut and paste, collaged, and distorted. Iâd rather not show myself as an all-digital person (although I can be), more show my specific ways of designing by using the arts and manipulation.
During this year, I had no fears. Iâve improved from first year in regards to time management, to the point where Iâve completed everything at the right time (if not a week earlier) and witness everyone else pulling out their hair.
I may have had some scares in regards to creating a typeface as I struggled to create it all digitally from a photograph. However the fear was immediately vanquished as soon as I realised by using my lightbox, I could trace parts of the lettering in the photograph to recreate the whole alphabet. This shows that in order for me to create a strong piece of design, some hands-on work has to be involved.
As for hope⊠I hoped in the first year that I would bring my passions and personal work into second year. I believe I have, especially in âD&ADâ where we created a poster that portrayed a positive piece of advice. Mine was âAdmire longer, experience furtherâ. With this topic, I had showed my class the wonders of collage and negative space, using three famous masterpieces by Picasso, Van Gogh, and Da Vinci. Collaging is my passion, so I believe Iâve accomplished that goal. My hope for the next year is to carry that idea with me; the idea of showing others how art is a significant part of design.
I understand that there is a small group of students who wonât have the same knowledge I have in regards to the Adobe Creative Suite, so their improvement may sound something along the lines of âI wish to improve on *insert popular adobe software here* for third yearâ. Me? That will certainly not be an improvement. Not saying that you canât keep learning new things off those softwares, but I am certainly past being a novice ever since the beginning of college, so that standard improvement is out of the window for me.
For me, an improvement sounds a little harsh. Iâm already a perfectionist (which is not as gold as you think), so improving work and knowledge constantly is in my blood. Therefore, I prefer the term âChallengeâ. However, one thing I will want to improve in the third year would be my skills in layouts, as that is definitely something I struggle on.
Going back to the idea of challenging, I challenge myself to change otherâs views and opinions on design using the arts. That sounds silly, I know, practically every designer wants to do that. But.. I wish to show that design can be an art. You donât have to be stuck in front of a screen to be a graphic designer, in fact starting off with a sketch on a piece of paper is a stronger beginning point. I want to show how art equipment doesnât have to be used merely for art, paints and pastels can be used in Graphics. It is a way of expression, and is certainly something I wish to progress onto in the third year.
Made up of two people, Dr.Me is a collage design studio based in Manchester (Islington Mill, to be exact). The pair, Ryan Doyle and Mark Edwards (Eddy), are most known for their 365 days of collage; a tough challenge creating a 23x15cm collage piece everyday in 2014.
In my sparetime, I work with collage. After reading their book âCut That Outâ, and finding out they were based in Manchester, I got in touch with Eddy and interviewed him at his base, HOME, in Islington Mill.
Below is the full interview with ME (Mark Edwards).
Six questions were asked which took 10 minutes of his time.
What advice would you give to a graduating student of Art or Design? For example, being a collage artist, what would you say to another wanting to follow the same path?
I think youâve just got to become obsessed with it (art/design) and do it all the time. Iâd say obsession and just being really interested in the field is a must. Just trying to practice all the time, keep a sketchpad, although I donât keep a sketchpad /laughs/. But yeah, Iâd just say work as hard as you can.
It sounds like really obvious stuff but itâs difficult to be specific about this sort of thing so I think just being broad and just have an interest.
If thereâs a collage show somewhere yâknow, thereâs a new show in London so yâknow, make sure you go and see that. And yeah.. Just be interested and stuff.
I read your book as I mentioned in the email, and you mentioned that you worked with quite big clients (Sony, Redbull, etc). How have they found you?
I think a lot of it is kinda down to chance, that itâs mainly just having your work out there as much as possible and kinda hustling. And just asking if you can do things at first, âcause people wonât trust you when you first start. Itâs just about trying to get people to understand where youâre coming from and what work you do, why youâre making it.
Having things like a website, Instagram, Twitter, all that stuff is definitely something you need to do. A lot of people poo-poo and so itâs not doing anything. But it definitely does âcause you donât know whoâs looking. Just because it may seem lame to be posting images of your work all the time, it may not get a big hit back from it. You donât know that, I donât know, the head of Nike could be looking at that and thinking that youâd be perfect for a campaign that theyâll do.
I think, in regards to getting big client work, thatâs absolutely the way forward.
About your 365 days of Collage, how and where did you find the inspiration?
I think just the deadline, âcause we set ourselves a deadline of posting everyday and so just.. I donât know. Like an athlete training everyday, you have to like find the times to do it and the majority of the time, the work wasnât about anything in particular, it was just you find something and think it might be interesting.
Collage is quite automatic.Weâve made series of works that have a theme thatâs something relating to water or falling or just pattern designs. But the majority of the time itâs just.. Yâknow, we wouldâve seen something else like when weâve been to an art gallery or go and see a show or listen to music  that has rhythm to it. That would kind of feed into the work.
What is it like working independently alongside other creative minds? What is the community like?
Really good. I moved with Ryan and Steve from Hope Mill in Ancoats. And it was fine, it was a nice place. But we just had nothing going on, there was no community level there. Everyone that had studios there did work that was quite desperate. We didnât really know anybody that well, and you found when they ran open studios, people will just come in and start painting the walls, putting pictures up.. Just for appearance sake. Aside from that, there wasnât anybody that we kinda sparked with. So coming to this mill was quite a natural move.
It was great, we moved in here. We were next door to TEXTBOOK and JOHN POWELL-JONES. More and more friends moved in and this place (HOME) became available so we all decided to pitch in and come over here.
I heard on Nicer Tuesdays (YOUTUBE VIDEO) that you now work with your partner, Ryan, through the internet. How is that working for you two?
Ryan was in the south of France but he has now moved back to Manchester with his wife. But we still do work through the internet, heâs not in this studio so essentially the dynamics remain the same.
We use Slack. Itâs like a business messaging app, kinda similar in between Facebook Messenger, but we WeTransfer thrown in so you can send quite large files quickly. We just send projects back and forward. We work fairly independently anyway, so when a job comes in, we chat about it via Slack, just get on with it independently, put ideas together, feedback, then send it off to the client.
In my sparetime, Iâm progressing on into the world of collage, however I fear copyright laws quite a bit when I think about selling. I would like to know what you think about the matter of Copyrighting for collage artists?
Itâs a grey area. I think try and use elements of peopleâs images but not the whole image, if that makes sense. As long as youâre not just straight up using somebody elseâs whole thing then itâs fine. But yeah, it is a real grey area⊠But I think itâs fine.
I bought a book named âHow to steal like an artistâ by Austin Kleon when I was at the GoMa gallery in Glasgow. The bookâs purpose is to advise that it is a natural instinct to steal a piece of design from another, as nothing is original. Seeing as it was a New York Times bestseller, I had to read what all the fuss was about.
âPainters learn to paint by reproducing masterpiecesâ (p35). Although this is pretty accurate, I wouldnât say I learnt a lot from school or college by recreating a piece of Lucian Freudâs or Howard Hodgkin. Unless you used the exact tools and materials, and have the same creative mindset, then you could recreate it perfectly. But it is not about stealing everything from an artist, it is more taking a part of their style, combine it with other styleâs, and conclude with your official style. After all, âthe human hand is incapable of making a perfect copyâ (p35)
The best thing about âHow to steal like an artistâ is the advice. An example will be on page 81, where Kleon writes âStep 1: Wonder at something. Step 2:Invite others to wonder with youâ. It suggests an beginning artist should learn to openly share their passions from their work, as it allows the audience to become more connected. If you are reserved and protective of your art style, then how can an art lover see you? In order to be a professional artist, you must learn to share most of your process to invite people in.
This is one of the most important pieces of advice I have learnt from this book. As an artist myself, I struggled to share my work openly to others, as criticism can be difficult to tackle. Also, the idea of sharing my ideas and development makes me believe it is then available for someone to steal. But this book advises a beginner like me of how the world of creative minds work, that people will take maybe just a small piece of your idea in order to start their own. With my work now showing on Instagram to the public, I feel more confident and happier to wonder with others.
âAll pictures are autobiographical, yet theyâre telling us everything and nothing about the photographer.â - Gregory Crewdson
I watched a documentary named âGregory Crewdson's Photography Capturing a Movie Frame | Art in Progressâ, which is surprisingly about the photographer, Gregory Crewdson. The first ten minutes of the documentary is the process of photographing the photo above, named âBurning Houseâ.
Crewdson is a pure example of a perfectionist. Each figure on the right, their positions are exact. The houseâs flames must have a certain flow, the lighting had to be at a certain angle, the smoke needed to blow a certain way. Even the boyâs shirt was requested to be taken off, and he be the only one facing the flames directly.
(image found here)
Crewdsonâs father was a psychoanalyst. In his teenage years, he would try to listen in to the conversations that his father had with his patients by placing his ear to the floor. Although he could rarely hear the talks, his idea of this âpsychological universeâ was something that interested him.Â
Edward Hopper, one of his high inspirations, was a painter who dealt with the sense of emptiness and loneliness, as well as lighting to capture the theatrical scene. It wasnât until âTwilightâ (1998 - 2002) where Crewdson took this into consideration, and brought a team together to obtain cinematic lighting and other effects, such as fog and water, easier. Over one hundred lights will work on just one photograph, that will be hidden in certain areas so they are not in the shot.
Photography and design are very relatable when linking to Crewdson. His perfectionist ways, his idea of freezing a moment to discover every aspect and detail. It is something I have written about before, the idea of telling a story in design for it to be more powerful to the viewer or client. Without a story in the visual, or at least an idea, the design becomes practically worthless.
