Elana Berton @elanaberton-blog - Tumblr Blog

REFLECTION

Overall I definitely feel like this course has been the most challenging out of all 3 of the classes in Bach of communication design. I have felt most out of my comfort zone doing all the different projects and streams. It really made me dive into the dark corners of my weaknesses. I actually felt the most comfortable doing the food project and it has made me realize that this kind of organizing, group work and creative thinking is something that I love.

I absolutely love working with people in a group and working through problems with discussions and different techniques. Although it is very challenging sometimes, it is so rewarding when you can celebrate your success with others. It’s much more rewarding than creating something by yourself.

It was quite interesting that I was just beginning this food project, I also became apart of my No Waste Yes Party. The content overlapped so much and it was all very relevant. Even the specialist class, Strategies, was relevant - preparing briefs and finding out the core messages of a company getting a feeling of the personality, branding your organization.

The craft class and the futures classes weren’t directly related to anything in my life at the moment but I found that I could really inject my personality and interests into them where as I didn’t have much flexibility in my other uni projects and they were quite set and structured. A good balance. The craft class was the class I enjoyed least, i’m not quite sure what it was but I just found that there wasn’t much meaningful purpose to it compared to the others and it was really just quite random. I guess its more about the fine art side of design which I am not that interested in perhaps.

I thought it was amazing how different and diverse the projects were no two were the same. No two were even similar in any way now that I think about it. I cannot wait to explore these streams more next year. I definitely will be taking a lot away from what i have learned this semester. I also cannot wait to see how the food project expands next year I hope we can be apart of it with the first years next year or even expand on it in our own way next year in a project.

IN THE END

It was interesting because our group, we were doing a lot of theoretical design thinking and planning with other groups. We never had a tangible ‘thing’ that we were designing for the day just ideas and concepts of how things would work. And in the last two or three weeks we kind of realized omg, we should really have something to ‘hand in’. At this point I was getting mentally exhausted and with all the other projects we had and also because this was such a long project. It was hard to keep motivation especially in a group setting when you are constantly trying to make sure everyone is communication and getting their ideas in. Everything you come up with you have to make sure your group wants to go that direction. Its a lot different to working on a project by yourself. And then you also have to think about how it will fit in with all the other million ideas in the whole comm design course. Our idea kept changing due to time restrictions and logistics so in the end our group started to fragment a bit because we didn’t have class time to see each other and everyone was busy with other projects, so our communication wasn’t that great.

What I thought we were doing ended up changing quite a bit but, I realized that was okay and I really loved what our group came up with in the end. I probably would have done it a bit differently but for the day I think it was really good.

We refined our idea slightly in the end and did a buyers guide instead of an info graphic

Jasper, Jaimie and I went to the Vic Market and looked at the prices of the fruit see how far our money could go for $5. I ended up using coles and woolies as a reference also because they had the prices of singular bits of fruit on their website. Jacinta and I discussed making the text fun approachable and cute. I wrote this which I loved and jasper designed but it didn’t end up fitting on the flyer. I also purchased a bunch of ugly strawberries which had the most amazing shapes. Kara used them as inspiration for the water colour.

I was away working however my group members helped print about 30 flyers and prepare them. We handed them out on the day to people and put up an online version.

ON THE DAY

I helped to cut and prepare the fruit which was a great experience. Jacinta, Jaimie and I carried the food waste back to the Victoria market.

Prior to the day I had gone on a dumpster diving course with Melbourne Uni student Union. We went to the Victoria Market and sifted through their organic bins to find food that was still good to eat. This is all the food we collected from the bins. But on my journey I also realized that anyone has access to the organic bins at the market. So in the end I didn’t need to contact the cleaner and we just went to the bins and put our food waste in there.

I was actually so amazed at what all the other groups had produced. everywhere you looked was beautifully designed things. Every single section of the day was designed. We all worked together so perfectly. It was organized chaos. Problem solving was a big part of the day. In the end it was such a great success. I loved every minute. I thought the progressive part worked really well and broke up the day. It allowed people to mingle and we all felt as though we played a part in creating the fruit salad. It was so interesting to see how much fruit you needed to make a fruit salad NOT THAT MUCH !! someone bought tomatoes! yes its technically a fruit.... Being apart of the preparation was so good, it reminded me back of when we do tomato sauce making days in my family and everyone is cutting up the tomatoes around a table just chatting. Great conversations come out of it and you feel so much closer to the people around you. I felt as though it was a huge bonding experience and I have seriously made such good friends in this course since starting this project. I am glad it worked out how it did!

Futures

Well I was in for a shock when I started this. A completely different concept from which I am used to. I was excited because I have heard a lot about this ‘stream called futures’ and I never really understood it. I still don’t completely, but after doing this is definitely makes me excited for whats to come next year.

I was cautious when I first started talking to Kaitlyn but after we listened to each others songs there was this instant feeling of comfort. We hadn’t talked much before this day but it felt so easy. I found there is this crazy intimacy when someone is describing how a song makes them feel. It’s like this instant window into their mind and memories. We ended up talking for ages I absolutely loved it. The next part was also quite enjoyable but also daunting. I had to interpret what I thought the song meant to her in a story like brief. I wanted to do it justice because it was such a personal thing.

Actually it was also quite an amazing experience to also tell someone about a song. I never really though about it but when I started describing the connection I had to my song it was quite emotional, i think its amazing how one song can have so many different meanings. Each person interprets it differently and it all depends on our personal experiences and feelings.

I ended up collaborating with Kaitlyn quite a lot throughout the whole process because I wanted to make something she would love and feel a connection to

This brief encompass things like the colours and images she described about what she sees when she listens to the song. The midnight blue and sunset orange. The movement in the picture because she listens to it when she is walking or on the bus and the street imagery because the lyrics are very much set in a Australian suburb. Its interesting to see how ‘a picture speaks a thousand words’ two long paragraphs can be summaries into the imagery behind it. And with this brief you get to see both the pictures and the words.

It was very difficult to put something as intangible as the emotions you feel when listening to a song into a piece of visual language. But that’s what I loved about this project. We started with a song, we wrote a story and then we created a visual. So many different senses are tapped into.

I really struggled with the next section of this project. I had no idea how to represent this story. After talking with the lecturer though he told me i was over thinking it and it should be really simple. This relaxed me a bit because I felt as though I should just do what comes naturally to me rather than over thinking it. And it really worked out well. Because what I ended up doing, there was no intense complex graphic design involved. I didn’t even open illustrator which was my first instinct. I hand drew the lyrics and simply posted them on a street wall while walking in front of the camera. These three elements worked perfectly together for my brief and they are so simple.

Talking through my feels about my song actually helped me clarify things about myself. And Seeing Kaitlyn’s interpretation of my feelings also showed me more about my feelings that I probably wouldn’t have seen. Overall this project was really cool and did push me out of my comfort zone.

Food journey

I had a very hard time getting in contact with the sustainability manager, I realize how hard it is to get people to trust what you are doing and actually take the time to listen to what you have to say. Unless you meet them in person it is a lot more difficult to build relationships. Anyway I finally got in contact with the sustainability Manager at Victoria market she said we can use the compost.

She said we are allowed to use the compost and gave me the phone number of the cleaner so we can use it !! yayay no waste :D

Joe and Jasper went to the Vic market and asked around but most people were either too busy or didn’t want to be interviewed. Which is quite normal reaction when they don’t know you and you are just random.

So we have changed tactics for the 100th time.... this is all apart of the creative process I guess !

We are going to use the information on the Victoria Market website to find more about the farmers and we are going to put it all together and make a little information package about what fruit to buy that is environmentally friendly.

We want to spread the message about reducing waste and buying more ethically.

We want to make it online so we don’t waste paper printing mock ups

Some example headings:

Where has your fruit come from?

Whats seasonal, what are the benefits?

What fruit to buy - buying ugly fruit, buying imperfect fruit - Buy the fruit that is reduced, as it is cheaper and ready to eat. And will most likely be thrown out just because it has a reduced shelf life. It is still perfect good to eat. If might have a bruise on it, so just cut that bit off there will still be lots more to eat.

- Kara is making water colour fruit with imperfections

- Jacinta is doing info on organics pesticides and locally sourced

- Joe Seasonality

- Elana food waste and why you should buy the ugly ones.

not sure what Jaimie and jasper are doing at this stage because they weren't able to come to class, however we think they will be able to do more graphics management

We did a cognitive walk through today, it was really cool because we had full mockup of the Alumni Court and we went through the main stages of the event. It brought up a lot of interesting questions like how would we serve the fruit, how would we keep it all hygienic. What is the budget, where do we get knives from, how will we cut the fruit, where will the waste go, how will we cart the waste back to the Victoria market? I have never done this kind of technique before but I think its so crucial when you are organizing an event and I would want to use it in the future when planning my No Waste, Yes Party events, or even just parties in general.

Here we go

Okay so we have got a good plan of what we want to do.

We going to try and map the journey of the food from the very beginning (farm) to the end (compost). Well there isn’t really an end, it is more the life cycle that we want to show because we are so disconnected with that whole process these days

The group is meeting this Thursday to interview some stall holders at the Vic market that sell fruit. We have brainstormed some questions like:

- Where does the fruit come from? Do you farm yourself?

- How do you transport the fruit? What are the steps to get it here?

- How did you get into selling/farming?

- Whats the hardest thing about farming/selling?

- What brings you to the vic market?

- What do you do with any food you can’t sell? How do you make sure you don’t have much food wasted and everything is sold?

- Will you be around on a Friday?

++ some people will be taking photos, some interviewing and some documenting the stalls we went to so that we can go back to the same stall holders and buy fruit from them.

We want to do some sort of instillation mapping the journey of a piece of fruit perhaps using string and map of Victoria to show how far that fruit has traveled and how much work has been put into growing that fruit just so we can eat it. We will have to work out exactly what we can do once we see if the interviews work.

I managed to make contact with the sustainability manager at QV shes free on Thursdays and Fridays to chat over the phone so I will ring her then.

- Can we use the compost?

- Where does the product from the compost go?

- Where is it?

- What can we put in to the compost?

Strategies Specialist

This project gave me a insight into the mind of a corporate company which is something that I have never thought much about and really had just made my own assumptions on. It was challenging at the beginning to understand the corporate jargon, its all quite broad and sometimes very confusing. Now I have a new found appreciation of how they can keep continuity thought their brand while keeping their public values intact in that process. Initially the research stage was quite boring however once the strategy part came in it all came together quite nicely and I saw how the research was very valuable. As a designer, you need it to get to know the brand so you can figure out how your ideas can fit into their identity fluidly. I found it challenging because the brand I was researching, Telstra, had recently had an up dated brand strategy but this challenge made me think much more laterally and pushed my creative brain. I made the new strategy about much more than just their business and looked more laterally into the broader community. In the end I was quite happy with my strategy and would have loved to really pitch it and take the design into a production phase!

NEXT STEP

We have been struggling to find out what we can do for the event, we thought of doing invitations but realized another group was already do this. We found that there is a real gap in the organization for the day. It has been talked about but no one that we know of is actually working our the nitty gritty bits. Event Planning will be out new groups objective. We have decided to take an extra focus towards sustainable event planning and logistics.

Our Job

--- Active ---

- We walked to the Vic market and it takes about 15 minutes each way so it is quite close and really easy to get too.

- What do people need to bring? Maybe their own container so they can bring any left over food home, a cup and a fork. This would reduce any waste and also eliminate a lot of clean up as people take their own things home.

- As we are wanting to get the food locally from the Vic Market. I thought that we could perhaps even collect food that is unsold and would be wasted from the market or from local Coles and Woolworths. This reduce costs and also have a great focus of reducing food waste. I have done this in the past and the amount of good produce you can collect is amazing. We would also be able to purchase new produce no the day to replenish the supplies and have enough for everyone.

We have been doing some research and the Victoria Market have really good sustainable initiatives like no plastic bags, worm farms, solar panels and heaps more ! http://www.qvm.com.au/about/sustainability/ I contacted the QV market and got the email of the Sustainability manager, I emailed her and asked if we could chat over the phone or meet up to talk about using their worm farm to put all our food scraps in. Just waiting of a reply. Another group is trying to find a clear container to display our waste in, perhaps biodegradable cups that we can use as ‘plates’ or for drinks and then use to display any food scraps in later just to make people aware of how much we produce.

--- Communicate ---

- We want emphasis the journey of the food (staying with the progressive theme) and present it to the group we will come up with a way to present that information either digitally or hard copy.

This will involve where the food comes from (talking to the store owners and hearing the story of how and where they grow their food) and all the way to where the food waste will go to (composting at Vic Market) and what they use the compost for.

Talking to other groups

- Want to help bring the whole event together on the day so we have talked to the Identity group, the microwave map group and compost / waste group and the bowl/furniture group.

Microwave map group are doing a map that includes microwaves on campus and this map includes the Vic Market, I suggested that they could include a route to the Vic Market as well and also that they collaborate with the Invitation people and perhaps they could put the map on the back of the Invite to save paper and also become multi purpose. This invitation group are trying to get the invite to fold into a paper plate so it would become a 4 purpose piece of paper!

Identity group are doing tote bags and we discussed using them as *kits* so they would contain the invite and map, people could put any equipment that they bring in this bag and use it to carry fruit with them from the market.

We didn’t know how we would cut the fruit, Andy suggested that we use large plants of wood. We thought this could work well with the ‘Bucket’ idea he furniture group are coming up with and Jacinta and I talked with them about it. We all came up with the idea that we use the tables at the Alumni Court and position them in ta square then drape the tarp from two tables so it fills the middle and people can stand around the edge of this square cut the fruit and just push it into the middle onto the hanging tarp. Any food scraps could go in a bin that is under their feet.

Their is also a group that wanted to do something with the scraps, they suggested bringing a worm farm in but I brought to their attention that this wouldn’t be allowed to stay there and the garden there is actually property of Greening RMIT. So we talked and decided that it would be perfect to have the scraps collected into a portable container that we could take to the Vic Market and Use their worm farm. I am currently in the process of trying to get their permission for us to use it.

Next stage

Over the past few weeks since the pitches, we have been collaborating with different groups to ‘remix’ all our separate ideas into one. I found it very invigorating doing ‘sprints’ of creative thinking it was fun and so great to have this fast paced back and forth creative thinking.

MSCW

Andy told us about this thinking technique called MSCW its an acronym standing for Must have, Should have, Could have and Won’t have. We had to break down this for our projects. For our progressive idea I broke it down too.

MUST have: Journey / movement

SHOULD have: DIY food

COULD have: stations

NEVER have: sitting and eating a already prepared meal.

SPRINTS

We decided to collaborate with the other groups focusing on Activate. Such as the lighting a sound groups, busking/ street life groups and others. We came up with many different cool ideas that would be so awesome to create.

---- My interpretation of the main idea we came up with. was to have different stations, these stations would have different themes starting from the creation stage of ingredients to the creation of the meal and then to the end where you eat the food. This idea was resembling the idea of importance of community and symbolizing the journey of food. The first station for example you would have to pick the lettuce leafs which are still planted in soil, next station you would need to gather the tomatoes and chop them and at the final station you are putting all your ingredients into a bowl together. The last ‘station’ is then a large communal table or area where we come together and eat the food we created. This shows a large part of the process that food goes through which we are quite disconnected from now days. It highlights the roles of the farmers, workers, cooks, transporters and the consumers, this highlights the integral need for a community. similar theme to the quite ‘It takes a whole village to raise a child’.

---- These stations could have different sounds in which we have access to on or phones and can listen through the headphones while we work. So station one might have the sound of digging, farmer talking and soil churning and cracking the lettuce off. Station two the sound of chopping and movement in the kitchen. Station three sounds of family and friends coming together arriving at the meal. Station 4 there is no sound at the table while we eat, but music from a live busker and time to chat. Perhaps we are also sitting on furniture made from recycled materials. This incorporates ideas form 5 ACTIVATE groups.

Thinking...

I absolutely loved having these chats, I think the general feeling was first excitement about coming up with these awesome ideas, but then we realized that many other groups would have different ideas, also time budget and logistics would very much get in the way.

I felt a bit of lack of motivation start to set in. We were doing a lot of talking but there was not good communication within the groups to help the ideas become a reality It felt like it was a waste of time as our ideas wouldn’t be able to be heard.

But the class after that Andy decided to chuck in a constraint, we were to have this in the alumni courtyard/ lawn area the location was decided. Then he started talking about some ideas that he came up with like walking to the Victoria market and purchasing ingredients to then make one whole communal meal in which we can all eat. The mood in our group changed because all the think we had come up with we hadn’t even been able to tell anyone and now things have been decided.

But I realized we did need some more direction. At first we were able to come up with these awesome ideas and be creative because Andy hadn’t given us these constraints which was lovely and exiting. But the weeks are dwindling away and we need to come up with some tangible ideas. I think now we can apply our ideas into reality. Plus his ideas were vague enough so we can still put our elements into it, we just need to do some creative thinking to how we can apply it.

After Andy told us this info we went back into creative mode we thought about creating tote bags to carry ingredients from the market and maps to help guide us to and from it. We want to have a live busker.

I was concerned about the sound group because having a live performance would definitely compete with their sound idea about having us listen to the journey of food. So I thought that perhaps their sound idea could become a form of documentation and they record sounds at the market while we are walking/ preparing etc... all throughout the day and this could be complied into a video or sound bite as a ‘sound summary’ of our experience.

Side note

We went to soup kitchen Friday. Andy talk to me and two other members of our group about our presentation, we brought up how we weren’t happy about how we communicated our ideas. He told us how he would have approached it: Centering the whole presentation around a progressive style, actively getting the audience to come around to different spots in the building and presenting our ideas at each station. This becomes an immersive experience. I LOVE THIS IDEA and cannot believe how simple but effective it is. As designers we shouldn’t just accept how things are normally done. It takes time and experience of course to allow yourself to break free of the normal thinking that you are grown up to accept. Something I will work on.

WHERE WE ARE UP TO NOW

We came up with the idea that we could do a fruit salad because this caters for all dietary requirements is quick and requires no cooking, everyone can bring their own container to eat from. There was a bit of umming and ahhing about this because some people really wanted some variety of food perhaps we all create our own meal and share it with others or have a main food like crepes that can choose our toppings. However I think what Andy is trying to approach is more of an instillation highlighting the importance of creating and sharing simple food together. So having different foods makes the food more of a center piece which we do most days. Rather than the main focus being the process of creating food and spending time with people and sharing a meal. He highlighted that it could easily create imbalances as some people may buy more lavish items or be better at cooking than others where as fruit salad reduces that imbalance and it would be a whole group effort.

I went to an out of class student run meeting and I think the general consensus at the moment is that we are going to collect fruit from the market, come together at the alumni court and sit down together chopping and preparing the fruit into a big container and at the end we share the meal with perhaps live buskers around. Recycled furniture? Sound documentation?

Week 6 Locate Activate, Presentation

MY PRESENTATION

- Introduce members

- Our category is Locate and Activate

- Meeting on Mondays and tuesdays / Talking via a facebook group

While we were walking to our restaurant for the group task we had a really good time some great banter was had, we got a little lost and came across some cool people and that was all before we even got to the restaurant.

We realized that being apart of a group with the common goal of finding a location, instantly brings a sense of purpose and collaboration

We had the Idea of incorporating a progressive theme into the project. Progressive dinners or lunches are meals where you move to different restaurants or houses, sharing food at each location.

The idea of getting up and walking to a new place creates movement within the group and this encourages us to mingle and talk to different people.

It is normally very small scale but like the “Make a salad” instillation we can discuss ways to substitutes the houses for areas within the RMIT campus or the city that can hold 100 people.

REFLECTION OF PRESENTATION

We were quite proud of our idea we thought it was vague enough to work with many other groups concepts but not too vague and had real substance and physical ideas we could actually make and do for the day.

After our presentation however we got quite a lot of negative feedback from the class in our SWOT analysis some weaknesses and threats that came up were:

- How would 100 people walk around the city?

- We are potentially creating more work and mess by having multiple locations

- We could get lost

- How would we find restaurants to cater for 100 people?

- Random people from the public could find our signage and we haven’t catered for them.

Andy said perhaps we put forth too many ideas which we think is definitely possible. We realise that we probably didn’t quite communicate our ideas properly and some of the display photos and some things we said were taken our of context.

Progressive meals are not common so i think if they understood the concept a bit more they would see the opportunities and strengths about having a progressive meal.

There is a clear opportunity to ditch the traditional way of conducting a progressive meal and deconstruct it. So instead of going to restaurants we could have it at very close together at locations around campus. These locations could include

A’beckett Urban square ^

State Library

Alumni court yard

They can all easily handle having 100 people. And you can have people standing or sitting in a picnic style without even the need to bring furniture or set up the location. There would be hardly any chance of getting lost due to the short distance between stations and clear communication.

COMBINING OUR IDEA WITH THE OTHER GROUPS IDEAS

When talking to Andy about the ‘meal’ we discussed how it doesn’t need to be a traditional meal where we are sitting down and eating a full course. I interpreted it as, trying to be creative and create a new experience with meaning behind it.

- So with this in mind we thought that this meal could just have more of a symbolic act of eating, you wouldn’t turn up hungry expecting to get fed but, exited to experience something new and different. For example we could all simply be breaking and sharing bread and olive oli together at one station, which we bring in baskets to the location and take any left overs with us. That has minimal impact on the location and involves hardly any time to set up physically.

- It could bring in the ideas from the group of girls talking about busking and street food. Jasper was talking about incorporating a digital element we could map out the different locations near us that shows where street food is (like fallen fruit) and we can purchase our food then come meet at the pre determined location for example state library lawn.

- We could organize buskers to be at the different locations and while we eat we listen to their music and that would attract others too from around the campus and city. All bringing our own street food.

- This progressive experience would be even more interesting if we Incorporated the idea of the sound design from the group of girls. We bring a speaker around or have a website containing sound bites that people can listen to through their head phones. And at the different locations there is a different sound to be played for example the different sound stages of a meal they suggested location #1 (market sounds) location #2 (chopping sounds) location #3 (eating sounds)

- Joe talking about the signage was more a nice way to get us to really take in our surroundings while we are walking. See when we are walking we tend to look straight in front, at the ground or at our phones. But if we created subtle signage that is placed in high spots we would be seeing the city from a different perspective (looking above our normal eye height and up) this increases the chance of us experiencing or seeing something different than we normally would.

- Jacinta and Kara were talking about marking our locations somehow, so the idea of bring a picnic rug around with us to the different locations would be very simple and easy. Perhaps we could swap our rugs and during the process and perhaps we can draw what we are experiencing on them.

The ‘rugs’ could even be made out of the plastic bags that the girls suggested in one group, or be painted with the thermal ink to show the heat patterns of the food.

- Jaimi was talking about having different pit stops that contained something that everyone could use at the location (at one location we bring a basket with 100 napkins saying different things like draw what you smell or draw what you feel.) people are always drawing on their napkins at dinner so this would be perfectly themed but not traditional.

and at another location there could be another container that says fill me up with leaves and things you find on your walk use it to design something at your next location.

Summary of Progressive Journey concept

In summary, because food is a journey in which someone needs to grow, sell and buy the food and then prepare cook eat the meal, it our idea is to incorporate progressive element into the 'meal'.

This helps echo the laborious journey to make food. It is a process that takes time and effort, so we can also put some of our own time and effort to really think about what we are eating and experiencing.

By progressing and physically moving from one point to another it will help us to deconstruct the experience and think more mindfully about it. It will also allow movement within the group and create more dynamic and less stagnant feel.

Within this we have discussed way finding elements to create more dynamics within the progression to increase the collaboration with the group for example as signs, physical check points graphics and digital applications.

Metamorphosis

I was completely daunted by this project. There was a large focus on drawing/illustration in the classes and in the brief. This is an area that doesn’t come naturally to me at all and put me in a negative mindset straight away. I have a lot of doubt in my abilities to draw. For last semesters illustration class I used illustrator graphics however it became too simple and lost its hand drawn illustration feel so I decided to stay away from illustrator this time to try something new. I thought that I had better try different things while I’m at uni and don’t have much pressure on the quality of work I produce.

I loved the idea of mother nature for the ‘morph’ and this motivated me so after some research and sketches I just dived into the drawing and started using ink and water colour. I was pretty happy with the outcome it was a very authentic hand drawn illustration and had a lot of texture.

However when I saw all the other designs in the class presentation I really started to hate mine and feel like it wasn’t enough. Lots of people used illustrator vectors or had quite detailed illustrations. Something wasn’t very finished about mine. Alex suggested I add a digital element to my design and scan and print out the design (not using the originals for my final). I ended up using photoshop and touching up / adjusting the lighting. This was so helpfull !! then i added some text to give the story some context, dynamics and depth.

Once I got them reprinted on some textured paper with increase of vibrancy in the colours and text I came out feeling a lot better about my work. It looked a lot more finished. It might not have been as detailed as the others but I wanted to keep it simple so not to overwhelm myself and I think it works in its own way.

Week 5 Presentation Work In Progress...

We have expanded our group into a party of 6 - Joe, Jaimie, Jasper, Jacinta, Kara and I

We got together after Mondays class and had a chat about our ideas. We have decided to do LOCATE/Activate>

It was kind of daunting at first to have so many group members because how would we collaborate together to create one central idea to present?

We want to make our ideas really just broad suggestions and have a very open design so that when the other groups present their ideas we can have more potential to mold and craft our ideas together.

We have such a large group and lots of ideas where coming out around the progressive journey concept. These are ideas such as apps/maps, signage, pit stop stations and secret destinations. They all center around the idea of progression and movement. which we thought gave it some really good substance to the ‘meal’ and could be really fun to create.

So everyone went off to do their research. Joe on sinage, Jasper on mapping, Jacinta/Kara/ Jaimie on stations and ‘treasure hunting’.

MY RESEARCH

A progressive dinner (US) or safari supper (UK) is a dinner party with successive courses prepared and eaten at the residences of different hosts. Usually this involves the consumption of one course at each location.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_dinner Viewed,14/8/16

When reviewing the case studies I came to realization that - It is a big journey to make food just so you can have the privilege to eat it. You have to GROW \ BUY \ PREPARE \ CREATE and then COOK so this meal could reflect the idea of those multiple stages. Having the different stages enables you to deconstruct the meal. For a standard dinner, when you invite friends and family over for a special occasion there will normally be drinks, food, coffee, tea, dessert and they come in groups (drinks + food) (dessert + Tea ). We could separate these out for example - one station for drinks, one station for finger food and one station for tea/ biscuits. This helps you to be mindful of your experience you can take in one thing at a time respect it more.

- Eating and walking are things we do every day, quite ordinary tasks that go unnoticed sometimes, until you stop for a moment and really create an emphasis on them. They both are essential for life but they can be really enjoyable too.

- Walking in a group to a agreed location makes you instantly feel apart of something bigger gives you place and purpose.

- The act of walking in a group just invites conversation, I felt that when I went on my progressive dinners with RMIT. I didn’t know anyone at the beginning but by the end of the night I had made so many new friends and had such awesome conversations. When you are walking you can just talk and not get distracted with putting food or drink into your mouth.

- having the opportunity to get up from where you sat and walk to a new location allows you to mingle with others and when you sit down again you will be able to sit with others and have different conversations. Instead of feeling like you are stuck in one place for the whole meal.

- On your walk you can reflect on what you have just ingested in the first stage and you can also speculate what might be at the new stage it creates a break for thinking and again encourages conversation.

MEET IN A NICE RESTAURANT

Joe, Jaimie and I found this amazing bar restaurant down an ally way on Swanston Street. FERDYDURK had the best atmosphere when we walked in, even just the location was perfect, and we hadn’t even begun to think about or smell food yet. There was music and posters, mood lighting crates for chairs and gigantic soup branded drums for tables. We couldn’t stop taking photos, in ever corner of this place was something new to look at whether it be a poster, graffiti, statue, mutilated baby doll head with a rat in its mouth hanging from the roof...

...antique lamps attached to the tables, the list goes on forever. You really have to go there yourself to believe it. Its so random but somehow everything works so well. I recorded some of the atmopshere with photos and videos

Conversation

Sound, Light, Graphics

and finally the food...

@jaimi-ella

I actually loved doing this task the whole process was so much fun !

In our next class we divided the experience into the 4 categories of LOCATE \ COMMUNICATE \ ACTIVATE \ DOCTUMENT I’m still a little hazy on the whole concept of what these really mean Andy tried to explain it and I interpreted it like this.

We had no idea where it was so we blindly followed google maps and got lost on the way, we went past the place and had to go back then we found out it was actually two separately owned bars that shared the same menu and food, there is a building and an outdoor area. Just trying to find the place and walking around Melbourne was an experience, a random guy came up to us and told us a pretty funny joke and we had some good conversation and banter along the way.

Design a situation around a meal

So Andy and Chris finally gave us a rubric and a brief around this mystery ‘food’ project!! The cat is out of the bag and all of the students will be collaborating in different teams to help create this situation.

- It can be divided into two or more stages with a break in between and no longer than 2 hours long.

1. Five minute presentation in our team: Designs, drawings, images and other research materials need to be used in the presentation.

2. Individually document and reflect on our groups contribution and participation in the event

- Each team will select a task from within the areas of LOCATE \ COMMUNICATE \ ACTIVATE \ DOCUMENT

MY THINKING SO FAR...

INTRODUCTION

At the beginning when Andy told us our whole semester would be based around creating a meal to participate in I immediately got stuck thinking about the different food we could bring, what the theme of the food would be and the logistics of how we would bring enough food to cater for 100 people.

But then they showed us two case study: My kitchen rules VS Gordan Mata Clark’s restaurant.

I was quite confused at this point but new their was something deeper I needed to look at. Finally Andy said now write down the differences in atmosphere and production.

They were so different but I loved the rawness and the sense of human connection in Matta Clarks video it was just so real. The Uncensored process of preparing and participating in a meal was really fascinating. I do this all the time - prepare and eat food with people but to watch someone else’s experience from a far was like watching a extremely intimate moment in someones life. On the other hand watching My kitchen rules didn’t feel like an invasion of privacy at all actually, it felt forced and awkward. They were both cooking and eating food, but it was so different because of the atmosphere surrounding the food, the people and the objective. THE FOOD ITSELF doesn’t really matter at all.

This really started my thinking off and durring the quick brainstorming session our group came up with lots of crazy Ideas about what this mystery meal could be based around.

Two of my faviourite ideas were the EXHIBITION and PROGRESSIVE MEAL. Perhaps we could exhibit work our work around the meal or create an exhibition of food. Maybe even document the meal on instagram. It is a loose idea and would need to be developed further if we found it had a place. I put down the progressive meal because I have been on a couple of them with RMIT events and trips. They cost about $10-$15 and you go to three different restaurants with three different meal objectives - ranging between drinks, dessert, coffee, main meal, entree. I absolutely love them its such an experience exploring the city.

Andy and Chris showed use a couple more case studies after that.

TOKYO PICNIC CLUB

They are a club that proposes a “physical as well as symbolic interruption of the stressful rhythms of metropolitan” through the organisation of picnics. Its a relaxing situation to just enjoy peoples company and eat food at the same time. They developed a set of funny rules to follow.

I feel as though when you have a set of rules like this it makes the participants feel apart of something real. They feel more apart of something because everyone is following the same rules and have a common ground to build upon. As long as they are not too structured and strict.

We then did a quick exercise ourselves figuring out some rules we could follow in our “soup kitchen lectures”

SOUP KITCHEN

This is a brain storming of our group and the whole classes. It brought up a lot of interesting questions that we can apply to the main project as well. For example Allergies, waste, sustainability and ethics. But these are questions where the answers will come later on in the process.

HAVE TEA NOT WAR

This was an extreme example of sharing a meal, however the focus is not on eating to satisfy hunger but to share an experience. A small group participated in a tea ceremony where they watched the artist prepare the tea and then at the end they all shared the tea and took a sip of the same cup. There was so much respect given to this small bit of tea and such emphasis on sharing this mindfull moment with others. It was very interesting to watch. The location (boxing ring art piece) the clothing (panda suits) the poster (tea not war calligraphy) everything was so well thought out and planned but the actually ceremony on went for a couple minutes and consuming the tea was only a tiny part.

graphicboutique

Tung :-P

inspireworks

wonderfulgraphicdesign

wonderfulgraphicdesign.com

Postales Soup 2016 by Studio Soup

thedsgnblog

doseofdesign

Frameline Identity by Mucho

“Mucho has refreshed the brand identity for Frameline and has produced the creative for the 40th LGBTQ Film Festival. Frameline’s mission is to change the world through the power of queer cinema. Mucho wanted to create an identity that really resonated with the idea of inclusivity. The resulting ‘frame’ logo with a capital ‘F’ and queer ‘L’ (as they like to refer to it), creates an image that becomes instantly recognizable, flexible—as it opens out to highlight type and imagery and works well at small sizes for social media applications.”

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