ek reflective journal.

communication design @ rmit, melb

[em1lykim]

COURSE JOURNAL CONCLUSION

Communication Design was a course where we learnt about design’s historical, theoretical and material literacies. Through this course I learnt how to identity and describe key movements and periods in the histories of design, and I am now able to identify key design movements and examine their influences on the practice of communication design.

Through our project work, I gained an abundance of skills in applications such as Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign, and I feel as though I have become more competent and independent, especially because of the abrupt conversion from face to face to online learning.

The micro-credentials we completed for this course were beneficial, such as the Academic Integrity Awareness module. It allowed me to think upon my actions when completing a project, and I now always keep in mind the consequences if plagiarism is present. Learning about academic integrity was not only beneficial to my studies in Communication Design, but also my future, as I can practice utilising sources and citations, which becomes more and more important.

[kagdesignco]

Look queen✨ @jnelv is the absolute queen of turning fierce looks👌🏻Look at her page and get your life💙

[em1lykim]

This style of art really helped me to engage in utilising Adobe Illustrator for my zine, I really like the blocky colours and simplicity, and I used this as inspiration to make it bold and eye catching. 

[annuthing]

https://annukil.bigcartel.com/

http://annukil.com/carchive/

[em1lykim]

This unique style of art made me feel as though I should experiment with different mediums, tools and techniques. I would love to expand my knowledge on different adobe applications, as well as hand-drawn techniques. 

[annuthing]

http://annukil.com/

[em1lykim]

This crazy burst of colours and eye-catching zine caught my attention. It inspired me for my own zine, not in the sense that I would use a similar style, but the fact that it is unique and interesting to look at. 

[oliviaappleby]

WEEK 9 LECTURE: POST MODERNISM/PUNK

In today’s lecture we learnt about the end of modernism. An award-winning modernist building designed by Yamasaki in 1956, had noble intentions for a rapidly evolving society. Andy and Karen describes how he ironically designed the twin towers, which were in fact demolished, as result playing out as a metaphor for the end of the modernism era.

It was interesting to learn that after post modernism designers, artist, singers were breaking the rules to change the track they wanted to be on, they weren’t going to follow the predicted rules. It became clearer that modernism was about following those rules instead.

Andy simply put it as, “there was a promise made and when many society’s and communities discovered that those promises were not being fufillied, the response was the post modernism thought”

We moved onto the Punk movement, learning about the new genre of music that had a huge influence on design.

It was interesting to learn about the Sex Pistols ‘God Save The Queen Poster’, the idea that they were distorting cultural artifacts, it was as if she looked like she was getting mugged, or high jacked, which was something I thought I would never see. It was also interesting to notice the child like crayon style of the flag behind the Queen, it created an unpolished feel to the poster. They photo copied posters repeatedly, giving it that grainy look. This was also emulated through the stamp like/ wrecked aesthetic which is a clear representation of the disruptive movement of Punk.

We learnt about another design style that broke free of modernism, including Memphis. They had a intense disregard of the minimalistic aesthetic and combined geometric forms often in clashing colours. It was interesting to learn that Memphis was inspired by Art Deco and Pop Art styles, which I didn’t realise was popular at the time. It was also interesting to learn that what was most important wasn’t the materials but the surface and pattern, everything was laminated, people didn’t have an understanding of what the shapes were.

[em1lykim]

This was another one of my favourite lectures, as i had always been interested in punk rock - in both music and creative industries. Learning that this new genre of music had a huge influence on design was astounding. 

[chl0wang]

Zine WIP!!

I’ve changed a few things since last week (week 11) including the adjustments in Question 1 and the introduction page. 

Introduction page: I’ve divided the background into half white and red. I also added a photo of Vignelli’s signature at the end of the page so it seems like a real interview. 

Question 1: I’ve made slight adjustment for this page. I’ve changed the colour of the interview question and the number to white and the scale of the number. I added the white dot (the full stop) at the end of the sentence to make it stand out. Based on the feedback I recieved this week in my tutorial, this page is the strongest due to the scale of the texts and positions of the layout. *there’s a slash in the question that needs to be fixed

Question 4: I’ve used one of Vignelli’s draft design for the New York Subway Map as my background for this page. I’ve used pen tool to draw a shape next to the subway lines and insert the interview answers in the text box. The interview question is in red so the reader can tell that it is a seperate text. 

Question 5: I did the graphic of the M letter on Adobe Illustrator. This graphic presents both negative and positive space. The whole letter shows the letter M - stands out Massimo. The black V in the letter stands for Vignelli. And again, I’ve chosen a different colour for the interview question.

Image Reference Page: Since I’m doing a seperate page for my references, I wanted it to make sure it is well designed and fit with the rest of the zine. Therefore, I replicated one of this poster from ‘Designer’s Saturday New York sept 21/22/73′ in Adobe Illustrator. 

[em1lykim]

This zine reminded me of the things we learnt in our Image and Identity lectures, where we learnt that the colours red, white and black are extremely harmonious and are eye catching and aesthetically pleasing. I love the simplicity of this design, as well as it being informative. The layout of this zine is immaculate and it really resonates with the artist that was being interviewed. 

[usernames-scare-me]

Week one. Part one. 

10 minutes before my first class at RMIT: A man outside Melbourne Central, who is far too enthusiastic about quinoa, hands me a piece of paper.

10 minutes into my first class at RMIT: I’m uncomfortably close to crying tears of joy after finding a leaflet about veganism in my pocket.

Had I known at the time that I was going to have to dump my life on the table as an activity, perhaps I would have made more of an effort than house keys and lip balm. But in retrospect, it probably is the whole point; communication is everything, or at least it should be. Sure, in terms of sheer aesthetic, maybe it’s not the best design in the world (except the ‘E’ made out of a student card and myki’s. Sheer genius on my part), but it says exactly what it has to say. Liberty. In fact, it says a lot more. It’s a reflection of the name illustrated. It says that Liberty is running out of lip balm… and doesn’t like Kale.

The task of creating our own typeface with the mundane objects in our possession, at first seemed like an icebreaker that would cause me a ridiculous amount of stress (and it did), but turned out to be an example of how design and communication are everywhere and in everything. From creating our own names, to the alphabet and numbers one through to nine, it became more of an activity to challenge us to take what is boring and make an interesting design as a means of communication. But let me just say, I’ve never felt as much stress as trying to make house keys take the shape of a “Y”. 

All things considered, I really liked this activity as an introduction to this class. Almost as much as that nice man likes quinoa. 

[em1lykim]

Reading this post almost made me a bit nostalgic, as it reminded me of the days we attended face to face classes, and it seems like it was ages ago. The sudden change from face to face to online learning at first was scary and confusing, but now thinking back at the start, we all adapted really well to the constant changing circumstances and issues that arose from this pandemic and we all overcame several hardships. This activity was one of my favourites and it really helped us to bond with our classmates, as well as beginning to produce our own creative style as we create our own typeface with objects that we had in our bags. 

[eclecticcassindrles]

Week Six - shapeshifters (WORKSHOP)

For this activity we cut an a4 piece of blank paper into a square, we then used this square to make a grid to make our other shapes. I chose to use a combination of triangles and wedges. (from a circle) Originally I wanted to follow some rules to make my type match in a way, but this idea got harder to replicate as some of the letters were more intricately shaped. For my letters A though to D and also G, I used both triangles and wedges, overlapped shapes and left gaps, these were the rules I wanted to follow. However, when it came to E and F I couldn’t find a way to make gaps as so many of the shapes were overlapping in order to create the shape. I very much enjoyed the design of the letters with gaps, I feel like the gaps really help to separate and create contrast which is visually interesting to me. 

[em1lykim]

This was interesting to look at, especially because the shapes and form of this design was extremely different to mine, and I like how two different colours were utilised. I like how the shapes are clear where negative shapes are used and I think the E is especially creative and unique. 

[eclecticcassindrles]

Week Seven - Bauhaus (LECTURE)

The bauhaus was a school of design located in Germany, its approach to teaching design influenced all other schools of design during the time. It was founded by Walter Gropius and was a male dominated institution as Walter Gropius believed that women couldn’t think in 3 dimensions, so the women working in the Bauhaus worked on only 2 dimensional art activities such as weaving and painting. I find it kind of ironic that back then it was so male dominant when today our communication design course is very much the opposite, with our course having upwards of 75% being females. 

Something important to note about the Bauhaus is the efficiency of form. As can be seen above, the chess set pieces by Josef Hartwig were crafted to represent their moves as well as to fit compactly into their packaging. The furniture pictured on the right shows how space has been used to create storage in an efficient way, every aspect of the design has been crafted to maximise organisation and storing of different objects, from the smaller draws to the larger cupboard doors.  Also important to focus on is the idea of reducing to essential, everything serves a purpose, nothing is just a decoration. 

Pictured next are some postcards from a Bauhaus exhibition, my personal favourite is the middle postcard. I love the use of black, grey, and red, the design is very minimal but very visually interesting. There’s curves and circles which contrast with straight lines and there’s even text written on a curved path which also contrast with the text written on a horizontal path. I’m just drawn to the design, it’s so bold but balanced very nicely, it has a satisfying pop of colour and shapes. 

More people that were influential during Bauhaus include Paul Klee, Oskar Schlemmer responsible for the Triadic Ballet and Wassily Kandinsky a painter. 

[em1lykim]

This lecture was incredibly interesting to me, as I had previously studied the Bauhaus in high school, and it added to my knowledge. This lecture also allowed me to think about the style and design of my own art. Sometimes simplicity is more than enough, and if it sends across a message that you need it to, your design is successful. 

[smoop1]

WEEK ELEVEN: WORKSHOP 

I was feeling very overwhelmed during Week 11 due to the workload of all my classes combined and tried to brainstorm my written tasks before my practical assignments as I found these ‘fun’, so when it came to showing my progress, I had to quickly whip these small layouts up because I found that I didn’t really get to start on my actual poster (which was my original idea instead of doing a zine). I already knew what my aim for my poster was (to create a poster that I would hang up as a piece of art) so this inspired me to create something that I really enjoy, making the process especially fun. I also took into consideration different styles of layouts that demonstrated easy readability and what I was accustomed to thinking was ‘good design’ for an interview. After our workshop, Karen suggested that we needed to have more fun with our designs which is possibly the best advice a teacher has given me. I think I’ve put into my head that the school system only wants one thing and that we need to create projects that only fall into one style and I feel very grateful that my degree really asks for our own input and style. 

While putting together my layout ideas, I already knew which one I was going forward with because I was already having fun and adding more detail to it, which were the two end posters on the right. 

Here are some posters that I’ve found very engaging to look at. They aren’t necessarily the layout that could display an interview neatly but they hold details that are very inspiring.

References:

Poster 1

No title, n.d. poster, viewed 28 May 2020, <https://www.are.na/block/5108072>

Poster 2

No title, n.d. poster, viewed 28 May 2020, <https://www.are.na/block/3859637>

Poster 3

Bauhaus Imaginista, n.d. poster, viewed 28 May 2020, <https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/430445676888578022/>

[em1lykim]

I was inspired by these posters as they are visually interesting as well as informative. I also related a lot with the written content in this post as I was quite overwhelmed with this project at first, especially as I was quite inexperienced with InDesign, and I was stressing out that I wouldn’t be able to produce something that is of my highest ability due to my lack of skill. 

[bradtheoneandonly]

Thought I’d make in a rough, stop animation I played around with quickly to see the DaVinci’s brush come alive, in real life!

[em1lykim]

PROGRESS SHOT

Here is my title page and a few pages from my zine - I painted my title page in accordance to herbert bayer’s style, and proceeded to use illustrator and InDesign for the rest of my zine. I received feedback from Shayna and my peers in class, and the positive feedback I received was that I utilised colours that suited my ‘object’ and that it is very vibrant. However, I got told that I need to focus more on the layout, especially the text. I had some problems with overlaying my words on top of colours that made it difficult to read, so I listened to this feedback and made sure all my words were legible. I utilised a variety of mediums, and I feel as though I really stepped outside my comfort zone, especially because I am not very experienced with Illustrator, and it was my first time using InDesign. However, I feel as though I really overcame the hardships that I came across. At the start, I had difficulty with time management, considering how long it took me to paint my cover page, however I managed to get back on task. This project was a way of learning new skills, exploring and overstepping my boundaries, as well as being one of the projects this semester that I really enjoyed. 

[em1lykim]

In our week 11 tutorial, we were put in break out groups, and collectively made our own ‘font’ out of magazine cut outs. We made our own unique phrases as a group, and utilised our magazine cut outs to lay it out. We came up with 3-4 phrases and decided on this one: “Look inside your creative mind.” This reminds us to always think outside the box, to explore your creativity. This message reminded me of our last Image and Identity lecture, where we learnt that it was important to realise that it is easy to impress anyone with a mediocre design, however it is more impressive if you come up with something unique and different. Our group utilised both our magazine cut outs and the whiteboard on Collaborative Ultra to give it more depth as well as giving it action with the movement lines. This activity reminded me of our project where we developed a design question and created our own typography. This was a fun group activity that helped us to work together as a group, and it was interesting to see how different every one of our fonts were. 

[em1lykim]

What’s next for Communication Design?

Previously, we’ve looked at a number of historical and theoretical literacies, but what does communication design look like today? 

In our week 11 lecture we learnt that it is now possible for designers to start using other input designers - this means more than a keyboard, touchpad, or a mouse. For example, VR headsets were a major turning point in digital technology. I asked myself a question: what possibilities does this emerging technology have to offer, and how can design help humanity? 

My question was easily answered in the lecture, as we learnt about the eye-writer. It is a low cost, creative technology to enable graffiti writers and artists with paralysis to draw using only their eyes. There is free and open source software for commercially available eye tracking devices, and DIY hardware and free software for users with only $50 and a computer. 

We have moved into a hybrid state between a material and digital world. 

We can use digital tools for creating logos and artworks that follow a set of rules. This happens through codes and setting guidelines. 

Parametric designs produce symmetry in typeface design, and establishes rules for computational type and logo design as it is based on geometry. Parametric design allows for creative freedom, and the kinds of possibilities that computational design offers us includes variable fonts. They can thin or thicken themselves out, and can occupy separate spaces. Generative type faces allow for one single font file to behave like many different fonts. 

Metapolator is a free open source project developed by a community of designers and developers. It stems from the idea of shared knowledge, and that a community can use a knowledge base and creative field to change adapting fonts. You can create new fonts in metapolator and you can decide on its own parametric characteristics. 

16.05.20 

[em1lykim]

WEEK 10 LECTURE

In our week 10 lecture we learnt about: 

Conceptualism: which entered cultural activity in the early 20th century. Duchamp did something atypical - rather than sculpting an object, he took an urinal, a utilitarian object, then turned it into a sculpture. Conceptualism is the starting point and stems from the idea that an artist can claim that anything is art. There is no longer a need to coincide with traditional forms such as painting or a sculpture being made from clay or marble. A piece of art can simply be contextualised by the artist and the art system. 

Postmodernism: when objects are no longer defined purely by their functionality, but rather defined by their context, and how they are framed and created. 

Collage: extremely contemporary and can be seen in internet cultures, and digital cultural activity. Mimmo Rotella, an Italian artist created an ‘opposite collage’ where he tore away layers of advertisements that he found on billboards rather than using paper to glue these parts together. The playfulness of this activity is depicted in the title ‘con un sorriso,’ meaning ‘with a smile.’ 

Wednesday 13 May 

[em1lykim]

WEEK 10 TUTE

In today’s class, we had one on one time with Shayna to discuss our topics and questions. We got feedback on how to improve or alter our questions so that we can answer them in more depth. This was our first online one to one time and I think it really helped everyone as we were able to communicate with our tutor in a more personal manner. Normally, we would discuss our topics and questions in front of the whole class, which sometimes can be scary and nerve-wracking, and so without that pressure I was able to ask all the questions i needed to, and got constructive criticism on my work. I reflected back on my work too, and felt as though I was a bit behind as I had not done any developmental work on the aesthetics aspect yet. However, this was due to me trying to balance all my work across all classes evenly, so I’m not excessively behind on any work. However this week I will spend majority of my time focusing on constructing my posters or other ways to present my object. 

Wednesday 13 May 

[em1lykim]

MINIMALISM VS SIMPLICITY

In our week 9 tutorial, we were given a series of design questions to answer on our tumblrs. I decided to answer: “what is the difference between minimalism and simplicity?” 

According to the Oxford dictionary, simplicity is the quality or condition of being easy to understand or do. Minimalism is defined as a deliberate lack of decoration or adornment in style or design - however I believe that both these words have much more significance and meaning to them. 

In my opinion, simplicity is the concept of reducing complexity. When something is complex, it may be hard to understand, therefore extracting the complexity of a design allows for the user or audience to comprehend it much more easily. Minimalism is the reduction of quantity - it highlights the beauty of shape and form as it removes any excess or unnecessary detail. It allows the user to experience purity and elegance as it is limited to basic geometric shapes and clear surfaces. 

Something that is ‘minimal’ can be simplistic, but something that is ‘simple’ does not always have to be minimal. 

07.05.20