Hello Emily

Comm Design Online Journal 2019

[emilyvok]

Total number of original posts: 19 

Total number of re-blogs from other students: 4

Total number of re-blogs NOT from students: 1

[emilyvok]

Reflection <3

My honest objective going into Communication Design was to just be HAPPY and find something that I ENJOY! Transferring form another course that I really hated into Communication design, I prayed that I wouldn’t be let down again. Thankfully, I wasn’t! It was a relief to finally be able to be creative, be challenged, be more hands on and just learn about design.

I learnt the most about design in this class, especially in the lectures, which actually where not that boring! :D  I was particularly interested in learning about the earliest design movements, from Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs to Chinese written language and the development of printing in China. This fascinated me because these cultures where already using techniques such as woodblock printing for centuries before western technology and printing presses were invented. Some concepts I discovered include typographic principles, inscription technologies and design futures.

After the lectures I really liked that I got to go to class and do hands on activities. These helped me gain skills in group work, type-making, experimentation, prototyping and zine-making. I also enjoyed taking some of these activities outdoors. I think these are the activities that made me think differently about design by actively taking notice of my surroundings and thinking about what I see. Overall, I enjoyed this subject, it wasn’t a breeze, I did get stressed out at times of course, but I achieved my goal of being happy.

[emilyvok]

Zine there done that!! 

Loved seeing everyone's work at the exhibition today. There was sooo much variety in everyone’s design and chosen creatives. & thanks for the pizza :) 

[emilyvok]

Final Zine 

We got there!!! I am very happy with the outcome of my zine... the hard work paid off and it turned out better than i thought. 

Short Rationale 

I chose Nadalie as my creative not only because I know her personally and i love her work, but her passion for her job really inspires me. Her journey is also incredible, she studied business and had no experience in the field of design , but after 4 years of running her business all by herself she became one of the most experienced and talented wedding stylists in Melbourne. It was definitely a lot of fun being able to interview her and showcase her work. 

I wanted my zine to reflect the elegant and contemporary style of Nadalie’s work. I used soft colours, primarily shades of blush pink to keep it light and elegant. As the photos have a lot of detail to them i needed to keep the layout simple. Having too many elements outside of the photos would make the zine very cluttered and confusing. I used two different typefaces of handwritten/ calligraphic style for consistency and flow. Although i wanted to experiment more with the font, Nadalie’s style is very modern and minimal so i decided to stick with that. 

[gronkdesign]

Bauhaus

In week eight we discussed the bauhaus in a lecture and later on in the workshop too. The week before this, I’d been in Canberra over the weekend and visited the National Gallery of Australia. I took a couple of pictures of posters and descriptions and wanted to share them here!

NGA has this exhibit up for 2019 to celebrate the centenary of the founding of the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany by Walter Gropius.

1) Oskar Schlemmer Utopia: Dokumente der Wirklichkiet (Documents of Reality) 1921

2) Paul Klee The Bright Side Postkarte zur Bauhaus-Ausstellung 1923, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy Postkarte zur Bauhaus-Ausstellung [Postcard for the Bauhaus-exhibition] 1923, Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack Postkarte zur Bauhaus-Ausstellung 1923

3) Wassily Kandinsky Kleine Welten II (Small Worlds II) 1922

4) Lothar Schreyer Bühnenentwurf für ‘Sünde’ [Stage design for ‘Sin’] 1921

More info on NGA’s collection at https://nga.gov.au/collections/europeamerica/gallery.cfm?displaygal=5a&mnuid=

European+American Art

[emilyvok]

Wow well that was great timing. Unfortunately I am not going to Canberra anytime soon, or else i would definitely check it out. Crazy to think that is has been 100 years since Bauhaus was founded. Thanks for sharing :) 

[emilyvok]

Zine in Progress (4)

After applying the changes i made from getting feedback, I went back to snap to get my new zine printed. 

I was soooo happy (and relieved!) with the outcome. All the minor issues i had last time were fixed, the pages matched up a lot better and no white spaces. I printed on 150 gsm which was perfect for folding. Overall i am much happier with this design. I think it is simple but the right amount of simple. 

[emilyvok]

Zine in Progress (3)

While i was making my zine I did feel quite lost and not sure if i was on the right track. I kept thinking to myself ‘what if i’m doing this completely wrong?’ I realised i never really had the opportunity to ask for feedback because my zine wasn’t ready while we still had classes.

In the last minute i got to ask Andy for some feedback which was really helpful. My layout needed editing, it was too cluttered and hard to follow. I decided to get rid of some decorative elements and to keep the focus on the text.

I think the hardest challenge with my zine was showcasing my creatives work without it looking like a sales pamphlet. In changing my layout i made more room for the text to frame the interview. If i had more time i would work on this more. 

[emilyvok]

Zine in Progress (2) 

Yesterday I thought i should do a trail print out of my zine at snap, just a short bike ride from my house. My zine wasn’t completely finished but I felt i needed to see a hard copy. After looking at my zine on the screen for so long i couldn't tell what looked good anymore! 

Overall i was very pleased, the colours were how i wanted and the photos were great quality. However there were minor details that needed to be fixed in the layout. The alignment of some of the pages where a bit off. I have to try my best to be precise in the template so they match up when folded. I also have to extend the bleed so there are no white lines when trimmed. 

I also printed on 200 gsm which was way too thick. You could see the ink breaking in the folds. I will opt for 150 gsm for my final. 

[theweeklyzine]

Is this art, a joke or just failure?

Ist es Kunst, ein Witz oder einfach nur Versagen?

zine by @lillygothe

[emilyvok]

I can relate to this zine. 

[emilyvok]

Zine in Progress 

So far, the Zine making process has been very challenging for me. During week 10 when we started to make prototypes it was my very first time opening up In Design. I had never used it before and I had absolutely no idea how to. Because I was so slow in understanding, and I have a PC (where the commands are different to mac) it was very difficult for me to keep up with Andy and Karen’s tutorials. Seeing everyone else print out their creative designs while I was still lost made me start to lose hope ☹

I had to pick myself up, throw myself into the deep end and just learn how to use the templates myself.  After a lot of trail and error and printing fails, I felt a slight bit of confidence as I started to see progress.

I feel like my zine will be very different because it is traditional in design and topic (weddings!). However, this is what I love. It is 100% my style and aesthetic and I am so far happy in the direction I am headed.

I really like the idea of the bow… I think I am going to use ribbon to tie my zine.

[kathleen-rose-sheehan-blog]

Week 8: Archi-text-ure

[emilyvok]

Wow.. you found so many!! This assignment has stuck with me, I keep finding letter forms around campus now. These are some really good ones. 

[andyatrmit]

AMA UPDATES!!

We went to a laser cutter induction to research the possibility of using the machine in the zine process! Originally I considered laser cutting the title out of card or paper, but I found a way to make a little stand up home on the back page of my zine, and the action of cutting it feels very collaborative and homey ✂ ✂ ✂

[emilyvok]

This is such a good idea. I hope you get to use the laser cutting technique, would be really awesome to see. But i also get the feeling of wanting to do it with your own hands too!! 

[gronkdesign]

📧〽️📀🏑♟ 🎚🏋️‍♀️🏸📧

Thinking back to brief one “Hello, My Question Is”, I remembered a project I had started. I didn’t go with this idea for the final task because the execution wasn’t quite there, but the idea is fun so I thought I’d share it.

My question surrounded permenance and the shelf life of design and language, and I had been thinking about images as a form of type which drew me towards the idea of emojis. A new and modern language that is replacing words more and more every day, as Karen and Andy talked about in one of our earlier lectures. (🔥🍆 🐐 🐍) Plus every day objects resemble letterforms, so why can’t emoticons? Well, they can. While some letters were easier to find than others, I managed to find at least one emoji that at least resembled a letter of the alphabet.

My name Tilda Barrie appears like this:

🚏💈👢🌛🖇 ⛄️⛺️🌾🥀🛢💅🏻

Gronk Design appears like this:

🛒🌾📯🥅🎋 🥩📧⚡️💈🛒🥅

I would love to see everyone else’s names / usernames in this funny lil Gen Z experiment. I wonder how much longer emojis will be around for?

Here’s my emoji type library:

A 🙏🏿🦷🦟🌲🗼🧲🖇⛺️

B🧞‍♂️⛄️🧬🔗

C🌜🛴🗜

D🥩🏑🌛🌗

E💅🏿📧

F🎏

G 🛒

H🏗.

I💈🛢♟

J🏒🏑☂️

K🎋

L👢🤙🏻💪

M ⛩〽️

N🥅🖇

O📀🧿📯🙆‍♀️🧶

P🏸🏓

R🌾🥀

S🦎⚡️

T🌱🚏🤸‍♀️🎚

U🥃

V🖖✌️

W☠️⚓️

X✂️

Y🏋️‍♀️

Z 🎞

[emilyvok]

 @gronkdesign This is so neat!! Emojis are such a huge thing today and almost everyone has them as a second keyboard on their phones. They really are their own language, I never thought of matching them to letter forms like you have done here. It would definitely make for an interesting conversation! I like how you where able to find some for every letter. 

[emilyvok]

Ask me Anything

Here is my list of 5 creatives I considered for this Assignment (in no order)

1. Harper and Co. Events (This is the one I’m choosing)

Harper and Co. is a Melbourne based wedding and event styling business. I know the creative director personally as I asked to do work experience with her when I finished school. Styling and visual merchandising is an interest of mine and I really considered pursuing it when I finished school. Even though I did not take this path I still occasionally do contract work for Harper and Co and I love it.

2. Jessica Rebell Tattooist I found Jessica on Instagram when I was searching for tattoo artists near my house. I really love her detailed B&W designs.

3. Brenton_captures I found Brenton on Instagram. He is a Melbourne based nature/travel photographer and his photos are awesome.

4. My boyfriend My boyfriend Andreas studies photography and he is really talented.

5. Elizabethbarnett Elizabeth is also a Melbourne based artist who I found on Instagram. Her acrylic paintings are very unique.

[emilyvok]

Week Nine

In this very busy workshop, we searched through magazines to find and cut out letter forms. I noticed a similarity with this work shop and week seven, as it was less about making letter forms but instead seeing them in the environment that they already exist. This is an interesting and important idea as we have a tendency to flick through pages or walk past buildings instead of stopping and thinking about what we can see.

Here are my favourite letters that I found saying Hello.

Even though I like to collage, this was probably my least favourite activity so far ☹ I just did not like looking around the classroom and seeing heaps and heaps of paper which I thought was wasteful. I tried to think how we could do this task in a more environmentally friendly way, maybe by scanning the pages onto our laptops and making the collage on Photoshop.  

[emilyvok]

Week Eight

Architexture.

This week we took the activity outdoors (yay!) in the hunt for letter forms around RMIT. The idea was to actively and critically look around campus at objects you would usually just pass by, and make hidden letter forms visible.

I was really keen to find punctuation as other classes where lacking in this area. However, I soon realised why, as it wasn’t that easy. [I only found these brackets].

I also found a 4 which I was very proud of.

Some letters I got where A, X and E. AXE!

I really liked this activity and its always fun to get outside and move around. 

[emilyvok]

Week Six

Stronk Bold.

For this activity we used different shapes to make the alphabet and develop a type face. We started with orange wedge segments which, in my view, created a retro-style font. Team collaboration was excellent and we were finished very quickly. We even managed to use every single orange segment we were given! Very satisfying.

I think all groups did really well in this activity

We then introduced blue triangles to the table. We replaced some of the orange with blues where appropriate and aimed to have every letter a mix of both. I think the only odd one out is the ‘V’ which uses negative space.

This activity was really fun, probably one of my favourites.