Erika Rajić

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That’s All Folks (Week 13 / Closing Statement)

Communication Design Studies? Done.

That latest post I made sort of sounded like the last 5 minutes of a season finale but I swear, this is the last one.

This subject was undoubtedly my favourite of the three I completed this semester. I found the content most interesting and loved the freedom we had in our projects. Honestly, even though online class was difficult, this was the only subject that I looked forward to.

I loved all the typography activities we did and these made me more aware of my surroundings, now always seeing typeface in everyday objects. I liked thinking about what things design could help resolve in the Hello My question is assignment and thoroughly enjoyed exploring the world of Wes Wilson in my Ask Me Anything project.

I found the lectures in this course very interesting and was surprised at how dense the history of design is and was amazed by the influences that have helped make design what it is today. 

Honestly, I’m not one for reflecting and I typically find it very difficult to write about my experiences this often. This blog forced me to reflect weekly and I think it has really built up my skills in this field.

I truly believe I will take the principles and history I have learnt from this class into my further studies and career. 

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Week 12/ ASK ME ANYTHING

This week I finished my 'Ask Me Anything' project.

Having already finished my ask me anything project, in this post I will only address the lecture which recapped what we have done throughout the whole course and it sure was a journey.

This last lecture was enjoyable because it really showed how far we as a cohort have come since early march. I hope that one day I will once again hear a lecture delivered from Andy and Karen.

This project was undoubtedly my favourite assignment we have been given across all subjects this semester. I'll be the first to admit that this project started off very rocky. In the beginning, my five possible subject were Alan Fletcher, Modernism, De Stijl, Art Nouveau, Art Deco and Walter Gropius. Out of this five, I chose to focus on Alan Fletcher, a founding member of Pentagram. I did all my research on him and had answered the five questions I had written. I had even made up part of a zine mock-up in one of my sketchbooks. I was ahead of task and ready to start making my design digitally. I decided to take a week off of working on this assignment to finish others since I was already ahead here. During this time, I discovered Wes Wilson, a poster artist who specialised in the psychedelic posters of the 60s. Being a huge fan of The Beatles, I had found that he designed their last concert poster. I had always loved this trippy aesthetic but studying one of these poster designers never occurred to me when I was making my list of 5. I made the decision to change my entire subject because I was so keen to learn about Wes Wilson and really wanted to make his work the main focus of this project.

After going ahead and researching Wilson, I began to design the end product of my assignment. Since Wilson was always about breaking the rules and doing something new, I decided to experiment with a newspaper layout for my final presentation. This was difficult from the beginning as I wasn't sure whether to set it up like a modern day newspaper or one from the 1960s. Another challenge I had was that newspapers are all about the words. There is so much information packed into a newspaper and my answers weren't long enough for this. However, I pushed through and created a newspaper mock-up, later scrapping it.

So, now I was back to the drawing board and then (I know this sounds cheesy but) I remembered the reason I am in this course.  To make a zine. Ok hear me out, that’s not the ONLY thing I want to get out of studying Communication Design but I remember being at the Open Day last year, hearing a past student talk about and show her zine and that’s when I knew I wanted to study design. So not long after I found myself scrolling through Pinterest at 'minimalist zine layouts' and my inspiration grew. I knew that I wanted to make a minimalist design to contrast the busy and colourful posters Wilson created and loved the popular feature of zines that is to only print in one colour over a coloured sheet of paper. I knew I couldn't do this when presenting his work but that is why I made all the text and photographs blue, adding transparency to create different tones. I've been talking a lot here so now I'm just going to add a few progress pictures so you can see how I got to the end.

The final version of my zine is available on issuu here.

Unfortunately due to COVID-19, we weren't able to actually make the zines but this didn't stop me from printing the pages out on my dodgy printer and stitching them together. While the printing itself and the quality of the paper are definitely not ideal, It was so exciting to see my design come together in the real world. I've never saddle stitched a book before so that didn’t turn out perfectly either but I guess that sums up this semester, not perfect but cool nonetheless.

So that’s it I guess. 'Ask me Anything' is done. This was by far my favourite project. I loved looking into historical designers and unpacking how they were so revolutionary. Seeing how everyone else in my class developed their assignments was so interesting too. It amazes me how different we all are as designers, the different things we take inspiration from and the people we look up to and this project has made me grateful that I have been able to spend a semester with such talented people.

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Week 11

This lecture's topic was 'What's next for design?'.

We touched on the eyewriter project. I found it very interesting how technology and anatomy work together to create design. It was cool to see how science can play a part in design, not just technology in the form of machines and computers.

I always found movie barcodes interesting but forgot what they were called and could never look them up. It would be interesting to look at things like these colour barcodes if redesigning a movie poster as you can really get the feel for the film in one singular image. My favourite example of movie barcode is the one that represents the entire Harry Potter series. I love how they show the shift in tone and mood across the eight movies.

We also looked at parametric design. It was interesting how a computer can make so many iterations based on a set of rules and parameters rather than having to think of each individually in generative design. This made me think about how in a way, computers creating design is taking away some of the individuality and creativity of communication design. I think it's really cool how technology has enabled the creation of variable fonts which increase the creative potential of designs. This would have been really useful for my subject of the Ask Me anything Wes Wilson who was known for using typography to fill a space.

Hearing about Metapolator was very helpful because I tend to manipulate typeface in Adobe illustrator by moving anchor points.

Immediately, when the quote generator was addressed, I thought about thispersondoesnotexist.com. I actually use this site for drawing references just because of the diversity and randomness of the faces. This site was called creepy in the lecture and I definitely agree. I have seen videos on social media of people posing with a picture on this site and they look exactly the same and I thought that was definitely creepy.

When looking into human machines, I was reminded of the automaton in the book Hugo which I studied back in year 7. After doing a bit of research, I found out that this machine was actually real, created by 18th century watchmaker Pierre Jaquet-Droz. I have always felt like drawing machines like this are recent creations and I was fascinated how someone crossed through from the watchmaking field to this machine-driven design. Below is an image of this machine.

I found all of Andy and Karen's machines fascinating, and I'm not just saying that. They were all so creative and exciting and made me think about just how far communication spans, far past logos and posters.

Today, Karen gave us feedback on our Ask Me Anything project. One of the things she suggested was giving my zine a spread or page of really bright work by Wes Wilson to contrast with the minimalist zone. Her opinion was really valuable and I think her feedback helped push my design in the right direction and made it much more interesting. This opened my eyes to the importance of showing your work to a wide range of people because they will all have good ideas. I think gaining a wider source of feedback is important because even though Andy is great at giving feedback, sometimes fresh eyes will see the best opportunities for a design.

In this tutorial, Karen asked us about women in design and I was honestly disappointed by how few women designers I knew. I mentioned Paula Scher when she asked me to name a female designer as I knew her from the Netflix series Abstract and she soon became my favourite designer. Karen introduced me to Giorgia Lupi, another female designer who works at Pentagram. I looked into her and her data representations in regards to the Coronavirus outbreak were particularly interesting in this time. All the images attached below are directly sourced from her instagram page.

I definitely need to look more into women designers because seeing Lupi’s fun and informative designs shows how much I am missing out on by not looking further into women in design.

References

Automata Machine. (2013). [Image]. Retrieved 1 June 2020, from https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/11/the-writer-automata/.

Harry Potter Series Barcode. (2011). [Image]. Retrieved 1 June 2020, from https://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/12390371286/harry-potter-complete-series-2001-2011-prints.

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Week 10

In this week’s lecture, we looked at why we design and the social activism aspect of design.

I enjoyed this lecture because it spoke about activist design. We looked at the magazine Colours which openly published very taboo topics in a very colourful way.  I was quite shocked to hear that colours was funded by the United Colours of Benetton. Initially I didn't see how these two went together but later thought about how people use scandal and controversy to create a following. By publishing these articles, they got people talking and reading the magazine so they often saw the clothes.

I liked how Benetton used diversity in an undeniably racist society. I did some research looking into more racially diverse ads in the 1970s and 1980s but had no luck finding any that have a mix of races. I found some ads that included those of African or Asian descent but It seems as though the United Colours of Benetton were the first to photography a very wide range of races together in a single image. I also came across some more recent Benetton ads and it is very uplifting to see that they have continued to favour diversity rather than only hiring white supermodels, something that is still happening too frequently in our society. 

Above is a 1983 Benetton Ad

Above is a 2017 Benetton Ad

I asked my mum if she remembered the Benetton Ads from the 80s and she only remembers the ones that show a diverse group, not the more provocative ones. She remembers that the teenagers didn't care about the people in the ad and were more focused on the clothes but the older generations were more outraged. I think this is similar to the more provocative and politically charged designs today, with younger people generally being more accepting of these ideals that go against cultural norms and many (definitely not all) older people holding a more traditional and conservative view.

Today in the online tutorial we got to put our new knowledge of collage making to the test. We were tasked with creating a word with images found in magazines. In this project I worked with Selin Arpaci, Kevin Chuyue Wang and Vy Pham. Initially, I showed the group the letter 'p' that I had made after last class and we decided that we would choose a word with the letter p in it as we were already one letter ahead. Because the word had to have a positive connotation, we chose happy. This worked well because we each had to find one letter to add to the word. We decided on a white background as it is the easiest background to find in the different places we are in and it allows for really effective contrast. This is our end result:

The P I had made earlier was the only one that used negative space which made it stand out amongst the rest. We hadn't decided if we would look for ones using this style, instead just trying to find the letters on time. Even though there is this contrast in the letterforms I think it makes it really interesting and shows the diversity not only in the way letters can be formed but also the range in the creative thinking behind designers and what we see as able to form letters. I am really pleased with the way this turned out as I think all my group members really looked into how each letter could be formed. I am also very happy with how we worked as a team to make sure we weren't all looking for the same letter etc. This was a really fun activity and I was really impressed with how ours pulled together despite the geographical barrier.

UPDATE FROM WEEK 13:

Since the murder of George Floyd, The Black Lives Matter campaign has been stronger than ever. Since this weeks lecture was about why we design and the social aspect of design, I’ve decided to add some of the impactful pieces of communication design that I have come across in recent days. All original artist names can be found above each respective image.

References

1983 Benetton Ad. (2019). [Image]. Retrieved 22 May 2020, from https://blogs.library.duke.edu/rubenstein/2019/04/08/benetton-fashioning-controversy/.

2017 Benetton Ad. (2017). [Image]. Retrieved 22 May 2020, from https://ringofcolour.com/en/archives/38957.

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Week 9

This lecture explored the idea of the end of modernism and also focused on the punk movement.

Postmodernism was explained as a chaotic and unstructured approach and in this environment, that seems very real. Everything at the moment feels a bit chaotic, with people protesting about stay-at -home orders and people using this quite time of self isolation and social distancing to rob unguarded businesses and houses. 

We looked at the punk, movement, beginning with the discussion of the Sex Pistols' God Save The Queen' poster. We also looked at their album cover and I found it interesting how they created really unpolished designs. This is always something I would like to be able to achieve but I overthink too much. The look of these photocopied, collage like flyers, posters and zines was rather inspiring for me when it comes to my 'Ask Me Anything' zine. I like the way that typically only one colour is printed. 

The Clash is my favourite band that we influential in the punk movement. I looked into their flyers and posters to see if they used similar approaches to the others in the punk movement. (Warning, there's a lot of 'I like' in this paragraph because I truly do like the style) I really like how they used photocopying and handwriting in unison. To me, this makes the designs more human and definitely more anti-establishment as they rebel against any sort of conformity. I like the way that these designs seem quick and easy and their imperfections reinforce the value that everyone is different and shouldn't have to fall into any one category. These posters and flyers don't seem overworked and corporate, which once again adds to the appeal towards younger adults and students who aren't too fond of the professional, commercial world.

I was shocked to see that Memphis is considered part of the punk movement due to the completely different visual language it has. I loved the idea of how they collaged physical 3D objects to make larger products. I like how Memphis added humour into their designs with the names as well as the shapes and colours.

We touched on the influence of the computer on design and while I am forever grateful for the Adobe Suite, I think there is a lack of the handmade design that we saw in the punk movement. I liked how the computer was used as a means of spreading design (photocopying) in the punk movement rather than a tool used to create design in its entirety.

Today in our online tutorial we talked about collage. We were supposed to do the collage activity but unfortunately only myself and one other student brought along the materials to do so. I was very excited by this activity because making collages is a hobby of mine. I am currently filling an a3 sketchbook full of collages and also have magazine clippings spanning my bedroom doors. I was very intrigued by Sergei Sviatchenko's style who we focused on in class today. I loved how minimal it was and how he only used a one or two images to create art. My collages on the other hand fill the entire page and are full of a lot of different things. Looking into Sviatchenko's work made me want to explore this more simplistic approach. I think his work is very timeless and elegant. I've seen many instagram accounts try to replicate his style but something about the way Sergei Sviatchenko creates his collages makes it seem so effortless and his results are unmatched.  I love the way that Sviatchenko used contrast not only in the colours but also in the textures that the printed images convey. This inspired me to look into how I can contrast the work of Wes Wilson, my maximalist subject for the 'Ask Me Anything' project with a minimalistic poster or zine design. At the end of this class I decided to try and use collage to find a letterform. I ended up finding a P which was very fitting considering it came from a prada ad.

References

1977 Clash poster. [Image]. Retrieved 26 May 2020, from http://www.boredteenagers.co.uk/ROXY%20CLUB.htm.

A night of pure energy flyer. (2013). [Image]. Retrieved 26 May 2020, from https://www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/justinabarca/35-old-punk-flyers-that-prove-punk-used-to-be-so-cool.

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Project 3 update

Now I’m not sure if this is a setback or the best decision I’ve made in this entire assignment. 

I was listening to some of my favourite bands from the 1960s; The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Kinks so naturally, I decided to look into their concert posters. While doing this, I found the Beatles’ final gig poster, designed by Wes Wilson. I don’t know if it was the bright, clashing colours or the swirly text but I was rather hypnotised with what I found when I looked into his work. 

After giving it A LOT of thought, I decided to change the subject of my ‘Ask me Anything” assignment to Wes Wilson. Despite having made a fair amount of progress in this assignment focusing on Alan Fletcher, I felt like I could have a lot more fun doing this project on Wilson. Having already written and answered 5 interview questions, I thought, ‘It can’t be that hard to do it again right?’... let’s see.

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Week 8

In this lecture, we discussed the beginning of the future

This lecture discussed the Russian futurists and we touched on their poetry. I found it very interesting how the Russian and Italian futurists had such similar art styles with the geometric shapes filled with all sorts of gradients. To me, this really reinforced the futurist label because this art style is similar to Art Deco which was widely popular slightly later, in the 1920s. 

Above is an example of Russian Futurism

Above is an example of Italian Futurism

Parole in liberta reminded me of the opening or closing credits of an animated movie. The way that the text moved along with the words being spoken reminds me of how in children's' movies, they will have text move around and pop up in time with the music. However this isn't only in animated movies. Saul Bass is known for creating title sequences that are very artistic ans work well with sound to create an immersive and exciting scene. One of his most memorable title sequence for me personally was for Psycho 1960 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj6aBuC1Lb8 and Catch me if you can (2002)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nv2S_S9MlU

In this weeks lecture, we also spoke about Bruno Munari. I found it intriguing how he visualised the future especially in a fascist society. This made me think about how design is able to push the boundaries of political beliefs all around the world. After doing further research, I found that Munari was not political in that he never voiced his opinions on his government. This was possibly done so he can present his opinion through art, where it can be freely understood and no direct insults were thrown at any party. Since Munari dissociated himself from the Italian futurists once they started displaying fascist attitudes, it seems as though he was not supportive of this party. This made me think about how peoples surroundings influence their design. Both the Italian and Russian Futurists developed quite political values and it seems like the government they were controlled by contributed to this, either forcing them away from the futurist group or drawing them in. 

This week in the tutorial we discussed our project 3 progress. I had already started my project, printing several photos and sticking them down in a blank journal I had laying around. I felt like this was a necessary part of the design process because being online for so many weeks already, I felt like I just had to make something with my hands and the act of gluing the images gown and writing where the text would go was quite therapeutic for me. Even if this activity doesn't really contribute to my final product, I feel like it gave me a boost of motivation to work on the assignment. Getting feedback from the class was also helpful. My group in general liked the setup of my pages and were aware that the end product would obviously look much more crisp as it is a digital document. Seeing where other people were at in their process was also helpful as it gave me the motivation to persevere. I found that I was slightly ahead of my peers so this made me feel happy about how far I had come already.

References

Italian Futurism Painting. [Image]. Retrieved 16 May 2020, from https://thesefantasticworlds.com/only-connect-fantastic-futurism/.

Russian Futurism Painting. [Image]. Retrieved 16 May 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubo-Futurism.

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Week 7

At the beginning of this lecture, we looked at how buildings can be shaped like letterforms from above due to the repeated use of a unit. 

Although this is usually by coincidence, this idea of shapes being formed in birds eye view made me think about how Christian churches are purposefully built in the shape of a crucifix. I've always found this interesting because it almost adds another dimension to churches because everyone already sees the imagery, symbols and sculptures related to the religion but the overall shape of the church really reinforces that it is a space dedicated to Christianity.

The two images above are Google Earth screenshots of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City and St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne.

The Bauhaus was the subject of this lecture. It was interesting listening about this school because of how much its way of teaching has impacted design schools globally. It was interesting hearing about how Bauhaus brought together designers from all different fields to collaborate in order to produce work. I think this would have been very beneficial as people with different specialties see things differently. I would love to work with industrial designers, textile designers, sculptors etc. one day in my work.

I found the Bauhaus furniture interesting. It made me think about how people, especially in Europe, live in such cramped apartments that this type of furniture would be very practical. This made me think of the tiny houses that are now sweeping the globe and I wanted to see if this practical and compact furniture idea has evolved up to now. When looking into this, I found out about Rognan, a robotic furniture system by Ikea. This furniture moves and packs away into very spall spaces and can move around the space, allowing more room for different situations (bed only out when sleeping etc.). This is a link to the instagram video IKEA posted, showing a video of the furniture system: https://www.instagram.com/p/ByR3s3MgM4p/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=embed_video_watch_again

We also talked about the triadic ballet in today's lecture. I liked noticing how all things in the gesamtkunstwerk (used it!) were part of a trio. I found this fun to watch because I tend to do things in threes as well when designing because I think it allows for really effective balance and I like creating a series of work (typically posters) because I love how one theme can change to suit  different ideas while there is still some flow and consistency between work.

In this weeks tutorial, we were challenged with the activity to make an alphabet out of triangles and quarter circles. Due to the geographic barrier, it was difficult to do this activity in our group because my two peers didn’t have access to the paper to make their letters. Luckily, we resolved this issue as I put my camera on and showed my partners and they suggested ways to create the letters while I assembled the paper how we decided.

I like how different all our letters are but if we were to make a real typeface, there should be more order in each letter and they should all follow similar constraints in terms of size and shape. For example, the T and D don’t look like they would be part of the same typeface. Maybe we could have resolved this by making some sort of grid.

[erikacommdes]

Week 6

In this weeks lecture, pagespace and beyond, the properties and characteristics that make page layouts effective were explored. 

I enjoyed this lecture because it tied in with our studies in Image and Identity, another course that is being studied this semester. This lecture gave more of a history and reason as to why certain principles make page layouts effective rather than just stating rules and suggestions.

I really enjoyed the part of the lecture that talked about Josef Muller Brockmann's grid systems, mainly because I really like his design work and was interested in the mathematics he used to make them so effective. I love the solid colours he uses in his work and how he used typography so effectively, easily communicating information in a highly legible manner. I am considering studying him for my 'Ask me anything' assignment.

The quote "Our business is to design things which are suitable for a machine to make" (Eric Gill) really stood out to me in this lecture. It made me think about how much we as designers rely on technology to communicate our ideas. Something about this quote made me want to see how people design without technology. Thanks to this interest, I stumbled upon designer Alan Fletcher, a founder of Pentagram who created handmade designs after retiring. Below are some of my favourite designs of his.

In the Friday Tutorial, we had the challenge of finding letterforms in our surrounding outside environment. Luckily for me, I was sitting right in front of a giant window and didn’t have to leave my room and face the icy weather. I found a few letterforms in my surroundings which were (left to right) T, X,B and F. 

This activity was very interesting as it made me see parts of my everyday life so differently. It made me think about all the different lines and contours in items, visualising letterforms I never would have before noticed in these objects. I'm sure I'll start seeing letterforms constantly after participating in this activity.

References

Fletcher, A. (2014). Bouquet of flowers [Image]. Retrieved 25 April 2020, from https://www.hypocritedesign.com/alan-fletcher/.

Fletcher, A. (2018). Beware Wet Paint and Shopping [Image]. Retrieved 25 April 2020, from https://www.canva.com/learn/famous-graphic-designers/.

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Week 5

This week's lecture focused on the industrialisation of print.

One part of the lecture I found very interesting was the desire to make type mathematically proportionate, as conducted by Luca Paccioli, Francesco Torniello and Geoffrey Troy. The images of the text, surrounded by measurements, circles and lines reminded me of Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man which is a proportionate drawing of a man.

This made me think about the natural human desire for proportion, similar to the brain's expectation for balance in a visual composition. I did further research on proportions and ended up finding out more about the Fibionacci Sequence. I had learned about this previously but I was amazed at the frequency of this sequence in nature. This posed the question in my mind; do we see this as proportionate because is it what surrounds us daily?

I also found examples of this in architecture and manmade objects

In the online tutorial, we discussed some of our favourite and least favourite designers.

After watching an episode of Netflix documentary 'Abstract' last year, I fell in love with the work of Paula Scher and her use of typography and bold colours in design. I love how her work was so forward-thinking and different to what was around when she designed it and continues to stand on its own even as design has changed. I love how she is able to produce pieces that everyone loves but no one really has the courage, confidence or skill to replicate such a unique style. These are a few of my favourite pieces by Scher.

References

Artsy.net. (2018). Paula Scher map [Image]. Retrieved 11 April 2020, from https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-legendary-designer-paula-scher-started-graphic-design.

Flickr. (2010). Architectural Spirals [Image]. Retrieved 11 April 2020, from https://www.flickr.com/photos/16154905@N04/4298086700/in/photostream/.

Shillington. (2019). Paula Scher designs [Image]. Retrieved 11 April 2020, from https://www.shillingtoneducation.com/blog/paula-scher-public-theater/.

Tumblr. examples of Fibonacci sequence in nature [Image]. Retrieved 11 April 2020, from https://you-are-another-me.tumblr.com/post/170302822818.

Wall Street Journal. (2019). Vitruvian Man [Image]. Retrieved 11 April 2020, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/italian-court-lets-leonardos-vitruvian-man-travel-to-france-11571247188.

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Hello, My Question is...

'CAN DESIGN HELP SAVE THE WORLD?'

This question immediately came to me when the project was pitched. With a global pandemic ripping its way through the world, the ever-looming issue of climate change and the ongoing war and conflict regarding religion, the world sure seems like it needs all the saving it can get.

Throughout this task, my goal was to find as many objects as possible that reflect the many issues in our society which also represent a letterform. The issues I tried to bring to light, each being represented through one word each were:

The need to preserve the environment

The issues that modern technology faces and the problems it brings

The hunting or endangered animals as well as violence towards other humans

The growing obsession with luxury and materialistic items

The issues that come along with expressing religious belief

The problem of pollution and its effect on our health

Initially, I set up the letterforms on my bed. I wanted to have a clean white background and I liked how the quilt added some texture to the background. However, this background made it hard to see the face mask and the white plastic bag in the word 'world'.

I tested the word 'the' on the concrete outside my house, even though these objects are mostly brown, they were still legible against the also brown concrete. I like how the concrete is distressed and rough, almost reinforcing the impact that humans have had on the world. I could only use Catholic symbols for this word because we are confined to our homes at this time and my family is Catholic. However, I thought this was still fitting as Catholics still face religious discrimination in countries like Russia, Albania and Lebanon.

Here I set up my whole question on a larger section of concrete at the side of my house. I added the word 'can', made from plants found around my garden and I changed the L in world to two straws. The lighting was quite poor at this time and I found that the A in save and the L and P in help were quite hard to read.

This is my final photograph. I waited until the sun was in a more optimal position so the question was more legible. I changes the L to a toy gun, P to a piece of rope and the A to a gold watch. I like how the plants on the outside somewhat frame the question and still fit into the natural theme the word 'can' has. I am quite happy with how this turned out and I am satisfied with the amount of issues I was able to address in my one image.

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Week 4 (tutorial)

In the online tutorial, we spoke a lot about post-studio practices and how we work at home because of the limitations COVID-19 has put on our lives.

Personally, I love to listen to music while I learn so I have access to both my record player as well as Spotify when I am working at home. My desk is in my room which is ideal when you live in a loud house with two siblings and Eastern European parents.

For me, the most challenging part of working at home would have to be finding inspiration for my work. Even though pinterest is just a click away, I find being able to physically see objects or flick through books much more beneficial than rummaging through an online archive of over-done ideas. To combat this challenge, I have started to put together my own book of inspiration. I am currently in the process of filling an A3 scrapbook of inspirational mood boards to help guide me in terms of my design work. To do this, I use labels, tags, photographs and many magazine cut-outs to fill the page. My favourite magazine to use is definitely Vogue because I love fashion photography and magazine design, hoping to make my way into working in that field in the future.

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Week 4 (lecture)

In this week's lecture, early print was discussed. 

This lecture primarily focused on the Blackletter typeface and how that was made common due to its popularity at the time of the printing press invention by Johannes Gutenberg. After watching this online lecture. I decided to see what examples of blackletter I can find around my house. Here is what I found:

Beatrix Potter book. I expect that this typeface was chosen because of the stories' magical and fantastical nature, giving the book a fairy tale style, similar to that of Grimm's fairy tales which used blackletter.

Goosebumps book. This form of blackletter is very stylised and has been heavily adapted to suit the scary and spooky nature of the R.L. Stine series. While this typeface doesn't resemble traditional blackletter to a great extent, the angular serifs and combination of thick and thin lines help draw similarities between the two typefaces.

A children's book of Saints. Surprisingly, this was the only religious book that I could find in my house with a font that resembles blackletter even though my family owns numerous bibles. While this form of blackletter has more rounded letters, somewhat similar to a calligraphy style, you can still see how the formation of each letter is similar to that of traditional blackletter.

Dropkick Murphy's CD. The use of the blackletter font on the back of this CD could have been used to draw a link between the band's music and religious beliefs. Ireland being a very religious country, there is a chance that this typeface was chosen to reinforce the Irish heritage of the band, supported by that recurring colour green and four-leaved clover.

Joan Baez Vinyl Record. The typeface used in the bottom right corner of this cover reminds me of the decorative letters found at the beginning of many bible chapters or at the start of important readings or scriptures.

I also found a few examples of typefaces that remind me of the ancient Roman Capitalus font.

Spandau Ballet Vinyl Record. The typeface used for the band name is very similar to that of the ancient roman font and the designer seems to have tried to emphasise that engraved effect by adding an outline and solid 'shadow' of the letterforms to make them look three dimensional.

Bon Jovi CD. The font used to write the band name 'Bon Jovi' also reminds me of the ancient Roman Capitalus font but in this example, the designer has used more lines to decorate the letters and emphasise an implied 3D effect.

[erikacommdes]

Week 3

This week, I didn't attend the face-to-face practical class but watched the lecture that was recorded for this week.

In the lecture, ancient writing from across the globe was explored and described. Japanese writing stood out to me as the question about why the amount of characters in the phonetic alphabets of Katakana and Hiragana was significantly less than the thousands that make up the kanji writing system. Hiragana and Katakana only have 46 symbols because each of these represent a sound made in the pronunciation of the Japanese language. I remember learning about the phonetic alphabet in the VCE subject English Language last year so it made sense that these two alphabets just have the necessary amount of symbols to translate spoken word to written word without much confusion. The amount of symbols shows that these two alphabets are used when speech and writing cross over whereas kanji is more frequently used to communicate more complex meaning.

A unique writing system that has gained my attention, confusion and adoration is cursive Russian. To the eye of Russian illiterates, this writing looks more like a repetitive pattern but somehow is very clear for those who have a Russian education. After looking into the handwriting through online videos, I found out that it is very rare for Russians to print their Cyrillic alphabet in the way that it is commonly observed by western countries. In this writing system, accuracy is key as each letter in the alphabet looks so similar when written this way.

At the end of the lecture, personal handwriting was mentioned and looking down at my notes for the lecture, I saw that there was absolutely no consistency in my own handwriting. Constantly shifting from tall to wide letters, print to cursive, I began to think about why my handwriting fluctuates so significantly within small timeframes of writing. I came to the conclusion that speed and method of communication were main players in the way I wrote. When I had to write faster, my letterforms were shorter and wider and when copying words that were written on the screen, my handwriting was taller and thinner than if I was paraphrasing the spoken word.

[erikacommdes]

Week 2

This week, I attended the lecture as well as the MABF excursion at the National Gallery.

During the lecture today, we talked about different historical writing systems such as engraving into clay as well as hieroglyphics. One think I found particularly fascinating is how these old writing systems have shaped our current ones. I found the fact that Egyptians and people from middle eastern countries used ink rather than engraving and that is why the Arabic alphabet looks the way it does today. Another thing I found interesting was how our alphabet today stems from symbols that represent objects or animals, rather than individual letters. I enjoyed seeing the evolution of the ancient symbols transforming into the letters we have today and noticed how they got simpler and easier to engrave.

Upon arriving at the Melbourne Art Book Fair, I was overwhelmed with the amount of books, zines and hand sanitiser there was. I enjoyed looking at the wide range of books there was to offer but often found myself just looking at the front cover. I think this was because of the sheer amount of books there was on offer as well as the amount of people often crowding the stalls. I did find that I was often drawn to bright coloured or maximalist book covers and typically, they were the only few I picked up and had a quick flick through. In all honesty, I was surprised at how many books were filled entirely with words (I know this is how books work but I thought they would all be full to the brim of artwork and design pieces).

My favourite part of the exhibition was probably the central area containing the large array of zines. I think I liked this section the most because it directly relates to this course and my studies. I loved how all of the zines were so different and covered so many topics. A few of my favourites were 'Cat Encounters' and 'Wog Mum'. I liked how each zine showed off someone's unique personality or aesthetic and they came in all different shapes and sizes. This part of the fair got me very excited about our upcoming assignment as I could see the freedom I have in constructing a zine that shows my personality and skills.

Something that wasn’t part of the course but I found really amazing was the enormous KAWS statue outside the book fair. I was in awe at the size of the sculpture and me and friends were trying very hard to work out how they got it into the building. Seeing this sculpture made me think about how large designs can be. I often find myself restricting my view of communication design to poster sized pieces and usually forget about the freedom designers have in terms of size and 3D modelling. Seeing this large sculpture encouraged me to think more about how communication design can be adapted to 3D objects and inspired me to think outside the box when designing in the future.

This is a photo I took of the back of the sculpture. I love how there is a streak of light going through it as well as the upward-facing angle I used to take it.

[erikacommdes]

Week 1

This week, I attended the Introductory lecture as well as the first practical class of the year.

I found the drawing robot mentioned in the lecture very fascinating, impressed how design and technology have been blended in this one project. After hearing about this robot, I delved into research about other automated machines that are able to produce art. 'Ai-Da' is an Artificial Intelligence robot that is able to draw and paint people from sight. 'Ai-Da' was named after programmer Ada Lovelace who created the super realistic (and super creepy) robot. The thing that intrigues me most about these robots is how they bridge the separation between art and technology but rather than using digital mediums like many artists currently do, it is mechanical artists using traditional mediums.

In the lecture, we also talked about hand gestures and how they communicate meaning. This made me think about how greetings are different between cultures and even within cultures. Being of Croatian heritage, it is expected to kiss the person you are greeting on the cheek. However, on the coast, it is expected that you kiss the other person twice whereas inland, it is expected that you only kiss them once. I found this interesting because it shows that gestures can mean different thing and kissing someone the wrong amount of times in any region is seen as either excessive or inadequate depending on where you are.

We also completed the 'Typeface in my Pocket' activity during our practical class. Initially, everyone in the class used an array of pens or straight objects to create their name out of objects they had in their possession. All the letterforms looked similar and static. It wasn't until  we were instructed to find letterforms within objects that unique typefaces started coming together. I enjoyed this activity as it encouraged us to look at everyday objects a different way, trying to see more in what we use on a daily basis. It was quite hard to construct my name out of the objects I had because honestly, I mainly just had pens. However, after looking very closely at objects like my wallet, chargers and keychains, I was able to find some letterforms.

I proceeded to make my name and after this, my table group and I created a complete alphabet out of all the things we had with us. We chose the best letters from our names and added those to our alphabet, then we manipulated some of the other objects such as lanyards and cords to create the remaining letterforms.

Typeface designed by Erika, Stella, Rikki, Tanya, Brooke, Emily and Purita 

Website used:

Cowan, K. and Cowan, K., 2019. Meet Ai-Da – The World's First Robot Artist, Capable Of Drawing People From Life. [online] Creative Boom. Available at: <https://www.creativeboom.com/inspiration/meet-ai-da-the-worlds-first-robot-artist-capable-of-drawing-people-from-life/> [Accessed 7 March 2020].