RMIT REFLECTIVE JOURNAL

By Hamish Kingma

[hamishkingma]

Artist - Geoff McFetridge

Super cool style. The third image was actually printed on a t-shirt of mine when I was in prep, so for me McFetridge is a very nostalgic designer. Wearing that t-shirt as a wee lad I was always intrigued by the variety of typography in the design. I find it really inspiring that the artist can include such a variety of typography without it appearing noisy. The limited colour palette and clean vectors style certainly complements the design too.

Image 1 - https://www.gq.com/story/los-angeles-artist-geoff-mcfetridge-everyday-style

Image 2 - https://v1gallery.com/newspost/opening-friday-geoff-mcfetridges-beringians-half-gallery-nyc/

Image 3 - https://wallpapersafari.com/w/XUTNSA

[hamishkingma]

Course Experience

Following a gap year of travel, I began the course feeling extremely optimistic and excited for what my first year of university had to offer. However, by the time classes had moved online due to COVID-19, much of that motivation had disappeared. This in turn has affected my learning experience. Like many students, COVID-19 has proven to be particularly challenging in various ways. For me being overworked by my employer due to the jobkeeper scheme has greatly interfered with my studies. What was once a weekend job has now become a five day job. Nonetheless, I have gained numerous new learning outcomes throughout the duration of the course that have expanded my knowledge in the field of design. The lectures have proven to be very insightful in providing historical context behind certain aspects of design. For example, I found the origin of ‘blackletter’ and its use/significance throughout history to be very intriguing. Ultimately, my primary goal for this year was to expand my creative skill set. The various hands-on activities that the course offered; such as collaging and creating typography out of random objects, has opened my eyes to the idea of physical design, something that has always intrigued me as a designer. It’s about time I stepped out from illustrator. The tutorials and lectures have been presented extremely well and I cannot thank Ben, Andy and Karen Ann for being so thorough and patient with online teaching. X

[hamishkingma]

Devilish child!

Source - https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/

[hamishkingma]

“Artist Jason Salavon interacts with his ‘faceOff (v. Inman),’ a work that incorporates real-time video, a webcam, custom software, a large-format monitor and a workstation to create changing ‘deep fake’ images that blend a viewer's image with those of celebrities and animals.” 

Source - https://www.houstonchronicle.com/entertainment/theater/article/Art-review-Jason-Salavon-generates-art-with-14015901.php

[hamishkingma]

Week 11 : Lecture

The final lecture for this subject shed light on the future of design. More than ever, it has become apparent that ‘learning’ technology has become so advanced nowadays that its beginning to be implemented into art and design.  New a.i. technologies are starting to emerge and humans are beginning to move into a ‘hybrid state’: halfway between the digital and material world. Nowadays the internet has become so over stimulated with data that now it seems that design is about trying to visualise that data in a more consumable way. American artist Jason Salavon demonstrates this through his work of layering magazine spreads/school photos. In addition, I found the website: https://thispersondoesnotexist.com, provided in the lecture to be particularly eerie. 

[hamishkingma]

Early 7″ single cover for The Kinks renowned tune “Sunny Afternoon” (1966). What I love most about the artwork  is the pop of orange that is implemented in the background. Without it the black and whites would fail to stand out as much. In addition, the bold and clean typography that is implemented complements the simplistic design very well.

Image - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/what-to-listen-to/kinks-10-greatest-songs/9-sunny-afternoon-1966/

[hamishkingma]

A photo of my un-finished collage from week 10′s tutorial. For this exercise I sourced some clippings from a music magazine where I have included Dave Davies, guitarist from my fav 60s band The Kinks. Rather than randomly placing clippings together, I attempted to stick to the theme of ‘music’. I attempted to demonstrate this when replacing the trunk of an elephant with a sax. 

[hamishkingma]

Week 10: Lecture

The week ten lecture explored various forms of art design activisms. This included taking a close look at ‘conceptual’ artists like Marcel Duchamp and his popular photograph of a urinal which he signed with his own initials. This was a clear demonstration of early conceptualism at the time. Other forms of conceptual art also investigated included the renowned media foundation Adbusters. The lecture also shed light on other forns of artwork such as the collaging techniques of Mimmo Rotella. 

[hamishkingma]

A lovely Puffin by Charley Harper.

Image - https://www.ohiomagazine.com/arts/article/the-art-of-charley-harper

[hamishkingma]

Sex Pistols Poster

I’m a very big fan of the way in which the artist has used collaging to create dynamic typography. The whole piece itself is very reflective of the grungey vibe the band is attempting to convey. Like punk, the artwork would have been very confronting for some audience members at the time, considering the piece features a manipulated and tampered photo of the queen. Elizabeth is lookin pretty criminal!

Image - https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/oct/18/jamie-reid-sex-pistols-artist-interview-pussy-riot

[hamishkingma]

Week 9: Lecture

In week nine, our lecture covered postmodernism and how the ideals of futurists was beginning to become less prominent as time proceeded. The idea of ‘Punk’ and bands like the ‘Sex Pistols’ were also investigated, as they were very much the opposite of Bauhaus. Groups like the Memphis group also came about, an italian architecture group founded in 1981. The beginnings of xeography were demonstrated and the implementation of tech/computers in art and design were beginning to kick off.

[hamishkingma]

The band ‘The Nude Party’ (2016 - onward) celebrates the clanging frat rock of the ‘60s. Artist and drummer of the band Connor Mikita, encapsulates that exact feel through his vinyl artwork for their debut album. It’s very typical of 60s inspired modern bands to create busy psychedelic album artwork, usually consisting of multiple distorted photographs overlaying together. What I like about Mikita’s style however, is the way he captures that exact 60s vibe by utilizing clean, structured and simple design and vectors. 

Images - https://www.amazon.com/Nude-Party/dp/B07C53MWZS

[hamishkingma]

A rad collaboration between surreal 90s television series ‘Twin Peaks’ and skateboard company Habitat. I was lucky enough to score the second board from the left which is now hanging in my room. I really like how the designer has incorporated elements from the television series (e.g. zig zag floor) into the designs themselves. The mixture of simple vectors and photographs work together really well and is successful at achieving that David Lynch feel. 

Image - https://shop.easternskatesupply.com/blog/habitat-x-twin-peaks-decks-now-in/

[hamishkingma]

Week 8: Lecture

In light of the Bauhaus movement, week eight brought with a more detailed context as to what was happening around Europe and Russia at the time. In addition, it explored the ways and examples in which Bauhaus inspired and influenced other design and art of the time. The lecture also drew similarities between the 1919 Manifesto & Joseph Stella’s “Brooklyn Bridge”, both of which contained dynamic lines, light & shadows, structural ideas and had a cubist approach. The lecture also covered the Futurist movement - a significant art movement established by a group of Italian Men associated with fascism and Mussolini. They embraced the technology of the time and created a manifesto in 1909 the same year that Henry Ford was creating cars on a mass scale and therefore the same year as the beginning of mass production. The Futurist Movement created a shift from artisan creation to mass production and created a different approach to painting due to photography, paintings could now express the lived experience of the viewer - sense of time & speed.

[hamishkingma]

Another very cool design from Jon Astbury! This piece features Hannes Meyer the ‘unknown’ second director of the Bauhaus institution.

Credit - Jon Astbury (2018)

Image - https://www.dezeen.com/2018/11/12/hannes-meyer-second-bauhaus-director/

[hamishkingma]

In light of the lecture (wk 7), I came across a super neat poster design of Walter Gropious! I like how half of his face is yellow as if a ray of sunlight is illuminating it. In addition, if it weren’t for the pop of yellow, the audience may assume that his eyes are very small and ‘beady’, as the whites of his left eye blend in with his face.

Credit - Jon Astbury (2018)

Image - https://www.dezeen.com/2018/11/02/walter-gropius-bauhaus-100-founder-director-architecture-design/

[hamishkingma]

Week 7: Lecture

Week seven’s lecture investigated Bauhaus school of design which was active between 1919 and 1933 in Germany. It’s mode of teaching was influential to many other schools of design during this time. The school itself was founded by Walter Gropious a german architect at the time. The institution was very male dominant as Gropius believed that women could not think and design three-dimensionally. Instead, women were restricted to two-dimensional art activities such as weaving and painting.