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WHEN I WAS A TINNIE BABE

Since the early years of primary school I have loved to draw. My brown paper canteen bags were never left plain but instead covered in stickers, squiggly characters and texta colour. Mum would take my sister and I into the city for one special day of every school holiday. We would visit Acmi for a Disney, Dreamworks or Tim Burton exhibition and be utterly transfixed and inspired. It is no doubt here, where my passion for illustrating unusual characters developed. Harry Potter merchandise in primary school was all the rage, as were the film books which shared behind the scene design. There was really nothing cooler at that age or more impressionable when I think about my love of the extraordinary detail that goes into graphic design props in movies. Not really having access to any technology of my own until mid high school, it was often pencil and paint to paper which speaks for the lack of digital elements in my designs until recently.

To yield better results I really need to spend more time brainstorming and getting more than one idea down on paper before I begin whipping up a final. This is what causes me headaches later when I decide my first idea doesn't meet the brief as well as it could, leading to last minute, panicky changes. Another would be to perfect managing time. A lot of time is an excuse which sees me move through a project super slowly until I feel the crunch. If I were to turn this around, I would be giving myself that golden week of relaxed, extraneous tweaking which is much kinder to a body that likes its sleep.

Sammy.

#Final response

D A V I D ++RAYGUN++ C A R S O N

American, alternative, rock-and-roll magazine, Raygun was first published in 1992. David Carson acted as the magazines art director for the first three years of it’s life and it was his influence and adventurous design style that established its eccentric and never-before-seen ‘look’. This cutting-edge experimentation can be viewed as a post-modern reaction against previous magazines and design in general where rules and order were at the core of their structures. Furthermore, RayGun gave voice to the digital generation as it was the 1990’s which saw a progressional acceleration in computers and software.

Carson encouraged a decontruction style (exaggerated word spacing, type set in Dingbat, columns of text jammed together and minimal contrast between text and background). This unpredictable designer revelled in chaos and it was his desire to do things differently that earned him his fame.

Technology allowed Carson to chop up elements on the screen and scatter them across the layout. Image Sources: www.csun.edu, www.aeqai.com

Sammy.

#Reflection 5

Neville Brody / pre-Macintosh

Influential as a postmodernist designer, Brody’s time as art director of The Face magazine drew him attention for his unconventional use of type and composition. During his direction from 1980 to 1993, the ‘fashion bible’ set many trends of design which defined the period. He was also a key contributor to FUSE, a publication about experimental typography, and fervently utilised the computer as a design tool during the early stages of digital design.

Brody’s weight as a designer was cemented when Thames & Hudson’s first volume of his work became the most sold graphic design book in the world. His typographic specialisation saw him starting FontShop with Erik Spiekermann, designing Times Modern for the Times newspaper – its first new font since Times New Roman in 1932. Brody’s affinity with the Punk Rock movement kickstarted his rulebreaking approach to design, leading him to a Russian Constructivist approach in the 80s.

^ Neville Brody, Your Generation/Day By Day album cover

Design pre-Macintosh was time- and skill-intensive, with many specialised roles under the ‘graphic design’ umbrella. I would argue the advent of digital tools has immeasurably enhanced the profession’s ability to think and produce unconventionally, leading to more interesting and creative designs. Whilst these terms are subjective, the multi-skilled modern designer has the time and resources to experiment visually with photography, typography, composition, illustration, and crafting, whilst simultaneously exploring the potential of these methods for branding, identity, advertising, strategy, marketing, and service design. This was not possible pre-Macintosh, and the argument that the intimacy of crafting the physical artefact creates a deeper understanding of design principles seems somewhat dated given the skills (both technical and creative) required to understand and use the plethora of digital tools now available.

April Greiman is a notable designer whose initial embrace of the digital platform paved a new direction for graphic design.

^ Aprile Greiman, Does It Make Sense

#Kit

NEVILLE BRODY / PRE-MACINTOSH

Graphic designer and typographer, Neville Brody communicates an experimental, radical and highly typographic reputation with his distinguished designs. Criticism from his teachers for creating designs too unconventional in school, only made Brody more aware that he was doing things differently, his work on the way to becoming more brazen, bizarre and memorable than what was expected.

“I went into design partly to understand how the form worked, and to use it against itself.” -Neville Brody

It is the written word that audiences marvel over on a Neville Brody magazine spread. He uses type and letters as illustrations, turning text boxes on their sides and running titles off the sides of pages (basically, destroying natural legibility). Brody was an instigator, his bold intensions encouraged young creatives to understand that it was okay to neglect the ‘rules’ if it meant being more creatively free and expressive.

His designs often respond to the external world around him. The late 1970s (marked as the era of punk rock) acted as his first true inspiration and motivation. The 20th century Constructivist movement was a time where the purpose of art was reworked, meant to serve a social purpose. In the 1980’s Brody drew inspiration from this time and adopted a Russian constructivist ‘look’ (a propogandous approach using basic colour triads, and bold shapes). Discuss design pre-macintosh and whether the advent of technology has enabled the designer to produce work that is more interesting or creative.

Design post-macintosh is not necessarily more interesting or creative than design without technological aid. In some instances I would argue that a careful eye and hand physically moving about the elements on a layout creates a far richer and careful design. Perhaps this is due to the pressure on the designer to achieve first-time perfection due to the fact that (for instance) they can’t simply re-open the file and change the typeface in 2 seconds.

There are many instances where the computer has been utilised as a means to whip up a quick, inexpensive design. If we were to discuss collaging as a design method for example, I’d be persuaded to think more success would be made with a skilful eye, hand and scapel. There is a concerning amount of clumsy Photoshop jobs where models heads protrude awkwardly over a magazine title or a pizza floats worryingly crustless on the home-made menu of your local Italian restaurant.

On the other hand, it truly is incredible what designers can produce today thanks to highly advanced digital software. Warping, colour tweaking, applying layer masks, adding vector lighting…the list goes on and the possibilities seem virtually endless. In this way, the macintosh has allowed us a remarkably advanced creative outlet.

An interesting read: Design before computers ruled the universe, Speider Schneider

Sammy.

#Reflection 4

Postmodernism

“Postmodernism gave us the framework to approach everything in our world including the creative process. Setting out to ‘deconstruct’ it gave us the freedom and ability to create something new albeit a ‘mish mash’ or pistache of what we already knew.” - Rita Bila, dhub.org As Sammy previously explained, it provided a framework to actively criticise and re-evaluate the world at a time when people were passive recipients of truths.

Synonymous with the postmodernist movement was the use of irony – by referencing and cross-referencing as a means of deconstruction and re-evaluation, commentary on social, political, and cultural issues were brought to attention. Emerging with the Punk Movement, Postmodernism produced designers such as Wolfgang Weingart who pioneered the “new-wave” typography movement, Shigeo Fukuda’s visual puns with unconventional views of the world, Neville Brody and his experimental typography, and David Carson, whose rule breaking revolutionised visual communication of the 90s.

^ Wolfgang Weingart, reflection

^ Shigeo Fukuda, Victory

^ Neville Brody, The Face spread

^ David Carson, Ray Gun spread

#Kit

COMPREHENDING POSTMODERNISM

Post modernism is an idea. It acts as a reaction to and a rejection of its predecessor, modernism. D.A. Carson illustrates this notion by defining postmodernism as the child of modernism which steadily tries to kill its parent.

Modernism flourished in the early 20th century. It saw the development of capitalism, technology, industrialisation and science and it pursued truth, absolutism and certainty. This period put faith in centralised control and hierarchies of social-class. When scientists or philosophers discovered something new, this new-found knowledge would help make society better, more stable and most importantly, progressive. It was a time of mass culture, mass consumption and mass marketing.

Post modernism which arose as WWII ended acts as a critique of the above ideas. It possesses a sceptical attitude towards claims of absolute truth and encourages the idea that things are believed instead of known. It rejects hierarchal importance and the idea that any product or design is of greater value than the other. All judgements are purely taste. Post modernism exercises ideas of liberation, stating that there are more than one way to do something and compels society to question why things are the way that they are. It was effectively described by Zygmunt Bauman in 2007 as solid/stable times becoming liquid times. Post modernism marked the end of traditional structures and institutions and the end of ‘grand narratives’- the big, one-conclusion-fits-all belief (as Jean-François Lyotard put it).

Sammy.

#Reflection 3

Preconceptions/Misconceptions?

A little after the event guys but here’s ‘The Cinematic Portrayal of Graphic Designers in Film & Television’ ...and I wonder where our doubtful preconceptions arise from! ;)

Sammy.

Preconceptions

I absolutely agree with you Sammy re the idea of comms design seeming very commercially oriented and of the designer as slaving away on a computer. The wide scope of career opportunities you’ve touched upon is such a positive and exciting aspect of communication design, and I think the preconception we (and a lot of others) share might hinder a lot of people (both in and out of industry) into thinking technical skills in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign etc are what makes the designer. Instead, we should be expanding and developing our creative thinking skills first and foremost, because that’s what will open doors to new and unconventional opportunities in the design industry.

This preconception of the communication designer being a master of software also perpetuates the idea that Sherry shared of creating an aesthetic being the end goal rather than a tool for communication. Again, this feeds in to the commercialisation and limited view of how and what our discipline of design can contribute.

#Kit #Week 2 #response

PRECONCEPTIONS.

Animal Conservation or Graphic Design? These were the two choices I faced as year twelve drew to a close. On the one hand, the former choice promised the possibilities of making a meaningful difference to the world, the latter would only help contribute to the mass of in-your-face branding and packaging, the foundation of mass consumption. This was my narrow perception of Communication Design.

Logos, types faces, swatches and Photoshop built the foundations of what I believed Communication Design entailed. Endless days of staring at a computer screen failed to motivate me. My effort wasted on products that would inevitably end up in landfill troubled me.

My shining light came in the form of a £30 ticket to Harry Potter studios. The creation and imagination that was poured into the prop masterpieces of these film brought unbelievable happiness to me as a fan and the understanding that this is where graphic design has its purpose.

It’s alternative jobs like this that changed my negative preconceptions and reminded me that communication design was so much more than just a logo.

The opportunities that unfurled with this revelation, further enforced that this was a broad career path that I could commence, allowing me to juggle a variety of projects from prop design to animal awareness campaigns (merging my concern for the natural world with what comes most naturally to me, design).

Sammy.

#Reflection2

Kit - Week 1

1) Examples of the AAA: Asia and abundance: Garment construction is now almost entirely handled in Asia. Clothing “designed and made locally” is considered a luxury and rarity, almost always coming with a connotation of quality and personability between designer and consumer.

Additional thoughts: The idea that someone (geographically) ‘close’ to the consumer has made their garment and therefore are more right-brain sympathetic inherently raises issues of otherism which may not be immediately prevalent. By lumping together the ‘rule-following’ left-brain work of Asian workers with human-less computational automation, a divide is created whereby Western civilisation and their output is seen as more valuable than any other. This undermines the contributions and efforts of non-Western people and supports the ‘otherism’, stigmatisation, and discrimination of foreigners.

2) Aspect of my life: cats I currently have one cat (Aggy). If I decided to get another cat, my standard of living would increase exponentially. There would need to be an initial period of introduction and transition for both cats as they sort out issues of territorialism. This would cause both myself and my housemate some stress at first, but once they become accustomed to each other (and my housemate accustomed to 2 cats), I would be able to leave the house more frequently and for longer periods of time without feeling guilty about leaving Aggy alone all day. Although I'd have to buy twice the amount of food and litter, and worry twice as much when it comes to house inspections re hiding the cats elsewhere, the costs would be minimal. I would have two cats.

#Kit #Week 1

Steaks and Sliders.

Abundance.

Abundance is everywhere, just looking around my room I can see the evidence of living in a society that favours emotional impulses over rational thinking, I’ve still got hanging in the corner of my room the bullwhip I bought for $200 in Year 7 because I wanted to swing from a tree like Indiana Jones. That should be a purchase I regret too, but draining my Dollarmites’ account was definitely worth it because the moment I swung from that tree is definitely in the top 5. Even when I was cooking an Indian dish last night, I wanted to make it look a little more legit to impress my Instagram followers, so I went to Westfield, Doncaster and bought a presentation curry dish for $40, I’ll probably only use it a couple of times a year, but it did help me to rake in the likes and help validate my purchase.

This emotional way of thinking has lead to many different products that were once viewed in perhaps a negative light, doing a 180 and becoming in fashion again.

Take the burger for instance. It used to be the poster child for obesity, but replace the sesame seed bun with a brioche one, make it the size of a mandarine, serve it on a board, call it a slider, and you’ve just made $15 profit and have a line leading out the door.

Aspect of my life: The food I eat.

I have always loved food and cooking, it is one of the things I enjoy doing most and I always try to be as adventurous as I possibly can, but after I ran into my friend at the train station the other night I realised that I could be doing a whole lot better. I asked where he had been that night and he told me he heard about a restaurant that offered a $95 steak, seeing as he enjoys his food as much as I do, he decided to treat himself and get one.

This, this is the attitude I want to adopt when it comes to food.

If I took this approach to the food I eat, I could finally go to all the restaurants I’ve read so much about, and eat the dishes I’ve ruined my computer keyboards over by salivating at the sight of their Instagram pages, maybe even meet some of the chefs I’ve idolised, all I know is that I’d be a lot fatter.

-Harry

RIGHT-SIDE THINKING & ... TEA.

1. In response to ‘Revenge Of The Right Brain’ This article was interesting and it definitely holds truth. I particularly liked his segment on abundance. The fashion world is a victim of excessive abundance and so when a brand is able to distinctly separate itself from the rest through a difference of meaning, that brand and it’s public image is successful.

When it comes to shoes, especially everyday trainers, there is an enormous selection of brands to choose from (Nike, Adidas, New Balance, Vans). Converse is another, and for consumers this is just one more option to them. The designers job is to communicate how this shoe is unlike any other. I believe this notion sparked Converse’s latest promotional campaign ‘Made-By-You’ where the importance of individuality is held with high regard and sharing meaningful ‘shoe-stories’ connects the Converse community. This only strengthens Converse’s reputation as a maker of ‘canvases’ which are yet to be decorated and well travelled.

Another example is Lush, the story behind these body products is that animals have no been harmed in the making, a difficult piece of information to find within the overflow of makeup and hygiene products around. And they’re not just your boring soaps and shampoos, they’re every colour, every design and made with every crushed up flower and herb you can imagine. (once again, one-of-a-kind beats abundance). Both of these examples are ‘high concept’, achieving imagination, invention and beauty that only the right-side of the brain can deliver.

2. Aspect of my life: Drinking tea. I am currently obsessed with T2! I have my favourite teas but there are so many more to try! If I became deliberately exploratory I would wish to try every tea they had to offer, understand which tea soothes a sore tummy or helps you go to sleep, I’d try tea made with soy milk, I’d visit a tea field, handpick tea leaves, investigate the history of tea and ancient Japanese tea ceremonies, search for the perfect tea-drinking vessel, pull apart a tea bag to see how it is constructed, learn what materials are used to make tea bags, mix my own tea concoctions, test the best tea dunking biscuits ..… And after all that I think It’d be safe to say I have a pretty solid understanding of tea (having thought and experimented so extensively and as creatively as I could around this one product). mmm tea!

Sammy.

#Reading1

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