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Lily's Lost and Found Ideas

[ideaslostandfound-blog]

FINAL REFLECTION!!

I thoroughly enjoy the hands on, class activities.  Interacting with my peers and exploring design thinking together has been an invaluable experience.

Through the use of the CommDesign Reader, I've accessed insightful design writing. It was interesting to see the different historical movements through the lenses of past designers.

I was inspired by the generative design utilised by MIT Media Lab. It was groundbreaking in many ways  (I made a separate Tumblr post about this). Eric Benson, the designer I interviewed for my Zine was also a great inspiration. It is exciting and encouraging to know there is a guide and advocate for sustainable design practices.

From here I would like to further explore coding, 3D printing (Thingyverse) and AI-aided design such as Metapolator. I think design is inevitably going to collide with AI and technology. Like a speeding train, you either get on board or get left behind.

Quotes that will continue to influence me as a designer:

"A designer who can't code is like a chef who can't cook"  Karen Ann Donnachie

"A good designer is one that can move easily between disciplines" Andy Simonato (sorry for paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it).

[ideaslostandfound-blog]

ZINE RATIONALE/REFLECTION

My zine focused on sustainability in graphic design. My interviewee Eric Benson promotes and teaches sustainable design, and will be someone whose guides and resources I continue to utilise in the future.

I believe in the re-purposing and reusing of items over recycling. My zine reflects this in that it is a book, a poster, sow-able seeds, compostable and recyclable. I think the onus should not always fall on the consumer to be sustainable. As designers, we have a responsibility to create things that are quality, long-lasting and When we design, the end of an item's life cycle is as important if not more, that its beginning in the distributing shop. It is important for sustainable design to be considered for every designed project. It needs to be a given, not a niche.

Making this zine really allowed me to rediscover the hidden beauty of the world around us. Creativity doesn't always have to come from destroying the existing to make an entirely new thing, sometimes it is the adaptation and the working alongside existing systems and materials that feel even more rewarding. In this day and age where we are surrounded by technology, it is refreshing to get hands on with the aid of the original designer: mother nature.

[ideaslostandfound-blog]

work station!!

messy but working

Made a “pen” using a skewer, a cork and a rubber band. Fully adjustable,

the cork adds a nice weight to the skewer, as well as a grip. 

[ideaslostandfound-blog]

Natural decorations

I'm experimenting with pressed flowers, and using them as a natural and aesthetic adornment for my zine. Whilst I've heard of this practice before, this is my first time trying it myself.

I placed delicate fresh flowers between the pages of a notepad, and put heavy books on top of it. I am looking forward to including these as natural pollution free decorations on my zine.

[ideaslostandfound-blog]

leaf printing

I trialled a variety of leaves and natural inks. Beetroot juice was the most successful, and to my surprise the majority of the leaves did not yield a desirable result. The ones with thick veins worked well, as the beetroot juice is not as viscous as paint. 

To make the beetroot ink I boiled chopped beetroots and blended it into a puree. It was then strained and became ready to use.

There is something wonderful about using natural materials that fit with each other, there is a connection and feeling of harmony.

[theweeklyzine]

I like this sentence. In school I learned it’s good to repeat a sentence to memorize it. So I did. in-zine (really bad pun with ‘insane’ and 'zine’)

Ich mag diesen Satz. In der Schule habe ich gelernt, dass es gut ist, Sätze zu wiederholen um sie sich einzuprägen. Also tat ich das. Wahn-zine.

zine by @just_floymi

[ideaslostandfound-blog]

TEA AND COFFEE:

I was confident in the success of coffee and tea as inks. I had previously seen artists use them as paint to create amazing work.

I used strong black tea and espresso, yet the colours were still quite light. Through my experimentations I found that these 'inks' could be layered in a similar way to watercolour. To write the text I used a thin bamboo skewer, to maxmise legibility whilst pertaining to the natural and sustainable theme. The blackberry 'ink', whilst proving unsuccessful in printmaking, seem to be a great natural alternative to the popular blue pen.

It should be noted the text trials here were both done on recycled paper, instead of photocopying paper. To be honest I am faced with a dilemma. Recycled paper suits my theme of sustainability, yet the kind I can access is coated, making it hard to absorb the natural inks I am using. An uncoated, watercolour pad would be better to carry the ink, but it won't be recyclable. A design decision I will need to make.

[ideaslostandfound-blog]

Leaf Printing: Blackberry

Blackberry juice seems to consist of water and flecks of blackberry. 

This created rather unclear leaf patterns. Will trial this method with beetroot 

juice, should produce better results.

[ideaslostandfound-blog]

MIT LOGOS

MIT Media Lab made an algorithm that generated over 40000 variations of the same logo, and chose 1000 out of those for the staff and students to use. I found out about this design project only last week. In fact, this idea that seem so new and groundbreaking to me, was actually executed in 2011!! What’s more, since then they have replaced the logo in 2014, with another set of timeless and Bauhaus inspired glyphs. Times are moving fast, but is it a revolving door? You could have convinced me the algorithm generated logos were as new as last week, does that prove its timelessness or my naivety?

Another inspirational logo from MIT is the MIT Press logo. The lines extend just slightly, to hint at the letters “MP” short for MIT Press. This simplistic style pays homage to the Bauhaus movement, and feels like it fits in with the modern day minimalism trend. It is hard calling this type of design ‘inspirational’. It is so conservative and minimal, that it leaves little to no trace of its conception, no clues or footprints in which we could follow without plagiarising exactly. It is such a simple representation, you could argue anyone could have made it, but it is the thought and idea that is truly important.

Good ideas makes others regret not having thought of it first.

[ideaslostandfound-blog]

Images sources: http://eyewriter.org/images/

https://www.reddit.com/r/bladerunner/comments/7wx0xw/blade_runner_2049_movie_barcode/

TECH AND ART

Last Friday we learnt about how technology and art are intertwining and even combining.

The eye writer helps people like famous graffiti artists Tempt1, who can only move his eyes due to ALS, to materialise the ideas trapped within his brain.

OPEN DESIGN

There are many benefits to 'open design'. The sharing of info is then spread via tech communities. This is cheap, available and all learning and code are shared with a global community.

DATA

By the time u get to my age (19 years old), you have generated enough data to read for the rest of your life. So what do we do with all this information?

what can we learn from these piles of data? Is it art, information or both?

Movie bar codes are these seemingly random colour lines, which are actually the result of every frame in a movie reduced to its average colour. The above example is a condensed version of Blade Runner 2049. We can analyse trends and summarise the colour choices corresponding to key moments of movies. As data build up, we may need to rely on devices such as these to assist us in comprehension, to prevent being overwhelmed.

ADOBE

I had no idea that creative cloud has been tracking every one of my strokes and tool choices in the Adobe programs!  This feels rather uncomfortable, but it isn’t all bad. For example, the spot removal/blemish fixing tool is the smart and efficient tool it is because of the data collected.

[weandthecolor]

Fixture Font Family from Sudtipos

Read more at WE AND THE COLOR or get the font from MyFonts.

Follow WE AND THE COLOR on: Facebook I Twitter I Pinterest I YouTube I Instagram

[ideaslostandfound-blog]

this blue is so good

[ideaslostandfound-blog]

INK-MAKING: BERRIES

For my sustainable zine, I trialled blackberry and raspberry ink.

I mashed the berries, and used a chopstick to write text using the juices.

After heating the blackberries, it became red? Which was bizarre and unexpected. 

Overall both berries were more watery than the beetroot juice. They could still be used to draw large patterns, and shapes where legibility isn’t as crucial as it is for text. 

[ideaslostandfound-blog]

VEG INKS for ZINE

part 1: beetroot

In keeping with the sustainability theme, I got my hands dirty (or stained with beetroot juice at least) making ink out of natural ingredients.

A really effective technique was using cookie cutters to cut out raw beetroot shapes. Their natural flexibility is similar to rubber, being hard and soft. 

This allowed them to be used as stamps, self-inking ones too!

I also tried to make abstract patterns, by repetition of simple shapes like small rectangles. I cut a piece of thin, paint brush-like beetroot and drew lines that mimicked a wood grain. I also tried scoring the beetroot with a knife, then using the ink that seeped out of the cuts to produce a grid-like pattern. These techniques could make decorative or informative pictures for my zine.

beetroot juice was trialled at many different stages of rawness/processed state. -raw -boiled for a short time -boiled for a long time -stick blended and strained

I found that whilst they all seemed vibrant and legible when wet, the stick blended and strained method produced the most concentrated ink. The other variants tend to soak through the paper and bleed more, as they contain more water. Although as I became more familiar with the medium the quality also improved, for example I learnt to write in a fast joined writing so that the juice will not gather in one place and soak through the paper.

Most of the handwriting was done using a chopstick dipped in the inks. A chopstick kind of represents using a wooden stick, as I didn't want to use 'artificially created' paint brushes. A chopstick provided a good amount of stiffness, making it easy to control. However the writing was too large for my liking, so I may have to use a paintbrush in the end after all.

[ideaslostandfound-blog]

Interview Acquired *`*`*.>

Finally I got a reply!!! From a designer and researcher: Eric Benson.

Fast facts about Eric: -passionate about sustainability in graphic design -co-founder of Re-nourish -co-founder of Fresh press -Based in Illinois, USA -Makes paper from agriculture industry leftovers -currently working with local library to introduce sustainable paper -loves writing -Chair of Graphic Design at University of Illinois

Won't put his actual answers on here, 'least not 'till they are in zine form. 

STAY TUNED

[ideaslostandfound-blog]

Interview Questions

            How do potential clients see sustainable graphic design? What’s                          prompting some to choose these eco-friendly alternatives, and what’s                  stopping others?

            How can a university student or junior designer promote sustainable                    graphic design?

            What are 3 things you wish you knew when you were starting out as a                  designer/design student?

            What are the main challenges of being a sustainable designer?

            What kind of environment inspires you? Is this the same space you work              in?

            What’s one tool you cannot design without? Why?

            Do you have a design/life motto? How did it come to be?

            What’s a past project of yours that you felt has made an impact?

            What’s next for you?

            What do you think will be the next big thing in communication design?

These are the interview questions I wrote a while ago, decided to put them here on record. I did some research on my interviewee as well as how to write interview questions, as I'm pretty unfamiliar with interviews. I decided to provide 10 questions and let my interviewee choose 5. This allows the person some freedom to choose questions they feel engaged with, resulting in stronger and more organic answers. As opposed to forcing the person to answer questions they don't want to or don't have a strong opinion on.

[northnord]

Here’s an oldie/goodie via Oleg Portnoy, Flavio Carvalho and Sid Lee (full credits on the Behance page linked in the quote below):

In 2014 MLSE unveiled the new Raptors Brand Identity, following the We The North campaign. The Sid Lee design teams was tasked with developing the new brand identity mark for the team as well as designing the uniforms and street wear for the Raptors.

[ideaslostandfound-blog]

awesome and simple yet effective logo !!

[ideaslostandfound-blog]

MY FIRST ZINE

Why is it called a zine? Are designers too cool for 'magazine'?

Last week made my first zine from a single A3 sheet, folded, stapled and trimmed. It turned out surprisingly 'professional' for  something assembled in under half an hour. It just goes to show you don't need to go to a printer to produce neat and beautiful work.

We had a template to follow, and even then it was a little difficult and confusing. The first person who worked out how to do this way back must have had many trials and errors, does this count as an engineering job? Is that why I struggled with the directions of the pages and images? should more designers be able to think like an engineer? but if we did, do we lose our creativity?