Infantile Amnesia

Art & Design blog by Prativa Tamang. Full time RMIT Student. Part time coffee addict.

[infantile-amnesia]

Communication Design Studies Course Reflection

For me, participating in class activities and discussions was a great way to get introduced to the concept of communication design. The play doh activity especially provided me with a valuable insight on how symbols and imagery can be designed in a way that conveyed information efficiently and accurately through a shared understanding. Furthermore, having class discussions about good and bad book covers helped me determine what design elements and principles were needed to exist to create a good design.

Learning about scripts, designers and design movements throughout the course has allowed me to gain a vital understanding of the influences it has had in current design practices as well as in my own design practice. 

The transition from face-to-face to online was quite smooth for me as I didn't have any problems accessing resources and attending classes but I did find it hard to have in depth conversations with tutors and classmates as I didn’t have access to a microphone. I also found out that I got easily distracted and too relaxed so I had to create a strict time management plan to follow and complete my assignments on time.       

Total No. of original Posts: 30

Total No. of I have reblogged from other students: 7

Total No. of reblogs from tumblr: 3   

[artificialsykho]

blurred and out of focused film photos that i took but it still looks cool and aesthetically looks nice. tho old look is not perfect but the style very pleasing in the eye. this is why people are going back to film and old filters. i also followed the trend for the style of my final video

[infantile-amnesia]

The dark background significantly emphasises the subject matter. The lights at the back makes the overall photographs really interesting to look at. Really love the aesthetics of the pictures! very nostalgic!

[clarinemarelika]

Project 3 

After the consultations and feedbacks I’ve gotten from Ben, here is my final design. I had chosen a natural colour palette to tie the pages all together. In the pages where the interview questions are shown and written, I had decided to keep the background white to represent with the colour of a canvas. This way it’ll represent how each questions were painted and crafted on a piece of canvas. Secondly, I decided to allow the zine to have two particular characters that I am interviewing to represent the rest of the paintbrushes. This way it’ll help the audience to understand the content of my zine better and to prevent the zine being overwhelming to read. Thirdly, to show what paintbrushes create, I decided put a number of different paintbrushes strokes to both decorate the pages itself and to what paintbrushes do and make in the art/design world. Finally, I tried to make my zine to have a fun atmosphere by creating a comic of scenes of what the paintbrushes have to go through every time they’re being used and also short dialogues of the paintbrushes’ opinions in between each questions. This way, it can also show the characteristics of each paintbrushes that I was aiming on showing on my last design. 

[jacquelinenath]

I really like how you have explored with different kinds of brushes and love the comic part!!

[infantile-amnesia]

The love the way you used a mixture of collage and hand drawn images. It makes the overall zine look so unique and interesting. Awesome work!

[jacquelinenath]

Zine - Final Work in progress

This is how my final layout looks like for my zine after I have discussion with Ben through email and in class. I was quite confident after I get feedback from Ben about my layouts. 

During the process for my final, I have changed some of my layouts from previous one as some of them looks lack of elements to support my subject and I felt like something is missing. I changed the arrangement of my elements (geoetric shapes/ lines and typeface) as when I exported my pages into spread pages and I realised that my layouts are not quite attractive. So, in my question 3′s layout, I have added some elements on the right part so it doesn’t look too blank. Same with the layout for my question 4, which I decided to move the ‘Basker’ type into middle so it can fill my entire pages in both sides. I have play with negative space but I didn’t left it a lot, in order not to look boring. 

[michellekarenw]

Wow! I love the layout page, it fits the aesthetic perfectly. Page design looks neat and easily readable. Great use of colour and I like the illustration on the cover. Amazing!

[hansoloblogs]

Nice work on the theme you have there! I like the idea of keeping it clean and simple as well as the colour. Easy to read and really engaging.

[infantile-amnesia]

Every element balances so well with asymmetry. Amazing work!

[hansoloblogs]

Project 3 Video

Red Telephone Booth - Giles Gilbert Scott | Hananta Dharma 

This is my final work on the video and oh boy that took some time. This was my first time editing a video that is very detailed in all aspects such as sound, graphics, and effects. I found myself enjoying the process because I also learned lots of things in doing it from Google and YouTube. However, it was also quite frustrating and challenging at the same time. There were lots of times that what I did, did not match my expectation and is just different from the tutorials I watched on YouTube. Finding the right theme for this short documentary is quite tricky for me because I never actually made a theme for a video. Another challenge that I had to face was to find the information on Giles Gilbert Scott. There is just not much information about him and just a handful of YouTube videos about him and his works. It felt like the information I gave was very shallow and I did not dig enough. Making the visual effects also took me a long time. I had to make sure that it corresponds to what I am talking about.

All in all, I am happy with what I made and I hope it is informative as well as easy to be understood.

Link to the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/SnBWlG4f7ZE

[jacquelinenath]

The video looks so good!! I like how you have edited your video and I realised that you have played with the tone for your sentences which makes the content attractive and engaging.

[infantile-amnesia]

Thanks for sharing your video. It was awesome! I never thought about the design of objects like these. When you talked about the colour, it was great to see that you put in the colourwheel as well. The visualisation was brillliant. 

[joanna-nana-blog]

ASK ME ANYTHING! (FINAL WORK)

This my final work. The overall design style is similar to Paul Rand’s style, it’s very colorful. And I think his style is very childish, so you can see that I used some interesting design elements in my zine. Then I changed my 5 question, I think now the problem may be more in line with Paul Rand. Although I have encountered many difficulties in the process of doing it, I need to improve constantly. But I am very happy with the final work, and I enjoy the process very much!

[infantile-amnesia]

Wow! the colours, despite being constrating to each other, balances so well. Your layout is so well composed. I love how it interacts with one another in interesting ways. 

[infantile-amnesia]

Assessment 3: Ask Me Anything 

What a wild ride this one was. I had a lot of composition problems before but I finally settled on being a bit more adventurous with the layout. For me, the highlight of this assessment was the research because Totoro has always been one of my favourites so it was great to get a chance to learn about his design. Thank you to classmates that provided me with feedback. It really helped me figure things out and improve on my practice.

[infantile-amnesia]

Assessment 3: Drafts

In this assessment, I experiemented with colour, type and layout. When I was playing around in photoshop, the colour changed to a  brown hue with saturation in blues. I found this aesthetic very much like an old photograph and through it also symbolised the dying art of hand drawn animation. I wanted this aesthetic to be a part of my overall work but it didn’t work with most of the images where it just became pale and unseeable and it also didn’t portray a happy tone of voice which I wanted to reflect the personaltiy of Totoro. So I chucked this idea to the bin. 

I liked the way the paragraphs were squared as it gave Totoro a confident personality. I used a handwritting font for Totoro to portray the traditional side of art that the movie has. 

In my layout, I received feedback from Ben and my classmates about putting flow between the pages and connecting them with colours for example. 

[infantile-amnesia]

27th May, 2020: Layout Exercise

This exercise helped me gain a insight into layout as I realised elements could be composed in a way that makes it dominant or less dominant in a page. 

[infantile-amnesia]

Lecture #11: What’s Next for Design?

Technology have and will have a lasting effect on design. It allows us to think broader and reach new limits other than just pen and paper. When I use photoshop or illustrator, I am able to explore more and experiment will colour, shapes and type with efficiency. This type of technologies influences our thinking and ultimately our design practices as well. 

References:

Eyewriter. (N.D). The Eyewriter,http://www.eyewriter.org/

My Modern Met. (N.D).  AI Creates 100,000 Computer-Generated Faces That Look So Incredibly Real, https://mymodernmet.com/free-ai-generated-faces/

[infantile-amnesia]

13th May, 2020: Collage activity

This was a fun activity to do as I was able to explore composition through collage. I didn’t have magazine around the house, instead I used online image resources to do the activity. I liked how the cutting didn’t have to be so percise. It made the man pop out and look like he was stuck on. This aesthetic is, what I think, makes a collage.

[infantile-amnesia]

Week #10 Lecture: Contemporary Design Activism

“Design has the power to give a voice to people and causes without access to multimillion-dollar advertising budgets and to offer people alternative visions of how the world might be.” – The Design Activist’s Handbook 

“...a design that conveys strength and seriousness, that asserts itself as statement and fact, one that cannot be questioned.” - Madeleine Morley  

Design has the ability to address social issues and advertise social change through using all its forms to evoke strong emotional reactions and stimulate thought. Activism design relays information in a easily understood, all inclusive manner with colour, images, type and carefully selected words that strikes the heart and the mind. 

References:

Madeleine Morley. (2017). What Design Can Do: Spark Social Change, https://99u.adobe.com/articles/55317/what-design-can-do-spark-social-change

Ben Miles. (N.D).  Design Activism: Stand up if you want to be a designer, https://www.interbrand.com/au/views/design-activism-stand-want-designer/

Adbusters. (N.D). Spoof Ads, https://www.adbusters.org/spoof-ads

Benson Kua. (2010).  File:Rainbow flag breeze.jpg, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rainbow_flag_breeze.jpg

[eatsleepdraw]

I did this comic on the first day of quarantine here in Italy. More quarantine advice here.

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Thanks for submitting!

💥Follow @eatsleepdraw on Instagram for more Inspiration & Submissions

[clarinemarelika]

[Project 1]

I feel like I haven’t talked about my first project that much. I’ve just been posting about the process and the materials I used but I havent exactly talked about the other stuff that are in my poster. In this post, I’m going to mainly talk about the question. It’s crazy how I talked about almost all of them except for the question, the main part/ the start of the project. Well, I made this question during the first week of uni on the Image and Identity lecture. The lecturer was talking about design and giving motivation on starting off in uni when I thought of the question. Originally, I came up with three different questions which are:

- How can our senses allow us to have inspiration to do design?

- To what extent can our creative mind shape how we express ourselves?

- What makes a creative piece a design?

However, I chose the third question because:

1. its the shortest one, the longer the question is the harder it is to think about the layout of the poster

2. it’s the one that makes the most sense

[infantile-amnesia]

The way you used the half carrot slice to make the P is really interesting. Instead of using the whole carrot slice, you built up the bowl of th P with smaller Ps. It would be funny if the P was made with peas. Really cool poster.

[infantile-amnesia]

Week #9 Lecture: Post Modern Punks

“Working class angst, coupled with the frustrations of living underneath the weight of establishment gave birth to punk’s characteristic ideals, sound, and attitude. It was also fertile ground for a new kind of design aesthetic—a communication style that shared the same ideologies that the movement came to represent. ” - Mark Haely

Opposite to the pratices of Bauhaus, the punk rock movement disregarded most elements and principles of design to portray anarchy and rebellion. They used the method of collage which allowed type, shapes, images and balance to be inconsistent and that of which reflected the disorder of their society as well as visualised their liberty.

References: https://www.ceros.com/originals/punk-rock-graphic-design/

[infantile-amnesia]

Week#8 Lecture: The Futurists

“An Italian movement in art and literature catalyzed by a 1909 manifesto published in a newspaper by Italian poet F. T. Marinetti. The text celebrated new technology and modernization while advocating for a violent and decisive break from the past. Working in the years just before World War I, the Futurists portrayed their subjects—often humans, machines, and vehicles in motion—with fragmented forms and surfaces that evoke the energy and dynamism of urban life in the early 20th century.” - MoMa

The art and design of the futurists produces a sense of energy and movement through the use of bold colours and repeating dynamic lines and shapes .There is control in the disorganisation which allows the viewer to draw meaning and emotions from its forms. 

References:

MoMa. (N.D). Futurism. https://www.moma.org/collection/terms/46

The Art History. (N.D). Artworks and Artists of Futurism, https://www.theartstory.org/movement/futurism/artworks/

[infantile-amnesia]

22nd April 2020: Messing up my poster

Experimenting with effects and colours took on a Dalieque/surreal approach to the poster. The 3d aesthetic along with gradients of contrasting colours has allowed the objects to lose all or some of it’s original identiy, bending their reality. The poster now portrays a different tone of voice and personaltiy. From a calm and friendly characteristics to a more intense and energetic identity.