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Course reflection_online reflective journal #3

The time went by so fast, this is the end of the semester and I could say that I have had a great journey on this specific course Communication Design Studies. Even though there were many challenges during the process, I received good insights and achieved success in this field. Andy, a nice and dedicated teacher, he always supported and helped me a lot in terms of developing projects and not only that he was a considerate and friendly teacher. In addition, I had experienced and explored the two main projects in this course which made me feel more confident in the creation of the design process. The value thing that I had gained was layout and sketching play an significant role in developing the design process. In other words, even though we all needed to complete our final artifact through adobe software, at the starting points when getting inspiration and creation it needed brainstorming or some hand sketches. All of these projects improved my critical thinking and organized design as well.

At the situation when moving to online learning, I found it was challenging and unproductive to me. It took time for me to adapt with this type of learning and I was also quite disappointed because of losing the interpersonal skills. The fact that during the online sessions I was distracted a lot with my phone, social media, even meals,etc. Not to mention that was an unavoidable thing when studying online. But overall, I still completed and dealed with my work effectively and I could say that was an unforgettable journey to me.

I’m glad that I had a chance to connect with friendly and kind peers. They sometimes inspired me in my work and gave me lots of good feedback during the course. I really appreciated that.

Overall, this course has brought me to the thoughtful understanding of key design methods and social movements and social contexts that play in the development of Communication Design.

Project 3_online reflective journal #11

This is my final zine for the last project “Ask me anything!”. My zine is about interviewing one of the most famous Surrealism historical artworks, named “The Persistence of Memory” by Salvador Dali. It was such a great insights and experiences to me in terms of creating this process and this is my first time to design an interview zine. I realized that how important of creating effective questions for the specific movement and how I can response it efficiently. At the starting points, I researched for many of historical art movements and in the end I decided on the Surrealism movement because it was really inspired and impressed to me in my creation of design perspective. To put it another way, Surrealism movement has a strong impact in the historical art so it easy for me to dig a deep analysis for this masterpiece. However, this specific project based on the researching which was not a real interview in person so I found it quite challenging in terms of creating the questions and responses. After that I had asked Andy for comments on choosing my final questions and I finally got the right directions to achieve the goal. For the designing, I chose the vintage style to develop my zine that used brown and dark brown to be the base colours for this whole piece of work. Moreover, I also found some related images to make the work looks more diverse and interesting. In conclusion, I could recognize the value of this project is to develop and apply the fundamental and appropriate context and purpose-oriented research analysis method. Not only that I can also develop a well-organised and considered document that promotes reader efficiency and comprehension.

Lecture 10_online reflective journal #10

One of the other things during this lecture that really attracted me was the Calvin Klein packaging by Tibor Kalman. It was such an interesting design I have never seen before and I was more surprised with it by the implication behind it. Andy and Karen provided me the truth that Ck did objectify the human body in order to sell clothing and the designer was commenting on the human body being used as an object like a piece of meat. Overall, this lecture has led me through many of the new insights with different definitions that really helpful to me to expand my knowledge about communication design studies. The most important thing is that I realized the significant role of the concepts behind each of the designs that is not just the final artifact but the ideas underneath and the way how it communicates effectively. In the week 10 lecture, I have been educated with many new sections about communication design and starting from coming up with some questions “Why we design?” or “How the reasons we design may change over the time”. More than that, this specific lecture has provided me lots of interesting images in terms of art and design activism. Karen and Andy also defined the operation of conceptualism in artwork and its functions, then they introduced the collage and contemporary design in the end. Here is the example of the unique collage activity from Mimmo Rotella. As the first sight, it is hard to recognize that this piece of artwork is an opposite process rather than starting with the images that glued on to the paper. Mimmo did in the opposite way by tearing glued posters away from whatever underneath and finally it created an artistic and interesting piece.

I learned that the conceptual artwork is that the idea or concept play the most important role aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair (LeWitt, ‘Paragraphs on Conceptual Art’, Artforum Vol.5, no. 10, Summer 1967, pp. 79-83). Moreover, Andy mentioned the fact that this kind of design does not just contain traditional forms such as painting or sculptures, it can be more than that. It is believed that a conceptual artist uses whatever materials and whatever form is most appropriate to putting their idea across – this could be anything from a performance to a written description. At this point, he showed us a particular example of the conceptual artwork “How to work better” in 1991 by Fishchill and Weiss.

Then Andy moves to the next section which is art activism. Rainbow flag, designed by Baker, is a symbol we do keep in mind whenever we mention art activism. As Baker claimed that flag is another form of art and it’s not just a painting or it’s not just a logo or a cloth, but it can be seen as an identification type in terms of the LGBT community. Furthermore, this flag symbol was associated with this gay culture in 1970s in San Fransisco.

Overall, this lecture has led me through many of the new insights with different definitions that really helpful to me to expand my knowledge about communication design studies. The most important thing is that I realized the significant role of the concepts behind each of the designs that is not just the final artifact but the ideas underneath and the way how it communicates effectively.

Lecture 7_online reflective journal #9

Making the connection between the last lecture and this one, Andy and Karen had emphasized further the connection of grid and brick in terms of the typography. Moreover, in this lecture it also gave us many interesting facts about the Bauhaus school of design, architecture, and applied arts that existed in Germany from 1919 to 1933. By the Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica mentioned that the Bauhaus was founded by the architect Walter Gropius, who combined two schools, the Weimar Academy of Arts and the Weimar School of Arts and Crafts into what he called the Bauhaus or “house of building” a name derived by inverting the German word “Hausbau”, “building of a house”. Bauhaus school, a place in which many of the artists were influenced by movements in their own design pathway such as Paul Klee, Oskar Schlemmer, the painter Wassily Kandinsky, etc.

He showed some of the design works from this school which was really attractive and stunning. While digging deeply about the construction of this specific school, I realized the fact that teaching design is not as a specialized skill but as a combination of the artist activities. Otherwordly, through this lecture our teacher discussed some of the included activities at Bauhaus school such as craftsmanship, weaving workshop and theater and stage craft that contribute to the modernist ideals. Furthermore, the movement was not only applied in the architecture area but also in furniture design and page space. At this point, Karen said that it needs to be considered about the link of what we see on the page and how we design the page with both negative and positive space. In next perspective, they were introduced us about the way of approaching the exsiting materials in design which was called the Truth in design or authenticity. It was emphasized that some of the interior designs were inspired from the daily objects surrounding and for example, Breuer’s chair design which was truly inspired by the handlebars of a bicycle. Here are some of the images about his designs.

This is the image of the teachers in Bauhaus school and as we can see obviously that the male-dominated situation here. Before hearing from Karen about why most of the teachers in this school are male, I thought that whether or not in this century gender is still decentralized. Then, Karen has given me the unexpected response that Walter Gropius believed intensely that “women could not think in three dimensions” and she also explained that female teachers in Bauhaus were working on two-dimensional art activities.

Continuingly, Andy had brought this diagram of the specific course in Bauhaus school which demonstrates that before reaching the goals such as making or building, students all need to move through the study of materials and tools, of nature, of construction and gain knowledge in how the materials behave or apply. And again from this perspective, I learned that experiment with the materials plays an important role in terms of making the actual and authentic designs. At the end of this lecture, there is a Youtube video about the Triadic ballet, the artistic form in Western European, by Slimmers was appealing with man-machine hybrids. In this video that is not only showed machenic movements but also the colour theory, space using and the geometric patterns. Such an impressive video! Not to mention that, the good message Andy and Karen has taught me is that practicing design does not in only specific Adobe sites or a specific design project and even it is not merely in terms of design artifacts but it does mean that your design is the space and the environment around you. We will see, touch and absorb everything which makes the connections to the colours you’re using.

source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bauhaus

Activity 7_online journal reflection #8

For this week I was provided with the new activity which is called Architexture (Rear window). In this activity, I need to find some of the architectures that represent the letter forms clearly and take a photo of those things. This was such a fun activity to me and I also realized that objects around me can represent for many letter forms. Here are some of my photos I took while I was hanging out.

The first picture - letter “P”, it is a handle stairs in front of the H&M towel.

The second picture - letter “A”, it is a thing that people use for keeping the bicycles. They can use the key chains to hang through the wheels.

The third picture - letter “H”, I took this one at home and this is my table chair.

Activity 6_online reflective journal #7

In this part, it provided an activity which is called the shapeshifters. This activity dig me a deeper understanding about the letter forms were created based on the grid systems and also included the mathematic sight. I experienced this activity and here are some of my results.

I created my own name by placing the piece of the papers which I cut by folding the square shape. Actually, I don’t have the colour paper so I used the quite paper for the design. I realized that the radius of quarter circle shapes is not have the same length with the side of the triangle shapes that make it looks not balance much for the typefaces. Overall, I received good outcomes from this activity.

Lecture 6_online reflective journal #6

In this week, we had been provided with an interesting lecture and an activity which was made me understand that how the words were created base on the grids and I also could apply my creation in these work from home-day. The main points of this lecture are about the introduction and theory of the pagespace and the images that were designed by typography and reminded of the grid systems. To put it another way, Andy and Karen showed many of the examples from their book’s collection which was really great and helpful. He showed us the typography book with the san-serif style ad discussed about the space in printing page. Moreover, it was mentioned that empty space or the organization of the page plays an important role in terms of design.

Here is the example that he mentioned in the lecture and the fact that it become a manual design to the teacher. Furthermore, Andy also gave us some images about the experiments of creating typefaces with various textures. And Karen mentioned that the creation of the image by the typography is not only through the way by written words but through the form that they are placed on the page.

This is the quote which I was really attracted in this lecture. The truth was mentioned that the typographer in 20th century was telling us we are working with or even for the machine. This is an expected statement to me and even my thought right now that how the design approaches without machine. In the end of the lecture, Andy and Karen showed us their own book which was produced in the few years ago about the serif typefaces in terms of three-dimensional and it also included the good quality images about the printing system. It such a gorgeous and fantastic book! Wishing to have a chance to read through it.

Lecture 5_online reflective journal #5

In the last 2 weeks, I have had a lecture about the industrialization of print from the very old days until the present. From this lecture, our class’s lecture sections were changed to be online structures which I found that it was more effective by the way it allowed us to take notes during the recordings and remember what I write than what I see. Through this lecture week 5, Andy, our teacher, represented to us the way of developing original letter forms from many inventors in the past which was really useful and interesting. I learned that the definition of the movable type is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document usually on the medium of paper. In the lecture, it has mentioned Johannes Gutenberg’s invention which was his first major book printed in terms of mass production movable type. Moreover, he analysed the fact that the original word press came from print shops while the ink was pressed down on the paper. Another statement that while the increase of printed-book, it showed evidence of the decrease of humanistic scribal activity and here is the demonstration from the old time.

One of the interesting insights in this lecture is that the building of a letter form comes from a religious aspect or a mythological aspect that is connected to human form. To put it another way, many regions find mathematical principles or proportions and apply on fonts in order to link mathematics with letter forms with human aspects.

At the end of the lecture, he also provided us with the very first steam-powered printing press in 1814 which I was really impressed with this unique design and it said that the early printing has not changed much to our present. These new insights led me to a deeper view sight about the industrialization of print and I am now more confident about the knowledge of printing as well as the print fonts’ culture.

“Hello, my question is...”_online reflective journal #4

In my second week of Communication Design Studies class, our teacher provided us with the very first project in this course, named “Hello, my question is…”. It sounded really interesting to me at first and I realized how important it is to create my own question in terms of the design area in which the answer would be replied through this specific course. In this project, it was required that I needed to develop my open question about communication design based on my own experiences and what I have learnt so far. Furthermore, I represented my question by using the combination of materials or any stuff in order to design the letter forms and then photograph it to submit on canvas at the end. And here are some of my practices with this activity.

These two images are similar by using the different kinds of materials to come up with the letter forms. However, I had tried the 2 different backgrounds for my final one and I found that even though the first photo was clear and readable by the white paper below made it more contrasting, it was not effective because it didn’t balance and bring enough space around the questions. And my final is the second image, I chose the wood table to be my background and it looks better than the previous arrangement. While I was doing this activity, it quite challenged me to find the objects and also the final question. I learnt that the creation in visual interpretation of my question design and the conceptual in terms of critical thinking. Now I can expand my knowledge about the technical expertise of making the letter forms which is really helpful for my near studies.

Scribal activity_online reflective journal #3

For our activities in week 3, me and my classmates have been experienced on clay and it is such a great activity to me. In that tutorial class, Andy had discussed the scribal activity which we got used to with clay in order to create our own tablet name. I haven’t done this kind of activity before so I found it really interesting and funny. At first, we created a mini tablet by using the clay dough with the stick and then we took as much as necessary time to write our name on it, then wrote it in one minute and did it again in 30 seconds. And here are the results I got from those activities.

As it can be seen that there are quite different shapes between those results. The aim of these activities is to dig a deeper understanding of efficiency writing and to consider the changes that must be created to letter forms when carved onto the clay dough.

Moreover, we also sent a lovely message to each other at our table by asking a normal question. This activity expanded on this kind of ancient communication deeper, it made fun and also let us know the concept of communication in the old days. In the last activity which was to draw our facial part, I chose my right eye to draw on my mini tablet. Specifically, we needed to make them as basic as we could.

In reflection, through these activities which gave me new insights about the ancient concept in terms of communication and digged a deeper understanding to me about the way of scribal long time ago.

Melbourne Museum_Online reflective journal #2

Two weeks ago, me and my friends had a fantastic journey in Melbourne Museum. This is my first time have been there, such a great day with my lovely friends! I gained lots of experiences and had deeper knowledge about Australia's indigenous people. Moreover, it was also inspired me in terms of a creative art mindset which was really useful to me for my near studies. For the first impression of this place, it was such a huge gorgeous Museum and the space inside was an airy environment. There were a lots of areas in this place such as Science and Life gallery, Melbourne gallery, Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre, etc. We had visited all of these areas and one of the most interesting places here was the Bunjilaka Cutural Centre, a place showing the living traditions and knowledge of the Australia First Peoples which made me really impressed with this new insights information. Furthermore, they also exhibited some artworks about their culture in an abstract way which expressed their culture’s beauty through amazing art. It was a valid experience to me to explore my knowledge about the art style and also the humanities here which I really admired. For my near studies, these new insights were good strategies for me to bounce initiatives and build my piece of artwork.

MABF_Online reflective journal

In the week 2 of the course, me and my classmates enjoyed an interesting visit to the Melbourne Art Book Fair at the NGV. I realized that it’s really important to consult and refer about the majors that we are looking for.This is my first time experiencing an exhibition about art and design books, such a great feeling! There are a lot of stalls in this place, each of them representing a specific area in the design world such as: architecture, photagraphy, interior, graphic,etc (shown in photo). Specifically, almost of these stuff were made by students in RMIT, not only books but they also created the tote bag, badges, etc. We hung around in this place, read and found out some engaging books which were helpful for us in our pathway. I was so inspired and admired by their creative and unique ideas which I believed that are significant perspectives in terms of successful design work. Furthermore, the way they ultilise their skills, develop their mind in art effectively brings me good insights on this fantastic journal. These new insights led me to the deeper understanding that the art world is diverse and unlimited creation, so we should open our mind to catch up on some new and creative initiatives from other artists which express our respect and also gain lessons for ourselves. This journal was really useful so that I can apply in my studies in the near future.

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