Communication Design

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GRAP2199 Reflection 

I started this course not knowing what to expect. 

Over the past semester I have learnt so much, and pushed myself out of my comfort zone. The lectures allowed me to have a greater understanding of historical elements linked to the areas of design we were working on at the time. For instance learning about clay tablets then a few weeks later making our own type out of shapes. It was all connected somehow and made the workshops so much more interesting, having knowledge of the topic prior to the activities. 

Being able to look through this tumblr is a reflection of its own.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this course and have gained so much inspiration from my peers and lecturers, leaving me constantly curious about what can be created next.

[thatsmistersunshinetoyou]

small handcrafted zines from a lifetime ago

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I came across this post a few weeks ago and looking back at it now I think it sparked the idea of making my zine the very organic and hand made way I did. 

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FINALLY... the zine is complete!

Today I finished making my zine, after numerous attempts. I was only able to make one other copy that I am happy with, as the hands on process made it very difficult to mass produce. I will also bring in one of my earlier attempts to our exhibition as it is almost identical to my final with just a few colour changes here and there, meaning that I have more work to share with the class. 

After completing this assignment I felt a sense if accomplishment, I am very happy with how my zine turned out. I also showed my creative, Nicola, who was very happy with the end result. 

Finishing this final assignment gave me a chance to get on tumblr and reflect upon all my old posts. I think it’s a very nice platform to be able to look back on my previous work and see how far I have come throughout this semester. 

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The Eyewriter

The one thing that left me inspired from this weeks lecture was the extraordinary case study of Tempt1’s eye tracker project! This project provides paralysed humans with a functioning and creative mind to be able to graffiti wrote by using only their eyes! This computer program has been proved successful and it a very powerful and inspiring creation!

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Couldn't agree more!! This was one of the main things I took away from this weeks lecture as well. It is so inspiring seeing creations like this that can have such a positive impact on someones life. 

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27/05/19

Progress #5 - “Ask me anything!”

- I have finished my zine(s)! After successfully CMYK printing Ashley’s illustrations over the Riso print, I chose to bind my zines with a thick thread. If you look closely in the first image, you can see that I used a selection of fluro pink, white and turquoise/white ribbon. My personal favourite would be the combination of white and turquoise, as it adds a quirky element to the design. You can see the process of the binding in the last image, which is a photo of my workspace. 

The second photograph shows my finished imposition. I really love how bright and vibrant the colours turned out to be, however I wished I used more pink!! As I just love how fluorescent it is.

Now it’s time to produce some more of these so I can hand them out to family and friends.

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I love how bright and vibrant this zine looks!! I also think the colour combination is super effective.    :)

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New found obsession with small zines 

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Week Twelve 

This week I made a more detailed prototype where I used similar paper to what I want to use in my final, as well as similar sized text and imagery. As you can see, at this stage I still didn't have the answers from my creative so I just used white paper to fill the space I thought the answer would. I received my answers just before the workshop this week, so I spent this lesson reading over them and fixing any spelling or grammar, then printed out the questions, answers, and creatives work so that I could create one more prototype that is more refined. I also used this lesson to gain some feedback from others on my table about the prototype I brought in, which was very encouraging and helpful. Because I have decided to go with a more hand made, organic looking zine I was having trouble thinking of ways to make a few extra for our zine exhibition next week. After talking to a few people on my table I came to the conclusion that I can either scan the original to make more copies or even just print out the collages in a lower quality for the copies so that it doesn't cost too much. 

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Week Eleven

This week was very much about being practical and hands on. We were given the lesson to work on our zines and encouraged to make prototypes. I liked this activity as I got to see my zine slowly come to life. First I printed off my 8 page zine that I created on Indesign last lesson. and stapled it together. I then folder an A3 piece of paper to create an A5, 8 page zine. I used this to try and map out my questions and answers. I found that after roughly laying out my content into the zine I wanted to try making one with more pages. I got another A3 piece of paper and this time folded it one more time creating a 16 page zine. I found this worked a lot better when I laid out the question, answers, and my creatives work. Overall this workshop helped me get a better understanding of what I want my final zine to look like, by having a visual hand on prototype to play around with. 

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Week Ten 

This week in class we were given an online template for an 8 page zine. We used this workshop to make a practice zine on InDesign. I found this very helpful as I had lots of questions and things to learn, being new to inDesign. Above is my practice 8 page zine, where I just used random photos from a past trip to Cambodia. It is not perfect and still needs some work but it was good to learn the basics and now have InDesign as an option to use for my final outcome. 

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Week Nine

This workshop was focused on collage and letterforms. We were given a whole lot of magazines to photocopy and cut out. It was all about following the shapes within the image but also knowing when to let go and create your own. This was a very enjoyable process, I think everyone become more comfortable with it towards the end, after coming to terms with the idea that the print outs were not precious and we didn’t need to be scared of making mistakes. This allowed us to really push our boundaries and create something that maybe otherwise we wouldn’t have. The last image above is of the letter G that I created. This was my favourite one out of the letterforms I created as I think it displays following the lines, yet then creating my own very well. 

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Week Eight 

This lesson we got to explore the campus and look for letterforms. It started off easy as we got some of the more basic letterforms really fast, such as O, I and X. We then had to become a little more creative to find letter forms like the A pictured above. This photo was one of my favourites as it is so strong and bold, yet not noticeable. We had to look up to the sky, while standing underneath this triangle shaped sign to achieve the photo. Overall my group struggled to get all the way through the alphabet, getting stuck on letters like B, R, S and Q. Although overall we where happy with our efforts and proud of the letterforms we did find. I found this activity super fun, and now I can't stop seeing letterforms everywhere I go!

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Week Seven

This week we got our marks back for our first assignment and then spent the class reflecting on our work.

We got into groups and talked about what we would do differently if we could go back in time. My group came up with a very long list, mostly talking about pushing boundaries and how most of us wished we had experimented a little more and done something we wouldn't normally do. 

After discussing this and giving feedback, we had to go out and create a little gallery with our work. My group decided to use this big arch we found, as we thought it would be cool to make the display guide the viewers eyes up. We also tried to put the work in order of lightest too darkest to create some sense of flow. I was really happy with how our little gallery of work turned out, and was glad we chose this unique spot.

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In this weeks practical class, our task was to curate an exhibition containing our last assignment “Hello, my question is…”! In groups of around ten people we had to work together and create an innovate exhibition of our works! My group decided to steer clear of the ordinary idea of an exhibition, where designs are arranged in ways easy for their audience to view. Hence we decided to crunch all our work toegther creating a ball where people will have to unwrap it to view our work! While this was the most favoured idea, dissatisfaction existed between some team members. We went on a quick break and met up shortly after where a couple of members proposed the idea of making our work into flowers, while keeping the original folded and crunched aesthetic we were then able to create an exhibition we all agreed on which was much me pleasing to the eye!

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I really loved the way this group displayed their work. They took a very different approach to everyone else scrunching and folding their work instead of displaying it in a way that each piece could be appreciated. Instead it takes away from the individual work and creates a sense of community within a whole new design. 

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Week Six

This week we focused on typefaces and creating our own with random shapes. We were put into groups and given coloured shapes, my group was given green squares. We then had to work together and create a typeface without cutting or folding the paper. My group worked well together, with everyone giving feedback on each letter as we went through the alphabet, and contributing their idea as we went along. This process took a while as we had to go through letter by letter instead of working on multiple letters at a time. Once we finished the alphabet we got given a different coloured shape, we were given blue circle quarters. We added these into the typeface but tried to not override what we had already created. I really loved the way this typeface turned out, as the colours went well together and it had a good sense of flow due to the rounded corners on some letters, but still kept the original look intact. 

After this we merged with another group that had black squares and orange circles quarters. We worked really well together getting into pairs, one from each group, to then create a few letters each. We tried to incorporate one black square in each letter as an element of coherence, as well as using at least one of each colour and shape per an individual letter. I was very happy with our outcome and found it really interesting to see what could happed bringing the two different groups together. 

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Week Five

This week we had no lecture or workshop. Due to this I had time to really focus on our first assignment, “hello, my question is..”. For this assignment I chose the question “Do constraints lead to better design?”. When coming up with this question I was thinking about all the random activities we have been doing in class, for example writing pangrams with water and tape. These exercises had strict constraints meaning to achieve a unique and fun outcome we had to think outside of the box. I learnt from the past few classes that having weird constraints can lead to more creative design, as you really have to step out of your comfort zone and design something that you would never have thought of otherwise. 

To make my question I wanted to use a material that had some sort of restriction, therefore I chose rubber bands. I think this material expressed constraints very well as the rubber bands are shown being stretched to their limits as well as just sitting in their natural form. Although just using one material could be linked into a constraint, I also wanted to use clothing tags to represent the constraints in the fashion industry more specifically clothing sizing. 

The first image above shows my question before any rubber bands were put around the nails.  The second shows the final outcome. 

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Week Four 

In this weeks workshop we learnt how to set up photography equipment, and take the ideal photo for our up coming assignment. We were taught how to adjust the light/colours in a photo by using any white in the image. We also learnt how to edit the image size, including the pixels. All of this was very useful as I will need it to complete my first assignment. The photos above are a before and after of the photo I edited in class.

In the lecture this week we talked about the first forms of printing. Covering the first wood block printing (xylography), movable clay type, first book printed, and Gutenburg’s printing press. We also talked about the fonts Antiqua and Black letter a lot, which I found very interesting as they were linked to brands and companies that I was familiar with, such as Jagermeister and Disney’s Mickey mouse. 

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Week Three

This week in our practical class we worked with pangrams. Pangrams are any sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet. My group chose the sentence, “The five boxing wizards jump quickly”. We were then told to create this pangram on any large surface using only electrical tape and without cutting it at all. Once we starting twisting the tape and moving it in ways that allowed us to continue to the next letter easily, we were on a role. 

We were then told to write our pangrams on any large surface outside with only water. We first tried to do this on a large concrete wall, but as it was in direct sunlight and was vertical it caused some issues. The water would drip down and letters would dry quite fast. We then moved to the stairs, shown in the image above, this worked a lot better allowing us to each draw out a word and quickly snap a pic before it dried. 

This exercise taught me that when we are given strict, almost bizarre constraints, it can lead to really unique outcomes as you have to think outside the box and work with ideas you wouldn't normally. I think this might be something I try and incorporate into my question for the My Question Is  Assignment.