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Finally finish printing!

I spent more than three hours today in the printing shop. There were so many people(seems like most of them were printing zines too). When I finished the first time of printing I found there is one page with wrong page number！Than I waited a long long time to print this page again. Shame of me. I think that’s because I put a wrong pdf on. The folder is quite a mess after so many times of modification. I should make a list of what to check beforeo printing I think.

What is lucky this day is I found a satisfying kind of paper to print. I had tried to print the zine before but the paper is too thin actually. I am satisfied with the thick matte paper today and the nature texture it has is nice.

Reflection Statement

My objective for the Communication Design Studies course was to not only try my best to adapt to the whole new university environment, but also to give my best to complete the assignments. I believe that I have gotten used to the format of the university environment. However, I should be more confident to ask more questions to improve my understanding of what is required in the assignments in the future.

Throughout the course I have discovered various aspects relating to design. I have learned about historical movements such as early-print, Bauhaus, Memphis, modernism and post-modernism; and the various impacts they have had in shaping the world of design. Through the workshop activities I have also gained an insight into how design elements are hidden in our everyday lives, in addition to learning new skills in type-making, planning, teamwork, and using Adobe InDesign to create publications. In the lectures of this course I have learned about the progression of inscription technologies, typographic principles, and how design will move forward into the future with the advancement of technology.

There were many sources of inspiration I have discovered in this course. During my research for my third assignment I discovered the designer Benja Harney, who have used paper as the main material to create his designs. He has demonstrated to me that design is not only limited to a flat surface and we should take different approaches to solve design problems. The Bauhaus movement has also inspired me as it played a critical role in uniting designers from different fields together, and has shown me the significance of the principle ‘function over form’.

Research of 5 creatives for assignment 3

Nicholas Baker is an industrial designer based in the United States and he does various furniture and product designs.

Paulius Kairevicius is a logo and brand identity designer in Lithuania and he has done a large variety of logo designs.

Benja Harney describes himself as a ‘paper engineer’ and he creates design using paper as the primary material, which is very unique. He is also based in Australia.

Forge & Morrow is an Australian design studio with a focus on 3D graphics and animation. The visual styles in their project differ a lot from one another.

Pete McDonald is an art director, illustrator and animation designer. His work also has a great variety of styles.

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Bauhaus

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Bauhaus

Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus in 1919 and it brought designers from a wide range of disciplines into one place, including fine artists, architects, interior designers and woodworkers.

The Bauhaus movement played a significant role in uniting arts and crafts and technology. The principle of “form follows function” inspired the industrial design field heavily as they took a minimalist approach to design items such as furniture.

In Bauhaus art many common and defining elements were abstract geometric shapes which would often overlay on top of one another, modern sans serif type, and the use of bold colours. The art styles from the Bauhaus movement can still be found to this day, such as the uses of bold typography in various sizes, geometric shapes and angled compositions to establish hierarchy.

We learned how to create a basic 8 page zine using InDesign and how to put together basic elements such as images, typography and basic coloured backgrounds, in addition to learning about master pages and paragraph styles. We were provided with templates which greatly helped with impositioning pages. This is a mock up created to test how the zine would be folded, stapled and trimmed.

Collage

We experimented with revealing individual letters by manually removing parts of an original image with scissors. The process involved looking at pictures from photocopied magazines from another perspective and try to make out letters from parts of different objects or people, which resulted in imperfect depictions of the letters. This process could have been done easier and tidier on Photoshop, but with this more hands-on and physical approach we were able to better interact with real materials and not necessarily rely on computers all the time.

“Architexture”

We went around the university campus in small groups and looked for any objects and patterns that resemble the alphabet and numbers. We had to carefully observe objects in order to reveal and capture the letters and numbers hidden in the everyday environment. This activity has shown to me that we often miss out on many details, including type, even in spaces we are familiar with.

Typograms of opposite words

I attempted to express the meanings of the words without adding visual elements besides the type.

We worked in groups to create a typeface made from basic shapes. We started from using only quarter circles, to adding in squares and small rectangles. Using only quarter circles to create the letter was limiting, but with the grid structure allowed us to create a stylistic typeface. By incorporating more shapes into the letters we were able to add more detail and make the letters less abstract. My group named the typeface ‘Devil’s Lipstick’. I learned how simple shapes can be used in conjunction to allow for more flexibility.

“What makes good design?”

I tried to link the relationship between the objects and the word they make up by using a variety of objects to make up the words “what makes” to represent the question “what”. For “good design” I created a more aesthetically pleasing look by using some gold coloured straps.

Pangram - “TV quiz drag nymphs blew JFK cox”

We created exaggerated letterforms of the pangram with varying sizes, and also used water to write out the pangram on the floor under the sunlight. I feel that the exaggerated letterforms were slightly too hard to read because of the scale changing so much. We had to cooperate well as the water dried off quickly under the sunlight. We had two people write out the sentence while one fixed up the drying letters.

Exploration of how markings can be made on clay with different techniques, and how certain techniques are more efficient than others. For example dragging the popsicle stick on the clay surface creates rough textures that make the markings less obvious, with the clay being resistant to the motion; whereas stabbing the clay with the stick creates more clear markings.

Type created from objects we carry around.

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