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thegoldustrush-deactivated20231

some post-punk flyers.

nobrashfestivity

Bauhaus, Book cover, Design by Herbert Bayer

frugaldoodles

WEEK 5 - APRIL 4TH

ASSESSMENT 1 - ‘HELLO MY QUESTION IS…’ PROGRESS, FEEDBACK (WORKSHOP 5) AND REFLECTION.

Get ready for a long ass post (sorry in advance to anyone who reads this lol) but here’s my final outcome for Comm. Design’s first assignment with my question…

WHY DO WE LET DESIGN INFLUENCE US?

Just like my previous post for Week 3 - March 21st, I wanted to ask why humans allow ourselves to have different perceptions about something, due to the way its presented aka designed. This concept that design and designers are ’manipulative’ stemmed from my first lecture of Comm. Design (if my memory serves me right). One of the lecturers presenting (I think it was Andy ??) told everyone in the room that “designers are manipulators”; which to me, was a take on design that I hadn’t heard before. But it made sense because now thinking about it… good designers know how to create an effective and visual experience, to change the target audience’s behavior towards a narrative.

Therefore, my final materials included every-day items throughout my life where I know their design has influenced me to use or buy them. Hence why I chose packaged drink and snacks, my skincare and beauty products, childhood books and DVD’s as well as magazines and catalogs.

I arranged and photographed my letters one by one and took them on four A3 paper sheets that I tape together because I did not have any large white fabric to use as a background. After that phase, I would Photoshop my letters together, colour corrected the grey-ness of my paper and abused all the healing tools and stamp tool to get any lines and creases out of the way.

WORKSHOP 5 FEEDBACK:

By the time it was the day of my week 5 workshop (same day as due date!), our class shared each other’s WIP or final outcomes and gave feedback. I presented my WIP with the screenshot below, where I was in the middle of just slapping all my letters down and beginning to play with spacing between letters and words. Within my smaller group that we were randomised in, my classmates said that they liked what I had so far but agreed with me that I should further work on my spacing as words/letters, specifically how ‘WE LET’ looked like one word at that moment.

Bailey also commented on my work, where she said that my ‘W’s in my ‘WHY’ and ‘WE’ were a bit repetitive in terms of positioning which I actually didn’t notice-ish. I knew something looked strange whenever I looked at the entire composition but couldn’t figure out why, so that criticism was really helpful! She also suggested for me think about the structure of my words and liked how the white background gives the composition a ‘punchy’ feeling.

REFLECTION:

Overall, I think I did a decent effort for this assessment and liked how the end product looked; the simplicity of it and especially really drastic contract between the colours of my materials and the white background.

However, there are some things that I wished I changed or tried.

I fixed the ‘W’ repetition problem, but I only realised I had accidentally made repetition again with the ‘N’s in ‘DESIGN’ and ‘NCE’ from ‘INFLUENCE’ after I had submitted my assignment so that annoyed me :/ Especially since I had this other layout with all the words aligned to the left, where there isn’t ‘noticeable’ repetition as shown below. The only reason I didn’t choose this layout instead was because I felt that the alignment in the center had more of an impact (?).

Kinda wished I experimented with background colours (I chose white because I wanted a strong focus on the colours and packaging of my items). Although I like the contrast the white background gives off, I feel as if it’s too strong on the eyes maybe?? I also wished I had used stronger lightning to create more cast shadows on my objects which some of them had and gave off more depth to the composition.

I also think it would of been more playful if I had more decorative elements to this poster or took advantage of my materials more. Like maybe letting the liquid from the bottles leaking out onto the page as well or even similarly with smearing the food or skincare stuff to emphasise the product.

But in saying all of this, this was a fun project to do since I hadn’t done anything like this before and I actually learnt some useful things along the way. :)

shanaliw

WEEK 12

(COMMUNICATION DESIGN STUDIES RELATED):

Work in Progress (WIP) - Antoni Gaudi Zine

One of my questions relate to how Gaudi’s work is unique and different and for that, I wanted to visually answer that through his ‘Park Guell’ design. This park includes a multi coloured lizard mosaic which can be found at the main entrance. I found the vibrant colours and intricate tile work very eye catching and one of a kind - thinking what other park do you know that has mosaics? let alone a giant 3D mosaic of a lizard.

source

Therefore, I knew I wanted to incorporate something similar in honor of him. I initially thought having it sprawled across the page would be very eye catching and interesting, similarly to how it looks in real life. So here are my first few designs:

In terms of the colours for the lizard, I didn’t want to completely replicate the lizard from Gaudi’s one for different reasons. Bailey mentioned to not completely mimic the aesthetic or style and to put your own twist on it so I changed it up however it still shares the similar eye catching quality and feel. Another point is, that colour is a very important aspect to Antoni and can be seen across all his works. Although it was the Casa Batllo that also inspired my colour choice. The Casa Batllo I’d have to say is one of my personal favourites as the variety of colours makes me feel this certain way. As corny as it may sound, I find this design so magical and dreamlike, when I look at it I feel as if I’m in some sort of fairytale. Therefore I have aimed to combine his other unique works such as the Casa Batllo within his Park Guell design through the lizard as a visual way of answering the question.

source

The background is a photo of one of the walkways within the Park Guell - I did this in hope to give all the information and lizard more context. However in doing this, the text got lost among the background so I then played around with white and black tints and making the text colour contrast. Overall I was happy with the layout until I did some more reflecting as I felt something was off about it. Thinking from a general perspective, I realized that if I was to read all the information, that I’d like to see more images of Gaudi’s work or some sort of other visual aid to support and complement what is written. So I looked into further refinement ideas to address this, here is what I came up with:

After this, I still wasn’t completely satisfied, I felt the pictures were a good addition however in another way it also looked as if it was almost just squashed in at the last second and that it didn’t really flow or connect in with the rest of the design layout.

I went away for a bit, days later I decided to take another approach towards this idea and design, as what I had currently just wasn’t working for me, something was missing. I knew I wanted to keep the lizard design in terms of the visuals and I knew I wanted to find a way of using the lizard among pictures of some of Gaudi’s other work.

New idea/concept: I thought to place the lizard on a log outline and to then have his tail wrap around as a way to divide all the pictures within the log.

Here is how I went about creating this idea:

As you can see I went through a lot of random steps and techniques to try and make it all work😅. But here is the final outcome for this question:

During this whole process I was able to learn a lot and gain more experience with adobe which I’m very grateful for. This whole experience of making my zine had me going from photoshop to illustrator to indesign one after the other as they all help with a variety of things. I was able to learn more on how to arrange text such as making it diagonal like what’s shown above - this can come in use any time for any design brief or creative task.

kiaraconcept

What we did today as a group using the collage activity.

katiezhou

Finished Zine!!

I can’t believe I actually managed to finish! This zine, though fun, literally has consumed my life for the past few weeks, always at the back of my head. This has definitely been the most time I’ve spent on an assignment and it was the best feeling finally getting to vacuum all the tiny bits of paper on my floor and clear away my magazines haha.

There’s quite a bit I’ve changed since last time I uploaded. After receiving feedback from Bailey that my text was quite un-Dada, looking more like a magazine, I spiced it up by using random (and some ugly) alternating typefaces for each paragraph, to make them look as if they were different bits of text cut from a newspaper, a method used by many Dadaists. I also highlighted/underlined/circled important words with my primary colour scheme, giving the words more personality.

I decided to stick to a red, cursive type for my interview questions to give it more contrast from the rest of the pages with its elegant appearance, and enlarged my question numbers to give them more hierarchy.

Making the rest of my zine pages was challenging. Having to adhere to the nonsensical/humorous/weird/chaotic aesthetic of Dada, as well as relating my collages to my questions, as well as creating layouts that still had some structure and thoughtful design choices, was a lot to juggle. I had to think about each element of my designs extremely carefully. After a while, I started to stray from Dada and forgot to fully emulate its style, instead kind of just making collages with no style. I also started to lose creativity and found it hard to come up with ideas from my magazines. There were times where I spent hours doing things that would usually take 15 minutes. With all these slumps, I found that detaching myself from the zine and looking at other existing designs, whether that be Dada art, general designs, or zine designs, proved to be really beneficial in re-inspiring me with new ideas and a fresh perspective. Taking a break away from the zine and coming back to it another a day was also useful.

After learning all about the importance of colour in my colour & info class, I decided to stick to primary colours. Limiting my colour palette was a really good choice, where my pages altogether have a sense of harmony. As my pages have quite a lot going on, limiting my colours helped make them more digestible to view. It was however quite hard having to find specific things to collage with the added limitation of colour. Most of the time I overcame this by looking deep into my magazines, but other times I physically coloured in objects, like the red shoe on question two, or added in coloured paper, like the windows on the second last page.

Once I had all my draft pages ready, I spent yesterday sticking everything permanently down and fixing things I was wanting to change to the pages, such as rearranging layouts, adding more hand drawn aspects, changing my interviewer typeface, using the same yellow coloured paper etc. It was much easier to refine and improve my pages when I already had their general appearances figured out, where I found it a lot harder to start my pages from nothing, as more ideation was required.

Overall, I’m glad that I was able to push through any obstacles and make my first ever zine. It is such a completely different style to what I usually produce, and although difficult, it was really good to push myself out of my comfort zone and explore another style of design. This was also the first time I really delved into collaging and it was very interesting to both explore the endless ways to approach collaging and to have to somewhat rely on chance and spontaneity when flicking through a magazine. Some of my favourite aspects of my collages were non-intentional (e.g. accidentally dropping something on my page) and that’s why I love collaging: it has no rules. I’m really happy with how my zine turned out and I’m definitely going to do more collaging in the future!

usernames-scare-me

FINISHED ZINE (Ask Me Anything!)

I was going to wait to upload these until I got all my posts up in chronological order, but I figure I may as well get this up and start fresh afterwards. I know, what a mess. Can you feel my struggle through the screen? Thank you next Miss ‘Rona, I will not miss you next semester.

Now to discuss the actual Zine…

In choosing a significant and influential figure in design, I chose none other than THE David Hockney. His contributions to art and design have always been a huge source of inspiration from me, especially his never ending curiosity into the next best thing (eg. the obsession with digital art and the use of technology in advancing art). However, I didn’t want to just interview Hockney as himself because he is still a living artist, and he can therefore speak for himself. I chose to look through some of his older work, as I was also interested in art pop. I remembered his “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)” from 1972 and looked into the ideas behind the portrait. Turns out, the painting is packed full with insight to a time nearing the end of Pop Art, and a commentary on the difference between his upbringing in England and the decadence of California’s lifestyle. I thought this was really poignant, and despite its fun and playful personality, left a lot unsaid within the painting itself.

I then decided I would interview the figure from the painting to add another layer to the understanding of the piece. I wanted to give the figure some of their humanity back, and explore the way Pop Art was experienced for a young person at the time. I aimed to centre the figure on a life that honours Hockney’s (such as his sexuality, his affinity for America and the mediums he used to express these things), and discuss the attraction of the figure to Pop Art through their experiences in California. The metaphor of the swimming pool being a world of luxury and experience that the figure had yet to ever ‘dive’ into was the idea behind the whole project, which I think is communicated in the interview.

Aside from taking a million days to research what the actual hell a zine *is*, I can honestly say that this might be one! I guess we’ll find out when the grades come in. This assignment was sooo fun that I think I made like three copies just to muck around before settling on this one. I’m actually really proud of this work (hell, I’m proud I even have something to hand in), I think for someone who was so confused and doubtful about this assignment its a wild success. Maybe I should refrain from using the word “success” until someone else tells me it’s successful. Oh well.

usernames-scare-me

Reposting for the sake of keeping a chronological order SORRY GUYS

brookesrmitjournal

Final Reflection

I think this was the most challenging class for me this semester. In a very good way, I came back to study because I wanted to grow as a designer. I knew thinking outside the box was something I was going to struggle with. Leaving behind the conventions and my habits. Bailey was definitely someone who helped us break those barriers. Being pushed to think beyond the information we were given and speak for ourselves. It was nice to have feedback from my peers, it can be lonely working from home and be staring at a screen during the semester. In every assignment for this course I tried to find ways to do things differently, with the first poster, I never used ingredients to make letter forms before. For the second assignment I wanted the medium I was least comfortable in (the website). I really liked our lectures, it was one of those class that made me understand beyond forms the reasoning behind so many designs. It was inspiring to see how designs have evolved, to think of the possibilities that are still to come for creatives. I struggle to stick with schedules when it comes to creativity, I thrive in spontaneity. Tumblr posting was my biggest struggle, sitting to reflect what I had learnt, I often forgot about it and ended up neglecting it. I’d like to think I wouldn’t shy away from challenges, sometimes I take on too much and expect too much of myself. That was another learning point: re-learning what my limits are. I hope to take these learnings with me to my other classes to my next semesters.

AMAs - Project

My questions were directed at asking the Sagrada Familia. It has a story spanning over 135 years, it had lots of designs elemets that at the beginning it was hard for me to pinpoint what I would ask. But along the research, I became interested more about the story behind the reason for it taking so long to be built. So my 5 questions were more like a timeline of how the building came about. I began by using XD for my design, and worked on coding it. Unfortunately it was more complicated than I had time for. So I searched for other alternatives in the end finding WIX. I moved my design over and re-designed a lot of the elements. My design changed from single sections to a more flowing one page scroll interview. At the beginning I was struggling with how I would structure the interview, but in the class feedback the mention of using the questions as a focus helped me re-aligned the questioned to more of a timeline. I was also able to eliminate and refine a few questions: combining answers and rewriting the question so it could address both. The final look: https://nicolegraphix.wixsite.com/commdes

The initial design:

The website was restricted the scroll movements I had planned but I liked the scroll animations I was able to add in where pieces appeared as you scrolled down like a construction block coming together.

W11 - What’s Next?

The emergence of immersive technology, like VR, 3D printers, mobile phones and others. Like the revolution of the letter press technology, it is empowering to see design continuously adapt to the mediums around us.

Technology like iPads and Procreate for example, to me has created a large movement of illustrations to the mass audience, the ease of creating illustration has never been easier.

Will creativity ever be done if AI can create art? I think art has always has a human aspect to it, if there is no story or human drive to it, it is less impactful. But I do believe technology makes design more accessible to many.

W10 - Art & Design Activism

What is an art? It’s interesting to understand what can be claimed as art. People often argue whether a stroke of paint across a plain canvas is art. This weeks class sort of explores the idea of the context rather than the art form alone. I think it’s inspiring how design has brought together, to redefine design as more than for profit, but aid movements and be more than just an aesthetic. How design helped bring a voice to a greater audience. Like the quote “A picture is worth a thousand words“ Art language:

The idea of requiring the participation of the audience to create meaning to the artwork, not just the artist’s words alone.

It was interesting how the peace symbol we take for face, was actually started by a campaign for nuclear disarmament. The use of design, to bring awareness of an issue to the community and start a discussion. It is a wonder to think what would some social movements today if a different approach was used, how would things like LGBT rights be without its iconic flag. The strategy used behind how they approached the issues and the art forms used was clever. How the text, imagery, hidden meanings and choices were picked to create curiosity and awareness to the audience.

W9 - End of Future

What is the end of the future? Ending the Futurists, the take over of Punk Design, declaring the end of Modernism.

The notion of the sublime: Chaotic unstructured approach, driven by disruptions to bringing in the changes.

Punk movement: counter-culture movement. I recognised this poster, I grew up listening to Sex Pistols as an angsty teen.

The immediacy and disregard for the media was cool. It is inspiring these were created from immediacy, attention to express the social discontent by using what they had in hand. The break away from the norm and expected, to rebel against hierarchy. I also see this being used today to express similar sentiments of rebellion and discontent. Humour and mischief designs by the Memphis Grupen. The highly ironic and playful names for their furnitures. Like Andy said “IKEA on LSD“.

I think following the trajectory of how punk design created new ideologies of creating design and with the new technologies, works like Andy Warhol’s now has a different meaning to me. I thought of his work as playful, but never thought of the deeper meanings.

W 8 - Futurists

Breaking the rules: the playfulness to the types, the scale, forms and animation was intriguing. It was interesting how it was driven by political movements, and the idea that a new art movement is derived from an act of rebellion. It reminds me of the quote “The idea of beauty is always shifting“. The Futurist Cookbook reminded me of the modern cuisine, where it’s not longer about the taste but about the senses: dishes that looked like one thing, but made of a completely different ingredients.

The subtle and clever way to express their political views like this book by Bruno Munari. The use of his artwork to be his voice.

W7 - Bauhaus School

I had heard of Bauhaus movement before, but hadn’t really understood how it truly came about.

When we discussed in class whether we’d have preferred this style of learning, I think the responses were interesting. I was ambiguous, I think I really liked the idea of trying all materials, knowing the basic, before moving towards designing, the idea of ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’. To think of the efficiency of forms. But at the same time I think I’d struggle, the same time it is very experimental, but very restrictive in that there must be rules formed by the artists. I like the crafts, I like hands-on work, but when I have too many outlets, I might feel lost. I like practicality.

The variety of shapes, forms and materials used in the Bauhaus movement was staggering to me. It inspired me to seek out works that are still inspired by the Bahaus movement, especially more on the female perspective. Seeing how women were removed, because they believed women could not think in 3D! That felt insulting and I’m glad of the era we are in that is open to women. But I do appreciate and see the playfulness it’s brought, like the triadic ballet (strange and intriguing!)

W 6 - Humans & Machines

I think we take for granted how we design, we are exposed to layouts and grids that we don’t think twice why we have laid out things the way we do today. This lecture was interesting how designers came up with rules.

Josef Muller’s Grid system is actually a book I have read before and I take into account what I read from this book. I never knew how to use white spaces before. It was interesting seeing all the examples of more modern book prints and how much play takes part into the designs (scale, type, colours, even the type of material). Human&Machine

The tool becoming an extension of a body - this resonated with me a lot because without a machine, a laptop, I am very limited in the way I design. It’s taken me a step back to think how as a designer I rely a lot on a laptop and the software. I remember playing with a typewriter as a kid, and I actually like it when we talked about the tangibility of using force to add and extra expression: how pressing harder is visible on the paper, and could indicate anger. I don’t think I take that into account working on a pc, I am likely to type softly to avoid breaking the keyboards!

W5 - Industrialisation

Thanks to the expansion of block printing, it was fascinating how the changes to the letter forms moved from the humanist handwriting to geometric proportions. An example of Torniello’s work.

It’s quite contrary to the many trends we live in, we are now more obsessed with handlettering in the past few years. So it is interesting to see how letter forms are constantly evolving. From this class, I understand better the working behind how typefaces are made geometrically, how much work, especially mathematical input are put into it. This reminds me also of the obsession today to creating logos using the ‘Golden Ratio’. Like these logo examples:

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