GRAP2199

Dominique's Online Reflective Journal

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Final Reflective Statement

In beginning GRAP2199, my personal objectives were to broaden my design thinking and take the extra time to stray away from my limited design style coming into this course. As I have a very particular style, I found it to be quite restricting and resulted in all my designs appearing to be quite similar.

When reflecting back to my thirteen-week younger self, I can definitely say that I have achieved these objectives as I have been so much more adventurous throughout the duration of this course. The workshops really helped to expand my knowledge of design, pushing me to step outside of my comfort zone.

I have discovered so much more about design since starting GRAP2199. I have enriched my knowledge in historical art and design movements, such as Bauhaus and the Memphis Group, as well as unlocking skills including collage and group-work. I have also learnt many new concepts and key ideas, such as typographic principles, publication design and design futures to name a few.

I drew my inspiration from my peers in this course, as all of their work motivated me to push myself. I was really moved by the Bauhaus movement and found the story behind the women that attended the school very interesting. The collage activity changed my perspective on design as I learnt a lot more about the process of using my hands when designing. I hope to explore all of my gained knowledge in future assignments within this course.

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Week Thirteen

The last class for the semester ended on a really positive note as we got to share all of our hard work in a fun and captivating way. The effect of all the zines hanging looks amazing and made the whole experience very enjoyable. I was lucky enough to be able to exchange my zines with some of my friends, as I ended up making ten copies. It was also very beneficial receiving feedback on the zines from our peers. This was a great way to end the semester with such a relaxed social activity.

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Week Twelve

After perfecting the final touches on my digital file and spending far too much money at Officeworks, I began the process of putting the zines together. I slightly changed the blue colour, adjusted the font sizes and a few more minor changes after assessing my trial copy. This time I used a cutting board and knife to trim the edges as I found it to be much more precise, although time consuming. This method also allowed me to trim the entire zine once I had bound it together. Although the hand-stitching suited the zine, I didn’t think it represented Dion Lee’s designs the best as his pieces are always very clean and perfect. Instead, I decided to use copper staples to add a sense of luxury, rather than just using regular silver staples. I am really happy with the effect all of these improvements had on the final design, resulting in a very sleek and sophisticated outcome.

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Week Twelve

After reflecting on all the work we had done throughout the semester during this week’s lecture, it made me want to revisit Bruno Munari’s work. Although he hasn't been discussed since our very first lecture, I love the concept of all his designs. Pictured above is one of my favourites, forks portraying different hand gestures. Entitled ‘Forchette’, this 1958 design has a fun and exciting energy, similar to the twelve weeks of this course so far.

(Source: i.pinimg.com/originals/0e/a2/8b/0ea28b723bd3ea027dd128897b4eb9c6.jpg)

[meanrunway]

Dion Lee SS 2019

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The transparency of the top and the linear lines of Dion Lee’s designs have really inspired me in the process of deciding which materials to use and how to create my design in order to reflect his work. I especially love the colour combinations he uses, each look having a very contemporary aesthetic.

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Week Eleven

I was so excited when my first preference, Dion Lee, agreed to do an over the phone interview with me as I would have never imagined him to reply. After the lengthy process of trying my best to make out his answers from my recording of the phone call, I put together a draft zine that I got printed out. Once I had the physical copy, I noticed quite a lot of things that I wanted to change in the design, making this process extremely beneficial. I used a guillotine to trim the border off my pages, but I didn’t think it was the most precise method. As Dion Lee is a fashion designer, I thought it would be a really nice idea to hand-stitch the zine, and although it took quite a while, I didn't mind the outcome of it. Ideally I would have used the blue colour in my zine for the thread, but I only had white at home. I am so glad I experimented with this refining process early so I wasn’t disappointed with the final product.

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Week Eleven

The lecture for this week focused on the future of design. As referred to in the presentation, I had another look at the Moviebarcode work as it is so fascinating to see the difference between each movie and their generated barcodes. I chose the photo above because I love the resulting colours, creating a warm, yet muted palette. This barcode is from ‘The Moment of Truth’, released in 1965.

(Source: 66.media.tumblr.com/ec98f91ceb0aa57498dc882ed9104dd7/tumblr_obenuoMI1x1qhtovio1_1280.jpg)

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Week Ten

This is a really helpful photo I found about choosing the right binding type, which will come in handy when I begin making my zine. I think the top four options will be one of the ones I’ll opt for, due to the limited number of pages. Depending on the creative, I would love to try hand-stitching the zine, otherwise I think stapling will be the cleanest option.

(Source: ebookfriendly.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Book-diagrams-types-of-book-binding-540x731.jpg)

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Week Ten

This week’s lecture was probably the most interesting one yet. We explored publications from the period of critical advertising culture driven by controversial consumerism. The photos above are from an issue of Colors Magazine, founded in 1991. After being shown a few of their advertisements in the lecture, I decided to look further into their work and found a collection of magazine covers, this being one of the less controversial publications. It’s interesting to see how much things have changed since the 90s and how different it would be if some of their earlier works were published today.

(Source: colorsmagazine.com/magazine/28)

[jazkenn-blog]

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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Although from the same class, I think it’s valuable to see how others reflect on the same content in their own ways. I like how Jaz has reflected on the lesson, especially from someone who went on to use a collage method to create their final zine.

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Week Nine

After touching on the highly influential Memphis Group in the lecture this week, it made me think of this Memphis shelf that I had previously seen online. Its bright colouring and bold design establishes a sense of playfulness, while still remaining perfectly functional. It also has an asymmetrical and geometric form, creating a really nice balance within the design as a whole. This piece was designed by Pascale Girardin, drawing inspiration from this 80s design movement, founded by Ettore Sottsass.

(Source: design-milk.com/images/2019/02/mpgmb-goingbacktomemphis-shelf-1.jpg)

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Week Nine

I really enjoyed this week’s hands-on workshop, comprising of a collage activity where we cut out letterforms and shapes from scanned magazine pages, hence the black and white effect. It was so interesting seeing the different techniques people used when discovering a letterform and how they went about cutting it out. This activity got everyone very invested in the process of cutting and pasting, preparing us for the upcoming weeks of zine-making. It was refreshing to spend a few hours doing a task like this, when we would usually use a program such as Illustrator to create collages, resulting in a very different outcome. I felt as though I had a lot more freedom and desire to experiment when using my hands.

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Week Eight

Continuing on from the discussion of Bauhaus in this week’s lecture, I found three Bauhaus-inspired posters that I love. What really stands out to me from the movement is its bold graphic and typographic experimentation. Since learning about Bauhaus in school a few years ago, I have found it to be quite a big inspiration behind my personal design style, due to its geometric and contemporary aesthetic. These three posters are from the ‘Bauhaus Poster Serie’, a project by Danilo De Marco.

(Source: mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/project_modules/1400_opt_1/8e4d0e71666565.5bcd9db5101a0.jpg)

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Week Eight

During this week’s workshop, we were given the time to explore the campus while looking for and photographing the alphabet hidden in the buildings and environment. This activity was called ‘Architexture’. Unfortunately for us, Izzy and I thought we had to find the entire alphabet within the short timeframe we were given, when we only needed to find a few letters. This resulted in us frantically running around the campus, finishing short of only two letters. As our class font is not yet ready, I put together the word ‘HELLO’ from a few of the photos that I took during the activity.

[theweeklyzine]

I like this sentence. In school I learned it’s good to repeat a sentence to memorize it. So I did. in-zine (really bad pun with ‘insane’ and 'zine’)

Ich mag diesen Satz. In der Schule habe ich gelernt, dass es gut ist, Sätze zu wiederholen um sie sich einzuprägen. Also tat ich das. Wahn-zine.

zine by @just_floymi

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This is a post I came across when researching zines that I thought was very original and unexpected. Two characteristics I would love my own zine to possess.

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Week Seven

There was no lecture this week, which meant more time to spend beginning the zine. I researched a few creatives whose work I admire, as well as jotting down a few broad questions to help me refine the real ones later, depending on which creative agrees to do the interview with me. I am very excited for this assignment as I love creating publications like this and it gives us a once in a lifetime opportunity to be in contact with one of our favourite creatives.

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Week Seven

Giving us a chance to have a look at everyone’s work, the workshop for this week involved us separating into groups to create a low-fi pop-up exhibition showcasing our submissions for the “Hello, my question is...” assignment. As seen in the second photo, we decided as a team that, although creative, this was not the best method to display our work. We then decided to unravel all of the pages and put them onto poles to appear as flowers. In an attempt to heighten the effect of the scrunched paper, we placed the poles into the bin, pictured in the first photo. It was so interesting to see what the other groups had done with their work as everyone had such vastly different ideas, all demonstrating great group-work.