Adventures in Communication Design @sjcleland-blog - Tumblr Blog

The fruits of my labour in all its glory🍎

Final Post!!!

What a wonderful final exhibition! It was amazing to see everyone’s great and unique design with so many amazing creatives! I was glad to see that my zine was very popular after all of the hard work I had put into it. The die cut that I put on the front cover proved very effective in drawing interest along with the unique binding method.

At the beginning of this course the goal I set myself was to become more confident in my own design abilities and I am pleased to say that I have started to achieve this goal. It is something that will take time and strengthen as I learn and grow within the rest of my time in this degree. I have had my mind very much opened to the possibilities and different perspectives of what design can be for different people. I am happy to have been reconnected with the more hands on side of design and will aim to incorporate this into my future practices more often. I am still continuing to be inspired by the eyewriter video and hope one day I can help make people’s lives better through my designs.

After facing a design block following the last classes open studio I was able to produce my final zine! I followed advice given to me by Karen and followed my instincts. I figured once I had something down I could always change it! I ended up being very pleased with my unique binding, even if my fingers are a little sore from doing it 15 times... I just wanted to incorporate an element of texture which relate to the medium used by my creative within my own design. Definitely worth all of the time and effort.

Making progress with the Ask Me Anything! assessment. I’ve compiled a range of images of my creative’s work and have permission to use them. I have started to create paper prototypes so that I can physically visualise my designs before bringing them into InDesign on the computer.

Week 11 Lecture

During the week 11 lecture I was deeply moved by the Eyewriter video we were shown. So much so that it moved me to tears. I felt overwhelming empathy for Tempt 1 as I could only imagine what he would feel. As a creative I am constantly working with my hands and body, and someday hope to make a living out of what I do. It is how I express myself. To have that taken from me... I could scarcely imagine it. Seeing how everyone came together and collaborated on such an amazing project which would change his life was immensely inspirational. Small steps which make the world a better place, that’s what design should be. That is where we need to stem from. Not fear, ignorance and meaningless competition. Sharing of ideas and resources to create meaningful change is something which I hope to engage in within my creative career.

Below is an amazing video that I found about an artist called Taekyeom Lee who has been using 3D printers to create stunning pottery designs. His engagement with the technology and building upon its capabilities reminded me of the discussions which we had about the future of design

https://www.insider.com/3d-printers-changing-pottery-we-make-taekyeom-lee-designer-2019-5?fbclid=IwAR1pZ3s933bT6xM82rLoNnVJhEJi530dVQT4EvBrQOCXdEuzu_Mvd5UfPiw

Week 10 tutorial

Today we learnt about how to use Indesign to help create our zines. Because I had been taught the basics of the program last year at TAFE I was able to get my work done quickly and then help others. I did however encounter some issues with printing...

As can be seen in the first image I was unable to get my first print to work. It printed a4 and did not print double sided. I tried to fix it myself and after that failed even Karen had trouble trying to solve the issue! We ended up having to export the file into acrobat and print it from there.

When folding my zine I didn't quite get my registration perfect and after trimming off the excess I saw the value of including bleed into our documents. Some edges had a lot more excess trimmed off than others but there was no white edges on my final zine because of the bleed added to the file.

Week 9 tutorial

During the week 9 class we experimented with collage. It was a great experience to be able to engage in a more materialistic method of design. I found that I was more aware of what I was doing and what consequences my actions would have. I often found myself looking at the leftover material from what I had done. I found that these scraps also created some interesting designs.

I found this on the campus and it reminded me of our discussions about early people leaving hand prints of cave paintings. I wonder who left these and why...

A banister in the design building that looks like something taken straight out of Herbert Bayer’s strum blond type design. A coincidence? I think not.

Archi-text-ure

During this week’s workshop we were tasked with venturing out onto the campus for 25 minutes and seeking out letterforms within the buildings and surrounds. Let me tell you, they’re everywhere! While my group and I weren’t able to construct a whole alphabet in the time provided we gathered lots of different letterforms in many unexpected places. It was a very stimulating activity and I felt a strange sense of achievement every time I was able to spot a letter, the more unorthodox the better! The various textures and lighting made the photos really diverse and interesting when viewed as a collection. Once we returned to class it was fascinating to see everyone’s different results and where they found them. One of my favourites being a letter ‘E’ found in a cloud formation. We also continued to work on our second assessment in the afternoon. I have made a decision of which creative and will be contacting them within the next few days. Stay tuned to see how it goes!

‘Ask me anything’- assessment progress

With the second assessment now in progress I have found myself struggling. I am spoiled for choice with the creatives I can interview. I follow so many amazing designers from a range of different disciplines. Having to choose only one to interview almost feels like having to pick a favourite and turn down close friends for a lunch date. I aspire to be like all of these designers who constantly experiment with new mediums and are always expanding their practice.

Maybe I’m too emotionally invested in them... but inspiration is not, and never will be a bad thing!

With the 36 days of type now in full swing I thought I’d share one of my favourite creatives contributions to the event. Letterpress bakery is an amazing bakery located in Vancouver. I’ve been following their page for a while because I love their crazy and intricate cake decorating designs and they inspire my own cake decorating adventures. Now they inspire my design practices as well! It amazes me that anything can be used to create designs. Check out their page if you want to see more of their stunning creations!

starsh-a-deactivated20210917

Ramsay 💥

sjcleland-blog

The destruction of our masterpiece!

During the week 6 workshop we experimented with creating type again. This time our group was given a base shape to create a typeface from. For my group it was yellow squares. The squares lended itself to a grid like placement. The resulting type was funky and appeared pixilated. The square form made it difficult to create curves within certain letters therefor they were not as easily legible as other, more simple letter forms.

The addition of a second shape, the blue triangle, further advanced our typeface. It was interesting to see various group members interpretations of how the new shape could improve different letters. Everyone had so many different ideas! The new shape helped to flesh out the pre-existing letters and aided in creating the angled lines which defined the curves, now made sharp and geometric by the addition of the triangle. The contrast of the different colours of the shapes also strengthened the appearance of the letters.

Our third and final shape was the orange quadrant. Again my group and I had to adapt our thinking in order to incorporate the new shape into our alphabet. This time however included a curve. This didn’t slow the group down as we used the quadrant shape to create more organic curves where the triangular shape had previously been used. I was quite pleased with the end result and found it quite visually appealing.

My group named our typeface Ramsay after a funny little outburst from Kathleen during the exercise that reminded us of Gordon Ramsay!

Assessment One

This assessment ended up being a lot more taxing than I first imagined it would be. Firstly coming up with an idea for my question was difficult. However I knew that I wanted to incorporate what we’d been learning about within the lectures and practicals into my question. Because we’d been reviewing a timeline of design I began to think, what was next? Will design ever stop? This gave birth to the question I decided upon.

Within the different elements which compose my poster I placed letters related to topics we had discussed within the classes. This included various hand gestures, a cuneiform and letters formed out of ordinary objects. This was a very interesting process as it stimulated my my to look beyond the conventional and seek more alternative responses.

I am pleased with the overall legibility of my design and the strength of the letter forms. Two things I wish to improve upon are my photography and photo editing skills. I am proud of what I was able to achieve given my current skills within these areas however some of the photos could be more sharp and the colours more balanced.

I made a small noose out of the string that I used to make the question mark as a metaphor which strengthened the topic of the end of the design. Initially I planned on creating the entire image out of one piece of string, relating to the cliche “how long is a piece of string?” I reflected that this idea was not strong enough and could be expanded upon, though I still included the string as a microcosm of the first iteration of my thinking.

"writing is everywhere"

Photos taken at the National Gallery of Victoria

Here you can see a close up view of the work my group was able to produce. Pretty groovy if I do say so myself!

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Adventures in Communication Design