EVALUATION: WAYS OF SEEING PROJECT 21/1/2016
PROJECT EVALUATION;
WAYS OF SEEING
My first project in my specified area of my Visual Communication: Graphic Design course was ‘Ways of Seeing’. The brief told us that this module is all about seeing, looking, finding and exploring. As a visual learner, I was very excited to get stuck in and start researching ideas. At first I thought of “Ways of seeing” in a literal sense, thinking about sight, eyes and different visual impediments. One of our tutors, Colette, sent our group an email with two YouTube videos. One titled ‘What it’s like to go blind’ and ‘How the blind see beauty.’ I instantly felt inspired, and sympathetic for the people in these clips, provoking me to have ideas on creating some sort of illusion, or interactive piece to imitate visual impairments, and help the public see vision from another perspective. We did a task with Colette involving Simulation Spectacles, where we had to lead another member of the class around the university wearing glasses that imitated a certain sight impediment. This again, was very thought provoking and I put myself in the shoes of people who live with this every single day. Ideas for my final were already floating around in my head. For example: creating an interactive display for people who suffer with blindness, playing heavily with their other senses.
This led me to my first area of research, Illusions. Artwork that plays with your mind and vision, making you question and think differently. I decided to look into Optical Illusions. I had seen and appreciated Optical Illusions before, and after hearing my tutor Phil talk about Bridget Riley’s design work, I decided to start my research from there. I really enjoy the way optical illusions are clever, and sometimes what you see first, might not really be the whole picture. I stumbled across hyper realistic paintings by Alyssa Monks. I loved how detailed and beautiful they were. But unfortunately, my painting skills are something I have to work on more, and I wanted my final to be more graphic design related.
I liked the idea of making people look twice, this linked to the brief very well so I looked into different practitioners who did similar art under the ‘Optical Art’ umbrella. My first initial idea was to create my own optical illusion exhibit, tricking my audience and making them think twice. As a result of my first research I decided to experiment and create different Optical Illusions myself. I found tutorials online for some digital pieces and created other hand rendered ideas in my sketchbook. I created the digital experiments using Photoshop CS6 and Illustrator CS6. I enjoyed doing this; they were harder to do than I thought, as you have to be more precise about everything. One artist that I came across in my work was David Spriggs, his work mesmerised me. The sheer scale, thought and preparation behind his incredible works blew me away. I saw how his works only really came to life when you saw them in person, an exhibition, or in a gallery. His projects used 3D space so well, and this triggered my thinking towards our brief, as it told us our final piece had to fit in a specific space. As he did this so well, I blogged more of his work and although its amazing, it’d be very hard financially and physically for me to do something on the sheer scale of that. But I really liked the idea of Optical Illusions in a space, playing with the publics mind and attention.
Involving the public in art is something that street art and graffiti have always done incredibly well. Paintings, posters, stickers, are filled with thought provoking messages and phrases constantly grabbing good and bad attention from the public. I feel like street artists are clever in the way that they are forcing people to see and have an opinion on their works. You don’t have to visit a gallery or a website to see it, its right there in public, waiting for an opinion. This is where I started to think more metaphorically about what the brief was asking us to do. Phrases like “What do you really see?” and “Open your eyes” flew around my head. I’d always appreciated street art and was glad this related to my brief perfectly. One of my favourite street artists has always been Shepard Fairey, so I included a lot of his work in my blog, taking lots of inspiration on his technique and style. Street Art has been heavily influenced by political messages for decades now. That is one of the main reasons I enjoyed Shepard’s work. He has something to say, a message to spread, and by plastering all over the world’s walls with beautiful imagery, it always gets a response, an opinion. I’ve always been someone who believes in equality and peace, and so my love for street art and the political influences behind it, influenced my final idea of this project heavily. I love anything that will make me think, or look, twice. I’ve always said, question everything and stay true to yourself, statements that seem to pop up frequently in street art everywhere.
As I lived a short walk away from Digbeth, which is covered in street art and graffiti, I decided to go out with my camera and take some photographs of art I could find, looking at the different styles, typography and messages used. It was really cool to see some amazing art in person, just by walking down the street. I wanted to see what techniques, styles and different imagery I could find. Luckily whilst I was out, I saw a couple of guys live painting a mural. It said the word ‘Slave’. He explained it was to do with today’s society, and how, in his opinion, we are all a slave to our own governments. I asked him about street art and how it influences people, and if he thought he was making a difference. He said he did, telling me that by creating murals and artworks, street artists are speaking out for other people. This gave me loads to think about, so I went home and tried out my own typefaces, sketches of type and imagery I had seen or taken influence from on my walk. Most of the works I came across were based around our government, and how corrupt todays society is.
Whilst doing this project, luckily, one of my all time design inspirations, Seb Lester, did a TypeTalk at our university, which I attended. His words rang true, believe in yourself and experiment. So, influenced by his talk, that’s what I went home and did. I attempted calligraphy and more serif type, which gave me ideas on what kind of type to include in my work.
I wanted my piece to challenge people’s minds. Make them question things. Just because you are told something, does that mean its right? Political corruption is the use of powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. An illegal act by an officeholder constitutes political corruption only if the act is directly related to their official duties, is done under colour of law or involves trading in influence. (Taken from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_corruption) I think it affects the way we live our day to day lives, and the more I researched into different occasions and incidents of political corruption, the more I agreed with it, and felt like I had something to say.
In the end I came up with an image of a blindfolded politician. We had to include typography so over his blindfold, I wrote the words ‘Lies’, ‘Greed’, and ‘Power’. I used this as a visual representation of my opinion of politicians being blinded by their power, resulting in lies and greed. I played around with the image of the head, but in the end I wanted to keep it simple and use just the head, making the typography the main focus. Unfortunately, there are no legal walls in Birmingham, and street art and graffiti are still illegal in the UK, so I couldn’t actually paint or paste my final image up anywhere in Birmingham to get a response or reaction. So I did the best I could with mock-ups and digital representations. If I had more time and resources and were to do it again, I think I would maybe paint it on big wooden boards or a large canvas, recreating what it would actually look like on a real wall. First, I drew the image of the man’s face, and used tracing paper to reproduce the same image several times easily. I wanted to do this as it was easier and it looked better when all the faces were the same, but also, metaphorically, I wanted to show how all politicians are perceived as having the same mentality. After sketching, I scanned in the traced image and used image trace on Illustrator to clean it up and make it completely customizable. I chose comic book style brushes, to create colour, depth and shadow, which I free handed on my computer using a Wacom Bamboo graphics tablet. I think if I were to do this again I’d research and download more brushes, as I only used the stock ones available.
If this were to go in a space, as we are instructed to do so in the brief, in a gallery type setting, I would build a physical wall inside, and paste these images onto it. I like the idea of having a huge wall full of artwork in the centre of a bright white, professional gallery. Somewhere you would usually see fine art. Catching the eye of people who wouldn’t usually look at or appreciate street art. Changing their perception of what the term ‘art’ really is. I would include a phrase in typography too, saying “YOU SEE WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO SEE”
I think my piece came out very well. I really enjoy the comic book style and the bold, eye catching type. I think if I were to do it again, I would use mediums used by actual street arts, like spray paint and wheat pasting. Throughout this project, I think I certainty managed my time better than my last project. Even though, I would like to still improve on it. From now on I am going to set myself days where I do work, and slowly progress through a project, without having to rush it all at the end. I think this brief was quite difficult as it was extremely broad. But that also was a good thing as it challenged my mind, and gave me the creative freedom to do what I wanted. I think I responded to the brief well, sticking to it, but also challenging the ideas of ‘vision’ and ‘seeing’. In conclusion, I enjoyed the project, and I learned extra skills, and learned more about a topic I didn’t know much about before. I think I was successful in this project and I am happy with all of my final outcomes.