Week 7-Graphics

In the morning of the first day of Graphics we did some theory, which is in another blog post. In the afternoon we worked on some typography. We were given products such as Marmite and bottles which had fonts on and were asked to do 3 thumbnails from each product we were given. We had 4 objects, so ended up with 12 thumbnails all in all. We then transferred one thumbnail from each product onto an A4 sheet of paper. We used a different method for each image.
These were:

• Graphite with a continuous line
• Oil Pastel
• Ink and sticks with opposite hand
• Shoe polish and masking tape

I really enjoyed this session and think the work i produced is some of the best from the whole 8 weeks, even though it was done in one afternoon.

On the second day we started the bulk project of the week. We were given six words and we had to try and put the words into a thumbnail in a way that shows what they mean, without drawing any images. The words we had were Collapse, Slither, Flowing, Detached, Consume and Stability.

We then made backgrounds for the words to go on. We used cuttings from magazines to create shapes in our sketch book, which we then enlarged on the photocopier to A4. We could photocopy them into colours aswell if we wanted, but we were limited to 4 colours, 2 of which were black and white. I photocopied the background a lot so i had a number of images for each background so i had variety and then could chose the one i liked the most.
The words i chose to use were Collapse, Detached, Flowing and Stability.

I enjoyed the graphics week more than i thought i would. I have always thought of graphics as more technical drawing  but i now know its nothing like that and is a lot more creative. I especially liked the typography session and as i have said, i think some of the best work i have produced has come from that afternoon.

Graphics Theory

6 of the main disciplines of graphic design are

• Advertising
• Editorial Design
• Typography
• Web Design
• Corporate Identity
• Signs and Symbols

The article i really liked reading was from Eye Magazine, called 'An Alphabetical Catwalk-Tania Prill’s student workshop translates typography into fashion'. I found this article very interesting because it links fashion which i love and graphics together, which you wouldnt neccessarily always link together. It also brings out other areas of graphics, rather than just working on a computer.
http://www.eyemagazine.com/blog/post/an-alphabetical-catwalk

One of the graphic designers that was exhbiting at the design museum this year was Dalton Maag, who was there for his font he designed for Nokia, called Nokia Pure. He designed this font 'to be a font that speaks with simplicity and yet over-flows with character, but is also effortlessly functional in a digital world'.  

Stefan Stagmeister

I really liked this piece of work by Stefan Stagmeister because it isnt what i think of when i think of graphic design. It incorporates nature into the image which you dont see very often in any artists work and to see it in graphics, to me, is very interesting. I also like how the foreground is different on each side, so their is a contrast between everything in the image; the colour of the cactus, the twigs of the tree and then the sillhouette of the cactus on the right.

Wim Crouwell

I liked this image by Wim Crouwell because i have to keep looking at it, just trying to figure out what it says. I think this makes it more interesting because sometimes with this kind of work once you have read it you know what it says and understand it, but with this it isnt possible and it needs to be looked over more than once.

Alan Fletcher

I liked this piece of work by Alan Fletcher because the letters are different from the norm but still look good together. I also liked how some of the letters are turned at an angle or arent shaped properly. For example, the N now looks like a Z and the C isnt all curved like people think it should be, but looks like a pie with a piece taken out of it.

Kris Sowersby

 I picked this image above the rest of his work because when i first looked at it, it just looked like a big block word, which doesnt really link in with the word 'love' as this should be more relaxed and calmer, but then when you look at it closer you see all the intricate design in the middle of each letter and also the swirls that are coming off the edges. I really liked this because it makes it look like it fits in with the word more and also shows how much time he has but into this piece of work, even with such a short word.

Pep Carrio


I liked this piece of work because it is really intricate but simple at the same time. Although it is just a series of lines, you can see that it will have taken him a while to complete it and could have been quite frustrating to do. I also like the image of the person in the bottom corner because i think this sets it off well and makes the lines look like they represent something, such as thoughts, rather than
just being lines.

Noma Bar

 

I liked this image by Noma Bar because it is so simple but he still manages to incorporate two images, so you can tell a lot of thought has gone into it. I also like how he makes work of the negative space and uses it in his work rather than just leaving it empty like some other artists do. I also like how the colours are really simple so that even the smallest red parts stand out well, where as if there was lots of colours in the image you wouldnt be able to see these as well.

 

 

Urso Chappell

 

I really liked this piece of work by Urso Chappell because it has a playful nature to it, without even having any movement and is just 5 characters on a page. The characters remind me of something you would see as a teddy bear for a child or something like that and that is why i like it.

 

Stanley Donwood

 

This piece of work caught my eye, not because i liked it but because i thought it seemed kind of scary and violent, whereas, to me anyway, graphic design always seems to seem friendly and like there is nothing bad about it, but then i came across this. The colours are like fire and the whole picture seems to have a negative feel about it. Although i do think it is a negative style of picture i do think it works well and i like it because it is different from what i have seen in my research for graphic design.

 

Tom Eckersley

 

 

I liked this piece of work by Tom Eckersley because it is like a full rainbow has been put into a picture, which i think looks really nice. I also like the fact that their is two sides to the person and one side is brighter, while the other side has cooler more pastel colours. I like this because i think it shows that there can be two sides to a person, even in art and graphic design.

 

Susan Kare

 

This image by Susan Kare appealed to me because it is so random and doesnt seem very serious, but it can also mean something at the same time. For example, i thought that it could show all of america working together because every image can be linked to the country, for example the flad and the presidents. I also like how their is another drawing at the top of the hearts that doesnt really fit in but somehow she has made it work.

 

Storm Thorgerson

 

I love this piece by Storm Thorgerson because it looks like he had a lot of fun making it because to me it looks like he just put some blobs of paint on a background and moved them around a little, which to me is fun, even though he probably spent hours making sure every little section was perfect. I also like it because you cant really tell what it is so you have to look at it more than once.

 

Since doing the graphics design week i have realised how much graphics is used in every day life and how different just a little line can make something. For example, i never realised how many different fonts their are on one product and how just a few flicks on some letters can make a whole different font. I have started noticing graphic design more now i know what it is about, because befor this week i had never had any kind of introduction to it before.

Week 6-Applied Arts

On our first day in applied arts we only had the afternoon to do some work as we had spent the morning in talks with ex-students at the college. We spent the afternoon drawing images to help design objects. We started off by having objects in front of us then making a view finder. We then placed the view finder onto the object and drew a line drawing of what we could see. We then drew in the same box but a different part of the object, to create some interesting shapes. We were then asked to pick an interesting shape and design something using that shape, whether it be some jewellery or another object.
I decided to design some jewellery.

On our second day we were in the workshop all day. Our task was to cover a wooden cube in metal that we had manipulated using the processes that were available to us in the workshop. These processes were:

• Rolling Mill-used to stretch metal, flatten it out more and can also add pattern.
• Fly Press-embosses metal by adding lots of pressure, requires plates of metal and rubber to withstand pressure. Wire is used to add patterns in metal.
• Foot Guillitine-used to cut metal
• Annealing Room-Using heat to make metal a dark cherry red, when it is added to acid and washed this gets rid of the colour but means that metal is more maluable.
• Pillar Drill-drills holes in metal.
• Using a hammer and different shaped chisels to add marks to metal
• Small Gas Torch-changes colour of metal by adding heat. Creates a look of oil in water.

I used all of the proccesses available except the Annealing room, the Drill and the Rolling Mill, just because it preffered the other processes more and liked the effects these created.

I enjoyed this week more than i thought i would. I had never worked in metal before i took part in the applied arts week and i thought working with it was interesting and also thought learning about all the processes was interesting too.

Week 5-Fine Art

In this week we started our first day by learning about metaphors in art work. Charles showed us an image, which i have inserted above and we had to try and figure out the metaphor. The metaphor is all about making sure a vehicle has the right tyres to get it to its correct power and achieve its best. We then had to create our own image using a metaphor onto a postcard size piece of card. The metaphors we used were from a song of our choice. We used collage to create our images and cut the shapes we needed out of magazines. The metaphor i chose was 'my heart is out at sea'.

On the second and third day we had Greg and the first thing he taught us was that 'fine art is useless' and that if you can do something with it, it isnt fine art. For example, a chair on its side is fine art because you can no longer sit on it. He then gave us a set of rules to follow over the 2 days that we had to follow in our work.
Those rules were:

• Explore colour and texture using a variety of materials
• Fill shapes internally and externally
• Try to use colour and texture to differentiate between sections
• Draw and paint around objects
• Do not try to invent anything, just use the shapes that are there.
• Try out as many different techniques as possible
• Overlay images
• Use all the paper
• Keep moving.

We then spent the next 2 days actually creating some fine art. For the first piece i wasnt really sure what to do so i just drew around a few objects and made a mess really, so i dont really like the first one i created.

For my second piece i worked mainly with the projector, so i got lots of big images on my paper rather than just small ones that i could draw around. I drew around the images in a black crayon, the lines stood out well but you couldnt see them from far away, which i liked. When i had finished drawing around the objects i decided to colour in just a few sections to make pieces stand out. I liked this image because you can tell that the coloured object is a toy skeletons ribs but you cant tell what the rest of the objects i drew are, so you have to look at it more than once.

My third piece was definitely my favourite. I took inspiration from a video that Greg showed us, where the artists paints an image then uses a squegee to drag the paint across the canvas. I didnt draw an image first but just squirted some paint on the paper. I then dragged it up and down the page to blend it together. I just used primary colours because i thought this would give it a brighter look. I then projected the animal skull onto it and drew around it in crayon. I then painted over the lines in emulsion and dragged this down the page a little as well, to make it blend in with the background but also stand out at the same time.

Once i got into it i enjoyed the fine art week and the final piece i created is definitely my favourite. I did find it a little difficult to get stuck in at first and as i have already mentioned, my first piece of work suffered a little because of this but once i had figured out how to place the objects on the page my work got a lot better.

Week 4-3D/Spatial Design

On our first day in 3D/Spatial we spent the morning researching about 3D designers, from areas such as the Bauhaus, which i have included in a post below.

We then spent the afternoon learning about and getting to grips with one point and two point perspective, which i enjoyed as i hadnt done it before, however i did find it quite difficult to draw anything other than square shapes, but i think after more practice i would probably be able to change that and improve what i can do.

One point perspective is when everything 'dissapears' into one point on the page and two point is when everything dissapears into two points on the page.

On our second day in 3D we spent the morning mainly drawing. We had to draw an object as a line with no tone as all, just the lines. We then had to do the same in ink. For this activity Richard gave us objects that we werent neccessarily familiar with, so we were really observing them and not just making them up. I enjoyed doing this with the pencil as i am a bit of a neat freak and this work looked very neat. However i didnt enjoy working with the ink as i felt that everything i made just looked like a mess and didnt look like anything good, however this did end up giving me inspiration for what we did later on.

In the afternoon we started working in more of a 3D way, producing 3D designs that were inspired by our drawings. I decided to work with the dents that were in the peg i had drawn earlier.Afterwards i started working with Jo on a shape that she wanted to create, which was inspired by a bell shape. We created this by starting with a pattern that was the same as a sleeve pattern, which i was familiar with after doing my textiles A Level.

On the final day we used the laser cutter to create some kind of object inspired by what we had started the day before. Katy and I decided to work with the shapes i had created the day before but make them into circles instead and attach them in somwe way. We first did a prototype with 4 circles to make sure that it would actually work how we wanted it too. When we had done this we moved onto the computer to create our design for our laser cut piece. However, we could only have an A3 piece of polypropaline, so we had to make sure that our circles fit onto this. We decided to cut out 6 circles as we thought this would make a more interesting shape compared to 4 circles. Again i have added a photo in of what the finished product looked like.

We thought that the product could be an interesting lamp shade or a cover for a lantern.

I didnt really enjoy the 3D week at first as, like i have said, i didnt enjoy working with the ink and couldnt seem to get anything out of it, however, when it came to doing the 3D work i enjoyed it a lot more as this is what i enjoy doing and seeing the final product definitely made it worth while.

3D Design-Bauhaus

Bauhaus

Bauhaus started off as an art and design school in Germany and was shut down because of the Gestapo group, as they said that the school was too ‘un-german’.  It was one of the first Art & Design schools and their main goal was to prove that design doesn’t have to be ordinary and boring.

The Bauhaus had lots of influences on designers even after they had shut down. In 2011, Walter Isaacson’s biography even said that Steve Jobs was influenced by the Bauhaus movement when designing his products for Apple, even though it is around 80 years later. In fact, a product that Bauhaus designed-the door knob, apparently has some of the same design DNA as the iPhone 4S, which proves you can take inspiration from something and turn it into something completely different.

Marcel Breuer

Marcel Breuer studied and then worked at Bauhaus in the 1920’s, before moving on to Berlin to design houses and commercial spaces. He firstly liked to work with steel tubing, although later he went on to work with wood, and this is where his famous chair design came from.

This chair is known as the Wassily Chair and is one of Marcels most famous designs, which he designed while he was still a teacher at Bauhuas.

I like this chair because even though it was made a number of decades ago it still looks modern and like it was designed a few years ago. I also like how the fabric on it will make it comfy so it can be sat on for a while but there is a minimal amount so that the metal tubes are still the main bit, because this is what Marcel worked in mostly at this period. I also like it because it reminds me of a deck chair, which make me think of summer and summer is always a happy time, so even though it is done in black and silver and these are very cool colours the chair could still be used outside in the summer for things like barbeques

Walter Gropius

Walter Gropius started his career in the 1920’s when he became the director of Bauhaus. When he was forced out of Berlin he moved to America, only coming back to Berlin to do one last piece of work, which caused controversy again, just like Bauhaus had done.

 

 

This sofa was designed by Walter Gropius in 1920, so before he started working at Bauhaus. I really like this sofa because of how in the future it would have been when it was designed. This actually reminds me of something that would have been in ‘Back to the Future’ when they go to the future, because it seems really modern and really ahead of its time. I like the fact that people would still have this in their house now and wouldn’t think twice about it. Some people say that Walters work is really simple and that’s why they don’t like it but I don’t think this is simple at all, it isn’t just a normal everyday sofa, the arms are completely different and the colours, even though they are just black and white are very unique too.

Josef Hartwig

I like this chess set that was designed by Josef Hartwig who worked for Bauhaus because it is completely different from what I have seen before. Whenever I think of chess I think of traditional pieces that are all carved into certain shapes. I also like this because it sort of makes chess simple, because the pieces indicate the moves that the pieces can do, for example the square indicates that it can go up, down, left and right while the cross shape indicates that it can go diagonal