Thursday 24th November: Adobe illustrator Morpholo task part 1.

My first thoughts about this work shop were both apprehension and excitement. Apprehension because  it was going to be based on using Adobe Illustrator which is something i am not very confident with using but also excitement because i am looking forward to learning how to use it , therefore helping me develop in my practise.

                                               My observational sketches of details in letterforms

This workshop was based on practicing basic pen and sketching skills, fundamentals of graphic design. I really enjoyed just sitting with a pen and paper and focusing in on little details of fonts, zooming in on areas of detail that you wouldn't usually notice . Some of the shapes, lines and curves i discovered were really interesting. I have discovered some really fascinatingly beautiful fonts i didn't even know existed , the pictures below are some examples of what i found.

Diwan Kufi.

Gutarati.

The next step was to manipulate these tiny details of typographic elements of letter forms into Morpholo tiles. These are numerous tiles containing black and white shapes generated mathematically , that when placed side by side create accidental larger shapes. There is only one rule with  creating these tiles and this is that the edges must match black to black and white to white. But before we could do this we had to create a collection of tiles. The usual Morpholo tile set is made up of 256 tiles , we couldn't possibly create this many in one session so therefore using a random generator we chose 12 random numbers, each number was a tile pattern showing the edges that must be covered. The picture below are the numbers and corresponding tiles i chose.

The next task was to use the details we had found in areas of fonts and manipulate them into the tile spaces making sure that whatever edge was marked in that tile was covered. I found this quite challenging as some of the edge arrangements were quite difficult to make into a composition. But in the end i was really impressed with my first initial outcomes. The picture below shows my first sketches. In which i first created the outline with a thin fine liner then defined some of the curves and shapes using a thicker line, followed by filling in the shape with a marker. I manipulated and added shapes to the white space of some of my compositions to make them more interesting.

On the left are my first initial sketches and on the right are the edge patterns i followed.

This is my final compilation of illustrated tiles.

My developments.

I found the concept of zooming in and looking at such tiny details really interesting, i have created some really interesting pieces of design. I noticed so many new and beautiful details in fonts i use regularly. I want to carry on and explore this concept , maybe do a whole project based around the idea of zooming in on fonts and objects in general and capturing all the different shapes and lines. I found a company who use this concept called "Frietag" in their design, its something id love to do. They recycle old lorry tarpaulin and cut it up making bags and accessories , this definitely might become an obsession of mine, the designs are simply stunning.

Thursday 24th November: Brand vs Anti Brand - Jonathan Lindley.

Branding is a massive part of our lives, subconsciously surrounding us 24/7 . Whether we like it or not brands are engraved into our brains,  this may be in the form of colour for example when we see an orange supermarket sign we might think Sainsbury's or a blue supermarket sign we might think of Tesco ; or through shapes like when we see a tick we might automatically think of nike. Each of these big multinational companies have cleverly taught us to recognise these logos and features as a brand that we can trust. Because we recognise the colours and the shapes of that logo it makes us think that we can trust whatever is inside the packaging. Consequently if they bring out a new product we feel a sense of security that we are able to trust it.This however is not the case. We continue to buy the products when there could be a great deal of ethical and cultural controversy behind them that we don't know about.

Multi national companies all over the world continue to exploit us as consumers. By disguising the multinational aspect of their company to make it appeal to a local crowd. Hiding the truth of possible cultural and ethical exploitation that is behind the bigger picture.

Anti branding is a movement around the globe that works against brands to spread the disapproval and dissatisfaction of their actions. In hope that it will show us consumers the truth behind their big cheery corporate smiles , in anticipation that we will step up and realise what they are doing and stop consuming their products.

But the questions is , it the big multinational companies that are the problem or is it us? We still buy their products and consume them even though a child might have died in the making of that PS2 , or that those cigarettes that you buy might be being promoted to 10 year olds in developing countries with no money and stability, but we buy them anyway. We all have different relationships with brands and choose to trust them. It is our job as Graphic Designers to realise brands aren't all good. Neither are Anti-brands.

The answer is that we need to address our culture. Anything we do has a reaction somewhere in the world. Lets use our power of influence to change this!

An example of famous Anti branding

This image is a literal representation of the scandal in which Coca Cola took water greedily from poor villages who needed it to survive. It was created by an Anti-Brand activist called Carlos Latuff in 2009. It is of a business man from Coca Cola drinking with a straw out of a well in which an obviously poor woman with nothing on her feet has walked to collect water. Her face is horrified as the man who may provide work for her community, makes a mockery out of her by drinking out of the well with his giant straw, probably taking all the water. All she needs to do is fill up her small vase. I think the perspective of this image is important as the Coca Cola man is much bigger than the women and looking down at her as if he is more superior, taking the water for granted.

My Anti-Brand logo:

The role of an anti-brand campaigner is to visualise the scandal and its effects on the world, in such a way that its shared with a wider community more quickly than any text based story. My anti brand logo uses a shock factor to get the viewers attention and make them think about the deeper issues in fast food chains like Mcdonalds. It is based around the massive amounts of food waste created by mcdonalds , and how they are doing nothing about it when they could be feeding thousands of people with the food they waste. The slogan "I'm lovin' it" is meant to be an ironic statement, showing that people in the third world and not receiving the same enjoyment from Mcdonalds, than the people in the first world.

Thursday 17th November : After effects workshop 2 , the book trailer.

Book Trailer , The old lady who swallowed a fly. from Anna Loveland on Vimeo.

This is my first animation using illustrations in adobe after effects. It was inspired by one of my favourite books as a child illustrated by Pam Adams. It is an interactive book , in which every turn of the page reveals another animal that the old lady had swallowed. I loved this concept of how all the animals fit inside of each other and thought it would be really interesting in the form of an animation. 

My inspiration.

These are half the slides I made , I had 24 all together to create my project.

Interactive pdf

Thursday 10th November: Physical drawing studio 2

As i discovered in our first physical studio drawing session experimenting with getting your mark down on the page is critical to your practice. The first session was helping us practice scale and form, whereas the second was to help us develop our mark making and experiment with the materials we were using.                                                                                              

Therefore i moved on from using pencil, fine liner and black and white tones and started to experiment with using pastels and colour, which i actually found very rewarding. I wanted to carry the skills over i learnt in the previous session of interpreting a physical object in my own style. 

I decided to try something out my comfort zone and attempt drawing human form, which i haven't been good at in the past. I started with gently sketching the basic shapes in a light pastel then slowly built up the colours and capturing the light and dark areas by smudging the pastels. Even though some of the shapes were out of proportion i think the final outcomes were really strong and my use of colour worked really effectively.

Monday 7th November: Light bulb moment!

Ever heard of writers block, blank page syndrome...well i know they aren't real things but i have been staring at the blank page of this blog for a few weeks now and erased every single word i have written. I started my theory as practice blogs trying to write very formally and trying to cram as much information in as possible. But the truth is I'm not good at writing at all, every blog post was taking hours to write and no words were coming naturally. I could draw and doodle typography for hours but ask me to write and my mind goes blank.

I realised my blog was lacking a lot of my personality which is a major component in my practice.

So after my seminar today on writing our own manifesto I was determined to make my blog more interesting and something that shouted out my personality. I decided to start from scratch by how i work best. I took a sentence from the workshop and put it in the centre of a page and let my ideas follow one after another in a giant mind

splurge.

Turns out writing comes a lot more easily if you just do it. Nothing comes naturally if you  think about it too much, writing as you talk is the way forward. 

My aim from now on is to create in  little segments everyday. I am going to carry around a sketchbook and document things i see , hear , smell whether thats in the form of typography, note taking , doodles or cartoons. I am going to let my life around me influence my work. You never know what might provide you with that light bulb moment!

Thursday 3rd November: Keeping an image editable