Week 5: Research Skills, John Hammersley

Alot of what we discussed during Johns class was stuff I'd heard previously but it was good to refresh my memory. The key points I will take away from this class is that I need to be selective, summarise and reference. It has been quite some time since I've undertaken 'serious' research and the class reinforced the fact that I need to be more disciplined in my approach. I'm aware that I've been focusing too closely on the mini projects and not doing enough reading. I don't have much time free to commit to my work so I need to be more realistic in what I can achieve.

John set us quite a large task to complete using UWEs online resources facility, hopefully I will find the time to dedicate to this!

Week 5: Motion Graphics: Jennifer Leckey

The class was really interesting and we looked at a lot of pieces that were really inspiring, and very technically proficient.
Jennifer had thought that we'd had 3 flash workshops already (which we hadn't) so we were all left feeling unprepared. Add to this the fact that I'm still not entirely clear of my subject area means that this week has left me feeling pretty overwhelmed.
The project set for us this week was to create a 1 minute motion graphics piece that ideally has some relation to our manifesto (final outcome for the module) using some element from our influences. Quite a scary prospect!

Week 5

Found this week quite hard to get my head around. I tried to attend a flash class in the morning which unfortunately wasn't on as the staff at the epicentre weren't aware that it was supposed to be. A real shame as time is a resource I don't have a great deal of.

My influences

Music
Dub be good to me: Beats International
Why?
Introduced me to dance/alternative music
My teacher was the lead singers mother (I was 12) and they were both lovely!

Book
A clockwork Orange: Anthony Burgess
Why?
As a genre I quite like dark books - other books such as The Rats and The Wasp Factory are also some of my favourites
I find it really interesting how a writer can make you empathise with the 'anti-hero'
Use of language - it really draws you in that you have to learn Burgess' made up slang
Never watched the film, think the story is so complex, you need time to understand the characters. I just think its really interesting to look at things from a whole new viewpoint
Powerful imagery in how things are described

Film
Waking Life: Richard Linklater
Rotoscoped film that takes place within a dream
Introduces you to really complex ideas in a very beautiful way
Good use of animation to illustrate the magic of dreams

I tend to prefer magical films and animations. Another favourite of mine is The Iron Giant, originally written by Ted Hughes. I love how poetic and moving the story is and the underlying morale of the story - 'you are who you choose to be'

Visual Artist
Airside Creative Agency: started by Alex Maclean, Fred Deakin and Nat Hunter working across disciplines of graphic design, illustration, digital interactive and moving image
Why?
Their work often seems to be quite fun - visually, I definitely love all light hearted things and this appeals to the child in me
They do allsorts, products, digital work, design. I like the idea that there creative team get different types of projects to do to feed their creative nature
Still a fairly small company but very successful. Its nice to see a smaller company make such a big mark. It's something I aspire to

Week 4: Using language affectively week 2, John Hammersley

Another challenging but interesting class with John. One thing I've learned from this class is that bias can be placed by the proposer to influence a point of view - A simple sentence can lead the reader into the kind of answer the proposer was looking for. Different theories have different bias and we need to be aware of the writer’s bias as we are researching.

Week 4: Criticism of 50 things

From our discussion of last week we criticized each other’s work based on the agreed factors that makes good design. We all presented our projects in very different ways and it was really interesting to see each other's interpretations. It became clear that perhaps not all of our chosen factors were as important as each other depending item we were discussing. For instance – for one piece of work, ambiguity seemed more appropriate however we had as a group decided that clarity was a key factor. If through ambiguity you can draw the viewer in, this seemed appropriate.My piece of work was considered and fortunately had moved on a great deal from where it was a fortnight ago (phew). The class suggested ways of making my facts clearer to follow – something I was aware was a problem but couldn’t find a suitable way to achieve and also suggested that I move away from the small gatefold booklet and progress it to 3 separate posters. This would definitely affectively deal with the problem of clarity and would be far more attention grabbing.
Unfortunately time constraints have prevented me from recreating my project as the 3 posters, however, if you're curious about my 50 facts, please click here for my emotional, habitual and lifestyle facts, here for facts about my experiences and here for facts about my characteristics.
For next week we've been tasked with coming up with a list of influences for visual, music, writing and film, and reasons as to why we are influenced by our choices.

Reconsideration of my 50 things

I tried to implement some of the feedback from week 2. From this it became clear that I needed to make more of the way I had presented the facts in an analytical way. During the redesign it became clear that there was too much information and that not all of it slotted into nice neat categories so I decided to divide my facts into sections that gave a wider picture of who I am and how the facts affect me. The design became far more information led than self analytical and was in part influenced by a music video I have seen by Royksopp which shows a slice of London life and details all the information in the video down to water usage and mass transit.
I also simplified the style so that the project became more about what I’d learnt about myself through the process rather than a bold garish poster that doesn’t truly reflect my personality. The process taught me that I strive to make sense out of the nonsensical and my decision to reflect my facts this way is evidence to this.

The individual pages

Photo of completed booklet

Week 3: Using language effectively, John Hammersley

This lesson was very interesting, but a little tricky to keep pace – i definitely at times felt out of my depth. Within the class we broke down words into as many possible chunks as we could within the time frame. I had been aware of morphemes, graphemes and phonemes but not of the technical terminology or of the precise rules that should be applied. I wasn’t aware that morphemes can only be made from the way a word is pronounced e.g. you can’t have ‘arch’ from ‘architecture’ but you can have ‘arc’. We then looked at a paragraph laden with metaphors and made it more prosaic and turned a mundane one more abstract. I have never really considered a metaphor at its most basic level – simply ‘jazzing’ up a sentence (I managed to sneak in a metaphor!) I definitely found it easier in class to remove metaphorical content than to make it more abstract and metaphorical however listening to some members of the class read out their more metaphorical abstracts definitely helped me to understand this better. There is definitely room for improvement for me on this one.

Week 3: Intention, Context and Audience, Rob Kettell

This week during class we discussed further the differences (or not) between artists and artisans and through discussion I realised that the lines are not so defined. The reading material that was given to us from the previous week held some subjective opinions on the subject which led into a discussion on subjectivity and objectivity. I realised that I need to be more subjective in my opinions and discover my position on matters such as what makes good design.
However, objectively as a group we came up with a number of things that we agreed makes a good piece of design:
Clarity
Attention grabbing
Memorable
Relevant to audience
Fit for purpose
This led to consideration of our manifesto. What is the intention and context of our manifesto? What is its relevance and who is its audience? These are not questions I am yet ready to answer so I need to look at the bigger values – what kind of work do I want to engage in or contribute to?

Working on the badge

What should have been a pretty simple project turned into a very complex one. Every single aspect of the font, shape and colours used where considered several times before choosing my final design. Hmmm... if I were a typeface, what would I be?

In terms of the badge shape I wanted an original shape, nothing too familiar. I went for a vague reference to a speech bubble shape as I quite liked the asymmetry of it. I definitely found it quite difficult to choose a font as I don’t feel I fall neatly into any given ‘type’ (scuse the pun) in order to categorise myself! In the end I chose the Qlassik font as I didn’t want anything too hard, and as the badges purpose is to indicate who you are, I wanted the text to be clear and legible
Unfortunately when it actually came to the day that we had to bring in the badges, I had a moment of clarity. To my friends and loved ones I am not ‘Pandora Taylor’ - I am simply P, perhaps I should have kept it very simple and just used the letter P, instead of the formal 'Pandora Taylor'

Week 2: 'This is me' workshop – discussion and presentations, Rob Kettell and John Hammersley

The workshop was quite scary but definitely very insightful. We were critiqued on our work on our 50 things. I became aware as we discussed our projects in pairs that my work didn’t truly reflect me, but that the idea of analysing myself through the design was a good one. The critique reflected that and gave me some ideas on how to move the project on for our next submission.
We were also given a mini brief to create a badge in a font that we feel reflects ourselves.

Week 2: Class reflection with Rob Kettell

This week we discussed practise and difference between applied and our own practise. I did find this quite interesting and am definitely looking forward to the challenge of practising for myself as apposed to working to a clearly defined brief. I’m aware this is quite different from the experience I have. We also discussed our reading set from the previous week and discussed the difference between artists and artisans. I would definitely say I fit into the category of artisan but would love to one day consider myself an artist. Perhaps that's what I'm looking to achieve through my MA.

Working on 50 curious things

My first challenge was to come up with 50 things that were not only interesting but also that I didn’t mind these people I had only just met knowing! The first 30 weren’t too tricky but I did have to get help with my last 20. I did also go through the list a few times and swopped a few things round!
To a certain extent find the process quite therapeutic and thought I could use this as an idea for display – I decided to rate myself in terms of ‘weird and wonderfulness’
See below for the outcome (click on the image for a larger view):

Week 1 of my MA

Our first class! And our first brief! The class highlighted a number of aspects regarding practise that I hadn’t really considered. In my experience I have always worked in a manner whereby I obtain a brief first, then evolve the project in a linear fashion. This course will enable me to work in a more reflective manner for a much more considered outcome.
It also highlighted that I should collect things of interest and reflect in my learning. I am aware that everything around me has an influence, but I had never considered collecting things – I will have to learn how to be more disciplined in my approach!
A journal is also something I’ve never had to do before and is a little scary for a person as naturally disorganised as myself :( I try honestly I do
My first brief:
Come up with 50 curious facts about myself
Display as I would like on no more than 2 sheets of A4