Bicycle Film Festival ‘09 Trailer.

I adore this video, it is absolutely amazing, I was so excited when I first saw it. The Bicycle Film Festival ‘09 trailer was created by Marco Mucig. It is such an innovative and interesting way of presenting type, and presenting a title of an event. The layout and flow is effortless, and it looks so simple but this is what makes it so visually appealing, it just pulls you in right up until the final second. The set up of the frames are gorgeous, the use of light adds to the vibrancy of the scenes. It is just a highly polished, quirky piece of video, that is exciting from start to finish. Marco Mucig has a very ecclective selection of his work on his website, which is a visual explosion of colour and illustration it is absolutely stunning work, check it out HERE!

Drawing Unlimited Workshop.

Last friday I attended the Drawing Unlimited Workshop in University, it was a workshop that started at 10am and continued until 1pm. It was organised by the Vis Com Illustration tutor Christine Blaney. It was open to 1st, 2nd and 3rd year Vis Com students along with some foundation students. Only two of us 2nd years showed up, but it was a great experience to get to interact with fellow students and get some advice and inspiration from other students. The workshop consisted of many illustrative exercises ranging from image to typography. Many of the exercises consisted of using black ink, a thick paint brush and using the opposite hand to which you write with to give a more quirky image, there were also time constraints of a couple of minutes for each too. Each of the class created one of the letters above using these methods. Below is the first exercise we were given.

We were each given a post-it note and with a thick paint brush and black ink, using our opposite hand to writing we had to draw a self portrait, the outcome was actually quite beautiful and very free, this exercise loosened us up for the following exercises.

Again we had to use a thick paint brush and black ink, using our opposite hand to writing and draw a self portrait. This time we also had to add text that explained our likes. I decided to go more abstract and drew half of my face and focused on the typography coming out of my head in the form of a speech bubble to give a connection between the type and image. It was incredibly difficult to do with a large paint brush and my left hand, but never the less interesting.

We then were given a bit longer and were asked to create a self portrait using any hand, using any materials and I came up with this collage of news print, ink, and crayon, again I stuck with a thick paintbrush as I loved the freedom of it, the 20 mins flew in I thought it was too long at the start, but I really needed more time. It was however a really nice outcome.

and finally we had to create a typographic piece that would present advice to students whom wish to apply for the Vis Com course. This was my typographic poster I created. My advice were the 3 R’s: Remember (all you see and are told), Risk (take risks with your work sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t), Read (with this course you can never read too many design books, you constantly have to feed yourself inspiration).

This was a collection of all the advice from the class! It was an extremely fun workshop and a welcomed break from the chaotic few weeks at university trying to get the publication project finalised.

Inspiration.

At the entrance to our floor in university from the lift there is a huge chalkboard wall. Last year the third years branded the wall but over the past few months the chalk had been vandalised and crude graffiti added on to the surrounding chalkboard. It was an eyesore as soon as the lift doors opened onto our floor. It annoyed me and a girl from my class Winnie so much that we cleaned and repainted the entire wall with the intention of writing a quote in chalk that would be changed and altered every two weeks. Due to deadlines and workload, it has taken us a week to get around to adding the quote. We were in late tonight and decided to put a couple of hours aside to add a quote. To make it appropriate and inspirational we used a quote that had significance to our present work, which is a publication. We took a quote from my publication on designer Richard Seabrooke, he said ‘I live for what I do’. We used Futura Condensed Extra Bold as the typeface and drew the type on using masking take and chalk. Three of us in all drew on the design, me, Coleen and Winnie.

It was a long laborious task of cutting out the stencils to help aid us with layout and scale. Thankfully Allister and Sean where on hand to help with the more tricky cut outs, to help the work carry on at a steady pace. We then outlined the text with chalk and then coloured in the interior, to make it bold and really jump out, size was definitely not an issue.

Three of us working together meant that we got through the design pretty quickly in only two hours which made it very efficient and enjoyable.

We all worked well as a team, working on different parts, although in the end it looked completely uniform and it looked like it was created by one hand.

As seen by my intense stare above, it took a lot of concentration to create this piece, large, bulky pieces of chalk were used to colour in tiny, delicate, lines.

After two hours we were finally finished up, and we were extremely pleased with the entire design. It was exactly what we had invisioned. It makes quite a bold statement when you walk out of the lift, or once those lift doors open, peoples eyes will be caught by the type, and their curiosity will want them to investigate further.

We were so inspired by the the chalk board we wanted to carry the idea further and we looked into the marrying of visuals and type in a playful way, We carried the quote into the middle of the vis com floor, placing it high, onto the side of the roof to add perspective and angle.

Word and Image.

Our first university projects this year was a live project to create branding for a conference that is set to be held in the university later next year. The conference is called Displaying Word and Image, it is targeted to an audience of intellectuals probably late 20’s plus. This was the main obstacle in finding a solution for the branding and one that I had great difficulty with, I love colour and I love excitement but I had to control my urges to splash colour and experiment with type. I had to go back to basics. My first attempts at the logo did not go down well at my first crit, I had gone art nouveau, with a slight Si Scott influence, creating a big, bold beautiful ornate logo of the W&I brought together. It was like being led blind throughout this project, we never had any contact with the client so we had no idea what she had in mind, what she wanted, what colours she wanted. We had no idea what treatments the design would be used on, so we were creating something for someone we had no idea about, and that melted my brain and caused me to over think everything I did, and so I totally lost my way with it, and so I am still having to work on it to create something I am happy with.

I then had to take it right back to basics at that point, and this is what I came up with. Our tutor did not think the client would like the name of the conference made into an acronym so I found it quite hard to create branding with so much type. I tried to simplify it right down, from the type choice and the colour. I knew the branding was to be used on promotional literature, posters and conference stationary, so I knew that I could get away with big. This was a good starting point to help play with layout, but it just was too samey as a lot of design out there.

I then took the art nouveau idea and explored it further, I looked into stain glass and especially the Tiffany Stained Glass. I loved the use of colours and pieces which fit together to make this beautiful image. I loved the idea of everything to be connecting, and the conference will be fitting different ideas, opinions and techniques together. ‘Displaying’ is in the title of the conference and I wanted the logo to be representative, a stain glass style would show word in an image. I created a few different designs, and I experimented with colour but I was pretty sedate, I started with differing shades of blue staying safe, and then I started to add 3 colours together like the piece above. This piece is showing how the branding can be used on the conference literature.

I took the stained glass theme and experimented with it even further and I started to be a bit more creative with the colours, I came up with the idea of 4 different coloured logos, that could be used on different items, just to add interest and to visually separate the different pieces of information. The client did not choose my design and to be honest I was not surprised I knew that it would be too fresh and youthful for what she was looking for, but the experience was still worth it.

An idea that the client has picked and is being short listed is that of a very talented classmate Winnie Shek, check out her design here.

I am obsessed.

Oops I had almost forgot about this one. This is another pinhole photograph that I took outside my studio at university. I exposed the paper for one minute as I thought the light coming from the glass ceiling was far too bright to leave it exposed for any longer. It took a bit to develop, and to my horror, the photograph turned black extremely quick once it started to develop, I thought it was ruined and completely over exposed until I took it outside and found that it had captured the details beautifully, with quite attractive contrast. I was actually quite shocked by the details it managed to capture as I had taken it with my poker tin camera. As a group the photographs we had previously taken were extremely abstract and I loved that quality about them, they no longer looked like mundane parts of the building. When I brought this print into Photoshop and inverted it, I was shocked by the detail before my eyes, it looked like an actual black and white photograph, it did not look like it had been created using pinhole. The two different extremes you can get from using pinhole has only made me adore the process even more. I am looking for any excuse to use my camera now!

Dot Project.

A few weeks ago, I along with 5 or 6 fellow classmates took part in an illustration workshop for the ‘Dot Project’. We were each given large pieces of paper and were asked to paint, doodle, draw dots in inks, markers, crayons, colouring pencils, in a multitude of colours using our opposite hands to writing. It was an extremely fun workshop, and it couldn’t have came at a better time, at the end of a stressful first two weeks of college. Some of the final products were exhibited at the Dot Exhibition in the University of Ulster, one of my pieces I created was exhibited and also the above piece which was a collaboration by the 6 or 7 of us who took part. We were extremely pleased with the final outcome, I think all of our styles complimented each other well and we created a beautifully successful outcome that is both vibrant and daring. The orgainisers of the Dot Project really liked this piece and are planning on using it further, it may even be sent to Thailand to be printed further, maybe even onto fabrics. I hope to take part in future workshops, I love to experiment and I love to reach into other fields of Art and Design.

Thank you to Allisterfor the picture!

Morag Myerscough.

I am so excited, this wednesday night Morag Myerscough is giving a talk at my university, I am counting down the hours. I absolutely adore her work, she literally thinks outside the box and comes up with the most insane design solutions that are so appealing to the eye and mind. She has such a talent of engaging and interacting with her target audience in her design, she is definitely someone who inspires and instills passion in me, I am so excited to hear her speak, and hear how she thinks!

Morag set up her own cross disciplinary design practice in 1993. Over the past thirteen years she has created work for many large businesses, here are but a few of her clients:
Barbican Art Gallery: Future City exhibitions
The British Council: British Pavilion, 9th Venice biennale
Derwent Valley: Tea Building Signage
Science Museum: Future Face 2004 exhibition
RIBA:literature and exhibition
Architecture Foundation: Greetings from London, 2004 exhibition
Conran: bluebird branding and Conran Collection food packaging
Wedgwood: Rebranding all packaging 2005.

Her talents cross over many fields of design, but my favourite of all are the work she does in the field of wayfinding, it is so strange and out there. She is not afraid of doing signage that is in your face, and screaming at you from every angle. Her work is made to be seen, it has a purpose and I suppose her success in doing so is why I admire her talent and ability so much.

Here are a few of her pieces I love the most:

I absolutely adore the work she did for the Deptford Project. I absolutely adore her use of colour, she is not afraid to experiment. I have the same attitude to colour as Morag, I love to just throw every colour out there at a design, to give it personality and to make it visually appealing and hypnotic in a way. This piece is a clash of colours, type and illustration, it looks like the train smashed into a print factory, it is chaotic but at the same time in a way organised, I absolutely adore it!

Information overload or what? You will definitely not get lost in this building. The wayfinding she created for Westminister Academy, just screams out at you, Morag was definitely not afraid to use garish colours at weights and sizes most would hide away from. This ballsy attitude that Morag has is so risky but it pays off, she is not afraid to mix it up, she is not afraid to break the mould and upend the rules of design. She is doing design her way, on her own terms and it is working for her.

If you would like to see any of her work visit here!

I will update on how her lecture went!

Pinhole part deux.

Leah , Winnie and I decided to delve deeper into the world of Pinhole Cameras. We made our own pinhole camera from an old poker chips tin (I will do a post soon showing our tin and how we made it) and we took it around the uni over a two hour period and took a dozen photographs. I love pinhole cameras in general, but if I am honest I must admit that I have a love, hate relationship with them. The one thing that grinds my gears about them is the fact that once you expose the paper and take your photograph, you have to go back to the darkroom to take the paper out and develop it there and then, to prevent any chance of spoiling or ruining the photograph by exposing it to any beam of light. This aside it is totally worth the effort, that extra time and effort you have to put in totally pays of in the end. We took over one of the darkrooms in university, and we each took turns taking and developing the photographs. We were most interested in taking photographs that showed how light interacted with our surroundings and the following are what we came up with, (after we took the photographs into Photoshop and inverted them).

Please let us know your thoughts, we are extremely excited about our work.

These two were created by me:

These two were created by Winnie Shek:

These two were created by Leah Batchelor

Folds.

Yesterday morning at University we were given a project with a hand in time of 5pm that evening and this was my outcome. We were given the task of using an A3 page and considering folds had to create a layout that would incorporate; a title, 5 words to describe the title and one paragraph on the title. We were not allowed to use images, just text and we were only allowed to use one typeface. Our main project in this module is a publication, in which we are split into three and put into 17 groups, each tasked with interviewing either a designer, an illustrator, or a photographer. My group received the amazing opportunity of interviewing the incredibly talented and innovative designer Richard Seabrooke (of Dynamo and The Small Print), and so to make the design appropriate I decided to create a piece on Richard Seabrooke. I used Futura Condensed as my typeface as it was one of the fonts he likes. I also decided on cutting down my A3 page to a square (29.7×29.7), and created a double sided print using a fancy fold, just add a quirky edge and grab interest of anyone whom may choose to open it up to see more. I wanted a fold that would excite viewers, a fold that they wouldn’t suspect at first glance or touch. I chose brown, pink and white as my colour palette as I wanted quite a muted palette so that it all works softly together and that no part of the design is fighting to be seen. Let me know what you think about the design!

How is looks when you first open it and discover the fold, I designed it so that ‘Richard’ ran along the fold.

Its just like a hinge then, you pull one edge and it all opens out flat.

The text wraps around the centre.

Pinhole Camera.

I haven’t posted any of my own work in a while so it is time for that to change. These two photographs took three people to create: me, Winnie and Leah . We created them by borrowing Dark Room tutor Chris Barrs Pinhole camera, which was made from a biscuit tin. We had been taking pinhole photos the previous week using an awful and completely overpriced card pinhole camera from Urban Outfitters. With Chris’ camera instead of capturing the image onto the negative, you place a piece of photographic paper inside the tin and the image is created by light passing through a small hole, so only a small circle of the photographic paper is exposed to the scene. I was so excited by the outcome, I am hooked on this technique, I am currently making my own tin box camera. The only downside to it is you need to be close to a dark room to take the photos, due to the fact that as soon as you expose the paper to light, you need to bring it to the darkroom, to remove it so that it is not exposed to light and the image is lost and also you need to develop straight away to get the image too, to work out exposure times etc, but all this is all just the exciting part of the process. This is definitely my new hobby, I will be spending most of the next year in the Darkroom.

These two photographs are two that we took, we brought them into photoshop and inverted them, that is why the background is black, and I think this just adds to the intensity of the overall effect of this technique.

This first image, is of a sculpture that was made up of many cubes. We exposed the paper for two minutes and developed it and then inverted it after. It is so beautiful, it looks like it is bursting out of the centre of the page It is quite abstract, it is impossible to tell what it is.

This one is by far my favourite it is absolutely beautiful. We held the camera over the 4th floor balcony and took a picture of the University Atrium. We exposed the paper for a mere one minute, developed it and then again inverted it. It turned out so soft and beautiful it just glows. To me it looks like a birds eye view of NYC, the blobs look like cars and the blocks look like buildings. It is so abstract I am sure everyone will see something different in it and to me that is what makes it so exciting.