BA Graphics project

For my Graphics BA Project, we had to make posters that show something that we would like to either change or have at Ravensbourne. I wanted to put across inspirational words that would be uplifting, even though its important to work hard, its equally as in important to take breaks and not stress much.

These are a couple of possible designs and motivational phrases, I tried to stick to warm and positive colours when thinking about layout. The font varied from small and intimate to casual and thicker visually, in particular I like the balance between the yellow and blue as it links with positivity and the Ravensbourne colours. The bean bag chair was also a simple shape which summarized visually what I wanted to put across in the final poster.






German design group, Neue Gestaltung stood out to me with their use of letter and typography to relay information. The minimalist style would fit well with my poster idea as I wanted a quick and clear message to be put across so that that a student would understand instantly the message.

There is a bold contrast between the red and blue, the contrast between the ornate detail in the figures hair with the simple shape of her face ,balances each other out visually.  The main idea I see when I first glance at this poster, is a woman brushing her hair with a storm imagery making up the lower half of her body. Through this simple use of colour and composition as a viewer I can instantly deduct that there is a female involved with a ship setting, the action of the woman brushing her hair is reminiscent of mermaids and the sea. The use of the dark red to depict her lips with the storm below leads me to believe there is a sense of danger in this story. Danger/Femme Fatale characters and Adventure are the words that come to mind. This kind of thought process when designing my poster would be useful for a successful final piece.

 Through Photoshop I begin with a blurred bean bag, to create some kind of texture. The design imitates the brush strokes of a paintbrush which I thought would be fitting as it is a design and art based university. The colour scheme I decided to go with is inviting and warm due to the hues of red and cream.

 The font is quite thick and casual in appearance, making the font smaller and black was to create a more dominant effect. As the colour of the red is quite opaque and a strong presence on its own. The text is slanted to the side as it follows the natural shape of the chair, this allows for the main object and the text to interact with each other without clashing.

 The white is a little subtler and doesn't come across to harsh to the eye, which is why the text is placed on the bean bag. In addition the style of font seems to be hand written, creating a more personal link between the poster and viewer, as if the bean bag is inviting you to sit and relax. This reinforces the idea for the viewer to feel that the poster is relate able, which is why there is only one bean bag and not a group, so that the viewer feels like were personally communicating with them.

 I decided to go with the main message 'Relax' to be in lower case and above the bean bag.  The font still retains the relaxing atmosphere but due the overhead position, I made the font thinner so that it doesn't dominate the chair or feel to heavy with both elements in view.

 Adding to this , I used a warmer fire like glaze over the poster to create a sitting by the fire feel to it. To emphasize this further there is a red shadow behind the font, linking to the main colour scheme of the bean bag.

 The shadows on the bean bag are in darker contrast to highlight the material and shape of the chair. On top of which I added another light glaze to imitate rays of light, this centralizes the object and creates some kind of depth to the poster.

To create a dream like effect, light spots which you would find on cameras when taking a picture was placed over the design. There is more of a colorful and festive feel to it, which contrasts with the harshness of the font. I wanted the font to look as if it was burned into the background, the build up of layers creates a deeper sense of depth to the poster while maintaining and inviting atmosphere. To describe the poster in three words would be Relaxing/Inviting and Warm.  

Design Workshop 2

 Focusing more on typography and different ways of presenting this, we worked in a team to create the alphabet. It was challenging getting everyone's opinions together in how to portray some letters.

During the 70's Ana Mendieta's performance/body art became a visual representation for the female movement. In particular her 1976 Earth body 'Siluetas' in Mexico, I found to be her most influential work. The concept behind those works was for the artist to reconnect with her surroundings by using her body language to create a dialogue with the universe and the audience looking at her recorded evidence.

In terms of my group project, using our bodies to create a dialogue echoes a similar idea to Mendieta's work. Working as a team and knowing when to only use one body or when deciding to use a group to create a letter was an interesting part of the process. The way in which Mendieta worked with the negative space to create a shape was referenced in our own shapes as the the negative space around us emphasized the letters are bodies were making.








This was a part of a poster for the Salon DaDa exposition Internationale. By Galerie Montaigne 1921, Looking into typography this week led me to research back into the history of it. This poster is in the style of Dadaism, a group active during the 30s which was all for rejecting the conventional representation of art. In this particular piece of art there is a play with words and composition to relay information.

This kind of thinking is what inspired me when working on the typography task. There is a mismatch of fonts and phrases however due to the weight of the main title and the thickness on the DaDa section the image seems balanced. Even though Dadaist tried to reject the formal artistic techniques of perspective , use of color, composition, some techniques still show through.

 Using typography tried to create a word with a visual impact. I was focusing on natural imagery, showing the natural shape of droplet. The words are the sounds that a water droplet would make, this creates a visual impact. Without focusing too much on colour, the use of black creates a stark contrast with the white background, something which can be seen with the DaDa poster above.
















I wanted to have an arch on the the rainbow to emphasize the shape of the actual object, this gives the typography a sense of authenticity. There is an even weight to the font of the words which carries the arc over easily and seems much more complete to the eye as there seems to be a balance.

'Yellow Field' 1937

On Thursday we looked at the works of well known illustrators, I chose to research the work of Evyind Earle. What initially attracted me were his watercolors of landscapes, during a trip in the late 30's Earle managed to paint over 40 water colours within 45 days. He later went on to paint/design for Walt Disney and was the main background illustrator for the Disney film Sleeping Beauty. His style is quite distinct as it manages to be intricate while still minimalist in style, something I incorporated in my own illustration poster.

In Yellow Field, I was drawn to the way he was able to capture a different atmosphere in each of his paintings. He used basic lines and splashes of colour in the front to create a sense of perspective of depth. The foreground appears heavy and full of colour which fades out the more the viewers eye looks further back in the background.

'Sketch of Barn in Snow'

Trying to understand Earle's thought process I sketched one of his watercolors. The layering in his work I found is key when it comes to his minimalist style. The towering trees lead the upwards while at the same time centering the Barn house in the middle. The contrast between the warm colours of the house with the cool tones of the sky creates a sense of depth, with the house appearing closer.






Using similar techniques, I created page designs for my poster. The theme were old fairy tales, which in the style of Earle's natural landscapes I felt were an appropriate match. The story of Thumbelina was what I focused on, a balance of natural imagery with fantasy characters inspired by nature. Researching into the story itself, I wanted for the poster to market the narrative well. Since the main character was a small fairy like woman, having a woodland landscape showcasing the large size of the trees made it seem more realistic.












  

My final concept was for the natural landscape to be in the visual perspective of the main character. That's why a towering woodland scene worked perfectly. As for the colour scheme, a mixture of warm with cool tones created a balance between the foreground and background. While the yellow leaves still stood out and didn't dominate over the trees in the foreground. In term of Earle's style the minimalist design of the shapes influenced my work, even the intricacy of the bark in the foreground was pulled back to emphasize the shapes not the texture of the object. The background was left quite basic in shape.

Design Workshops

Exploring the different styles of calligraphy, I used a slightly drier brush. This allowed me to make cleaner lines, deciding not to dilute the ink helped me retain the inks natural opaqueness creating a bolder effect on the words. This process was new to me, keeping control of the brush strokes was something I needed to be aware of.

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Crossing over to more of a symbolic description of calligraphy, I began to play around with the the material of the ink. Linking to the Chinese poem 'A tree in blossom' , I attempted to experiment with the versatility of the material.
In calligraphy the weight of the strokes are connected to the overall composition of a piece, with the tree on the left being mostly thin shades of grey it didn't take away from the main section which was the poem on the right. The black section on the bottom right was designed to mimic the poem above, shifting the focus over to the right side of the page.
Overall calligraphy taught me a lot about precision and timing especially when working with mediums like ink.




                                                                                                 

 

 On Tuesday we worked on a motion graphics workshop, step by step showing us how to use various Adobe softwares. In one exercise we created a moving animation of the letters of our names then began to play with moving shapes and making the balls bounce. It opened me up to new possibities of  presenting my work, exploring more with motion graphics.

Inspired by the Chinese poem 'A tree in bloom',  I took the key sections from it and chose to use the last two lines as I felt they made the biggest impact.  I transferred the words onto Illustrator, and used the Apple Chauncery font as it looked feminine and suited the romantic theme of the words. The final words are enlarged as it summarises the underline message of the entire poem. 

Choosing between various materials from black thick cardboard to wood panels I finally went with a thin block of wood with a white layer above it.  This was because in prototyping I was going to use the engraving machine and the contrast of the materials would make the words stand out. 

To make the words fit the material, I used the sawing machine.

I decided to pick out one of the final words from the Chinese poem 'A tree in bloom' as it had a powerful ending that was very visual yet romantic in nature. An interesting thing that was shown on the final product was the jaggedy effect of the font. I felt like it was another way to represent a withering petal (it appeared as if the font itself was withering). If I could improve it, I would add more visuals onto the board of floral shapes maybe. 

Turn

 This week we were put into groups and were presented with a theme. The word Turn was mind mapped in our sketchbooks, looking for visual and metaphorical ways to describe our given word. Key phrases such as Rotate, Transform and Cycle were brought up, after seeing past videos done by previous students we had to tweak our idea. Initially the group planned to create short animations surrounding the key word Turn, however to extend the film length to 2 minutes there needed a more complex plot line. The idea of taking your turn resulted in a short story about 3 figures being trapped in a dark room forced to play a visual game of pictionary to survive. This was a much more developed idea from our original one as we were able to incorporate the stop animation alongside the film work.

My role was the camera man, I had to use various angles to relay different kinds of information to the audience. On the left is a still from the opening scene of the film, showing the killer entering a dark room. What is visually powerful is the ominous hooded silhouette ,which is brought closer by the simple form of light coming from behind them.

Before filming the group needed to scout for a location ideal enough to create a dark atmosphere in. Eventually we stumbled upon an empty room with a curtain able to leave the room in complete darkness.

What worked well with this idea of masking the antagonist was the mind tricks it could potentially play on the viewer. The scary thing about it is the audience are able to picture their own idea of a scary figure, most picture people they know in real life. In this way the masked figure with no identity becomes more life like to an audience.

 Another still from the film shows the 3 victims from a high angle. From this view point as viewers we are able to see all figures with the addition of the game at hand, linking back to the project title of 'Turn'. Due to the fact that the ceiling lights were too bright to create the right mood for our scenes, through trial and error we discovered that multiple flash lights from our Iphones made a spot light effect.

Alongside the video work and the inbetween stop motion animations, photographs were also taken. This was to make sure the group received a variety of material for the final product. In this camera angle, the audience see close ups of the contestants faces which creates an emotive link with the actors and viewer.

 This still shows a time lapse from the film, to create an effect that the figures have been trapped for a while. This was a great way of showing the effect of time but also providing further information about the key features in the film such as the dice and board game. The idea of Turn is therefore continuously being repeated throughout the film, the sound effect of a ticking clock was added in the final cut to emphasize the passing of time further.

Tension was built through the characters stiff and worried body gestures. Also the board game, central to the figures, was chosen for its colourful appearance. This was meant to be ironic as the setting is quite dark and serious while the game is childish and vibrant, I found that the two elements juxtaposed each other nicely. To add the hooded killer overseeing the game was seen in red which compliments the board game but also contrasts against the figures playing, reinforcing the figures are doomed to end up in the shadows. 

This was the final outcome to my movie poster, taking a still from the film and manipulating it to create a digital like effect. I wanted to take the audiences' first sight of the hooded killer as the movie poster because the moment when the antagonist emerged from the light was a strong first impression. Trying to keep the same vibrancy seen on the game board with the bright red of the killers hoodie, a pixelated ray of colour blends into the darkness. In addition the typography I chose is thin and skinny as it has a more digital and impersonal look to it, highlighting that it could be anyone's turn next.

Link to the final video: https://youtu.be/Nhapd0qeJ78 

Personal Manifesto Part 2

 For the second part of the manifesto I researched into the teachings of Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Naht Hanh and his theories on Interbeing.  The idea of self does not exist, material possession and the perception of 'mine' is an illusion. Interbeing delves into methods of everything is co dependent on each other for survival.

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With this concept in relation to my project with family, without the presence of the father there can be no son. Human survival link to inter being philosophy, to visually represent this I decided to experiment with different typography fonts. The words that I picked are meant to connect with the philosophical teachings and imagery of connection (like tree roots)

Otac is the formal word for father in Serbian, I chose to connect the words together to emphasize the cyclical concept of father and son.










The are 14 precepts of Interbeing I compacted the teachings to 3 main ones that spoke to me the most.
-Possess nothing that should belong to others
-to not avoid suffering when you see it
-to leave behind hatred

Keeping with photography as a visual medium, I took this photograph of trees to develop the idea on inter being further by finding imagery that presents that.

Through photographic manipulation I tested out negative effects on the original picture I took. Which resulted in an almost ethereal look with the absence of black, the blue hues dominated. This could potentially be an ideal background for my personal manifesto 2.

Continuing with a much more colder colour scheme, Ive abstracted the leaf shapes further and added more circles into the image to highlight the symbolic link to cycles and co dependence of my manifesto. This time playing with white it acts as a method of emphasizing the shape of the branches, setting it apart from the other sections of the blue background.

In this final draft Ive decided to give it a less intense effect, which compliments the warm tones from the writing below. The words state the three main precepts of Interbeing which I believe are words to live by, to not live in hatred, turn away from suffering or hold things that don't belong to you. In addition to highlight the centre of image the edges have been darkened which has also softened the general look of the final outcome.

Personal Manifesto Part 1

Part 1 of our manifesto week, had us looking at our own family heritage stories, to create a visual response. Manifesto is derived from the Latin word clear, the purpose of one is to inspire and put ideas out that would create a form of change. A medium where your present self can have a direct link with your future self. As a starting point I looked at old photos of my past relatives, what stood out to me the most were the black and white ones. The lack of colour created a different kind of atmosphere, setting the people in another time, this was something I wanted to portray in my final outcome. I began to de construct the figures and focused on the relationship between fathers and children.

 Asking my father about his earlier childhood memories I began to look at other ways I could symbolically present this. The oak is a natural motif of age and family, the acorn could represent a child while the developed tree the father. These are preliminary sketches to that idea,

Combining the outline of an image from an old photograph with organic forms found in wood, creates a continuous line shape figure. Developing further from this I tried to fragment the forms to represent the broken process of remembering past memories.

The colours used in one of my Photoshop developments plays with soft subdued warm effects. The yellow patches of colour act as the images focal point, highlighting the importance of the figures. Through past sketches, I experimented with the contrast of negative spaces and wanted to incorporate a duplicate of the actual photograph. The shapes are blurred to compliment the light colours. 

Through photographic manipulation, the shattered effect on the sides of the image are meant to symbolize the process of remembering distant memories. I kept it black and white to keep the traditional monochromatic format of the original black and white photo. The centre remains the least warped with the hands and trees in the background . 

 

A balance between the last two photo manipulations, there remains a warped like effect with addition of patch colours. A bright contrast between the figures with an emphasis on the negative space, in the top right corner the bushes resemble the top section of an acorn. The use of a more cold blue like shadow is meant to create a more of an nostalgic effect.

Exhibition Trip

Bedlam:the asylum+beyond:
The exhibition being held at the Welcome collection featured artists like Eva Kotatkova, who used her personal experience with asylums to create visual responses. Through her collages she emphasizes the communication of the patients with their surroundings and the constraints that they felt.

Something that stood out to me the most was the concept that a few patients were experiencing signs of phantasmagoria, about the shape or surface of their bodies. The degree varied with each person, some believed to have spines sticking out from their sides while others believed themselves to be so fragile that even a long stare could harm them. The thought of somehow being incomplete and having a different perception of reality directly influenced my project,

Memory and remembering events or people from the past can be fragmented and broken. Through photographs, the missing parts can be found. In my own project I looked to past photographs of my own family, seeing great grandparents and faces I hadn't seen in years brought back fragmented memories. In a similar way that Kotatkova portrays her work I focused on black and white photography and presenting it in a fragmented format.

The patients realities varied, some believed they were completely alone and the doctors and nurses were merely phantoms. While others expressed fear over the phobias and anxieties that they felt would physically leave their bodies and fly across their rooms. The way in which they dealt with such perceptions also varied but remained in a similar pattern, repetition of writing lists of their phobias to writing lists of the contents in their rooms gave them some form of relief and peace.

 Autumn Lexicon:Serpentine Gallery
 Looking at Marc Camille Chaimowicz 1972's exhibition piece 'Enough Tiranny', was brought back recently to the Serpentine Gallery. His work focuses on the concept of time and the act of repetition and identity. The artists wanted to show how time is an abstract concept for the audience to recognize 'that it can fold on itself.'  He saw this was the only way people could understand how fluidity of time, in the term that events from the past could still feel so recent and vice versa. Visually he achieved this by creating a 'de ja vu' appearance through the use of scattered objects across the floor. With the use of soft warm colours, Chaimowicz managed to make the room come to life, as if there just had been a party.

Fluorescent Chrysanthemums: ICA
The final gallery we went to was the Institute of Conceptual Art. It was another past exhibition from the 60s brought back for another time. Commemorating one of the first European exhibitions on Japanese modern art, the posters and graphics were very fluorescent and geometric in shape. Almost minimalistic in design however they still managed to incorporate a sense of traditional Japanese influence. Such as the symbolic shape of the chrysanthemum, it was continuously brought up in various art works and articles regarding the original exhibition.