Visual Language Module evaluation

What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

My skills have developed a huge amount through this module. I really took into consideration at the beginning of the module when the brief was given, how at this stage I thought I was a graphic designer. From last years Final major project on foundation I found that my imagery side of creating any piece of either video or photography was strong so I wanted to make enfaces on that , and stop motion I felt was appropriate as i had such a long period of time to investigate it. this was defiantly the best decision i have made it in the year so far as I am very confident in this technique now and eager to learn more about it and develop my skills. Because this module didn't have a specific final piece to create, the resolution was my main focus, which effectively was to try and show all the skills I had learn over the weeks and put it in a sequence that made sense. Creating an effective piece of imagery that had a meaning I found hard in this task and later realized that actually the question of whats a line could more simply be answered through visual language and sequence of objects that was anisially asked in the brief. Overcomplicating this aspect may have potentially lost me time in the brief, but It was still all trial and era at that stage and can definitely be seen as investigation towards the final resolution.

What approaches to/methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

My method started specifically with the stop motion and photography so this was a consistent form of research/development into the final sequence in itself. At the start, we were given the perspective classes alongside the whats a line work that we were doing, so i combined them as earlier sequence and photography work fitted in well with it. Story boards were also a major factor to all my development research and towards the end I began to find more effective ways of doing these without needing to necessarily draw the idea out, which i am not confident in doing.

What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

This module has defiantly allowed me to develop and find my style, as far as imagery and message is involved. Creating concepts and meaning was were my attention was focused and now i have got into a routine of having to plan my idea, then test run until it effectively works. I also found that especially with this kind of stop frame animation that was being created, it was good to take a step back sometimes and either analyze or get other people to analyze the work I was beginning to create. Thats why crits were so important to me this module. Photography skills have been improved because of this module, which is definitely evident after looking back at the first stop frames I had created. Being very influenced in music I kept trying to bring this element by figuring which kind of sounds and imagery worked the best together. I felt some actually worked very well.

What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?

I definitely dint use this module to my advantage in practicing my drawing and simple imagery work. This has always been my poorest element of design, and I really regret not using the opportunity to try and create work in which the class could give me feedback on. This kind of process would have perhaps given me focus in this area, encouraging me to use a more drawn based approach to my work from this point on. Saying this I do not regret the obsessive nature and excitement I now have when it comes to video animation as this has given me a good focus and even a fun hobby to have now throughout my graphic career.

Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

1.Definitely use the oppertunity to be abkle to draw more and even screen print, with such a long project, I should have used the opportunity to focus on elements I vitally needed to progress on

2.I would use more of a brainstorming stage at the begining to experiment and see what visually works best with what Im trying to say. Explore anisial ideas more

3.I would document my work as I go along more. Story boards via the computer are easy to achieve, I should have realized and focus on detailed accounts of work like this at an earlier stage.

4.asked opinions more about what works the best. The work is better assessed by a completly new person who hadn't seen it before, so i should have created surveys to try and receive effective feedback.

5. Not panicked as the process went along. I compared my work to other peoples a lot in this module. Effectively it made me work harder because peoples physical drawing and painting work made me think I had done no were near enough work, were in fact I was on target and it was going fine.


This is how I'd grade myself in the following areas:

1. attendance -5
2. Punctuality -5
3. Motivation- 4
4. Commitment-3
5. Quantity of work produced-4
6. Quality of work produced- 3
7. Contribution to the group-3

New week... new partner

So new partner to be paired up with and I have a real gooden! Liam hine... otherwise known as Hiney. Had to find out about him via a series of questions I had written about him and a quick search through the blog. One thing I was informed about this exercise was about some artists and eras which is really quite exiting. Liam is very interested in Russian constructivism and the Avant Garde. Specific influences inlcude Alexander Rodchenko and H.NWerkman. Not knowing anything about them, im looking forward to finding out about these specific artists. WOOOP WOOOP

Fenton the Feminist?

So after my critical studies essay were I based my work on equality and sexism shown through media and advertisements, I then found a new artist in which is now a bit of a hero of mine. Jacky Flemings who created the book “Be a bloody Train Driver”, made the question of how women are stereotypically seen, and made it a number one best seller. The original and comical short stories are humorous to any audience with its simplicity and irony.

final resolutions for communication is a virus

This was the final outcome of that weeks investigation. The outcome developed from work throughout the week which questioned how people can communicate more. Our final concept came from the idea that communication could simply be made in an airport through the means of creating some sort of language between passengers in which firstly makes them laugh or smile, and secondly makes them communicate.

The Brief
The brief is to try and get people to communicate. We are doing this through offering a joke which can be understood in many languages. We have done this through type. The message is placed in an airport were it seemed to us as the main area were tension would need to be calmed and the general mood would need to be improved. By communication, we are trying our best to distract the travellers by grabbing their attention which would normally be on waiting in line at the check in queue.
Concept / Proposal
The design of a gradually told knock knock joke, which is non offensive, simple and family friendly, which can simply be positioned on the floor of a airport, heading towards the check in queue.
Tone of voice
Friendly but bold. Simple but interesting language.
Deliverables
A2 mount boards representing our project proposal, the actual concept itself and the concept in its appropriate location, ie) the airport.

Final piece for what's a line

So I finally completed my final piece which was a huge improvement from the second to last one I made were I was having multiple problems with many important factors such as the resolution of the photographs and the ay the sequence was generally put together. Saying that Im glad I tried to spontaneously create it otherwise some issues may have been resolved too last minuet for me to sort out. Before I got to the final piece stage I also back tracked a little to try and resolve issues and generally lay down thoughts onto paper in the form of mind maps and brainstorms. Doing this definitely helped me and its something I realized I potentially should have done at a earlier stage, to help me decide on key points early on. All the way through I was having problems combining all the ideas I was having after seeing sequences and other animation which had caught my interest. I eventually decided to keep to the same objects and idea but simplify what I was trying to create.
Concepts that I wanted to successfully develop was a successfully transition between stop frame animation and the work I had started to create as a sequence on photoshop. This was way to ambitious for this stage and is something now im actually going to teach myself throughout the holiday. Although I created far to many stop frames then were necessary, I see them all as being as part of my research which enabled me to make decisions on what I wanted to say.

Right at the beginning I had used anitial photographs of toys that I actually found very effective in terms of relating back to the brief. From the simple title of what's a line..... I automatically saw sequenced and colorful imagery in my mind. Not remembering objects Id seen or any kind of imagery of my early child life, I began to think about what kind of weird illusions i could potentially have seen as a youngster. Everything would be likely to be big and colorful and fantasy-like.

Throughout my work I have tested and in my opinion found solutions which take simplistic and relatable toys and make them into visually interesting pieces for an older generation. The pieces such as Intergalactic, makes use of trying to investigate what looks effective to an older audience. The green play dough which gradually changes from a babies face into a green monster with arms, makes the image quite disturbing and the old school beastie boys soundtrack makes the piece only really effective in the more knowledgeable eyes of an adult. This effectively has made a piece of language anisially started as investigating for a smaller and underdeveloped audience, into one for a much older one. It almost mimics how we see Imagery in patterns and sequences.

Last mock up--- i promise

So today I was determined to completle the finish product for my whats a line...... but usual senario..... mid way I decided it was right so attempted to carry on then just move to the next subject. At this point though I had now decided on the

subject..... toys... all the ones that worked well in this sequence... the barbie, play dough and the ball
song..... mr scruff.... great choise... no lyrics but fun, different and upbeat
photography... the white wall worked the best... either the bit on the shelf or on the white window ledge... a lot of light made that image work well

New friend week.......

Monday the 16th of March, we were given a new brief. Choosing a partner from posters we has made, which advertised our skills and the skills we were looking for, we then got given "Communication is a virus" as a theme. Me and my partner (Ironically also a Kate), chose communication as a specific of what we wanted to achieve in the final imagery. After much consideration and discussion into what instant audience we wanted to do we chose a specific place/audience and outcome, which to us, seemed the most important aspect of this week's long task.




Journeys was were our subject began which then progressed into imagery and posters that specifically would be deigned to be shown in Airports. We came to this conclusion as airports would be the place or journey type with the most amount of time to spare, and would normally also be labeled a place were anxiety is high and nerves occur, due to recent activity and terrorism attacks around the world. With our Smile concept that came out of communication, we decided the idea of making people smile and more comfortable in an airport was a fairly sturdy and fair message.

Me and Kate then started creating little mock ups and deciding on specific things the poster or series of poster would need to say. A family friendly/ travelers type of advertisement was were the project ended up going. Although originally we were looking more at audience and trying to create ways of discouraging younger generations to read the posters as older travelers are were are potential audience was going to be at that stage. Looking at places on transport were adults would be limited to made it a little too specific at such an early stage. The only place we could think of was the tall and high bar handles which technically only the older age group would be able to reach... so therefore making the older folk happier in their traveling location.

More research- via stop motion

My next step was to fnd exactly how I wanted to create my pice. How I could I use this transition of showing a distinctive layer change which would provide the piece to change its tone or motion half way through. For this piece I just used a contrast level to test this variation.

Text or not text

At this point in my build up to the stop motion finale, I had to decide what exactly was my context and what I wanted to put in the final piece...
I new a few things for sure.
1. it would be based on scale---- perspective imagery was strong now
2. The imagery used would be small toys. As was used throughout this project.
3. It was going include music--- but no lyrics to whatever song it was.
4. There would be some sort of transition between adapted photoshop or illustator created image, and simple photographic stop-motion.


At this point I begin I looked back at all the stop motions I had done.... The one named "my first try at stop-motion" was by far the most effective. It had sequence which showed the line in some sort of context which the others didn't seem to do.

Heres a advert I found on you tube. Similar sence in humor- similar problem of createing video in context.

Towards the end of the project

As I was originally going to create an advertising campaign around my blog in which was going to this specific audience, I wanted to started creating a range of product in which I could simply put the logo on. I started testing what It would be like on a coffee cup as one of my strongest of the ideas.




The end of this project presented a few problems for me. Although I had worked hard on the image/logo which introduced my blog and the text and layout, I felt the final ideas put forward and content of the actual ideas weren't there. Some very valid points came in a crit suggesting that I should have talked in third person and that the language I used needed to be more intelectual---- basically check spellings and language. I will change these points in the near future as this is the main focus of my work. The target audience is a property developer or business class, so I definitely need to go back to alter anything suggesting an ammeter has written the blog, although technically they (I) have.

Interesting look at stop motion

I found this stop motion which unlike the others I had found and seen, was a bit dark. There were needles and scary looking animations which were simply made out of objects such as gloves. I found this was a bit similar to my childish approach to what happens when you cross a line. Simple child-used objects I find makes a piece of film lot more sinister and offbeat. This animation used a good correlation of the film and objects used with the music that was chosen. Although the tone of my pieces normally work very well with the music, it also can create an instant confusion to the message I am trying to create when the music has lyrics. On this note (no pun intended) I will choose the music for the piece a lot earlier on in which I can then create a mood, and then scene by scene set up how and what I am going to film. Hopefully this will help me create a direct link between the line project and what I am trying to say, something that has been evident to me to be a problem in past films.

happy red nose day

So its red nose day.... and after the rediculously humerous cadburys advert in which two children create an eyebrow dance, they decided to make a red nose version which has been broadcast on Youtube. Enjoy.....

To buy or not buy...

A week ago we were given the brief of picking a page in the book "How to do" 1000 things. I chose the number 204 the book instructed me at chapter 204 "How to Buy to Let". This was initially a shocking How To in which I was convinced I would be bored galore! Then I started to think about the best way to go about it in which I would have to help also inform the public about this property based task. Being targeted at anyone looking to prophet, a more wealthy or property based businessmen was my specific target audience, especially in the time of such a strong recession.

The headlining article on The Times Business Website:

From The Times
March 13, 2009
G20 summit: Britain calls for sweeping powers to curb banks
Philip Webster and Suzy Jagger
Radical powers for financial regulators to step in to stop banks around the world overextending themselves with “catastrophic” consequences will be proposed by Britain today.

Alistair Darling will suggest that the Financial Services Authority and its counterparts elsewhere should monitor the overall financial positions of banks and other institutions to preempt irresponsible behaviour.

They would intervene to stop banks “overleveraging” if their capital reserves are not large enough to balance the loans they have made. The regulator would effectively be able to prevent a repeat of episodes such as the takeover of ABN Amro by Royal Bank of Scotland, Treasury sources disclosed.

The plan, one of Britain’s main proposals for the G20 summit on April 2, will be discussed by world finance ministers at a hotel in Sussex tonight.



As I was sure of this specific audience range (business or property based type), and I had located what In my opinion would be their main source of News which was Money related. The short article struck me as showing great concern in how the banks are developing a lesser chance of being able to loan money to their costumes which could be very damaging to the finances of the Uk. This would obviously mean Mortgages are harder to fund for them, therefore automatically leaving a gap in the option for people to buy or sell a property. From my own experience, my brother has been trying to sell his property in a good area in London for about the last year and a half, not being able to get much interest, he has basically given up.
Buying to Let although, is a different case. As the property market is making it hard to get a mortgadge, letting is better option if needing to amediatly move somewere. With a fixed income and not a huge amount of money to dispose on buying a new property, letting is a lot of peoples best options.



My next step was working out how to go about getting this advise and organized information in the right context. Creating a blog was an accessible way for them at work or in the home environment to be able to seek this advise. As this was based on factual and statistical information a natural option as a graphic designer would be to try and create realtable and understandable typography or an effective logo.

The earlier stages of this project was uncertain for me as I thought I was going to try and discover the difference between buying and letting... Buying and Letting. But as I later researched Buying to Let is a lot different and would obviously have a target audience. Along these lines... I began making posters aimed at students with logo's which could potentially be created as some sort of campaign to help students with Letting a property as would be done whilst at university or after a graduate course.




The website was made up and just an example of how I could begin with this campaign, which after I found the meaning of the "How to" was admittedly a waste of time.

3 Rules and Statement of intent

3 Rules from this point on about my "What's a line brief"....

. No more stop motion for a few days! Focus on drawings and new Media
. Story bored and plan everything you do. So far there is not much logic to work apart from blog work. Now illustrate whilst progressing the themes
. Think about context more. Specify exactly what you want to get out of the brief as well as identifying what the problems is. This has to relate back to the body of research.


Statement of intent from this point on:

With just under a month now I need to finish developing the logic of my pieces. This I found is best done by story boards and basic sketching. I need to do this anyway as my drawing skills need to be vastly improved. I have found quick ways of going about this planning and logging of illustrative ideas, and this will help me to use basic methods for planning so I can now focus still on the video making side of it. My problem to this point is that I have too many short films now that are actually just made as part of my research process. Now I want to take time for this last one as a method of resolving all these problems I had with the first few films. Its all been trial and error to this point and there's a few different kinds of ways I have already gone about it, now with this break of making the films, I can take some time to actually analyze which ones worked and went well.
An idea I had was to do a survey interactively regarding the short animations I had made. Ask my fellow colleges which animations works the best and why!

Ideas I had for these final resolutions was to literally do sequences illustrating what happens when you "Cross a line" or in other words anger it. These are quite fun to do and fairly understandable when the element of a toy is brought in too.

Crossing a Line

So I took this line thing to a new level.

. Create a charcter
. Create a setting
. Introduce the line
. Create a reason why the line would apparently be mad at the character.........

and you get this.............




The music I used is from the Juno soundtrack. As I was still creating the animations around childlike toys I wanted to support that with the music choice. The playful story has gone quite nicely with the indie sounding song.

Incase the story is hard to understand....... The Koala is stealing money from the bank, hence crossing the line. The line then begins to torment him making him run away. Doesn't make sense to you, BUT IT DOES TO ME!

Similar work in that of "adam and Jo" , two men who use a similar concept to spoof already made films and tv shows. They use toys similar to me and cleverly word their creations such as:
.Toytanic
.Furends- spoof of "Friends"
. Chew've Been Framed

I loved their originality and different concepts and themes in their films.

Pure

"PURE" was a week project in which we had to create an appropriate response to the word. Thinking and imagining Purity in context of religion I decided this would be the most suitable route. When It came to mind I was seeing virgin Marys and halo's and even crucifix. This then to me brought up the question of why I did think of it. Im not Christian, so why was It that I would relate a possitive and God-like word to someone else's religion. An other religion was Buddhism. I then briefly looked into trying to create some sort of imagery mimicking the Hindu Elephant Ganesh. I did this by correlating it to the students of 2009.... so my mind instantly took me to using a beer bong as a trunk.

No students were harmed in the making......




This image above was tried and tried again.... I tried to create the setting so the light of the lamp behind my friend who create a ring around her head much like a halo.... TURNS OUT THIS IS QUITE HARD TO DO!
This is Ganesh - The basis of my attempt.



This idea of developing my own set of images with cultural relevance began to form. I wanted to mimic what the poses and positioning were saying though our modern day spin on it. For example my friend kindly created a symbolic preying pose for me, much like the Madonna would tend to do. I then on photoshop began to play with these images for different effects. This one in particular turned out looking very classic in the sense that the quality is much like an old painting.




Then Virgin Mary images started forming.... the bottle symbolic for the role of a baby in the original classic images.





The red cloak worked well as a draping effect which was similar to that of which Mary would wear, but the colour was wrong and actually ended up making my friend look like red ridding hood. I then was able to change the colour of the cloak for the final pice to show more similarities to the original.

An other small photoshoot i created was about the same theme with a different approche and a different model.... i used the virgin mary look to the extreme this time and tryed pushing the boundaries. Un intensionally its actually eneded up looking quite like mug shots of virgin Mary, which almost has created a hole new concept in itself..... AND ITS ONE I LIKE!

Just a little appreciation for Henry Moore

For many years I had been interested in Henry Moores work. I found a sculpture I had created when I was in the Sixth Form at school. Being a main founder of Leeds College of Art and Design...... why not put it in... Its the best sculpture I have done to date! If I can say so myself.