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.

What next with my lines.......

So after some thinking about how I could next explore "what's a line" I wanted to try bringing in new creative elements to keep my interest level going with the stop motion and generally with subjects and areas of this I am interested in. My thoughts went into how I could create story lines and sequences with a focused theme of Lines..... The idea went then to progressing a line and theme and then it transformed into an other story of some kind. I would potentially like to combine photography stop motion with the kind of work I am doing on photoshop. The two kinds of animation in one sequence would show a huge separation so I could perhaps develop that into a fantasy or parallel world.... Shown through a line.

Heres a short montage of some of these ideas expolred via the photoshop animations. And on the end are other clips I hadn't used that to be honest just went wrong. Development work i will call it!






This similar theme of lines that are created into other objects or lines were taken from the opening sequence of catch me if you can. The film, made in 2002, was what made me want to go into art and graphics. I used to rewind the sequence so many times that I normally wouldn't end up watching the actual movie!

Evaluation of module

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

A main practical skill I learnt this module is how to use more of a logical and effective way of researching my work. I reached methods that I enjoyed and this definitely worked to my benefit. Although Photoshop and the In Design have helped me develop my skills, I feel this module, these workshops have been the only aspect of learning that have given me genuine input into how to create professional work. Although I had learnt from book binding and the research workshops, the computer workshops helped me develop skills that at this point, are a lot more visible and easier to use in other aspects of the course.
Although I regret not managing enough time for the final product in this module, I do however feel my time management has improved as I am working constantly throughout and uploading work on the blogger as I go along which makes it easier.

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

This module has helped me to see how to find and create research using much more interesting and in a scene random forms and styles of communication too.

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

My work is definitely full of more ideas this module and I have tried developing these with trial and error exercises which I have mainly photographically documented.
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?

Through this module my weakness has defiantly lied with all my final outcomes. I felt with every project this module that I didn’t have a good looking final outcome that I could be proud of. They all consisted of a lot of ideas backed up by research which although the module was about, I still feel a better outcome would have been more appropriate. The research in this module may have also needed to be more statistical as I have research and information but not compared any of them and put them into graphs and databases etc.

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?
1. Plan time more effectively, especially with a 5 week project
2. When being given small one week projects, try and think about it more in the big picture, as part of the final outcome, and not as a side project. Focus on the theme.
3. Identify purpose and content at an earlier stage
4. Find new ways of researching.
5.Document work as I go along more. Use blogger to its full advantage. `

I would grade myself in the following areas as:

attendance . 5
punctuality. 5
Motivation. 4
Commitment. 2
Quantity of work produced. 5
Quality of work produced. 1
Contribution to the group. 5

Book project evaluation

My problem was directed specifically at students and recycling. The fact that not many students in fact recycle or even have the facilities I found quite alarming. I tried to use many ways of investigating my research. Some were simply surveys to my target audience via face book, some were video documentation and some were photographs I had posed which included information i had got from my original research. It was all sufficient in the end because I used the format that I originally had investigated with and then through other means of research I had used this same format, with all the other information in the final piece. Saying this I didn't include typography which i did briefly look at. The other books as well, were all pretty bold in what statement and how they were going to compromise the audience and the content, but i found in the end to make it more simple and try not to complicate my decisions. I think there is an appropriate amount of work. I made a decision that because this module was mainly based on research, trial and investigation, that I should go with the flow in a scene and not keep my eyes fixed on the final goal. The research was the main focus and I wanted to find new and more engaging ways for me to do this in the future, which looking back, i feel i have definitely found. My bad decision in this module, without a doubt lied in the fact that I made all my decisions for the final design too late. Although I wanted to keep it simple and not worry about the final piece too much, I felt with even a little more consideration into the final quality and layout of the book, I could have made it a lot more effective and neat. To evaluate my own process I was using a trial and error method. I wanted to find out specifically what points of my book were strong and what weren't and how visually interesting they became.
The gutter idea may be a idea to generally have developed further on this project but because I had only recently began using an working with InDesign and Illustrator, i was completly reluctant and terrified of trying to create effective writing through the middle fold. Thats why eventually took a step back, kept all my information normally laid out of the page and used literal rubbish and plastic bags in the gutter.
My direct audience was students in Leeds although some of the information i had originally looked at and compared my work to was from Family homes back in Pinner were I live and from students in other cities. A big problem of mine in this project was the actual binding. I found it didn't matter how many attempts I tried, I never seemed to get it right. i had never need to craft something before and been given an intense introduction into how to make and create it so I think through this year i may try continuing my attempts of being successful in this. First hand research into leeds and the council may have been more vital. Although I had tried to contact the council in order to receive information, their response was too delayed for me to make use of it and interpret it more in my work.

I think my work has definitely moved on from the first ideas and concept but also keeping the theme of in the gutter. I had used, developed, and re used research that eventually went into the final format or content for the book. The final piece used skills I had gained format he bookbinding work shop although If able to create the piece again, I would use different methods of binding for a more scrap book like quality. I brought 100 things into my book in as a mixture of the images and quotes given, and the names and data of each individual. If I did this process again I would keep all the facts or the objects given as one item. I also divided my book up into how GREEN the student was so I literally categorized in colors which had the most environmentally friendly being green. This categorizing was based on the statements and the three categories were all effectively the colors of recycling bins.

The gutter Idea that finally went in the "gutter"

A few weeks ago we were given the 7 day brief to create a simple version of the book we were intending to create, and we were given specific guidelines. although we were given these boundaries, I was still confident in creating this "into the gutter" approach which I later, after many trial and error testing, found was a difficult concept for someone who wasn't particularly confident on illustrator. Here are some of the images from the book in which was the information I collected from the christmas holiday, literally written in the gutter of the book. As the date of the hand in of the book drew closer i began to think how relevant this idea was actually was compared to all my research. Although it was a sensible option, it didn't really liek the gutter idea with students not recycling.














From this I had a quick look at similar graphic designers who use their work along the centre fold of the work. This image is from the 1000 type treatments.

ALL my attempts of book making

So through the last few weeks I have made many attempts of book making and book binding. The first of these was the book binding session we did a couple of weeks after we got the project given to us.










Although I did play full attention in the work shop and tried this new type of crafting, It can safely be said that this did not turn out how I wanted and we very unsuccessful. The most obvious and critical error I made was that the books edges were completely visible and to be honest it just looked a bit shoddy.

So I decided to do something about the fact that this clearly wasn't me fort-ay, and gave it an other go one miserable Saturday night:




















I would be the first in saying this was possibly a lot more horrific than the first attempt. The sizing was all wrong for the outside and uneven. The glue was used a little too much and may be a main factor to why it went all wrong. Although I was obviously hopeless in this area, I didn't let it dishearten me. I carried on with my research and contents of the book and decided that I would just have to cross the bookmaking bridge when I came to it.

Heres one of the first books I made, when we were put in a group and asked to develop a book over that day with other people. WE used a combination of our research and attempted the folding from an a3 sheet to get this small book.







Similar to that I used the paper from a recycling and environmental magazine to create a book.... just seeing how effective the paper would be.




I wanted to have a quick look in how I could potentially create a book that was a little different but still on the same line. My thought process then went on from book making to book making inside other books. I began to strip the centre section out of this environmental book to look at an ironic perspective in that it would literally look like a student had cut up or "ruined"the environment, which more ironically, I had.......



Heres some of the other books i had bought... but before I begane cutting them all out, I changed my mind. He He.




An other of my ideas was to litrally create and make my own gutter, so me being me, went to buy a huge brown silinder tube and then reolised that as origional this idea would be, there was literally no way I would be able to bind the thing!