Presentation slides

Studio Task 2

Why you chose to study on this course

• To move away and live independently, as I had lived in the same for such a long time I wanted to get out my comfort zone and meet new people.
• To pursue what I love to do, I love graphic design and Im eager to learn. 
• To challenge myself, as its not easy to move away from home and uni its self is also not easy but I wanted to give myself that challenge. 
• Reputation, the course has a great reputation and I really liked how well it prepares you for industry.

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Things that you want to learn during your time on the course

• How to work on grids, this seems to be the essence of design and id like to learn to use it efficiently. 
• To learn the main theorys behind design from the past, this came about after reading vignellis canon which was very helpful on matters i did not know much about.
• More practical prints, eg silk screen. I love hand printed work, learning to use these machines to a professional standard will defiantly be a highly of the course for me.
• get a better understanding of cop to a professional level, I struggle with writing and am seriously out of practise so I'm excited to learn more and increase my skills within this area. 
• learn how to work in at an industry standard. 

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Things that you think are your strengths

• Determination, I strive for excellence in everything I do I believe this helps to keep on track. 
• Communication, I like to think I'm a good commutator between peer.
• I understand the basics of illustrator and photoshop this as been helpful within our first few projects. 
• A intrest in the world. I have interests in tons of things, traveling, hiking, cycling, music, podcasts etc etc this helps within my practices. 

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Things you would like to improve

• Research, Process skills etc, The process behind the final piece can sometimes become a confusion for me.
• Writing skills, My spelling and grammar are not at the level they should be for somebody my age I would like to improve on this as the course goes on. 
• Blogging and keeping on to of it can become a struggle at times I want it to become innate for me to do.
• Software skills, I would like to be using all programs to a professional level and to learn the shortcut keys on most programs this would help a lot in efficiency  
• Publication layout, this is something i have little knowledge in and would like to improve, 

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Things that inspire you

• Family, as they always support me 
• Friends, I have such a large group of friends at home all so individual with diffrent ideas and personality's coming from each of them, this gives me diffrent ideas and points of views from such a wide range of people. 
• Diffrent culture, when traveling I found that seeing how differently people lived was rather inspirational. Grounding me by making me realise how lucky I am.
• Coffee, always gets my brain juices flowing. 
• Getting away from work, when i take a break from everything this can spark ideas etc at that point or when i go back to it. 

My love for podcasts.

Since starting my course in leeds there has been many things which I picked up that have driven my work. One of these are podcasts, podcasts have become an essential part of my own design process. This can range from simply listening while I work, Looking into something specific for the project or just listening to design podcasts in general. Each helps me find influences or inspiration one example of this would be radiolab's  'colours' I listen to this whilst trying to understand how colours in design can be used more effectively. It thought be about the cones within our eyes and how they create colours. This intern then helped me within OUGD404.

Podcasts I tend to listen to are

OUGD402 - International Event

Some events coming up in November I'm looking forward to going to:

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble 20/11/15 @ Belgrave Music Hall

Dusky 

29/11/15 @ Canal Mills 

British Art Show 

09/10/15 - 10/01/15 @ Leeds Art Gallery 

"We are delighted to launch British Art Show 8 here at Leeds Art Gallery. The British Art Show provides a vital overview of the most exciting contemporary art produced in the UK. Organised by Hayward Touring every five years, the exhibition will tour to Edinburgh, Norwich and Southampton in 2016/17.

The curators of British Art Show 8, Anna Colin and Lydia Yee, have selected the work of 42 artists who have made a significant contribution to contemporary art in the UK over the past five years. Twenty-six of the 42 artists have produced new works for the exhibition, making this the most ambitious British Art Show to date.

A central concern of British Art Show 8 is the changing role and status of the physical object in an increasingly digital age. These concerns will be explored through a wide range of mediums that encompass performance, film, sculpture, installation, painting and design.

Almost all of our galleries will be emptied of our collection, allowing a unique opportunity to creatively reinvent gallery spaces to accompany newly commissioned work. It is over a generation since Leeds last hosted the British Art Show, which in 1990 exhibited artists such as Rachel Whiteread and Cornelia Parker." 

From  (http://www.leeds.gov.uk/museumsandgalleries/Pages/leedsartgallery/British-Art-Show-.aspx)

Trip to Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Yesterday we visited Yorkshire Sculpture park for a day out. What an absolutely beautiful place the park is huge with very well tended greenland all around. The architecture of some of the buildings was so grand both the new and the old. This made me really want to use some architecture as inspiration for my symbol. These are a series of images I took while visiting. One space I really liked was at the end of a exhibition, with bean bags, free tea, tables with books that inspired the exhibition and a video explaining the concept behind the exhibition. From this trip I learn that not all inspiration has to come from gallery's or museum's it can come from anything in everyday life. Overall a great trip and very helpful.

OUGD402 - Inspiration.

For todays task we was made to make a mind map of all our different inspirations, I thought this was a very helpful task not only did I learn the Inspiration of students in my group but the whole class presented there inspirations. I thought this was a great idea and it gave me insight into so many new blogs, artists, studios and books that I had never heard of. So what I did was go over all the info and create a few bookmark folders for different types of blogs and artists this will help me in the future when I'm looking for inspiration. I looked at a wide range of different sources for this but these where my ten favourites.

Jenny asked us to dig deeper with these sources, however i thought that as far as it could go is giving the artist a search. I found I was very wrong and as I started to look into a artist on a blog before I knew it id be on a chain of links etc and on a completely different artist and website. An example of this was, starting on This is Colossal and found a very talented lady called Anila Quayum who has made a sculpture called "intersections" this was desplayed at Rice gallery. (http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/10/intersections-rice-gallery/ )

I then watched a video on this (https://vimeo.com/142321235) which was also very interesting and explains her inspiration came from islamic temples Alhambra being the main focus point. This video then lead me onto more gallery exhibition at rice and I found one by a guy named gaia I really liked gaias work as I have a keen interest in graffiti and street art. After the video I then looked into his other work through his website and instagram, after viewing his work it sparked a interest in street art blogs so I decided to find and created a bookmark folder for these also. Without first finding Anila Quayam and digging in deeper I may have not come across gaia this helped me see how helpful it can be and I will be doing it from now on. I really enjoyed gaias work and the methods behind it he says he will not go to a space with an idea in hand instead he would go there and get an idea of the area to see what sparks. ( https://vimeo.com/78973783?from=outro-embed)

www.design-milk.com/

Design Milk is a all around creative blog with a highlight on architecture, I had not heard of them before and I picked them up off a inspiration board. Architecture is something I am very interested in I would always try design Houses when I was young and id say its what originally sparked my interest in design. So I like to scrim through these while working as i like to take inspiration from the geometric shapes in architecture. I also think the website is set out well with everything being easy to find.

Sight Unseen. www.sightunseen.com

Jonklassen.tumblr.com/

Jon Klassen Is a illustrator I came across at the end of a exhibition at Yorkshire sculpture park, they was showcasing a range of his books because he played a role in the artists inspiration. I think he is an amazing illustrator, I love the style of his work and how he creates these dark illustrations and keeping them appropriate for children.

Good Type. www.lovegoodtype.com

Good type is a Instagram I follow, I put this in as its a great go to for me when I'm struggling with fonts as there
is such wide range of type within it. I also liked to just have a look in my spare time as i love type and i find 
myself practicing lettering I see on here. 

Face. www.designbyface.com

Face is a design studio in mexico, we learnt about a few sessions ago. I really enjoyed there work I found it 
sleek and contemporary. They also had really nice use of photography within there work as 

IFL Science. www.iflscience.com/

iflscience is a blog i came across within the our session with jenny. Its a very interesting blog and is a great 
way to keep up with what is going on within the world of science. I think its important to keep up to date with
current affairs, to help create well informed pieces. 

Iban Ramon. www.ibanramon.com/

For me photography is a big interest for me and I always like to incorporate it into my design. Iban Ramon is a 
photographer and designer i came across within penny's session, his work is very gloomy and undertoned I really 
like these effects as they really set images apart and give them a real sense of mystery. The image below was 
from a set of images he took invloving old italian logotypes, i felt this was really relavant to my current brief.

Radiolab Podcasts

OUGD402 - Light Night

Yesterday I attended Light night in leeds city centre. It was an interesting festival with lots going on however it was very widely spread and without a map of where each point was it was difficult to get around to it all. However I visited millennium square, trinity and the town hall. Millennium square seemed to have the most going on and i really enjoyed the swirling bands of light, I thought it was a very interesting way to show light and how with movement it can change how we perceive it. Overall it was a great atmosphere lots of family out and students this made the evening for me.

OUGD402 - The John Peel lecture with Brian Eno

Today I listened to the John Peel lecture with Brian Eno speaking. He raised some very interesting ideas. The first thing that struck me was his definition of art "everything you don't have to do". Using moving as just one example, as we all have to move but we don't have to do the tango, or waltz but we do anyway to stylise ourselves. I thought this was a really interesting perspective and I fully agree, as art is an expression of our selves thus making it a style of us and its something we don't have to do but we want to do to express ourselves. 

He then goes on to say he believes everybody should have a wage even if they do not work and that this would increase the cultural creativeness because people would have enough money to eat and do all the basics thous allowing them to do things they don't have to do. 

He then goes on to make a interesting comparison between children learning through Imagination and us as adults continuing this through art both creating and consuming. He says hair styles are us broadcasting our own percesption of whats ideal in our own world.

Overall I found some of his points to be very relevant and interesting things I would have never have even thought about. I feel he pointed out and made it clear that art plays a huge role in our culture.

OUGD402 - Face.

Today we was put into 12 groups and given twelve diffrent design studios to look into. The studios where ah-ha studio, hey studio, sagmeister & walsh, hey days, lust, studio dumbar, Netherlands, build, elmwood, bleed, face, dessein, wolff olins. I learnt although the studios are from all around the world they all seem to have similarities. e.g. They are all very closely weaved teams, vast majority stated they have a close relationship with the clients this links back to having a closely weaved team. They all seemed to have won awards, a lot mentioned they do personal projects in there spare time and they all spoke about having a unique selling points.

We looking into Face. It is a design studio in Monterrey, Mexico they specialise in super modernism, I feel this is a term they have created themselves to explain there style, which seems to be keeping things simple to get there message across. The brand founders are Rik Bracho and Ricardo Tejada two uni students who began the company after graduating. They produce a lot of work for music events, one regular company being hard pop a dance club in Mexico. They are a closely weaved team of 8 which allows them to really get to know there client, With there method of 01/ approach 02/ Checklist 03/ Quote 04/ Brief 05/ Research + Analysis 06/ Concept - Strategy 07/ Design 08/ Delivery. They have a special list of questions for the client which they call "your homework" this seems pretty unique to this company compared to the others. Overall a really nice studio with great work with a style I really enjoyed, simple yet powerful. This made them a really fun studio for me to look into.

Method

OUGD402 - Helvetica Documentary

Last night I watched the Helvetica documentary it gave me a good understand behind the communication which this font gives out and how widely used it is for this reason. It also gave a good understanding of how some designers felt about the font. There was many mixed reviews with people such as Massimo Vignelli singing its praises to people such a ..... not. For me personally I think helvetica is a perfectly good font and very much with the times at the moment which goes again what .... was saying. Its just a good all around font which can be used to convey a range of diffrent meanings, simple but changing the context of the font. You can see this as it has been around for such a large amount of time and is used more today than when it was first created.