Biblio-tech

Since the brief was given to us for the postcards, I had my mind set on some sort of image which everyone would enjoy owning. That's some work, trying to impress 50 odd people. I loved the image I used (from a House of Lords menu) and decided to start playing with it a bit. I think it conveys a certain power, since the Queen is someone most people respect in many ways and a librarian should have the same sort of superior status like that.

The images below are separate cards (obviously) and did them just because...

The one on the left hand side was supposed to be about keeping your cheers, celebrations to yourself whilst in the library (even though I haven't put any text in it yet, don't think the picture really speaks for itself)

The one on the right is a photo I took in Dublin and just liked the walking man, with reflections of the buildings behind. With this one I also wanted to play with the idea of hierarchy, etc. We all know it is a bit of a pain to walk up those stairs to the library but oh, all those resources! It is most def worth a bit of extra breath intake at the top.

Ideally it would be nice to make a series of five of these, all with the same stripe/pyramid thing in it to give the series an identity....

MT project

Little trial leads to more error.

Manipesto

Through the process of designing these manifestos, I really learned how to use inDesign on my own, it's all about trial&error, and finding things out by yourself. I was so frustrated after losing my sketchbook with all my notes in it, including ones from the inDesign sessions, but it really didn't matter because looking back on them would have probably just slowed down the process of learning. 

I was advised to try and take the hourglass illustration out of my personal manifesto above, and quickly did so now by taking it away, not making any other changes but with careful consideration and redesign it can convey the message I wanted by simplification.

I am quite comfortable with the programme now (far from being a pro, but y'know..)

        The manifesto crit/presentation was today, thought it went quite well. It was interesting to see everyone's work, what they had written about and what style they went with when designing in relation to their subjects. I really didn't know what to expect from the group and was scared to put mine up on a wall to be compared with the 80 odd manifesto designs up there.

finish off with one of my favourites from today: Joe Myers' superhero manifesto.

Comic Sans goes even crazier

 what a lovely bunch o' people

 

Steps of the Tate Britain

On the rooftop of my house,

EVERYONE WAS INVITED

floating g&Q

Today was a lovely day out with the group and our Comic Sans letters. I was a bit disappointed however that when we had taken pictures in a safe and probably not much more than 100 metre radius from Chelsea, everyone was ready to go home instead of actually trekking around London finding places to take the letters. I was quite happy with the photos I got, of which very few are posted here above! The last few are taken at my house on the rooftop which we (Jessie, Laura, Yasameen and I) thought would be a nice place to photograph our letters.

Passion Pit

OUR SHRINE:

For the passion presentation I was set in a group with Yasameen and Jack Haslehurst, but we all had very different things to talk about...
My focus was 
1) bearded men,
2) my home country of Æsland (Iceland..) 
3) Soviet Posters // old cards

Devendra Banhart, one of my favourite musicians (& he has a beard..)

members of Akron/Family, it is not so much about their beards that I like them, more their music...

These are two members of Port O Brien, Zeb and Josh who are lovely bearded men

Going to a Port O Brien gig this week, very excited to see the lovelies again. Both them and Aron/Family just have so much energy on stage, I love how they interact with the audience and it feels like you are part of something (not like a cult or anything like that, just..) something fun and truly exciting that one night you do see them on that magical stage in front of you. If I had the money and extra time, I would spend as much time as possible going to gigs.

 (as cliché and patriotic as it may sound) I love Iceland and everything about it; the nature, people, buildings & isolation

My second home, in many ways is Moscow and from living there I discovered a passion for Soviet posters (or copies of them) sold at the Ismaylova tourist market the family would go to most weekends (admittedly the main reason we went was to buy dvds) The thing is, by the entrance of the market everything would feel so commercial and expensive but once one reaches the far end of the market is where all the gems are... old postcards, christmas cards, Lenin and Stalin cards, all having clearly belonged to other people beforehand.

I spent my time shuffling through piles of cards there, picking out my favourites to buy. Just by writing about this makes me want to be situated in the Moscow winter, feeling those semi-dirty and old cards in my freezing hands, aaaaaah.

I need to scan some of my posters and cards in, this one above is included in my collection, I just love the man´s face in this one. These will be posted as soon as possible! 

Au revoir.

+ value

+VALUE

MT PROJECT
"We are all a big research group, learning through exploration"

Brief: Add value/different types of added value. Try to answer the what/why/when/where/howquestions

Ideas: quantity over quality to begin with

Within Chelsea, make up a list of things & possible ways of adding value (keeping in mind intrinsic and intangible values)

For the final outcome: in an A5 (portrait) format, communicate the whatever we´ve added value to for a catalogue page.

Catalogue:

1. Organize it

2. Show process of documentation

3. Before & After

4. Use text, not just images

Process/Outcome:

For the Melissa Thompson (MT) Project, Laura Jacobs and I partnered up to explore the Chelsea grounds and find something to add value to. The first day we spent with Melissa, we had a few ideas which led to choosing one where we would add value to a lonely/not very useful flowerpot by planting seeds/herbs/vegetables or fruits of some sort in it. This is so people could use the pot and interact with it rather than it being there, completely useless.

We did come across some difficulties, a big one actually, which was finding the seeds to plant.
Because winter is approaching, seeds aren´t sold in normal supermarkets but only garden centres (which we didn't have time to get to) 
SO carrots were bought because they have a nice green bit at the top and last for some time.
We planted these in some pots by the security gate across from the coffee shop at Chelsea, where most people enter the university, keeping in mind they can pick a veggie on their way to five a day (or something of that sort).

GOING LOCO OVER LOGOS

One hundred logos on A3 landscape

BRIEF: You are to produce a symbol which communicates interaction, as seen in your presentation. You may use image, type or combination of both. The design is to be black and white only. You are to produce two different sized versions on a single sheet of A4 white paper, landscape format; the largest of which should be 150mm on its long side; the smallest should measure 35mm on its longest side. There should be two lines of copy in 9pt Helvetica, in the bottom right-hand corner which explains the ethos of the design. And your name.

Timescale:

October 14th: briefing; presentation and exercises

October 16th: Workshop. Please bring equipment, paper etc.

October 21st: Presentation one hundred logos on an A3 sheet landscape 10.00am

October 28th: Final Presentation at 10.00am

Lecturers: Paul Oakley & Nigel Bents.

One hundred logos on an A3 sheet landscape:

Preparation and final 100 logos are shown below

After Paul and Nigel looked over them to help us decide which one to develop on, after I made my final logo I wasn´t very happy with it, but surely there was some sense in what they chose, I just didn´t experiment enough with it to make the final outcome as effective and good as it could have been:

From these processes, I ended up with:

FINAL OUTCOME

Beginning of Logo project

This was the first day we worked on the logo idea, where each of us made one logo portraying interaction then it was passed around to be manipulated and changed (in most cases for the better) by our peers.