A Conversation: Experimentation - Sketches - Textures

After scanning them into the computer, i realised they looked quite boring so i put each item into Adobe Photoshop and added some textured backgrounds such as silk, velvet, denim and lace. This really gave them the lift they needed.

A Conversation: Experimentation - Sketches

After coming up with my idea, I went off and hand drew some appropriate and inappropriate items of clothing. The clothes were sketched over the figure of the body so they fit straight onto the girl when pasted onto her.

  

P&P Lesson 5 - Jay Payne - Cereal Box (Experimentation)

I have drawn up a couple of front and back cover visuals using 'Tortoise Shells' as my chosen theme. I have added game ideas, facts and cut-outs.

This is the colour scheme I am going to be using in Adobe Illustrator to create my cereal box. I selected these colours because they're all varying colours that you find in the jungle.



To start off, I made a background for the front and back of the box. I didn't want the background to be a solid edge-to-edge colour so I thought about what kind of flat things are found in the jungle and came up with a leaf, a rock and a tree stump but all of these left too much white space so I thought about jungle films. In jungle films, they always have some kind of beaten up map so I drew the outline of an old map.

After looking back at my research, I created an ingredients table. After a good hour of work, it looked very authentic and I was pretty happy with it.

I wanted to include a game on my cereal box, what child doesn't like a game? It is something stimulating to do whilst eating breakfast, this helps them to wake up and prepare for the day.

Educating children is the most important thing in the world as they are our future so why not start on the back of a cereal box. One line per fact isn't smothering children with information, it is just enough for them to remember the fact.

P&P Lesson 4 - Sara Nesteruk - Rotoscoping

In this lesson, we were taught how to rotoscope, something I have previously done but in a completely different style. I started off by finding a good looping clip off of my phone videos then created my background in Adobe Illustrator.

Rotoscoping is a very time-consuming activity as it is done frame by frame and 25 frames per second.

This is Kylie Minogue's video from the song 'Come Into My World', a brilliant example of rotoscoping at its best.



Due to our limited timeframe, my results are not up to the same standards as the Kylie video but for a first time doing this style of rotoscoping, I think I did pretty well. When I have the time I will definitely give it another shot with a better quality video.

Rob Lycett - Conditional Design / Participation Seminar

Our seminar on Friday 16th October introduced you to a further 'reading' of the open work. Your reactions to Eco's text tended to focus upon individual acts of reading and perception of a work, thus making it open to interpretation(s). This idea is the subject of Roland Barthes seminal text 'The Death of the Author', which is well worth reading.

Some current graphic design thinking and practice is focussed upon the notion that the creative process itself can become an open system. These systems are often ludic (game-like) and participatory (with players). Negotiation and collaboration are key. They also allude to alternative designer/client relationships and the potential of participation being a valuable design research tool.

The visual experiments that we enacted/performed today were from the 'Conditional Design Workbook, (Maurer, L., Paulus, E., Puckey, J., Wouters, R. (2013). Conditional design workbook. Amsterdam: Valiz.)

-The Conditional Design Workbook “is defined by playfully designed sets of rules and conditions that stimulate collaboration between participants and leads to unpredictable outcomes”. The book takes you on a step by step journey through each workshop and the purpose is to prove that no matter how many groups of people you give the same set of rules to, with the same paper and the same pens, the outcome will always be interpreted in a slightly to a significantly different way - offering endless creative opportunities.


IV. The Beach
* play with four players
* each player has coloured pen:
red, green, blue or black.
* players take clockwise turns
1, First turn:
Place a dot.
2, Following turns:
Place a dot in the centre of the largest
empty space on the paper.
3, Stop drawing when you think the
beach is crowded.
This workshop was inspired by the concept of Charles Leadbeater, as
expressed in his essay ‘Te Beach Ethic’. “Beaches are ordered without being
controlled. No one is in charge. […] Underlying the beaches appeal is a simple
idea: the beach is a commons where people can self-organise and play […]
There are no zoning regulations, fences, nor white lines to tell you where to
go.” Maurer, L., Paulus, E., Puckey, J., Wouters, R. (2013). Conditional design
workbook. Amsterdam: Valiz.

I am a hands on kind of designer, so i don’t learn well just by listening, my mind likes to wander off after a very short period of time. I really enjoyed the Conditional Design Workbook task because it was a stimulating challenge, I had to consider each persons move before i could make my own. It made me think a lot about human nature and our urge to create patterns without even realising it.

This was my teams outcome for The Beach. We interpreted the rules slightly differently to the workbook but no one specified how big the dot had to be. Each dot is supposed to represent a family... My family like the spread themselves out quite a lot at the beach so i drew a few of my circles quite large. There was no rule breaking but it was definitely an interesting interpretation that hadn’t been seen before

I. Perfect Circle
* play with four players
* each player has coloured pen:
red, green, blue or black.
* players take clockwise turns lasting
30 secs.
* use a timer.
1, First turn:
Draw a filled-in circle in the centre of the
paper.
2, Following turns:
Improve the circle’s round shape by
enlarging its borders.
3, Stop when the circle is perfect.
Maurer, L., Paulus, E., Puckey, J., Wouters, R. (2013). Conditional design
workbook. Amsterdam: Valiz.

P&P Lesson 3 - Nick Deakin - Analogue Communique 1 (Ideas & Experimentation)

This is my first experimentation using my sewing machine. I created stencils for some letters and free-sewed the others. It was quite effective but didn't quite express what I am really about. It is sort of messy yet very neat which is a great representation of me but it isn't as obvious as I would like it to be.

After failing on sewing, I moved onto my passion for travel. I thought about using maps or a ticket, as I couldn't find a ticket that worked with text over it, i chose to go with the map.

All I have done in the first image is put it into Photoshop, created text with the text tool, rasterized it, selected it, deleted the text leaving the selection then changed the colour within the selection with the 'Colour Change' tool and deselected it.

I have done the same with the second image but instead of selecting the inside of the text, I selected the outside changing the colour of the majority of the image and leaving the inside of the text the original colour of the image.

Although I like my experimentation with travel, again it didn't obviously say a whole lot about myself other than I like to travel the world so I moved onto my other passion, Photography. I thought I could make this really personal, using photographs that I have taken on my travels.

I have used a selection of photographs I took on my travels to the Lake district in the summer. I then put them into Photoshop, did the same process as before but instead of using 'Colour Change', I used the 'Invert' tool. As most of the photographs are on the greyscale, they aren't too exciting except for the 'H' on the second line which turned the green grass to purple.

Thinking Tools

This is a brilliant process map but very complicated! It took me a few times to read over but i finally understood most of what is was suggesting and actually found it very helpful.

Concept Challenge:

Reverse - Take A Statement That You Have Taken For Granted. Make A Statement Or Idea That Is The Opposite. E.G. By Reversing A Situation, Switching An Object For Its Obvious Opposite Etc.

Exaggerate - Look For Any Numerical Or Quantitative Element In The Idea/Statement You May Take For Granted. Exaggerate The Statement Upwards Or Downwards.

Distort - Look For Possible Time Sequences Or A Relationships In The Dominant Idea. Distort The Time Sequence Or A Relationship

Wishful Thinking - Suggest A Fantasy That You Know Cannot Occur. Complete A Statement That Begins, “Wouldn’t It Be Good If…?”

Stepping Stone:

EP - Extract A Principle Look At The Concept Challenge Ideas And Try To Extract A Principle Or Concept. Discard The Concept Challenge Ideas And Work With The Principle To Find New Ideas.

FD - Focus On The Difference: Compare The Concept Challenge Ideas With The Existing Situation. Highlight & Explore The Points Of Difference.

M2M - Moment To Moment: Imagine Or Simulate What Would Happen If You Implemented A Concept Challenge Idea As It Stands. Look For Ideas Along The Simulation. E.G. Let One Person Act Out The Simulation While Others Observe And Look For Ideas.

PA - Positive Aspects: Look At The Concept Challenge Ideas And See Whether There Are Any Direct Benefits Or Positive Aspects In The Ideas Themselves. Examine Each Of The Benefits To See Whether They Could Be Achieved By More Practical Means.

SC - Special Circumstances: Look For Special Circumstances Where The Concept Challenge Ideas Might Have Some Immediate Use, Even If They Are Crazy Or Unsuitable In General.

Useful/Interesting Elements & Principles:

Refer Back To The Original Problem/Brief. Use The Elements & Principles From The Stepping Stone Approaches To Generate A Range Of Possible Concepts That Could Meet The Original Requirements.

Concepts:

Always Produce At Least 3 Different Ideas/Concepts At The Ideas Generation Stage. Try To Make Them Very Different To Give The Client Choices And Options.

Innovative Idea:

Use These Concepts To Develop At Least One Idea That Has An Innovative Aspect 

P&P Lesson 2 - Jay Payne - Cereal Box (Research & Ideas)

This is a collage of lots of different cereal boxes in an array of colours. When I look directly at the collage, the first two colours that really stand out are red and yellow. From research in previous projects, I understand that red is the first colour the eye sees and is the colour of power.

I went to the shops and bought 3 different breakfast cereals all with different themes. After doing a quick survey with a few friends and family of all ages asking which cereal the would pick, not seeing what kind of cereal was inside, 10/15 people picked Jungle Bites (3/15 picked Golden Balls and 2/15 picked Strawberry Bites), they said the green jungle theme was more interesting than just a fairly plain blue or pink background.

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Character Development 

This session will introduce you to production techniques and workflows as they relate to character design. The character you will create will be used on packaging which you will also design and eventually produce prototypes for. The focus here is on character design as it relates to brand & pack design. 

The outcome from this workshop will be character sheets and production layouts for a new brand of breakfast cereal. This package will be developed further in later lessons.

In this workshop you will be expected to:

1. Create sketched ideas for a character

2. Create a brand for your character

3. Generate layouts for your package

Things to consider:

When developing character sheets you should pay attention to the form of the character; make them dynamic and interesting to look at. When considering the brand aspect you need to make your characters interesting to the consumer. what are your characters about? what is their story? Consider the age group the product will be aimed at.

Characters are used widely for brand identity generating consumer appeal and are used across the spectrum of marketing material. You are encouraged to think of this in your design considerations.

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Going along with a green jungle theme, I decided instead of putting lots of different jungle animals on the box, just to select one and put the animal name in the title. I have had mixed opinions about this, some people say that selecting a specific animal limits my audience as children will only select it if they like the animal but I have decided to choose a specific animal because I want to educate children about the animal. If I selected a range of animals, it would be too much information to put onto one box of cereal whereas if I made a range of animal themed cereals I could put specific facts on each box.

These are my character choices for my new cereal. They're fairly basic but once I have chosen which animal I want to use then I will put a lot more detail into it. Next to my illustrations are some of the names I came up with after creating my characters. I definitely like Turtle Shells the best so I am going ahead with that idea.

A Conversation: Idea 3

For my third idea I'm thinking about doing a dress up paper doll campaign. Either i draw or take a photograph of a young girl in under clothing such as a leotard and then photograph or draw clothing that can be fitted over the picture to make it look like she is wearing it. I would provide a selection of clothes, both appropriate and inappropriate and then ask the reader what they would choose to dress her in. This will make the reader think about what would actually be the most appropriate clothing and putting appropriate next to inappropriate may make them see what is and isn't acceptable.

A Conversation: Natural Beauty

A Conversation: Fashion Through The Ages

A Conversation: Cosmopolitan

These are some fashion clippings out of the December 2015 Cosmopolitan magazine. I have separated the clippings into two categories based on appropriation for readers aged 8 to 17.

From doing this, I have come to a vague conclusions that fashion for ages 20+ is more covered up than fashion for younger ages. To me, this seems completely back-to-front!

A Conversation: Idea 2

For my second idea I was looking at basically picking up on every visual fault in teen publications and labelling them very obviously. So I will take a picture of a much-beloved celebrity from a popular teen publication (that I will be sure to name!) and find a clear fault with the image (whether it has been edited in/out or it’s natural) and stamp the image with a label naming the fault.

For example, I could take a lovely (yet heavily edited) Taylor Swift image from a teen publication and likely pick out the fact that she is extremely slim so I will stamp her with something like ‘ANOREXIC’.

A Conversation: Idea 1

For my first idea, I was thinking about dressing a young boy and girl, about the age of 4 or 5, up in dressy adult clothing and making them pose like they would for Gucci or Prada. This idea is about making adults realise that feeding all of these kinds of images to children makes them think that being this way is alright. Wearing glamorous makeup, tight clothing and starving yourself has become common in young society and it isn't right so I want to point it out.

Girl: Long flowing red ball gown, red stiletto heels, black faux fur shall, big pearl and silver diamond necklace, silver diamond bracelets, big silver diamond dangling earrings, red lipstick, dark neutral eye makeup, Hollywood glamour up-do hair style.

Boy: Dark grey suit trousers and jacket, white long sleeved shirt, black tie, black work shoes, black fedora hat, a black briefcase, one or two rings, holding a large smartphone.

About Nick Deakin

Idea magazine

David Carson

Emigre Untitled II

Elliot Peter Earls

Made stickers and stuck them up around the tube stations

Ed Fella

Kept a journal and wrote a quote a day in different type

Yoshitomo 

Gary Taxali / found materials / where the wild things are

Richard Turley / VP Visual Story Telling / MTV

Guardian

Worked really quickly

Coca Cola 2008 / Hip Hop

Created a hip hop dog with a flat peak and geek glasses

vimeo/5523192

Shell 2009

Museum Sheffield 2013

Mural

Little A5 sketches like in the journal book

Sold screen prints of the pieces

3D interactive mural / made out of wood

Picture House Sheffield 2014

Bar Abbey / Basement

Picture House Social

Used a vintage ticket style shape for the logo

Antwerp font

Used the shapes from the floor plan to create a new logo

Left the bottom line to fill in something specific in handwriting

Used the shapes of the windows for the top of the ticket

Used each floor for each line of the ticket

Made an Instagram campaign using the building photos

Neigh/Bour/Hood Fringe Festival

Kid Acne

Daniel Dlan Wray

Nick Chantler

Used video and put music over it with interviews in the middle

Sheffield Children's Hospital 2014/15

Created a picture eye chart

Basic cartoon images

Oharas Rum

Bees for choosing your own path

Don't be a prick bags/poster

Erol Alkan / Tramlines Festival / Plug Festival

#HuddGDA

I really like a lot of Nick's work! His style is really cool. My favourite piece was the "Don't Be A Prick" artwork. I have quite a blunt sense of humor so i found this funny.

A Conversation: Haribo Advert: How does it make you feel?

If you have seen this advert; how does it make you feel?

Did you laugh at it?

Did you find it a bit weird or creepy?

Did you think it seemed a bit wrong?

If you don’t like this advert then why do parents allow their children to act and dress like adults?

Surely that's far more creepy?

If you have seen this advert; how does it make you feel?

Did you laugh at it?

Did you find it a bit weird or creepy?

Did you think it seemed a bit wrong?

If you don’t like this advert then why do parents allow their children to act and dress like adults?

Surely that's far more creepy?

A Conversation: Artist 2 - CRISTIAN GIROTTO

Cristian Girotto is a high-end creative photo retoucher and apparently she retouched these adults into children. Is there some kind of mix between “Ew” and “Aww?” EAWWW!?

Some of the images look pretty strange but some actually look like teenagers rather than adults.

A Conversation: Artist 1 - FRIEKE JANSSENS

With their impeccable retro styling, the kids in Frieke Janssens’ “Smoking Kids” photos look like they could be lighting up with Marlene Dietrich or Don Draper. But don’t worry: Instead of real tobacco, Janssens handed her young models chalk, cheese sticks, and incense. Digital magic did the rest to capture the ugliness and the not-quite-bygone glamour of lighting up.

A Conversation: ToddleWood.com

Whilst searching for "children dressed as adults" I came across quite a few images from a website called www.toddlewood.com, after exploring it for less than a minute I was bombarded with images of very young children dressing up as celebrities. What good can honestly come of this??

ToddleWood®, Toddlers in Hollywood, the brainchild of this New York photographer Tricia Messeroux, transforms everyday kids into superstar celebrities, iconic figures and historic legends…all captured in breathtaking photographs. Celebrity looks range from young to old and classic to contemporary. Over 100 celebrities are depicted in Toddlewood’s® diverse portfolio including President Barack Obama & First Lady, Michelle Obama, Josephine Baker, Marilyn Monroe, Oprah Winfrey, Donald Trump, Audrey Hepburn, P. Diddy, J-Lo, Destiny’s Child and so many others!

Tricia Messeroux –  A kid at heart, creative by nature, and a lover of all things visual, Tricia Messeroux takes her photography very seriously. She takes on creative challenges and enjoys doing things differently. She wants her work to stand out. From a creative pose to smart set designs or even a big idea like ToddleWood, Tricia offers more! As Creative Director and Senior Photographer of Big Eye Photography, Tricia leads a dynamic team of talented costume designers, gifted hair & makeup artists and a diligent production crew – all of whom play an important role in bringing these photographs to life.

A Conversation: My Concept

I want to look further into 21st-century children and what has influenced them to grow up so fast. Social media definitely plays a huge part in this but what else? Teen magazines? Peer/male pressure? Celebrities? Older siblings? The list is endless but these are some of the most important influences to tackle.

A Conversation: Adbusters

A Conversation: Shock Campaigns

A Conversation: Dollar Bills

These are some of the brilliant secret messages people have found on the American dollar bills. The best ones reading things such as ‘The root of all evil’, ‘We need a revolution’ and ‘Reality sucks’. Are these actually intentional? Is there anything secret within our UK money?

Could this be done with anything else? Maybe not money, maybe something else. I wondered about using a famous speech but you could re-word that to say nearly anything that you want it to.

A Conversation: Secret Messages

Steganography is the practice of concealing a file, message, image, or video within another file, message, image, or video. The first recorded use of the term was in 1499 by Johannes Trithemius in his Steganographia, a treatise on cryptography and steganography, disguised as a book on magic. Generally, the hidden messages appear to be (or be part of) something else: images, articles, shopping lists, or some other cover text. For example, the hidden message may be in invisible ink between the visible lines of a private letter.

The advantage of steganography over cryptography alone is that the intended secret message does not attract attention to itself as an object of scrutiny. Plainly visible encrypted messages—no matter how unbreakable—arouse interest, and may in themselves be incriminating in countries where encryption is illegal. Thus, whereas cryptography is the practice of protecting the contents of a message alone, steganography is concerned with concealing the fact that a secret message is being sent, as well as concealing the contents of the message.