Covent Garden Ladies

Ok, so. Many people are now sorted with at least one prostitute (so popular lots of people have come back for a second..er...go. (whatever i seem to say regarding this project I end up embarassing myself by making an unintented double entendre). Going to talk to Gaynor now about booking the space for the exhibition when I have finished this. Have notebook recording who is doing what and which prostitute, so far so organised.
What i really love about this project (and is what i loved about the idea) is all the different ideas, the reasons people have picked a particular lady. I'm also seeing lots of people experimenting with colour and media in a way that they don't with ordinary work, which is really fun.
(To Do: remember to print out a big lot of briefs and pop some posters around to see if that sparks any interest -feels a bit unprofessional leaving it *entirely* to word of mouth, although it is tempting to see where it reaches by itself, out of interest in modern networks)

Caldecott

This may actually be one of the first deadlines i have made this year (could it be that I am catching up and doing ok? -apart from the dissertation thing?) Really enjoyed this brief, lots of experimenting but think will do some more work even though the deadline for the competition itself is today. Am very pleased that i decided to put my dissertation to one side and try to respond to the deadline, and using what i had done previously to finish it off in a day. Also interesting to note that having a day where all i did was draw & paint and so-on made me all happy and bouncy (dare I say it...energetic?) for the whole day. Am even quite pleased with the result (was starting to lose faith in myself while writing dissertation so this has been a welcome boost.
Only negative point -remembered why it sometimes a pain not to have done a-level or foundation art -can't mount to save my life. Think i nearly made Dan cry -i might be a nerdy typographer type, but the whole neat and measured thing just doesn't come easily. Lisa is teaching me this afternoon. Luckily casualty is within walking distance.

Two of the many articles I came across this week while doing some research:

Now this is a museum i'd like to visit -when it is all up and running. As the article says, there really isn't anything of the kind in Britian. I know there are museums about illustrators and artists abroad -usually just one -like the Folon foundation in Brussels i visited and the Eric Carle museum in the US, but here i can't think of any.
I also love that Blake refuses to differentiate between drawing for children and adults. I think i'll have to do a longer post on that at some point

Emily Gravett in the Times revealing an interesting way to get stained and nibbled paper for her new book about a phobic mouse. Wrote about this book in my deferred essay. Didn't know much about her before i wrote the essay, but now i find her most interesting. Sadly i don't have any obliging rats, but i do like the idea of creative ways of mark-making in the loosest sense. Often i have resorted to bizarre ways of mark-making when trying to work out how i want something to look, so i am heartened to know that it can only be a good thing, and will carry on.

Doesn't Wallace look smart?. Although his face still says northern cheese loving dorky inventor, the clothes say sophisticated man about town.

Loving the ironic counterpoint here, great visual humour. Also shows you how much of an impact what you 'dress' your characters in can have.

Another dissertation discussion related articlefrom the bbc, about Botanical Illustration.

Some of the most lyrical and beautiful illustrations have been botanical illustrations. The quality of the colour, and the line vary a great deal; but the shapes, textures and colours of plants can be such interesting springboards.

The real-but-not look of old fashioned botanical illustrations have always fascinated me too -the colour, the fine drawing of incredible details and often handwritten notes. I love that even now in our time of incredible digital macro, botanical illustration can still have its place because of the ability to show something not always easy or possible in photography, or the ability to capture the essence of the subject.

I have seen better images than those in the article, but I bet that exhibition is amazing. If i am ever in that part of the country..

Came across

Came across this article a little while ago, and it reminded me of some of the dissertation discussions we had, so i thought i'd post it.

Already i have noticed that all the adverts i see are some way related to the information i have given to facebook - including that i am single leading to irritating and assinine adverts like "Did he stop calling? Here's what you did wrong" and "Can't keep a boyfriend? 10 things you're doing wrong". I like facebook, and it is very useful but I am now much careful now not to post my work up there unless it has been reduced in size and altered in some way from the original.

oooo! a a very useful site. I have got a whole archive of intriguing vintage images stored on the computer from packaging to cards, to photographs, but my limitless appetite for all things created in times part mean I am loving this site full of scans of old book illustrations (which are mostly copywright free because of their age) which can be used as both inspiration and altered as part of illustrations. yey!

how weird is this? Nothing much to do with illustration, more general visual popular culture.

I know, i know. Another BBC news article link but there is some interesting stuff on there!

Anyhow, as i was writing this it occurred to be that it could be an interesting inspiration for some illustrative pieces, rather like a games i had when i was little where you have the head, body and legs and mix them up (hmm, thinking back, some of those illustrations were a bit horrible, and scared me a little)

Will do some scribbling

I can't say i had heard of this rather interesting viral campaign back when it was active last year until i saw the article in this link but i do find it fascinating. Perhaps i am not active enough in the wider web community to have come across it, but clearly lots of people are.

Seems a convoluted way of giving aid to nations, but then the idea is intriguing and has had some measure of success. I'm sure that the idea could be used for other websites with a more illustrative slant to its interactive nature, but still keeping the nature and ideal of the original.

Shopping for a friend over at amnesty -came across some intriguing playing cards
WHile i wouldn't say the illustration style is something i find inspiring -the faces are too reminiscent of the dearth of 'African' sculptures and masks in shops, which i have always found deeply unsettling for some reason (another post, perhaps) -although it is pertinent, i'll give you that.

I do, however love the idea of multi-cultural playing cards. Could be an interesting cross over project with Happy families, no?

Stumbled across something cute over at illustration friday a while ago and thought i'd post about it.

So simple and so appealing! Simplicity in colour and line really wins the day here

Illustration aceness here in he form of Camilla Engman -this is a link to her blog but she also has an archive of work.

Why do i love it?
Cute, but also slightly ugly-in-a-good way quirky characters -very simple but with much expression. Colour is ace -often complementary but never in your face because of the softer hues used. Prefer it when her illustrations appear more hand-coloured with textured backgrounds as opposed to flat blocks of colour. Oh, and cute motifs, such as birds or plain line drawn images really add a certain something to the compositions

How cool are these books?. Hopefully technology will be such that more and more books can be created like this so they will become more the norm and not a fabulous but tiny percentage of what is published.

just a quick post;

yet another bbc article this time, on using the web as a promotional tool.

It rambles a fair bit, over the use of how companies, organisations and individual project etc get their results to the head of the queue in terms of search results, and the importance of social networking sites (the modern and infinitely more complicated version of word of mouth), but the cross-over between advertisers and the 'web public' is interesting, when one responds to the other and create little pockets of interest,

Even though i still find comics to be slightly bewildering in their array (although i am less confused in general since reading Scott McCloud's genius book last year) i always thought that there was a lot of potential in them as a communication tool, which is why i found this article by the bbc is a thought-provoking read. I have been fascinated by the use of art in propaganda for some time so i was doubly interested at looking how comics have been used by governments and organisations.

Although all comics are idealised in some way, China's comic art industry, Manhua, is unsurprisingly moulded by governmental intervention like all other matters, cultural and otherwise (although as usual in such an environment there are also some underground artists creating more subversive work) I would love to see the comic reported in the Chinese state media; an anti-corruption comic aimed at government officials was in production. Interestingly the use of comics in China isn't new, there was a collection started in the 1970s called People's Comics apparently.
The mix between propaganda and entertainment is so blurred here, it is a really interesting area of debate.

Also fascinated by the aside of using graphic novels in the western world -the US army using a Persephone, which is about a girl growing up in Iran as a 'learning tool' in a military acadamy, and possibly even more interesting, UN commissioning marvel to promote its work, given the power of visual media in communicating to many nationalities,

When i was little, I had a tape of Peter and the Wolf and it used to make me shiver a bit. From the images I think that animator Suzie Templeton has really done it justice, although i'd still like to see the stop-motion animation in action. This bbc article has a really interesting interview with her for the run up to the oscars



Apart from my childhood fascination with Peter and the Wolf i think i am mostly drawn to the fabulous textures lend a tactile quality to the sets and characters who as well as a lovely scratchy eastern -european feel to them are incredibly detailed and well observed. It also has that little hint of darkness, of ugliness that make things interesting, in the faces and the eyes.

An article entitled Grey's Anatomy caught my eye in the bbc news magazine today. Thankfully not about the show (they spend their whole time mooning around or being mean to each other or in love and then out of love. It is just like school in a hospital and frankly, there's enough of that in the studio. pah) but about the colour grey.

It is a great article because it takes a wonderful sweeping view of the implications and connotations of the colour not just through art but culture, history and politics.

Personally i love grey. I from pale grey to dark grey, although i tend to prefer the neutral to cooler side of things- rather than warm, mousy greys, in general i am drawn to blue-greys and green-greys.

I love how many things grey can symbolise (i think, since as a child when watching John Major in spitting image) -dreary rainy days and pavements, the shades of grey in between black and white (one of my favourite metapohors). It can be soft or hard or warm or cold. It visually articulate so many things, and i think the fact that there are such a huge rang of tonal values makes it fabulous for communicating so many things and reflects a lot of the complexities we face in life.

Saw some work by this illustrator in an article in the guardian (i think) and have just got round to looking her up. Glad i did. what lovely things abound!

There's a gorgeous sense of nostalgia for past times unknown in the colours, figures and line work, but there's also a lovely freshness to the whole thing, which i think comes partly from how bonkers her ideas are, and partly from updating the shades of the nostalgic colours to bring them to life, almost as if they've had a wash. Other times her work is much more astract, i'm not so keen on these, although they do retain that intriging sense of can't-quite put my finger on it inspiration from the past.

it is also worth checking out the fab hand-drawn type as well -it really does complement her work.

I've linked to the blog section of her websites because that is most frequently updated, so it is interesting to go back and see what things i like and dislike again, and how she progresses, as i gather she's still fairly young and in her first few years of being a 'proper illustrator' type person.

Just the entry to this site, that Jess sent me -Le Jardin de Miss Clara -makes me want to weep with joy. I mean for a start there's the cute name, and second, it is all inky blakness and scratchy white with just the most beautiful typography and a ladder which climbs to the moon which makes up the C in clara.

From what i can fathom, Miss Clara makes the cutest little models from allsorts -metal, paper, cloths and then backgrounds and even little scenes create the illustration.

The site itself is beautiful - at the top of the page a moving band of silhouettes move across an ethereal green background, and the idea is you click on one of the silhouette images and it takes you to a section of the site. In reality, it is a little hard to master catching the image you want in the band as it makes its way across. When you do manage, each image is separate, with lovely tiny little arrows for the next and back buttons.

I am so sure that the silhouette band could be easier to navigate, and the lovely typography for headings and i reserve judgement on the main font for the type, as even though it is readable (always useful) and doesn't exactly clash with the aesthetic, the way say helvetica might, but it just seems to make the whole thing look more ordinary and less fanciful.

I have known vaguely about this lady, 100drine, for quite a while- about a decade ago in school i remember a friend's french penpal sending her a 100drine card. and loving the cute pun on numbers. She is *huge* in France and other places like Belgium now, and I am beginning to see her stuff over here, too.

Her stuff is scribbly cute, with lots of lovely loopy french script. I am also loving the mono-printing, some of her little girls scare me a bit too -there's a touch of the Little My about them and she always gave me the shivers.
The site is worth checking out along for the almost drawn on screen feel -hand drawn flash animations and lovely faded stamped typography. yum. It is also really easily navigable, too which means you can concentrate on the fabness instead of getting annoyed. The french translations are somewhat idiosyncratic, but i think phrases such as *a palette with a large range of colours that distributes a perfume of childhood* are actually better than a boring english version myself.

this is an interesting page. Most of the 100drine stuff if creating for merchandise of all kinds like notebooks, boxes, melamine etc and -it gives the breakdown of which company makes what.

I have not got as much done this week as i wanted to; somehow my family always fill up my time -either visiting or doing things for them (not that i mind! i Just wish that i didn't have to spend so much time sleeping in recovery from the previous half term and then maybe i'd get more done!)

However, i have worked on some more drawings, but what has come as more of a relief is that my concepts for the fairytale brief, and have started to break through the brick wall that had been in place for the last week or so.

Watching E4 today, i saw some of the stings submitted the channel from the last couple of years. There was a superb one from 2005, which was a dog made up of matchsticks and a box -each match head was a foot or his nose, the box was the body. The idea was genius in its simplicity; he scratched himself, his foot burts in flames, he looks panicked (without eyes! such character design) then his whole body goes *poof* and he ends up being a crisp of his former self and then crumbles into a sad, sooty pile.
Would post it up but i can't find it on youtube at the moment and apparently mac osx doesn't recognised the link type on the E4 site. However, check out the link if you're not going to have the same problem with mac os x
http://www.E4.com/estings

Despite having to get up amuse a 14 month old (dear lord! hardest job on *earth*) the past couple of days, i am raring to go and hopefully next week, and the rest of term will be full of the following:

1. More drawing of people
2. Refining of drawing practice to produce characters for happy families
3. Refining narratives for mini pig and fairytale stories
4.Go to the library to get books (ask Des?) to help refine conceptual development of fairytales (and maybe even mini-pig) narrative.


Sideline projects:

1. Design of happy family cards
2. Deciding on 5 pieces of illustration for critical studies.

Slightly late post; First brief:

Chose this brief as part of the Narrative/Ethics season
simply because it immediately fired up my imagination. I thought that a couple of the others could be interesting, but i thought that my excitement and immediate ideas would inform the project and give me a real motivation to push the boundaries further.


Part 1: Happy Families
To create a set of altervative Happy Families cards

I was interested in the idea of how most published books come from a white, middle class point of view, and how this colours both the content and how books may or may not appeal or even get through to children depending on their culture and societal background. I was also interested in the artistic depiction of disabled and children of non-white races; that it was either non-existent or very pc, for fear of being accused of creating the sort of caracatures that dominated illustrations up until the 1960s and 70s.

With all this in mind, i decided, with no little thought, that to properly address this project i would need to draw humans and not use animals as a way of sidestepping both the issues relating to the project and also my inability to draw people. at all.

First i worked on the concepts, as this has become a natural part of my work process -words and doodles come before anything concrete -i always find this to be interesting, working through what interests me and why. This time i was fascinated by what could be considered a family (the modern day loose definition of family may be just a close knit group of individuals with some binding ingredient such as friendship or shared hardship) and also who makes up a family, and the characteristics they may or may not share.

In the end, after narrowing down my favourites, i chose a pirate family; partly because i was attracted by the possibilities this would create visually (stripes!) but also so that i could concentrate on their differing characters with something interesting to bind them all together with. I liked the idea that they were all imperfect chracters, age not having necessarily made anybody wiser or more grown up. (possible reflections of my own family here...only in some ways of course...)

The grandfather and the child were my favourite characters: I think because i don't remember either of my grandfathers, but have always heard tales of their strong characters, i was able to create a new character rather than being influenced by actual familial knowledge of a person.


Unfortunately choosing to draw people (and taking on an extra workshop n troublesome but rewarding actionscript 3.0) meant that i was very slow with the project; by the time that the crit came round, all of the conceptual stage was finished but i had only tiny sketches of the characters and only the grandfather's face was i even remotely happy with. This meant that i did not have the cards to show at the crit, which frankly was of great dissapointment to me. I felt like my visual skills had let me down; not only my inability to draw people, but also my inability to find a way round this problem. However, i had decided at the beginning of the project that now would be a good time to learn to draw people, not just for this project but in terms of important basic skills, so while this project set me off on the track, the project end itself suffered

Despite that, I enjoyed this project very much, and will continue to enjoy it even more now (2 weeks later) I have practised drawing people to the point where i don't want to be sick after seeing a day's appallijng efforts in my sketchbook. I feel confident that with the conceptual stage behind me i should be able to produce an interesting result for the assessment. I am hoping that should another, similar, 2 week project come around the problem of my lack of skills should at least be partly resolved and therefore the main problem with this brief should be avoided or at least lessened.

Will update when have finished project.

I keep finding snippets, words and phrases that make me think of possible images/narrative, so i'm going to log them in here so i can come back and use them.

Reserved Hank (missheard, talking about an orange advert about a reserve tank.)

and randomly, looking for info on that orange advert i found some text i fancy using from aquarist classifieds

Aquarist Classified Adverts :Whiptails £2 Orange Flame Coffer tail Guppies £2 pair Black bar Endlers £2 a pair . ...

Just a thought, after many headachey hours, trying to get used to the transisition between mac and pc, i was thinking about a walk i took a couple of weeks ago, when it was still sunny. I had my spangly new nokia phone with me, and took some random pictures of things i saw, peppered around in hedgerows and so on, like this fabulous bright yellow poppy, and extravagant purple rhododendrons.



I was thinking about something that an ex-tutor said (who has now moved to maidstone) about how living in LLangollen had taken it's toll. For better or worse i've known, long before i started this course, that i would be stuck here for a good few years until i was completely better. So i know what is it like; Yes, it is full of weird but lovely people (like Wyn, who wears braces and a hat every day and shouts "school days are the best days of your life" at kids and knows everybody"), and bad weirdos like the small time drug dealers (of which there are many because llan seems to be a good market for such wares) and the fact that everybody knows your mum, and that she works up at the school and how she had to be pulled out of the canal by the firebrigade while trying to save your dog last february. And yes, there is the fact that you still bump into the people you went to school with (although they may or may not have gone bald or had several children by several fathers before they hit their mid-20s) in such salubrious places such as the Spar or the only 2 good pubs in town.

But then you go for a dog walk on an ordinary day and it is so beautiful. There is inspiration everwhere; from the beautiful things in the hedgerows, to the random things that happen in a town full of mad people. It may not be an idyllic place but things are rarely dull here. It reminds me of something i always think about since reading an interview in the guardian that was part of the Alan Fletcher obit; you never switch off from being a designer, you notice things, or sketch things or muse upon things wherever you go. And in Llan, there's a lot to muse about, from the beautiful, to the downright odd. And that is great because there's always some kind of inspiration lurking round the corner. It really isn't a bad place, when you start looking.

Have been meaning to post about the series of animations produced for Lloyds Tsb adverts. Thought they were fabulous from the first time that i saw them, but have only just got round to doing some research on them.

Seems i'm not the only person to be captivated; hits on video sites like Youtube have hit the thousands (not forgetting that there are people searching for the music, which shows that choosing the right soundtrack to any animation/interactive piece).


The reason i love this is because the animation is so seamless, and they have created a whole, quirky world for the sweet looking characters, fabulously detailed; cute without being sickly, and gently humourous. It really embodies the ideas that each advert carries, such as *with you for the journey* (on the animation shown on this post) and the homely feel that Lloyds Tsb want to create for themselves.
It is produced by studioaka, which is in their words *Studio aka is a London based Production company representing a diverse collection of directors and designers creating original and outstanding animation in 2d, 3D CGI and interactive media.*

This includes Directors, Artists, Producers and Technicians, so i guess that production of pieces is a team effort, which can all be produced in house -which i imagine works really well, as you can call on all areas of expertise at any stage of the design process.

Anyhow, it must work because the animations on their website are all superb. I've seen and liked a couple before without knowing who did them. The mark of the director of the Lloyds Tsb advert, Mark Craste, is stamped over a couple of other pieces, such as work for Orange. It doesn't say for definite but from the work displayed on the sight, i think that the artwork/animation is by a french designer/animator/illustrator/many other strings called Amandine Pecharman.

The website, particularly portfolios, archives and current works are well worth checking out, especially as it is beautifully laid out, a smooth, fluid grid system that is both easy and interesting to navigate.

I think the magic of the best pieces on the site is strong character design, quirky and varied design, great production (note the popularity of the music) seemless technical work and a sense of humour so often missing in a lot of commercial work, like in a piece for Orange where a Man's snoring drags a resigned-looking dog across the bedroom carpet.



Will keep an eye on the website, to see what new stuff pops up.

i was just browsing the Association of Illustration website, re-reading an interview with jonny hannah, and then another article caught my eye, about the art of observation.


I've got years worth of random photos of people, and i was thinking that i could use these to create illustrations and even short narrative illustrations based on them to increase my confidence to do something i've been a bit scared of doing, which is small drawings in a sketchbook and then develop them further -which i am hoping to see if i can put some confidence speed into my work process as well as gain valuable drawing pratice. will update this entry.

Hmmm, Interesting...

Never has the british public been quite so up in arms about a matter of graphic design. It is really quite exciting. The first time i saw the new logo for the 2012 olympics, i thought it was hideous -some bizarre fusion of 1980s (the decade style forgot, or at least wished it could forget) and faux-greek...something. And it turns out a lot of people have felt the same way.

Even more interesting, it turns out that the changing colours in an animation for the launch have caused people to have epileptic seizures while watching it, because nobody checked with a standard set by ofcom through a test designed by neurophysiologists. This strikes me as bizarre and careless from a company who seem to pride themselves on the creation of a complete package, and further ironies in that this was created for the olympic, which includes the disabled olympics.

I wonder if this will affect Wolff Ollins' future revenues, or whether people will see this as an unfortunate aberration. Looking at some of the work they have done, this is possible. Wolff-Ollins were responsible for creating the TATE branding; there's a very interesting case study pdf on their website that is worth a read.

Still, if their business is the creation of (channel 5) and re-invention of brand identities then at least their skills will be put to good use in the coming months.

I am glad to say that the money for the £400,000 monstrosity that they created was entirely funded by what must be a very disgruntled privtae sector. I wonder if the public outcry is enough for a re-think of the logo to be re-considered or whether the olympics comittee will just try and weather the storm. And floods of criticism and suggestions for alternatives in the media at the moment; there have actually been some interesting ones, although how plausible they would be in reality is a matter for discussion. I saw very simple one based on the tube logo that was very striking. It didn't make as much er, 'use', of the numbers 2012 as the official logo, but i don't think it was poorer for that.

I shall keep an eye out for reports on whether the logo is kept, modified or scrapped and anything else interesting arising.


UPDATE 1 - 15/6/07

Ken Livingston, at a press conference, despite having previously said he did not like it, says that it isn't a matter of life and death (quite true, unless you're epileptic) and that is will grow on us. Remains to be seen.

UPDATE 2 - 23/6/07

The news makes it to american satirical news show, The Late Show with John Stewart. It shows here on More4 and possibly channel 4 and has a cult following both here and in the US, particularly New York and Washington. He lets the crapness speak for itself before saying that just bad design you could try and ignore it, but that it actually causes seizures. A satirist's dream - a story so bonkers it is actually true.

Met up with some friends recently, and the talk turned to Tv, as it frequently does. Turns out i'm not the only person who is fascinated by the ingenuity of this Advert for the new Skoda fabia .

The burning question of whether they ate the car afterwards aside, the reason that I find this advert so fascinating is that it is such an original and completely bonkers concept, which had been meticulously developed into a real idea and then into a finished product; the teamwork involved must have been phenomenal.

The website tie-in with the flash movie is also extremely cute (not to be confused with cutsey. despite the amount of sugar used, it never crosses the line into sickly) although even on broadband the film was slightly clunky and pixellated, which was a shame because everything else looked so polished. The running theme of biscuits, cakes, chocolate and anything sweet is kept up throughout, whether on the buttons, interactive display exploring features of the car and screen for the 'baking of' documentary.

I think the advert works so well because it taps into so many positive things; sweet tooths, childhood, birthdays, and there's something quintessentially British about something quite so bonkers about a car made out of cake (novelty cake competition at a fete, perhaps?). Very clever for a manufacturer whose main concern is still to subconsciously change the minds of the british public as to the quality of Skoda cars.

I really did hope they ate at least a little bit, though.

Found Illustration Friday through another student. It is a great site that has a weekly theme which people send all kind of illustration on a weekly topic.

Its such a great place to go for inspiration if you're feeling stuck in a rut doing a project, although sometimes i feel as if i'll never live up to some of the great stuff, it is really useful for taking the bits that appal to you and reworking them.

A very energetic and passionate guy called Nick Robertson from manchester puppet makers extrodinaire, McKinnon and Saunders was lecturing as part of wrexham science week. I think it must be great to be that excited by what you do, even when tiny things can wipe away hours and hours of work.

I can't even begin to describe the kind of painstaking detail and amount of time that goes into making some of the models he and the McKinnon and Saunders team creates (his path to this came via fine art and stone-carving) and then the paintstaking stop motion that creates films like the corpse bride, but there are a few things i really found interesting:

Making of maquettes usually is plastecine (see the beginnings of the character model i made on the right) but mixed media is very much in evidence here -spraying or painting acrylic on for colours, and also using fabric to create clothes as well as painting them on.

Each working model has a custom made mechanical structure which allows for allen Keys go in tiny places like the ear to open mouths or make eyes blink.

Tags: animation character

Strange 3 weeks, because it feels very unstructured but there is actually a lot to cram in.

Photography:

Have been in the studio with Jess. Colin showed us how to use the lights but it takes ages to get the effect you want. Much prefer low key lighting as it can create many different moods (especially in black and white) to high key, which i think is used more for magazine editorial type things e.g. lipsticks for vogue. I think i had difficulty creating an interesting composition with the high key so this was probably my weakest part, especially with my lack of enthusiasm. However i particularly enjoyed playing with light, which will hopefully inform non-studio shots. The final photo chosen has a kind of velvety film-noir feel which you could definitely find a narrative in. Contre-jour is interesting, but i prefer it out of the studio when the silhouette is created within an environment of interest which adds much more to the composition. Also useful was comparing using different cameras and tripods; had a play with a manual camera which means you need to think about things a lot more; i had better results with digital because i am more familiar and at ease with the camera
Colour brief was useful for cementing colour theory as well as making you think really hard about composition and framing. I found that the hardest was complementary colours, i had to work a bit harder to find interesting examples which would allow me to create an interesting composition.

Print:

Have done lots of mono-printing in black in the print workshop, which is very easy and quick and creates a fabulous one-off smudgy effect which was perfect for this poets and prophets Alan Ginsberg cityscape concept i have been working on. Finding out which mark-making tools were best was great; a pen creates a cleaner line but a stick or broken lead pencil creates a great scratchy feel.
Have also been using small tubes of oil with a roller and acetate which can create the same effect, which has allowed me to play with colour. Plus unlike glass, the acetate can be used as the final piece in negative.


Conclusion:

Unlike with the photography there wasn't a brief for print, which in a way was useful because i got to explore the poets and prophets concepts, but there wasn't an end product per-se which means there were just lots of experiments although these could be used for other things, as part of other compositions. Next

Think as hard about composition in further photography as i had to for the brief.

Out of time constraints, would like to practice with film and manual cameras more, plus try developing my own film in the dark room

Experiment with using and combining print to create finished pieces.

Tags: photography print experiment

Popped into college on friday (second time of the reading week -its hard to get stuff done at home, wish i'd gone in a bit more) and was rewarded by a workshop/lecture by Andy Clarke, CSS guru extrordinaire. He's really friendly and funny -so even though i wasn't very awake and it was hard going on the old brain, he was really easy to listen to.

Was very inspiring, even if my skills level isn't up to implementing everything right this minute, that isn't really the point. Learnt lots about designfor the web in general, and the place of CSS along with HTML, XHTML and javascript. The message about separating design from content and creating clear, concise and pure design was really interesting. There was lots to get from it for a lot of different levels -both from a design and a coding point of view: -my knowledge of CSS is pretty limited so i was a bit worried about going to a workshop where i knew so little but it was really understandable -sometimes i lost the thread because it became a bit too much for my brain (poor spongey brain), it was easy to pick it up again, and it will definitely mean that when i sit down to code i'll have more things to try and my understanding will be more secure. The parts at the end with CSS3 were *incredibly* exciting. I mean, the simplicity of the code was really reflected in the design -pure, clean beautiful design, with no messy acky code behind it. Fab.

Hmm. Not sure about the new mac adverts.

Did their marketing people not watch peep show? They have chosen the smug, shallow and irritating guy for themselves and for windows, the bumbling but essentially harmless, always-does-the-right-thing guy. Bit of an own goal, although apparently they were hoping mitchell and webb wouldn't be well known enough for their characters to be a problem which is really crap reasoning because they put *see mitchell and web online at mac.co.uk* at the bottom of all the posters, which leads me to their core targets who seem to be the younger end of the market, people more likely to think creatively and freely. The kind of people that watch peep show. Gah.

Nice idea in theory. and i enjoyed watching the short films. Would they make me buy a mac? Probably not.

Here is a story about broadcasting giant Cartoon Network learning how not to pull a marketing stunt.<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6349871.stm"target="_blank>Sometimes marketing gimmicks</a> need to be thought through. I think i am guilty of not thinking things through although admittedly i have never caused a bomb scare in a large city. Or a small one. There's still plenty of time though. so i shall make a resolution think projects through as fully as possible just in case

It's been pretty intense but i have *really* enjoyed this part.
I've nearly finished my animation -just have a couple of extra bits to do, but essentially it's a working piece.

We've had to hit the ground running a bit, to produce all the artwork and work out how we want the animation to go as well as learning flash, but it was nice to do them side by side because ideas grew as i learnt what i would have the skills to do. I think that although i have seen lots of flash animations, going through some with alan was really helpful because you were made to take notice and think about them in the context of a designer as well as a viewer/interactor. Plus we got to discuss them, which was good.

I think the second couple of weeks were a bit pressured mainly because i always have a tendancy to do heaps and heaps of work trying to get it right or trying one different thing because i can't decide what is right, which hasn't helped. I have worked a bit too hard this week, which has made me a bit ill -i've been getting up early and working when i come home til 10 and only taking half an hour for lunch and so on. Partly because i was enjoying it so much but also because i was so frustrated with trying to do everything brilliantly, and not getting it exactly as i wanted.

I think perhaps i would have liked another week, both so that i could have learnt more skills (learn one and you're hungry for more) and also so that i wasn't so stressed this week. What would have helped was if i could have found adam when i needed him -the afternoons are times i usually get stuck and that doesn't seem to be a good time for finding people.

To a certain extent it is good because i solved things out myself and have a more rounded understanding but there was one particular problem that i wrestled with for ages and wasted a lot of energy getting frustrated about -eventually Helen helped me because adam had shown her. I had to have this morning (thursday off) because i felt so tired and down i couldn't even get out of bed -even to see the snow, which meant that i missed a couple of lectures run by the digital consortia on creating digital imagery for children. poop.

Lessons:

1. Don't work too hard. I mean, work hard but don't overwork yourself and kid yourself that you won't make yourself ill.
2. Make a stop point with preparation of artwork if you think you might run out of time. Even though it's tempting to just try one more thing, think of lesson #1.
3. Keep refining storyboards, and make sure you carry them around with you -without them flash rapidly gets very disorganised and it's harder to explain things to people.