a-georgie-blog - Tumblr blog

[a-georgie-blog]

FINAL WEEK - WEEK 13

Reflection:

This is our last week of this semester and the due date for our tumblrs and zines. Throughout this semester I have really enjoyed this course and learning about how communication through visuals has developed and how we are a massive part of that. With the record of our tumblr it is good to view what we have done each week and leaves me with knowledge to take away and consolidate.

In particular, I really enjoyed creating my zine as I could be as creative as I wanted with work and design that I was really attracted to. Doing this zine really opened my eyes up into more medias exploring how we can communicate through visuals.

Today we conducted a pop-up zine exhibition were we firstly handed in our zines and then put a copy up on display for everyone to see. We also swapped zines with others. This exhibition was really useful and interesting as we could see what others had done and what medias and methods were used.

Above are some attached photos of today’s pop-up zine exhibition.

Thanks Andy and Karen for a great semester!! :))

[a-georgie-blog]

WEEK 12:

This week has been a week of touching up and reprinting to make my final zine perfect. Below I have attached my final ready to print layout in illustrator. I also purchased some nice tactile paper to print on. I decided to print at home as I have a good printer and want control over how my zine is printed with how it can be refurnished and further developed. 

I bound my zine through placing it through a sowing machine to tightly thread the pages together neatly and quickly.At first I used a needle and thread to sow the edge onto another. However, this took far too long and creased the pages. 

After printing a practice zine, I had to go back a move some of the text around to even the spacing and make more aesthetic towards the viewer

[a-georgie-blog]

WEEK 11:

I have continued developing and research my ideas for the layout of this zine. Below is a mood board I created to show some of my creatives work.

During this workshop we continued in the creating of the layout for our zines and tested what works and what doesn’t. By this class I had collected my favourite and most suitable works of my creative and applied it to the zine layout. As I am not overly confident with InDesign I have chosen to use Illustrator to layout my zine composition. I did some more printing to test how it is all laid out. I have decided to bind my zine with a neutral coloured string to give it an earthly hippie vibe.

Practice printing 

Above is a clear practice printed copy of my final zine. I applied no text to this print as I wanted to fully assess how the zine would be bound and how the images looked in composition with each other. 

[a-georgie-blog]

WEEK 10:

Before this weeks class I had been collecting information and research about my creative - Harley & J. The artists work is inspiring and stylised to suit 70’s design and colours. These designs really allow the viewer to step back in time or some what gain a perspective of how designs would’ve been like during that time. I was so happy Harley & J were responded to me and were interested in answering my questions as I have followed them on instagram for a long time and have always wondered how they complete their designs and where their inspiration comes from.  

Within this weeks workshop we was given templates to assist us in displaying our zines. I found this very useful as I was a little confused on how to layout the zine and was lacking some direction. However, I am very new to indesign and had trouble placing the images into the template properly. During this class we had a go printing out our zines and seeing how the fold into each other to create a little book. With the appropriate cuttings along the outlines the original A3 double sided printout from the indesign layout turned into a small zine. I really enjoyed this small workshop and thought it was very useful to others and myself.

Original ZINE layout 

Practice ZINE layout

My creative: Harley & J

Example work - @harley&j

Example work - @harley&j

[a-georgie-blog]

WEEK 9:

For this weeks workshop we were still exploring typefaces and how uniquely we can create them. We worked collaboratively with images and magazines to create a collage that would generate a typeface. I really liked this group activity as we followed the lines and curves of images as a guide and I liked how it could create something quirky and weird but still communicate a letterform.

From doing these activities creating typefaces I have really learnt that type can be produced from anything and everything which is quite fascinating. This really connects to the lectures on Friday as we learn about the history of type and how it was firstly generated with the minimal resources people had on offer. People would’ve really had to use their imagination to form letters and create typefaces with modern technology and even pens and paper.

[a-georgie-blog]

Within this workshop we aimed to capture and photograph in groups any forms and structures on the campus which could represent a letter of the alphabet or numbers zero to nine. In my group we each photographed a bunch of structures and I had the job in recording which letters or numbers we had found. We only had a short amount of time which was very difficult as the RMIT campus is huge and has so much to offer in terms of structures. The overall aim of this task was to create a typeface with the whole classes letters and to see how it connected to the Bauhaus. This task was interesting as it made me realise how many structures, buildings and forms there are to create letters and numbers.

Thanks to Sophie in my group for capturing the photos! :))

week eight : finding letterforms around town !

this week we were told to explore and find letterforms in buildings and around RMIT. we got into groups and grabbed our phones. the challenge was to try and find as many letters in the alphabet and numbers from 1-9. this class had already changed my mindset and I have been looking for letterforms in my daily ever since we started discussing how we are constantly surrounded by incidental letterforms.  however, here are some of our letterforms we found around campus.

[a-georgie-blog]

WEEK 7:

Within this weeks workshop/tutorial we reviewed our A3 printed ‘Hello my questions is..’ assignments and prepared an exhibition of them around the RMIT university campus. With the group on our table we discussed what we could’ve done differently and more efficiently to achieve a higher grade. With my final question I suggested that I could’ve spent more time on it and effectively used photoshop and my resources.  Within my group we organised to display our work under a big arch we found just outside our building. We decided to semi colour coordinate them so they blended and looked and appeared more aesthetic.

Above is a photo of our presented work under the big arch. As a big group we all went around to the different exhibitions and reviewed and appreciated each others work.

[a-georgie-blog]

WEEK 6:

In this weeks lesson we were given with the task of creating a typeface out of a wide range of square, semi circle coloured shapes.

My group initially got given green semi circle shapes which we divided into three letters each around the table, I received the letter ‘g’, ‘h’ and ‘i’. These three letters were simple to create as we could overlap each of the semi circles. However, the capital ‘G’ was difficult as looked more like a ‘C’ due to the semi circles providing less detail. With the allocation of three letters per person it was too refined and to further improve everyone moved three seats to their right to work on someone else’s three letters. I thought it was interesting to see how another person would manipulate and edited my three initial letters. We also combined with another group who had blue semi circles and green and orange triangles which made the creation of our letter easier as we could create squares.

[a-georgie-blog]

WEEK 5:

This week there were no workshops or lectures, however our ‘Hello my question is..’ assignment was due. Overall, I was pleased with my final presentation however, more time and effort could’ve been applied to gain a much more refined and finalised project. I could’ve taken more care with the placement and positioning of letterforms against the natural light and used a more steady camera with a tripod. Also properly following my proposed sketch.

For this assignment I chose the question ‘how can design influence the type of music we listen to?’. I crafted my question with screenshots of my favourite designed album covers along with ‘listen’ created with headphones to refer to the context.

[a-georgie-blog]

WEEK 4:

Within this class we were show how to photograph an image in a professional way to experiment with different light sources and positioning to to gain a perspective on how to perfectly position our objects for the ‘Hello my question is…’ assignment. This professional photoshoot included a tripod, camera and reflective panels to allow the right lights to hit the objects. To gain an adequate image frequent repositioning and movement occurred especially with the lights and objects. All this movement taught me that it is important to be patient and allow time to gain perfect light and positioning. With the example photo below, we placed it within the software photoshop and increased the lighting, quality and further neatened up the image. This helped me as I have never properly used photoshop before and assisted me in refining my final image.

I have attached a brief sketch to show and explain the setting of my camera, tripod and reflective panels upon my cut out objects. This sketch along with the information we gained in class will assist me in my composition and positioning.

[a-georgie-blog]

WEEK 3:

During this class we were encouraged to display a pangram to be communicated through the motion of applying water to a surface within the grounds of RMIT. My group chose the pangram, ‘pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs’. We chose a tight spot with a surface that would efficiently contrast against the water to make it visible and readable and that was hidden from the sunlight to avoid the letters drying up. This exercise was easy and enjoyable, although when too much water was applied to the brush and surface it would create drips and appear messier.

The bottom photo is a work in progress along with the top photo displaying our end production. This exercise allowed us to realise how easily information can be communicated and conveyed even with just as little materials such as water and a brush upon a hard surface.

During this exercise we, as a group were given string as a material to generate and communicate another pangram. We chose the lengthy pangram ‘bright vixens jump; dozy fowl quack’ to be conveyed using only string. This was a difficult task and required a lot of group discussion followed by decisions in where to place the string in order to follow on to create the next letter. The string was challenging material to use as it fibres kept sticking and unsticking to adjacent string, we then were given small sticky dots to place over string to firmly hold it down.

The below three photos highlight our work in progress with the second photo presenting our final result. As a group we found that string wasn’t the best material to convey communication and present any type as it was fragile and unreliable. Overall this task came as a challenge and encouraged our team to fully engage and communicate with each other.

[a-georgie-blog]

WEEK 2:

I unfortunately missed this workshop but did attend the lecture which I really enjoyed. In particular, this lecture focused on the history of design and typefaces. We were shown a series of pictures of different kinds of cave art that old communities used to communicate with each other. I really found this interesting as I had never really looked into how type first came about. We were shown Aboriginal paintings from forest river and Neanderthal cave paintings along with Sumerain cuneiform tablets. I have researched some and placed them below.

We really looked into the usage of these clay tablets and how societies formed their own literacy to communicate and express themselves. Cuneiform happens to be the language that was used to wrote upon the clay tablets.

At the close of this lecture Andy and Karen talked about the three-dimensional relationship between the hand, body and material found in any design process. This process was present when ancient civilisations wrote on this clay.

Overall. this lecture really broadened my mind and opened my eyes to think about how many years type has evolved and developed to become what it is today.

[a-georgie-blog]

WEEK 1

During this first week, we were encouraged to take out our personal items from our bags to manipulate them and generate the alphabet and numbers from 0 to 9.

The first photo above indicates our teams alphabet created with our personal belongings. The first few letters were easy as we had a wide choice of materials, however as we moved on materials became limited as we were only allowed to generate one letter with that material only once. My favourite letters were the ‘H’ created with upside down sunnies, ‘Z’ with the zig zagged tissues and ‘J’ with only a banana. I found it interesting and reassuring how so many different things can be used to communicate type and design.

We also had to generate numbers 0 to 9 (second photo), which became even more of a challenge as our personal materials were running low. The numbers that I found most interesting was the ‘3′ made from a Iphone charger and the ‘6′ created by the manipulation of a bracelet.