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Can’t believe that this is it! The cherry on top

This semester has helped me in ways I didn’t even know it could. It has sure helped me time manage, as I hate doing things last minute… But most importantly the content itself. I learnt about different types of technologies to do with design, art movements, important artists, the BAUHAUS, and design history.

These assignments flexed my creative muscles even more and have helped me enormously in thinking techniques, researching techniques and of course software basis development – learning how to use InDesign, photoshop and illustrator! Getting better bit by bit!

This course has been so much fun, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it – except the times where I’ve lost my files and have panicked over time management…

ANYWAY! This course made me realise of all the things I’m capable of doing creatively and to believe in myself more and not beat myself up over small things. Critiques have helped me lots too.

I would like to say a BIG thank you to Andy and Karen for making our lectures so enjoyable and fun to watch during these times, and ofcourse my teacher Ben for always being jolly in class and always having an understanding of what we are going through!

Hope to see you all very soon! Enjoy your holidays!

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ZINE COMPLETED IN GIF FORM

Took a few rough screenshots from my ISSUU to make it into a gif, turns out the gif is not the best quality but hey it’s cool enough.

The link is here in case you want to have a closer look https://issuu.com/iriakyritsi/docs/kyritsikyriakizine  but I took inspiration from @adriansfolio​ and made it into gif form also :) 

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IT’S DONE! FINALLY.

I have completed my first ever zine! I think this was a good first try.

I love the layout I stuck to, with the pictures sometimes connecting between two pages instead of just being in one, some of the snipped up borders, and the way I placed the questions.

To me, I achieved that modern - ish aesthetic in my zine. The marble looks cool but not too hectic in my opinion. 

I tried making the caryatids have their own personalities, so this wouldn’t be just  a basic interview, I wanted it to be a bit more funny , cheeky and interesting. I wanted to portray the maidens as snobby , as we Greeks are stereotyped to be sometimes ,hehehe. 

My questions helped showcase the historical and artistic influences these ladies have caused! When I lived in Greece , we would often drive to the city and on sunny days we would go to Acropolis which was shining , and I would always look at these ladies, being very impressed by them, so I’m happy that I got to interview them.

This was difficult for me to make as I was using illustrator and Indesign for it , which I barely have any experience with BUT this assignment helped me get more of the hang of them!  So I’m pretty stoked about that! Really excited to get even more familiar with these softwares during the holidays.

If you guys want give it a read and let me know what you think!

:) 

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Things are coming together nicely!

Late nights never hurt nobody...right?

I’m happy that my vision is finally coming together , connecting pieces to pieces. I still have some more pages to do but the interview spread is something I’m quite happy with the way it turned out. I thought it might look tacky but in my eyes I feel like it looks modern and has the aesthetic I was striving towards!

Gotta keep at it.

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Finally developed all my answers for my questions! Time to put it all together. 

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Absolutely love the outcome of this Katrina! You represented the women of the HAUS perfectly. Should be extremely proud of this. I actually quite enjoyed reading this, and the orange colours were very nicely portrayed. Great job.

Finally finished my zine!

I found the hardest part of finishing, is knowing when to finish - I think with my perfectionist tendencies I could have endlessly tweaked. 

But anyway, I am quite happy with outcome and think that it maintains consistency in style and is legible. I am now wondering whether I should have been more experimental with my approach, but got to a point where I knew I just had to stick with my original plan of a ‘fine art book’ style of layout. 

This was possibly one of my favourite projects this semester as we were able to both explore an area of interest and compile it in a publication style document, which is always satisfying. I was really looking forward to learning more about the printing process by printing my final piece, but COVID had other plans, so that’ll have to wait anyway!

I am also really glad Ben told our class about making an Issuu, I think it was an important final touch to at least give it that ‘publication feel’!

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WEEK 11 CLASS ACTIVITY

Our last class with Ben which suckssss.

I’ve been actually loving these classes a lot - only thing I hate is not being able to see people face to face. But that’s something out of our hands so I won’t complain about it don’t worry.

This week we were told to download a photoshop file from outlook. We were then told to alter this image and redesign the layout. My internet sucked that day so I was probably the last one to complete it due to my internet speed. Great.

I just did a basic cute lil approach, adding a hand made , scribble feel to it.

But what I liked is that I repeated the image 2 more times to the left side. Nothing fancy but I liked that look as it reminds me of a prism type of theme. (many faces) but flat.

This activity was quite fun and I loved seeing everyones different perspectives of this. 

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ZINE UPDATE !

As you see, I turned my living room into a studio space for this. Thank god for my dad and his photography equipment, I was able to use his white background for the photos I wanted for my zine.

As you can see, I inserted a velvet blue chair in frame so I can take photos of me sitting down in it and as an empty chair for the later editing that will be taking place from me to add the caryatid. As my layout from last week shows I want my zine to have a modern and clean feel. So the white background I will be interviewing the caryatids in will be perfect. 

I put the camera on a tripod, self timed and ran to the seat. This occurred around 7 times and then I got the shot! So I’m satisfied

I’m excited to see the outcome!

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This GIF LOOKS SO CLEAN! AMAZING JOB! Love the colours you used here and your happy face aesthetic hehehe

Journal Log #10 (8th June):  “Final reflection”

What a rollercoaster of a semester this has been!  Never would I have imagined to be spending my first semester of my Design studies at home – really was a shock.  Adjusting to online studies was a bit of a learning curve:  learning how to operate out streams, awkwardly shying away from talking on mic, and learning how to collaborate with each other virtually.  However, as the semester went on, everyone slowly came out of the shells and embraced the online studies and soon class was running like a normal classroom.  

I’ve loved Communication Design Studies.  I’ve been able to view the world differently, to always question why things are made the way they are and if there’s ways to improve it.  Looking back at the first assignment “Hello, My question is…” I asked “What is Good Design?”, throughout the course I’ve learnt that ‘good design’ is always about using whatever resources you have to make the best possible outcome, and there I made my question out of items in my house because that’s all the resources I had in Isolation at home.  Coming up with the best solution is best worked out in teams as the more ideas you have the better, and I thank my teacher Bailey and peers for the constant feedback on my work, and not only that I’ve been exposed to the countless creative ideas from my peers that I can use as inspiration for future projects.  Thank you!  

Thank you, Andy and Karen, for the insightful lectures.  I’ve learnt so much about the history of design - the origins of design from different cultures, and how the past has influenced todays design.  

We may have spent our first semester of Design at home, but we sure did remain positive and made the most of it. We need to continue to work as a team and get through this strange period together.  Soon enough we’ll be back working collaboratively in class face-to-face, but until then stay creative in Isolation!  

Remember to communicate, keep learning, eat well, and exercise.  

*GIF I made for Colour and Information Design

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Aww that sounds fun! Seeing this makes me wanna give it a go so I might try experimenting with that website too later! 

ADVENTURES IN FONT DESIGN

"Font design is in fact lots of fun, especially when you make mistakes."

In the lecture for week 11, Andy mentioned this website called Metaflop. I explored it some more, and really liked the concept. It's a breakdown way to design a typeface, which the designer can then download, install, and use themselves.

It reminds me of another website I used for an assignment in a different class. It's called calligraphr, and it creates a typeface based off the designers handwriting. All the designer needs to do is choose their language, print out the template, fill it in, scan it, upload it, download it, and then install it. Now that sounds like a lot when I break it down into steps, but it was actually quite simple and didn't take too long.

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WEEK 11 , OUR LAST LECTURE :(

WHAT’S NEXT FOR DESIGN?

When technology and design combine , it gets pretty crazy.

For example: Andy and Karen mentioned this eye writer project that used technology that was emerging which allowed a man called Tim diagnosed with ALS write with this own eyes! He was able to draw out beautiful graffiti type using his eyes, we are living in the future.

Another work of art Andy and Karen talked about was the “Movie Barcode.”. This reflects every single colour portrayed in each frame of the movie Kung Fu Panda.

Another piece is something called the “Public face” which was made and designed by Julius Von Bismarck and Benjamin Maus with Richard Wiltheimer. The way this worked is from twitter data. Yes twitter data! How cool is that?? So they would scan the tweets and the face would showcase a happy, sad or neutral face to showcase the overall emotion in Berlin. Amazing if you ask me!

I really enjoyed this lecture as it showed us a few different works due to the collusion of design and technology. Sometimes I hate the world we live in, but right now I feel pretty inspired ! Pretty cool and funky stuff!

All pictures provided by Karen and Andys slides. 

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This makes me want to experiment more with Gif making! Love how the gif turned out and how you incorporated the last slide of every lecture. 

Thank You

Designed by @adriansfolio​

Wow, this semester done and Communication Design is in the books. It’s crazy how 6 months has gone so fast and I wish I did this class face to face and meeting all the students in my class. But I would like to thank Karen, Andy and Bailey for this semester, showing me all these new aspects of design. Exploring to different movements, typefaces, designers that I did not understand previously. Thank you, Andy and Karen for going out of your way and providing content for not only myself but for everyone. Andy always made the lectures funny and exciting for me and Karen I deeply appreciate insightful knowledge. I would like to say thank you to my teacher, Bailey. I knew we did not get to know each other properly, but you truly helped me a lot in this subject, getting feedback from you for my designs really helped. The fact you started class early in the morning and always willing to help and ask if we have questions shows how great a teacher you are.

For myself I learnt a lot and from now on I want to get myself out there, be proud of what I design and surrounded myself with design students friend who together embrace our creativity. Looking back yeah sometimes I was stress, felt tired, sick of working, irritated and alone but that did not make me give up. This is my dream and I will keep practicing, I will showcase my work to everyone and not be afraid to be who I am. I am still learning to appreciate myself and I will follow my passion of design through the ups and downs. 

Thank You Karen, Andy and Bailey 

It’s been a pleasure

✌️ 

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MY LAYOUT IS SORTED!

After conducting my research of zine inspo I got to the layout of my 16 page zine. At first I thought 16 pages were too much but actually it’s perfect for me!

I know, sorry if this gives you a headache but I can understand it and that’s what matters after all! Don’t mind my handwriting, when I’m on autopilot mode my handwriting goes out the window.

But yes, I’m excited to start getting everything together!

I incorporated the idea of sharing an image between a spread by the zine I was impressed by on my previous post!

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INSPO TIME

Ben recommended that we checked out some sites he linked for us in our previous class so we could look around different zine types and styles.

I tried to look at ancient/old style like zines to see what’s out there , since I’m covering an Ancient matter. 

I was please with what I found because I saw what I would like to incorporate into my zine and what i would not want to experiment with. 

This is the first zine I came across. 

“Paul Klee, 1879-1940 : a retrospective exhibition“

Catalog of an exhibition held February 17 - April 30, 1967 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York https://archive.org/details/paulklee1879klee/mode/2up

I looked through the pages, the style is something I wasn’t really fond of as it was a bit boring for my liking. But I liked the tint the pages had and some of the image layouts like the spread I have inserted below. 

I then looked at this zine:

“China, 5000 years : innovation and transformation in the artsby Lee, Sherman E.”

Catalog of an exhibition held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Feb. 6-June 3, 1998 and Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, summer 1998

https://archive.org/details/china5000yearsin00lees/page/206/mode/2up

I really enjoyed the way that the images spread across to both pages, I found it quite satisfying , and I loved the minimalistic feel it added to it. This has made me think about the way I could incorporate this technique into my own zine. 

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More collage love

As I said a few posts ago , I wanted to keep exploring collage again as it’s something I love experimenting with.

Here’s what I came up with. 

My first one was just from old magazines I found in my mums closets, with a side of forms I never filled out from highschool as you can see by that pink form right there. 

I love this vintage feel as the main stars of the show look like they aren’t part of this decade - same goes with the quality. I really like how the oink and yellow pieces of paper separated that black and white theme throughout the collage. 

My other piece:

I used mixed media for this, painted of different pieces of paper with different mixes of green and blue. I then cut out circles and diamonds out of them resulting in this green fiesta. I think all the colours go together perfectly. I also added the the cutout of light green legs and a little lady on the gas tank door to add a bit more flavour to this.

Made these collages to flex my creative muscle as I have felt a bit burnt out lately. But this was extremely fun to do again and I want to keep experimenting with collage or even digital collage as I enjoy it so much. 

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I saw this during class and I loved it the moment i saw it on the screen. I love the 6000 eyes that are beautiful and crystal blue just staring and judging right at me. The blue hues with the yellows...Amazing

WEEK 10 TUTORIAL: COLLAGE

In this weeks tutorial we created some collages out of magazines, obviously relating to what was talked about in the latest lecture.

I’ve always viewed collaging as an ‘easy’ and ‘half-arsed’ art form because from face value it seems pretty simple, you just cut and paste images together. I definitely have more respect for it now after seeing some of the collage artists Ben showed us in class.

I started my collage by ripping out any pages of my magazine that included things I liked the look of visually, then I started cutting them all out. i was left with about 30 different eyes, cars, clothes, mouths, shoes, legs etc. I got kind of overwhelmed at that point and realised that I maybe got to carried away and cut out TOO much. I loved everything I cut out but I needed to condense it down so that the composition of my collage wasn’t cluttered and so my collage had some sort of meaning. 

I really liked the idea of grouping all the eyes together to make a sort of surreal image, so I went in that direction. I wanted there to be a strong figure and ground, so I collaged together darker/blue toned images to make a nice solid backdrop for my figure, who has 583 eyes and is wearing a yellow (warm toned to contrast the blue) shirt!

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COLLAGE, CLASS W BEN WEEK 1O

COLLAGE! I’ve loved collage since I can remember. I love cutting out pieces out of random magazines and newspapers, to then find a new meaning to them and make them look beautiful and harmonious together!

In class we covered different types of collage from digital, to mixed media or plainly magazine type of collage.

We went through some funny and political collages and critiqued them all together.

After looking as some different types of collages all together, ben told us to have a go of it on our own! I was excited as I haven’t made a collage piece in a while, and couldn’t wait to dive in. I only had some old magazines from the 2012′s - not sure why. So I digged for elements that would look interesting.

This is what I ended up coming up with: 

I think I used that eating element  because I was starving during class... Anyway... I really loved this as her hair is bright red orange and complements the turquoise elements of this very well behind her. It’s a bit crazy but the white lines behind this simplifies it and makes it come together well. I just honestly really loved her expression and was excited to use her as the star of this collage. I missed doing this and might experiment with more collage and post about it! Loved this class, quite fun as always!