researchlog-blog1

[researchlog-blog1]

Week Twelve

This is the last entry to this log.

Sarah told us how to submit our work.

By going to Unilearn and going to my module, Communication Studies 1, Assessment, and then View Assignment, one can then submit their essay and see how much of it was plagiarised.

Also, I finished my conclusion and my introduction. I also learned how to reference the visit and added to my bibliography.

I've gone through the library one last time to include the books that I didn't end up using and adding them to the bibliography as well.

My essay is pretty much finished. All I need to do now is submit my research log on a PDF. I'll be doing this immediately after this log.

[researchlog-blog1]

Week Eleven

This week, I have been slowly finishing the essay. I added the information from Stuffocation and have finished the main body of my work. All I need to accomplish now is my introduction and conclusion.

On top of that, I've been going to weekly Study Skills meetings. That way, I can have my essay scanned through by someone. Any grammatical errors or examples of odd phrasing can then be corrected.

I've been keeping on top of everything, like my referencing and list of illustrations, but I still need more clarification on the bibliography. So far, I have one item: the visit to the Special Collections Archive in Cardiff University. I saw the wood blocks there. I'm not sure how to reference a visit and whether I need to reference it like a reference. I will ask about it in the next tutorial we have 

[researchlog-blog1]

Week Ten

During week ten, we were taught how to reference images and include them into our essays. Since then, I've been including images that I have taken and found. One example of this was the image of the billhead: I took a picture of it in the book I found it in.

Also, images I found on the internet. One website in particular, http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/tech1.html, was helpful in providing images and information for wood-type printing at the time.

I also started to extrapolate information from Stuffocation. This was the book that I was given to inspire most of my society segment.

I found some interesting information regarding Henry Ford and how throwaway culture changed Ford's business model from selling cars that could be your last to having a new model every year. I also found info about how an advertising illustrator called Calkins discovered how, slowly, consumers stopped demanding functionality and instead style and fashion.

[researchlog-blog1]

Week Nine

This week’s lecture was mainly focused on Sarah reviewing what we had written so far. During this week I had written the history portion of the main text. However, it did not involve any images nor did I add a reference section, despite me adding the in text references. Ultimately, I was very proud of it; considering I did use a multitude of sources rather effectively in my text. Additionally, the history portion, as well as the politics, was what I feared writing the most, considering how vague the context of “history” is.

As Sarah reviewed my essay so far, a review of it was positive. He did recommend adding the images, as well as adding references to the images. That lecture did involve her discussing how to reference images earlier, so I utilise that to then add the images that I intended to add.

I went on to Wikipedia to look at the references of the Industrial Revolution page. This was a way I could find more sources quickly. I did a similar thing when I was talking about billheads. I found an interesting quote about why Britain benefited so much from the Industrial Revolution That came from a BBC documentary called “Why the Industrial Revolution Happened Here.”

I intend to do selling similar about the politics section, as I believe I have the least amount of sources to use for these points. Then again I could always reuse points from other sections; that would be allowed.

[researchlog-blog1]

Week Eight

During this week, there was another tutorial involving Harvard referencing. We were basically given examples about how to Harvard reference things like books, websites, et cetera. I found this session incredibly helpful, considering up and spending the last week also trying to find sources and now have a suitable understanding about how to play some down in a reference section in the essay.

I’ve also got a book, which has been given to me, for as long as I need it. It’s called Stuffocation Living More With Less. This essentially points out all the effects that mass production has had on society, generating the sense of “throwaway culture.” I compared this to how Apple usually make their iPhones incredibly easy to destroy, just so buyers would have to buy the next one that they’d make a year later also. It’s ingenious, however I usually prefer products last, so most people would assume this throwaway culture is a bad thing.

That seems to be a fairly good point to make in societal context section of the essay. Mass production and mass media ultimately generated the sense that People can get anything cheaply and therefore were less likely to treasured possessions and keep them for years and more likely to simply discard of them, which ultimately led to more products being less long-lasting and less personal to the client.

All I really need now are some mentions of historical and political contexts of the Mass media movement during the 19th Century, and I’ll pretty much have my four points. Then I just need to write them out and then include an introduction and a conclusion. At that point my essay should be done.

[researchlog-blog1]

Week Seven

This week, we travelled to London, to see the V&A Video-game Exhibition. This may have helped people gather information that they can use for Illustration based on moving image or something. I, with my subject chosen, did not find it so helpful and spent little time there. I did spend a little time in the V&A, looking at old religious art, but that also didn’t really help me find out any information to use in my essay. Afterwards, I did spend a bit of time in the Natural History Museum, because A. Shane’s subject centred around Paleontology and he wanted to visit and B. Dinosaurs were generally more interesting.

Ultimately, I think this trip was a day out more than an important task to fulfill. I did enjoy the day out, regardless.

Later on in the week, I was thinking about what the best way I could find more references. I concluded that, since my one source of inspiration came from an Illustration book, I would go the the library and find further information about art of advertising and mass media during the industrial revolution.

This was the most promising source I found. Meggs, P. 1992, A History of Graphic Design Second Edition, US, International Thomson Publishing .Inc. This talks about the switch from metal-type printing, which could often be impractical due to the heaviness and imperfections that the plate would collect over usage, to wood-type printing.

I’ll look for more, later.

[researchlog-blog1]

Week Six

This week involved a basic tutorial session, in which we simply discussed our ideas with Sarah and received advice on them. I, as discussed last week, thought to discussed Illustration in mid 19th Century mass production. However, I wasn’t exactly sure what to talk about, aside from discussing the one example I found of Smith and Byrams the Waterman’s Kitchen Furnishing Store. Thanks to this tutorial, I understood what I could necessarily write about.

Sarah mentioned three formats that we can write in: we could potentially discuss a single image that we find and its context; we could discuss multiple illustrations from the same author or time period; we could discuss multiple illustrators and eras around a certain subject. I chose the second option: I chose to write around the time period of the 19th Century, in which the industrial revolution was in full swing and mass production was born, mentioning its effects on society as things became more accessible and more replaceable, the technological advancements of the time, as well as the history and politics behind Britain’s Empire and how that played a part in the mass media.

I also found a source, which explains what billheads are, so I can include that in the essay, as well as use this picture.  Maurice Rickards; Michael Twyman (2000), Michael Twyman, ed., The encyclopedia of ephemera: a guide to the fragmentary documents of everyday life for the collector, curator, and historian

I’ll spend the next few weeks finding the sources to fill my essay with. Then work out a schedule, so I can write 500 words per session and finish it in time.

[researchlog-blog1]

Week Five

Today, we handed in the tasks that we had spent the week working on. To be honest, I found it difficult: mainly because I wasn’t sure what sort of information was appropriate and how much of it related to my chosen image. So I ended up talking about Muratti as a company and its history. The artist that apparently made this, Arthur Bonner, had no information I could use.

Doing this task made me realise that I did not really want to focus on cigarettes, considering I do not smoke and have little interest in them.

During this weeks class, we were given advice about how to set our subjects out and how focused or how broad they can be. We were also recommended a book called History of Illustration, which was a massive book of illustration about many things. After class, I went to the library and made notes.

I think I found an interesting subject: on page 203, Art for Commerce states that there was an increase in manufactured goods around the mid 19th century and that shopkeepers and manufacturers wanted to illustrate their shops/factories/products to advertise them. This lead to the first catalogs.

The image above is a billhead for Smith & Byram The Waterman Kitchen Store. Billhead receipts are receipts that were commonly used in business transactions from the late 1860s through the early 1940s. You can see that the products have been printed onto the billhead, to advertise the company’s other products.

[researchlog-blog1]

Week Four

This week involved learning how to begin writing. As an example, The Tiger who Came for Tea, by Judith Kerr, was used to show us how to critically analyse illustrations.

The task was to choose an image that resonates with me and analyse the historical, political, social and technological development of it. It needed to be 300 to 500 words long and printed out. I chose this image: I was attracted to how cigarette advertising would sell their admittedly harmful products, so this poster of Muratti Cigarettes by Arthur Bonner in 1976 seemed interesting.

[researchlog-blog1]

Week Three

This week, we went to the Special Collection Archives of Cardiff University Library to see examples of illustration throughout history, mainly in books and newspapers. We saw examples of books from the 15th Century, when the printing press would have been first used, and the illustrations that were in them.

We saw 17th Century examples, which included illustrations made by printing using bronze. Considering the microscope had been invented at that time, the image below shows how much illustration was involved in scientific understanding and spreading information.

Then, around the 19th century, wood was used to print and we saw examples of The Illustrated London News and The Graphic. These also included coloured prints. In fact, a photographer or an artist would be sent to places like battlefields, and their art or images would be used to make stencils, which would then be printed. It was an interesting process, and I found it nice how dedicated people were on spreading information visually.

Whilst inspiring, I do not feel that this was necessarily helpful, in my case. I was interested in Product, which wasn’t too applicable here; most of these involved information, or literature.

[researchlog-blog1]

Week Two

I was on a trip to New York at this time, so I was not in class. However, whilst I was there, I did find examples of Illustration for Product when I went to Time Square. I also saw many illustrations associated with small companies like Pizzerias and Cafés.

When I came back, I found out that this week was focusing on Primary and Secondary sources of research. This would be important, when we are writing our essays, as we would need to know where to find information about our subject matter.

I did do the task: to create another board, but this time talking about Primary and Secondary Information and where one can find them to assist them.

I did not find this task too helpful. I could possibly make use of this, if I needed inspiration on where to find examples or information.

At this time, I also started a board on Pinterest to grab some examples of Illustrations based on products.

[researchlog-blog1]

Week One

The first week of the second term, we started a new module: Communication Studies.

In this weeks lecture, we were given the brief. It was to research the historical, political, social and technological developmental contexts of illustrations in either Literature, Information, Product or Moving Image. It could be about whatever we found interesting, so I spent this week pondering which to choose.

We were given a task to do that week, which was also supposed to clarify what illustrations we were looking for. The task was to compile examples of Illustrations in these four categories and create a simple board of sort.

The image above is mine. After doing it, I felt a certain attraction to Illustrations for products, like the old packaging for cigarettes and current advertising. They can also be very good to analyse, because they are mostly on-the-nose.

I found this week quite helpful, although I still have certain questions like what to talk about specifically and how vague or narrow does this essay have to end up being. I’ll try and find this out later on.