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Thesis 2- week 3: practices

- vacuum, void

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Thesis 2- week 3: practices

Brainstorm for 20 words：

1. cruelty

2. styles of imprisonment

3. egalitarianism

4. paradox

5. moral complexity

6. tenderness

7. sadism/masochism 

8. fantasies

9. Narcissism 

10. sensations 

11. agony

12. obscurity

13. relationship with power

14. subjective/objective violence

15. fear

16. collective guilt

17. mirage of cruelty

18. truma

19. euphoria 

20. affinity

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Senior Thesis 1: Research Question and Purpose

How do we give form to different voices?

How will we learn, how, and remember?

_______

I am investigating the aesthetics of cruelty from pain and pleasure  by asking the question of “Evil is in the eye of the beholder”, but is cruelty? Does there exist such a thing as a mirage of cruelty?, for everyone using collage book, typeface design, and mix-media objects.

The ultimate goal for my senior thesis is the study of “styles of imprisonment” by focusing primarily on works that offer deliberate and clear attempt to understand the knots and binds of this world, rather than hoping to offer a map out of them. I want the viewer to get intimate with discomfort, and develop an appetite for nuance.

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Senior Thesis 1: Reflection Statement

I started my senior thesis with a strong interest and curiosity of how varies forms of art express relation between pain and pleasure, as well as the subtleness of extremity. At the time when I was finishing my first project, I discovered the book “The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning”, it has offered me many comprehensive, unparalleled perspectives into the whole ideology of cruelty. Furthermore, it introduces me the concept of “styles of imprisonment”, which largely helped my creation for the second project. The typeface I design can be seen as if each letter is concelling or revealing itself at the same time. I wish to utilize this typeface in my upcoming projects. Meantime, I am aware of my last project has some disputes of whether it is a conceptul art piece or a design project. My intention is to annotate on the idea of fetishisizing women as possessions, to present a bond between eroticism and cruelty. While I enjoy exploring multi-media presentation, I wish to make stronger graphic design choices in order to clear the  confusions and better convey my thesis through a designer’s lense. In addition to the three projects, I have also started on an exhibition design, which I’m planning to further explore and refine, into a foundation for my next semester’s thesis projects.

So far, my senior thesis has made me thinking that in this current world which is exploding with images, social actions and technological inventions, how can we better face cruelty through ethical, sensory, aesthetic perspectives, whether we are beholders or enactors. I guess the only way out, is through.

Our brains do not always know, nor do our bodies always know, when to venture forward and when to turn away, when to tolerate, when to refuse, when to accept, when to submit. For better or worse, the path we have travelled and will travel, is the only way leads to worthwile forms of self-knowledge and acceptance of this world.

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Documentation on Medium One

Classnotes:

Exploration on binding:

I wanted to have a flat binding, because the majority of spreads have overspread photographs that are intended to be cut in half at where the spread folds, also it was really critical to have the images be shown completely, without any gaps or hidden parts. Despite Japanese binding is aesthetically most close to what I envision, the spreads can not lay flat from this kind of bind. The second and the third bindings are my ideal method, however, I do not know how to do it nor could not find a printing shop to achieve this binding at the time. Eventually, I did a relatively easy bind: two holes and a letter strap. 

My book: 

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[9-20] Topics to questions: Exercise 3

Post 250–500 words on your blog about the role of design either at the march or at the fair. What is and what is not design in these contexts? What drives what things look like?

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This is my forth year going to the New York Art Book Fair. It feels like Déjà vu when I stepped in MoMA PS1 this time, I felt my relation with the space, my echo with the atmosphere, and my visual senses have sharpened or elevated since my freshman year. Different from other years, this time I had a specific task brought with me to the fair: finding good resources and inspirations for my senior thesis. I decided to change my usual route in the fair, I started from the third level of the PS1 building - the photography focus area. Comparing to other area in the fair, this level feels relatively upscale, high-end and “luxurious”. Many publishers are big company, even blue-chip galleries. I noticed that there are also small artworks on sale, for example; an invitation for one of Damien Hirst’s show, asking for $2000. 

The majority part of the fair is what I consider “not design”. It is because each individual stand has its strong personality and voice that are not for purpose of pleasing, serving any specific function, or even asking for understanding. One of the core definitions between “design” and “art” is that design needs to have a function, in easier words: it is a way leads to a solution to a question. Art is not. It can provoke all the questions it wants and never answer. 

Good design needs to be done based on methodical researches, consideration of user experience, social impact and etc. For example, the branding system (posters, signboards, brochures and etc.) of this annual event is definitely considered a complex design system. Despite that the posters look almost identical every year, the color choices make a big difference: this year, the two colors highly contrast with each other, therefore, created almost a visual illusion when looking at it for a while. If we zoom out to the widest perspective of possibilities and then zoom back into the details, I noticed that it was interesting that although I did not consider each stand is a design, however, within the stand, within each zine and book and pin, is full of unique design choices. 

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[9.13-Exercise 2] 3 Potential Ideas for Partner

Partner: Camila 

1. What if you create a new streetwear brand that is inspired based on graphic design and you also offer it an entire identity system?

Content: A new streetwear brand (women) that wants to fill the gap among most streetwear brands that are very much for male audience (size, style and etc). It promotes a positive energy and courage for women to express their own identity through fashion. 

Audience: 15-30 Female  (anyone interested in self-expression in streetwear)

Medium: Graphic design, fashion, branding

Question: How to create a new streetwear brand that is very much targeted to female streetwear buyers and attract them into express their own identity through fashion?

2. What if you rebrand an existed streetwear brand and expand its market into your target audience?

Content: To expand a already-existed brand into female market, for example: most clothes in KITH store (NYC) are for male (baggy, big size, sporty style). By adding more design dedicates toward women, we can expand the brand’s market into different audience group. 

Audience: 15-30 Female (anyone interested in self-expression in streetwear)

Medium:  Identity design, branding, promotion

Question: How to create a new/elevated voice to an existed/mature streetwear brand? How to make a fashion brand to have a social impact? 

3. What if you create an interactive pop-up site that people can DIY their own graphic shirts? (Use your design to screen-print, draw or embroider on garments)?

Content: Pop-up stores/sites have been growing. It’s a quick, effective and impactful way to communicate messages. By creating a temporary site where people can DIY, try-on, take photos and post on social media. The messages will spread very fast among the young generation. 

Audience: 15-30 Female (anyone interested in self-expression in streetwear)

Medium: Installation design, interactive design, fashion

Question: How can you make an interactive site be attractive, impactful and easy to get involved with? What’s the importance of self-creating (DIY) in fashion?

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Response to “Are We Human?”

“Enveloped in all the nets of its own making, the species constantly watches itself, as if fascinated by what it has become... The human animal spends a remarkable amount of time looking at itself and its artifacts from an ever-increasing number of angles at every scale from the whole planet to atomic and now subatomic details.” 

One of my favorite books of all time is called “Care of the Soul” by Thomas Moore. It is a psychology book that guides you to a better understanding of our life, our mental world and our soul. In the very end chapter of this book, Moore discusses his thoughts on relations between art and soul. He states an opinion that has probably forever changed my view on art and design, on why I make what I make. He suggests that the essential reasons of the existence of art in our world, is cures for our innate narcissism. The importance of art/design (beauty), is not only a way to express our beings, but to build a real, expressive form that can hold the weight of our souls. Going back to this quote, we as human beings do “spends a remarkable amount of time looking at itself”, it is built within our nature to do so. However, I believe if we use it against all odds and to serve as our strength, we can create many beautiful art and design. If we don’t have art, then all of our life is just like an illusion, nothing will be eternal, both from “atomic” and “subatomic” details. Because of our narcissism, we are afraid of death, we want to be something that is forever. The only way, I believe, is to create beauty that outlives us, in this world.

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Project Proposal (April 2)

This is one of my favorite books of all time. I have read it at least five times. It first caught my attention because the cover design (in real life it looks even darker and more blurry). The name of the book, as well as the author name “PLEASEFINDTHIS” are so mysterious and intriguing. I love this book so much is because every single poem touches my heart, as well as the photograph that goes along with each poem. One of my photography series was also inspired from a selection of poems from this book. 

In one of the critical reviews, it writes “ The book makes you feel like it was destiny—that you were supposed to find this book. Maybe you needed to hear these words as encouragement, combating your fears of rejection. To make you contemplate your choices, or perhaps even to help you find peace; these poems are for you.”

This book challenges the definition of a poetry book, it offers readers so much freedom and space for creating connections and personal thoughts. The book made me realize that most important thing about poetry is its expression and emotion. Moreover, the book has its very unique way of combining both images and texts. 

This is a newer version of the book, it includes more recent poems and photographs. 

Here are some of the pages:

For this project:

His second book has a very innovative and unique editorial layout by using handwriting words, different scales of photographs, even including special element like mimicking water dropping on paper. I want to create a poetry book by using Iain Thomas’s most recent poems and photographs from his website. Inspire from his unique layout, I also want to create a layout system that is both comprehensive to different length of poems and different sizes of photographs, in the meantime, is very flexible and expandable. 

“I Wrote This For You” website:

http://www.iwrotethisforyou.me/

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Reading Response (March 05)

I want to mention the continuing use of vertical layout (a very traditional layout) in most of Japanese books and books from Hong Kong and Taiwan. It is especially interesting in the second image that the duo use of two very different layout strategies, to incorporate yet not compromise to either western and eastern editorial design. 

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Reading Response (Feb 26)

From the reading As If – Design and Its Producers, on page 224, the author brings up A.J. Liebling’s famous quote: “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.” Also on page 227, Morris’s Kelmscott Press states that: “To own the means of production is the only way to gain back pleasure in work, and this, in return, is considered as a prerequisite for the production of art and beauty.” I want to talk about my thoughts on “ownership”. 

The re-blossom of physical publishing along with growing appreciation of materiality, is somehow in anticipation of, the progression of anything, always circles around. In this reading, the author emphasizes the reality of “designer as producer” and “production is rooted in the material world”. When the vast development in the digital side of the market has reached a peak, people step back from it and wanting something different. The phrase which almost everyone knows “Don't judge a book by its cover”, might be not completely true anymore. The design that goes into a book is a very complex system, it has very much shifted its attention to the cover design as well as the use of materials (how the book is binded, what kind of paper is used, should there be any unconventional design?) “Book” as an item is no longer only serves the purpose of reading and recording, but as “an artwork” itself. People purchase well-designed books (also magazines and zines) because they want to collect them as “artworks”. For anything digital or in the cloud, it’s hard to gain a sense of ownership. “Ownership” is a rather emotional and private feeling, more than anything, it mostly describes the notion that “somebody own something, in real life” instead of “owning a digital collection of photographs that are stored in iCloud”. 

I think about what we are doing in class – re-designing a classical literature book. This very much make a point of appreciating the ‘production’ and ‘design’ go into a book, despite the content of it. In the reading, the author also mentions the differences between ‘modern’ and ‘post-modern’, which one means ‘form equals content’ and one means ‘form does not equal content’. I think it’s similar to the idea of “a book is a book” and “a book is not only a book”. As a designer, the way I can claim “ownership” over something I work on is to offer it a new characteristic over its content. 

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Reading Response (Feb 19)

Although I spent my entire sophomore year focusing on editorial design, and I have self-printed many editorial magazines, just when I thought I am quite skillful in InDesign, I figured I am wrong. Last week we started working on re-design one classical literature of our choices, I picked The Scarlet Letter. This is the first time for me to deal with such big amount of text, the initial settings in InDesign: paragraph style, title style, sub-title style and the content... are the most critical step when working with content-based work. Among all, choosing the right typefaces are probably the best chance for me as a designer, to offer this classical literature a new identity as well as to express my own style. 

Last week in my response, I talked about how different the typesetting can look and feel from digital screens to physical prints: the proportion between different type elements, the sizes of typefaces, to the relations between page numbers and chapter name. First of all, the interactions happen for digital website and prints are different: for digital, users scroll through the text in a continuous gesture; for print, users flip through the pages, use fingers to feel the texture. Secondly, after testing several combination of serif font and san serif font, I feel for large amount of text, using serif to typeset is easier on the eyes. This is a little different from digital publishing, which I notice many news website or reading engines prefer san serif fonts. The third difference I like to mention is the placement of both images and text: for digital, since the gesture is scrolling (for some digital version magazine, users experience a simulated flipping gesture), the images can be bigger, also images serve as “a break” from prolonged texts; for prints, I find it’s harder to find a balance and system to place images along side texts, which can either emphasizes a book’s layout style or destroy the whole system. 

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Reading Response (Feb 12)

Last week I talked about a good font should be almost invisible, it can’t take over the attention, yet, it has to have its own personality. In this week’s reading “Typeface As Programme”, it also mentions the word “invisible” when it talks about the role of computer and software as “...since it is so ubiquitous that is it almost invisible.” This invisibility of typography immediately disappear when you actually learn about typography design. The mention of the font Unified Font Object (UFO) which introduces a new concept on typeface design, that “would not have to rely on a computer operating system (OS) and its underlying typesetting mechanisms.” This made me recall my sophomore year struggles. I was learning basic skills on coding HTML and CSS. Not talking about how bad I was at coding (from every aspect), one of my biggest struggles was the application of CSS, which allows you customize your website and give it a style. I realized that even with the use of Safari or Chrome or Firefox can make everything (CSS) you worked so hard on, does not show on screen at all.  I spent a lot of time on typesetting my page, it worked fine on Chrome, yet when you open it with Safari, all the styles went away. 

The perception of how font really looks vary dramatically on screen and on physical prints. In Editorial design, we do a lot of test prints before the first rough draft print for the entire book. The reason for doing test prints is to see the typesetting of the content, the porportion between body text, title, pull quote, small title, and images. Even the page number can go through a lot of small adjustments during test prints. The way everything looks on screen, is very different when they are on paper. The resolutions of the screen, the size of your screen, even the brightness you set, give you a false judgement on typography design. When doing an editorial piece, typesetting is probably the most important element of all. The experience I gained on editorial design makes me rethink about typeface as programme, because I think even with the most advanced software, it is still not as reliable as our naked eyes and touch of the physical results. 

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My Pick of Book (Feb 12)

— which edition you’ll use

The Scarlet Letter (Kindle edition, with images)

— what your additional text will be (you can have multiple ideas)

None, for now. 

— what format you’ll use (paperback, dust jacket, image wrap)

Paperback. I want the book to be elegant, lighthearted, easy to carry out, easy to read. 

— how you want the book to feel (i.e. ‘modern’, ‘classic’, ‘minimal’, &c.)

I want it to feel approachable and attractive. The design of the book (cover) will be simple, pure, modern. 

— possible typefaces you think would work 

Serif: Feijoa, Didot, hoefler...

San serif: Brandon grotesque,  Din Condensed?...

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