This workshop was aimed at troubling the idea of an index. • Example: Imperfect Index, where the index is at the front and not set up traditionally, that viability giving it authority as ‘para text’ or the main text, organised as a map to move you around in different ways • To consider when making an index: western knowledge frameworks, ignoring marginalised groups, local knowledge often considered as secondary, language • Language and colonial power dynamics, latin alphabet dominates • Queer Arab Glossary example, collects slang, organised by sound, theme, image, illustration • Coral Dictionary • Hives / Aladin Boriolo Parallel Encyclopaedia / Suter – a NOT book, non-sequential • Decoding Dictatorial Statues / Yoon • LATCH theory / Wurman • Snowglobes / Nancy Duarte
As a group we combined our BT Archives choices, mine wad a rotary phone from my childhood, into an offline visual index that included manual/tactile use, phone box window designs and other unexpected factors, we rendered it in the form of a large phonebox.
• Hack based on reversing the process of letterpress, where ink is replaced with adhesives and then removed leaving negative space. • Through iterative practice, discovery that I was printmaking by removing the printed matter. Space was left behind simply because of the existence of the paper and our interaction with it as communicators. • Destructive nature and imperfections left behind very interesting, how can that be used? • Discussion about capturing the process of printing, then removing a type block using film or moving image. Interesting opportunities regarding editing, sequence etc etc • Could it work with a short quote about reclaiming, or revenge, giving then taking back, or personifying the type blocks somehow? • To iterative now by sourcing a quote, executing prints and documenting for next week • Form of final essay draft to use process as drop caps, to experiment with this if possible before next tutorial.
Use this method in a way it was not intended to be used
Having been intrigued by the imperfections of the hand stamped letterforms, and the experience of type outside of a digital space, my intention now is to ‘anti-stamp’…
Letterpress or hand stamping GIVES ink to a surface, it adds, augments, usually in a very direct and confident way (ref Anthony Burrill’s work). I would like the wood type to TAKE or SUBTRACT from the surface. Instead of a clean and refined, typeset piece of printed matter with a clear message, I’d like to use wood type blocks to take away pages, images and form from printed matter.
I intend to collate a set of printed matter, coat a wood block ampersand with glue, wallpaper paste or turpentine and place is on a page. Then after drying, I will take it away in the opposite action of stamping, pulling away. This will create insight into the space left behind, what is revealed.
Can I use other surfaces like plaster on a wall, wallpaper, food, the bark of a tree?
Can I reprint with what I take away?
Some experimenting to do this week…., and also keep in mind the written element and how I view my work through it.
Amazing session, complete eye-opener about quilting’s place as a craft of history, civil and social protest particularly for women
Incredible examples: The Queen’s Quilt, Rajah Quilt and above all Aids Memorial Quilt (largest community art project in the world. I was particularly engaged by the rationale of every segment being the standard size of a US gravestone)
“DO NOT MISTAKE THE SOFTNESS OF QUILTS AS WEAKNESS”
Themes of fortifying, armour, comforting. Something intended as warm, protective can be considered in a historical and protest sense
Loved the practical side of this, my sewing skills were awful
My segment was intended to reflect my MAGCD journey so far using abstract shapes, from red, pointed shapes to calm colours and calm seas over the course of the first semester
Takeaways from a two-day presentation by MAGCD Year 2 students
Students whose work I responded to and why:
Yesim Tuzun – Carbon Pixel book, red
An elegant enquiry, inspiring execution, loved the final book. SImple way of not only producing an academic research equiry using Graphic communication design, but making a different with it.
Banruo Chen – Gentrificatin of streets in China, stencils as protest
One of my favourites of the two days, and I won a copy of her written piecein the raffle! A really good presentation.
Yuqing Lei – Knife, equivalence. I didn’t quite get this, but i loved it nonetheless. One of the best presentations I saw, simple, she didn’t need to go in to lines and lines of explanation. The visuals did the talking.
Stella Gong – Roalty Free Image picture album.
Interesting.
Siqi Hu – Sensory paper.
Fantasuic presentation.
Hazel Graham – Magasine design and feminism.
WOW.
Varada Rage – Not a Typeface
Not being afraid of how type deisgn can be intimidating and use it as an oportunity to break the rules and have fun.
A research environment can be scary!
Mac Clapper – Rot
The honesty of his MAGCD journey and enquiry, the ups and downs, the genetral comment of rot.
GENERAL NOTES
– Stop motion or interactive presentations, clarity when presenting, invest in a desktop tripod for filming
– Including references and citations on presentations
– Introduced personal approach to the project and relationship with father, intention to translate photos of his life in an attempt to conserve snd archive him in th midst of a ydifcitul relationship in his last years.
– Material is openly critical and celebratory as per upbringing
– Illustration method. Initially liked kids drawing contrast, reference Louis Rossignol, but that just wasn’t me. Images needed a parity. Started with an outline, adding writing, doodling, found imagery, photos I’d taken, documents. Quick, meaningful and collage-like style. Could spend 2 weeks developing the illustrations , no editing took place for immediacy.
– Presented as an interactive online piece, ideally a website, to include audio. Paper concertina version presented as a visual aid.
– Linear time, left to right feels right. Vision of lines onto of each other, for whole family. What happens when his line ends and we all continue?
What do you think is working? As a method of translation?
– Emily – a culmination of translations, photos to illustrations to type to memorabilia, like them all together.
– Jane – reminds her of overlaid graffiti text in first project, Methods of Investigation, it feels very warm.
– Highlighted levels of detail.
– Explained cultural ism of ‘NOT ARF’ to Sid, Cockney east London reference.
– Sid – sees that extras even of detail. So much more you was to put in, could spider out.
– Max – really like the illustrations. Like the warmth. Kind of balance between empathy and warmth and criticisms, but they’re less obvious. They’re getting a little lost, could they be brought out of separated out? Scaling them up?
– Highlighted criticism in there, “Trying to connect with you, Dad”.
Role of illustration is what? What is the illustration for me?
– Illos open the original photographs up, by brining all the things from the photo and audio, it opens ups like a flower, bringing stuff I didn’t know. Good and bad, it enriches the original material. Little tear on Mum’s face as a reference.
– Daniel Hopkinson, working mens club illustrations, as reference.
Further development…
– Could I appraise the illustrations? Apply a key to them? More structure, catalogue it? All illustrations at the moment are from the hip. Art Direct and appraise the illos in the next stage
– Max really likes illos, likes it when I’m adding handwritten text. Adding the typography (typefaces) doesn’t fit as well. Doesn’t blend in yet. Use illustration to blend them in more? Give some context to the tear?
– Interactivity- Sid. Animate certain aspects of the composition, a video, come in sequentially.
– Could this go out to a wider audience? He’s a BOOMER, could that work? Need to sanitise content a bit. Is there a way of making this culturally relevant in a broader sense, like THE DAD PROJECT and assisted dying?
– Could I access college resources – Javascript? 4DE Computing Lab with Sean, ask for some help with incrementing this with web design. Aesthetically working, bring in context like animated pieces, history pieces, enlarge documents.
– Could it be a type-on-photo project, where I commission illustrators I admire to write on photos about their fathers? In an attempt to bring those relationships closer. Boys Cry Too ref, mental health.
Takeaways:
– Wasn’t forcing development of this project. Finish of a day, try and force it overnight in my head, but then let the material lead. Pleased with this and the results.
– Illustration to include all the little quirks the audio brings
– Don’t need to see the video
– Spider diagram of memory coming off one photograph
– Emily drawn to first direction, lot of passion behind it, is there a way of depicting these combinations, an animation?
– Voice overlay to photo and illo
– Other ephemera could be involved – menus from the restaurant etc
– Could branch out to family
– ‘The Dad Capsule’ title suggestion form Sid
– Could it be sequential illustration or just fully realised, static pieces in relation to the photos?
– Who’s the audience? ME. A way of connecting with Dad, memorialising and capturing him, doing something nice rather than remembering conflict. For my family as well.
– Examples: The Dad Project, Daniel Hopkinson reportage illustration, MajorAFLCOlson website.
– Go do it, don’t focus on the end result like the website straight away. Let it develop.
Cultural and natural resources accessible to members of a give community
Graze animals, collect wood, harvest fruit, catch fish. Resources held in common ENRICH
Free circulation.
Something that you share
VECTOR
A vector is any value given magnitude and direction, Vectors distribute stuff
Value for distribution
Path to sharing
Vectors for disease
Carrying something
RESOURCES CONSIDERED AS VECTORS FOR DESIGNERS:
Photography
Sensory perception – sight, hearing, touch
Relationships with others – parenting, human interaction
Shared experience – issues, politics, social issues, domestic experience, specific and by group
Recording – an image, an experience, in any media, to share it
CHOSEN COMMON
Act of recording
VECTOR
Phone photography
OWNS
We own it legally, software provider, phone vector, hackers, the internet, one drive,
SOCIAL MEDIA direct it how?
Socially
Professionally – Linkedin, insta
IMPACTS
Safety, privacy
Ownership?
OTHER GROUPS EXAMPLES:
Sunlight, colour, colours codes, Pantone
Symbol based communication e.g. isotype symbols
Knowledge, archives
Information,
Common knowledge
Colour theory
Technical stuff – layout, colour
Perception is a common
Reality is a common
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VECTORS IN ECONOMICS
We see over time further abstraction in labour, resources and material. Industry is more abstract than land./
Lift, move, drop a vector, industrial example p13 reading
Applying vectoralists to copyright
Creativity as a value for distribution
Copyright law, cheap printing etc
Book – Copy This Book, good reading example
Ideas and a document hence property rights, copyright becomes PROPERTY
Tension between idea, then material expression I that idea, then copyright laws, then property law
GNU code example – author wrote a license enshrining non-singular ownership IN the code itself. A foundation for Creative Commons protocol. He use copyright law, but turns it back over into commons. Protects but a vehicle for Creative Commons too.
Vectors in graphic design – things that we do.
“Vector graphics” dependent on XY coordinates, “raster” images defined by width and height in pixels and bits per pixels.
VECTOR as a vector, RASTER/PIXELS AS A COMMON
Floppy disk example as a raster image, bigger than the capacity of what its representing!
EXPERIMENTAL JETSET project – Lost formats. Vectors showing scale, new relationships between each as they go up and down in size.
Danielle Aubert – 16 Months worth of Drawing in Excel
Che Guevara – original photo, digitised, made into Shepard Fairey she poster using vectors from a raster image,
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Exercise
Flora and I performed meeting online via instagram, we shared a printout of me but via instagram in the middle of us both (other group member, Catherine), we reacted to each other to highlight that there was someone in the middle as a gatekeeper which raised questions of ethics, bias, gatekeeping, big brother.
