Punk & the Digital Aesthetic

with the economic climate folding into a similar pattern as 20 years or so ago. i intend to look at the ways in which graphic design and design practice have responded to the changing social and cultural forces over a certain time period. i decided to look at the the late seventies through to the eighties where punk became a major factor of design during that period and helped witht the advent of new technologies went on to help create pop art and radical modernism and new wave.

the punk aesthetic was the emergence of a musical genre and an aesthetic style, which in Britain popular culture and pop music was, at the time, one of the principle means of political expression for young people. this time produced some of the best pop music ever made (as well as a lot of the worst). It was a fully articulated subculture, with a new visual style involving a range of elements such as fetish clothing, teddy-boy gear, ripped and torn items and, unfortunately, nazi uniforms. It also developed, partly through necessity, a distinctive graphic design style, which found expression in record sleeves, publicity and in signs, the xeroxed and collaged publications which were one of the most distinctive developments coming out of punk. the ideologies of punk were about opposing capitalism as an economic system in which wealth, and the means of producing wealth, are privately owned and controlled rather than commonly, publicly, or state-owned and controlled. through capitalism, the land, labor, and capital are owned, operated, and traded by private individuals or corporations, and investments, distribution, income, production, pricing and supply of goods, commodities and services are determined by voluntary private decision in a market economy. as defined by wikipedia thankfully. ultimately this advent of punk and computer technology gave rise to sharing of information and mass media. i think this could be quite interesting with some interesting work to look at. sex pistol's sid vicious and many other punk bands should be a starting point.

Maps

after looking at the map of paris which showed a rather interesting gridding system and looking briefly at the rose line i came across this deisgners work. simon evan's hand made style of working is something that appeals to me very much, looking at the book, Vitamin D, i came across one of his works looking at a map that he created looking at the world (2003). not typically what is expected as the world is normally represented by a sphere, simon looks at the world in his own perspective, placing things in a seemingly random yet thought out and opinionated manner. his use of the handmade style emphasizes his works feeling of opinions and the use of collage gives his work a distinct feel. i find it really interesting the amount f detail he has managed to put into this map and i guess in some ways by tackling such a large subject area such the world you could probably keep on going adding limitless detail to the map.

i would definitely like to do something like this obviously choosing a different subject matter maybe something to do with me personally, maybe documenting part of my existence could be interesting, feelings people that i have met, categorize then and order then in groups ordered by time, opinions hair colour the list could go on and on. i would love to look at people that i have met within my life, put it all down in perspective, reminisce and get in touch with old friends could be quite fun and interesting to document. this would most definitely relate well to the subject of line, the idea being a line or lines of people that i meet and interact with not just acquaintances or people i know of. i have a crit next week and so i will find out what people think of my idea, i feel confident about this idea but will other people?

Rose Line

the rose line brought famous by the author dan brown in the da vinci code can also be referred to as the the paris meridian. The Paris Meridian being a meridian line running through the paris observatory in paris, france - now longitude 2°20′14.025″ east. It was a long-standing rival to greenwich as the prime meridian of the world, as was the antwerp meridian in flanders, a geographical region located in parts of present-day belgium.
visiting paris over the weekend i decided to lookinto it it was quite a shame i didn't get to see it before whilst i was there, never mind. paris was a beautiful city.
i thought this was quite an interesting line, after looking at dot to dt i realised that the rose line was made up of dots, plaques embedded onto the floor. In 1994 the arago association and the city of Paris commissioned a dutch conceptual artist, jan dibbets, to create a memorial to arago, François Jean Dominique Arago catalan: Francesc Joan Dominic Aragó, who was a historic french catalan mathematician, physicist, astronomer and politician. Dibbets came up with the idea of setting 135 bronze medallions (although interestingly only 121 of which are documented) into the ground along the Paris Meridian between the northern and southern limits of Paris: a total distance of 9.2 kilometres/5.7 miles. Each medallion is 12 cm in diameter and marked with the name ARAGO plus N and S pointers.
Another project, the so-called Green Meridian, aims to establish a plantation of trees along the entire length of the meridian in France. quite a big dot to dot i'd say and i think this is something that i would like to look at in more detail. i would like to look at maps next.
the parisian streets are indeed fascinating lines as themselves. mapped out in such a thought out and planned manner there seems no room for error in these perfect looking streets. they are deisgned in such a way it is incredibly easy to get around and are perfect for seeing all the monuments.
the map that i used to get around demonstrates this really well. i'm quite interested in the idea of maps. however i'm sure i have done this before. i looked last year on my foundation course at the application of line and i produced several drawings of the leeds urban landscape. not necessarily mapping but i can see this going down a similar road which isn't nwhere i want to go. never the less i think i'll skim over it just a little bit as it could take me somewhere else.
i intend from here to looks at maps and representations of landscapes which i think could lead me down an interesting road. at this point i'll also try and look at photography and i would like to look at the process of manual photography and see if i can produce any interesting line results.

OUGD102: Personal Evaluation and Reflection

Design Process has moved my work and my taught me valuable lessons in time management whilst i have learnt new working skills. i have found this module much more challenging than the previous. gather and collecting research is actually quite hard and collecting relevant and interesting research is even harder. The collection of 100 photographs at the start of the module was and as it sounds fairly easy and simple although trying to print them all out did prove a challenge. The development from there led to looking at information looking at clouds. from this i did initially find it hard to gather information. starting at wikipedia helped me gain a little knowledge about technical term whilst i developed my skills in photoshop by producing my first panoramic imagery. from this i collected in surveys and imagery of clouds, found out about social groups relating to clouds and some spectacular cloud photogrpahy. Gathering resrach at this point seemed easy as there was no direction into where it was going, little was i to know at this point it would get on top of me very soon.
From the information that I gathered on clouds we then directed our attention to the week on the brief "What If...” this brief involved our group capabilities. from the information that I got on clouds, it was analyzed by several people and I received opinions, facts, things I could look at, and others, we finalized this to one, 'clouds make people sad' and from there I was put into a group with Liam, Craig and Chloe and we established that our link was d 'melancholy'.
Starting a new research project was refreshing; working on such a mundane subject for a long period of time can become laborious and frustrating at times. The subject of melancholy was completely new to myself and so l lacked even the basic Knowledge of what melancholy meant, never mind interpreting it however after grasping the subject by talking to my peers I quickly gained confidence approaching a subject that seemed to not inspire a great deal of 'happiness' so to speak, it seemed that looking at melancholy could quickly become depressing. I intended however to make the most of a dire situation and I feel I helped keep up a certain amount of morale within the group by taking the initiative to book the group into a session in the lighting studio to help kick start our project and it gave us something to look forward to, having all of us not used such facilities previous. This was thoroughly enjoyed by all of us and we learnt lots of new skills as graphic designers and came closer as a group of people I myself would love to use this again to help make my photographs look more professional, or even use it personally. The outcome of this project was images to make people think positive. I think we could have produced a better idea it we had pulled together and addressed our lack of research, but I think we learned a lot about group communication and sharing research with effective time planning.
Both of these briefs l really enjoyed despite maybe a dry sense of interesting material. After this brief we started night from scratch, selecting a new subject of research. After a short group session we each chose subjects areas to research. Mine, looking at dust. Having worked on the past two briefs on this module and studied subjects that may normally be struck as mundane yet produced interesting work from I felt it would be logical to do the same again. I have never approached a subject to do with hygiene before. The Idea of researching dust seems challenging, to research something that most people don't know about or I have ever seen being approached before, it is information that is new and what more is exciting than that?
I started looking at basic sources via the Internet and came with basic information as well as interesting articles such as a dust orientated physics game which was really interesting and gave hours of endless entertainment me initial inspiration to design a swatch guide to creating colours of dust. At this point I did begin looking toward to design ideas which I think was a mistake. I think I should have looked more toward simple forms of research such as the dust drawings I came across later on; I think this could have taken the book in a completely different direction, possibly a missed opportunity at this point. I think this was actually the point where research should have been considered and not a final products to which I jumped at the chance of making.
The initial fixed format book that we were supposed to produce was a bit of a dissapointment having tried to process large amounts of information and getting nowhere, for nearly two weeks after the deadliine the book was produced. to a high standard maybe but the amount of work that initial book took, took its toll on the time I had for everything else. I had two weeks less on the freeform book that I was to produce. not very good time planning but i had no other options, processing time had become a major factor which I feel I had really overlooked on this project. beside from this setback there were others that i didn't count on. the freeform book that i was to produce could not be duplex printed which meant for a design think with only a day to go. I think i came togther in the end and a successful idea was there. Throughtout the design process of the book I have learnt only a few skills but learnt to be tolerant and patient in order to get what i want out of something, if I want perfection it does take that little bit longer and some deep thought aswell. A book of photoshop brushes for graphic designs was something that i think couldbecome a reality and i would really like to try the success of my brushes out on the market and see peoples reactions. I feel that i really have turned something that is completely useless into something that has a purpose. the beutification of something vulgar and disgusting into something beautiful is to me quite an achievement. I really want to get back on this project and see what can be made of it.

What is a line?: Statement of Intent

i intend to look at the mapping of objects, people and places. i plan to explore boundaries and dimensions through the use of points, gridding and mapping of various things within everyday life. my initial sources of information that i have looked at were through, dot to dot, the neubauwelt book containing vector imagery of random everyday objects and i plan to look at maps, particularly the way three dimensional landscapes are represented in topographical forms. i intend to explore drawing methods through looking at artists and graphical designers work and ways they capture forms through simple lines or dots.

Fixed Format

the beautification of dust, if you will, has become somewhat of a goal i have being trying to achieve. making something the would normally make you disgusted into something you just can't let go of is quite a challenge. from the start of this project the simple way i have looked at dust has led me down a fairly straight and narrow idea path. using a clinical approach to design i think i have achieved something special. the fixed format book that we were supposed to produce two weeks ago has finally been printed and i feel that i did not disappoint. The book shows the various locations in the room from which i collected the initial one hundred swatches of dust, elegantly printed onto a tracing paper which when put together with a map (on the smoothest paper i have ever touched) on the cover shows the location within the room. i feel this look is very strong and has appealed very much so to the other members of the group and the tutors. i think using such impressive materials also helps in making something professional. 

for the final book i intend on sticking to the same quality idea. The book will be con

structed around the shape of a c.d., the idea being the swatches will be inserted on a c.d. at the back. The book will comprise of the swatches in a rotary mechanism in each page which when put against a hole will show information about each swatch and a preview image. however after a unnerving crit yesterday i am doubting what i am trying to achieve. 

Bound

just looking back over the previous research we had done i decided to look back at the original 100 photos that i have taken for the 100 brief back at the start of the module. good times back when i was innocent and untainted by the pressures of graphic design life today. after looking at these i remembered that when we present them we have to show them in an interesting way so... i bound them. i thought this was quite nice and holds a great sentimental value to me as the photos that i took were memories of a journey i took with my partner down to somerset via south wales then all the way across the country to london. i chose to bind them using a japanese method as i thought it seemed quite easy (even though i had never tried this method before), seeing as i wouldn't have to duplex print anything i could bind them and have a single side white which look quite nice. the hardest part of the binding process was the making of the actual bind, seeing as how i didn't have proper binding wire i had to use cotton thread instead which needless to say  isn't the strongest material i've ever come across. third time lucky and the book was complete. i chose a pink and grey theme which i have used several times recently in mad fashion. i may even look at using this sort of look against my final book later on, after of course i finish processing  all the information that i am seemingly getting more and more of.