Personal Work: Watercolour

Physical Process: Zines

Photography of my zine

One of our last sessions of the term allowed us to explore the making of our own zine, using images of ourself and numerous tools to create a self portrait. Each section of the zine had a different task; one out of emojis, one out of half-tone patterns, one using a scanned in image of ourself... etc. I was pleasantly surprised at how I enjoyed doing this - I was thinking it might be a bit embarrassing creating content based around your self, but I found it quite light-hearted as everyone was doing the same.

I chose to keep my drawing minimal as I wasn't comfortable drawing people, so kept something that was based around my project at the time, in a very similar style. This way I could create something cartoon like and insert detail in my clothes, what I was holding (I drew myself with a make up brush and my stuffed toy)

Although this wasn't my speciality in any sense, it was nice to sit around and cut out different emojis, bits of paper, to create a portrait of myself and see everyones interpretations of the brief.

In response to the zine, I created postcards/business cards around the designs I'd done. Using a colour scheme similar to my website and something that really stood out, they'd be very minimalistic, textured, which was exactly what my work was. My favourite one was one of the last ones I did, using the cartoon sketch of myself to create a pattern and keeping the text as basic as possible. I actually really loved doing these, and considered making them official business cards, as they had a quirky, yet professional sense to them.

InDesign: Project Presentation

This InDesign Session looked at creating presentations and PDFS for our work to present upon. I’d already created my own pdfs several times before, for previous projects, so felt quite confident creating something for my posters.

Initially I wanted to look back upon what I’d already created, so chose to find the PDFS I was most happy with to go off a basis of research. 

The most successful work in my opinion were the most minimalistic designs. My favourite one is the one I’d designed recently, for ‘Cybernetic Self’ with a small pop of colour to draw attention to each page. I’d always chosen simplistic, sans-serif fonts and my layout would always have as little as text as possible. What I’d learned from creating a PDF was to make it as simple as possible as it’s meant to be as presentation as such.  For my more recent PDFS I'd started adding the logo I'd designed for my website and placed upon my CV, to give a cohesive layout to each work, and to sort of put my own "stamp" on it as such. This was a nice way of creating a layout that was quite simple but adding an arty flare to it. I also looked back at my final year project, which was one of my most successful projects to date and why it worked so well. I decided that the long line which breaks up the page would be something I'd keep using it, sort of to create my own mark on my work but also because it worked so well last time at splitting up information. 

The issue behind this project presentation was that I'd always create it based on the appearance of work and not to conform to the same layout, as this was something I'd enjoy making as much as the work. So it would be quite hard to say if I'd actually use this presentation for all my further projects or not just as practice to add the posters into. Either way it would still be an exercise for me to create to. 

InDesign: Design Creation/Inspiration

Following on from the posters I'd designed, I decided to work in the Product Design studio to garner time to focus and work all day; a discussion from one of the teachers provided me with remarkable design work from as old as 1885. This was hugely fascinating to me, to see how far we've come from print in that era to now. It was also incredible to feel how tactile the work was, as it was so old it was fraying at the edges.

The work, entitled 'Slyvia's Home Journal" shows the beginning of illustrative work and a magazine for women. It was quite humorous to read advertisements for pills, polishing 'paste', tea (which had a completely different currency back then) and many other things. I found I spent ages actually reading the magazine itself out of fascination and then appreciating the design work next. 

The illustrations are amazingly modern looking, given the fact they're from such a dated era. I love the stylised line work, and the use of splashes of colour to given attraction to the piece. Although they're not really related to any of my project work at the moment, it's fascinating to look through and appreciate work from such an old era, particularly the 60's work made me smile; because of the use of language (which is much more open and inappropriate) and the way they're able to get away with things that may not be as appropriate in our era and age. It's amazing really as some of them look like they could have been created on illustrator or photoshop.

Literature Review

Personal Work: Type Experimentation

Taking a break from my current project, I used my tablet to experiment with designing and type. This only took about 20 minutes for me to come up with, but it was a nice break from doing illustrations and to design what I wanted to.

I chose to play with the brush settings on Photoshop to achieve a marker like feel with the posters, creating several dozen different layers before I felt happy with the brush style I created; I even saved this as preset for me to use in later work. It was nice to contribute my own handwriting to a work and create something very minimalistic as oppose to something with a few hundred layers.

The text I used was whatever came to my head at the time - “meow” or implicating tiredness was how I felt on the day, and I added a pop of colour to the background of the work which felt very tactile and gave the work some texture to it. 

This was a nice break and I really wanted to do some more text development behind it, maybe creating some kind of pattern or piece to upload to my portfolio or experiment with different downloadable brushes to see how far I could take hand-written stuff, as this was something I’d never approached before.

Fairy Tale: A Exploration

Throughout my theory lectures this year, I discovered my lack of interest in the topics. Because of how my style is approached, a very specific, different style that isn’t modern or “arty” or considered out, I found it quite hard to remain interested in my lectures this year. Although some of the concepts were interesting, they either never applied to me; or they lacked any relevance to me posting upon my blog. 

Because of this, I asked for feedback from Jay - questioning my interest in the theory posts this year. I knew I wanted to do something for theory as I did find it quite interesting to research and find out about the meaning behind pieces of work and art, but this was never going to be something I’d gain from theory. Jay suggested I’d research into something that I found interesting, as it wou

ld be more considerate to write about and mean I could research quite happily without being bored. 

We both decided upon Fairytales: the art behind them, such as Disney, Grimm Fairytales. I wanted to look at the illustration, animation, CGI, design and concept behind each interpretation of fairy tales. This would be a very broad subject for me to research into but I’d always found this topic very interesting so it could prove quite easy for me to come up with the theory behind it. 

I wasn’t sure about how I would go about starting this - whether to go from a coherent timeline or just start with things that interested me and work backwards, but I knew this would be a side project or research to look into. I especially found Disney movies such as Maleficent, Beauty & The Beast, or TV shows such as Once Upon a Time, Grimm, etc, very interesting as they’d appeal to my demographic; but I also wanted to know why they were rising in popularity again and why people still enjoyed the same trope and ideals in each work. There was something nostalgic, personally, for me, and exciting as they’d developed their own twists and turns which left me quite encaptivated. Because of the way they were also presented in such a high quality form, it allowed me to be fully emerged in the magic behind fairy tales. 

Lecture: CV

Today we looked at developing and creating a CV for our placements. Initially I’d started my CV, using pinterest to cite inspiration and to build up something that was both design-worthy and informative. Throughout Pete’s lecture, it became quite clear a lot of the things he’d told us to consider I’d already taken into perspective; like placing my uni mail into my contact details.

A lot of the tips we were given proved quite helpful for me, whilst some were considered basic sense. For example, “don’t put your picture on” would be something that I’d never contemplate doing, as I know not to be judged based on my appearance, but my work. 

There’s no right way to answering or creating a CV. Usually it has basic rules, but because it’s such a personalised thing, a lot of the answers are consistent with information about you. So if you ask 50 people how to construct the CV, you will get a range, if not 50 different answers.

Further tips:

• Most recent education first: Currently University of Huddersfield. State you are expected to graduate, not that you have. 
• Grades are not relevant (apparently, though I would have to disagree, since I’ve achieved high grades this would be something I’d be looking to show off with) 
• Write down computer literacy skills you have, and how competent you are (though I’d argue that anyone applying for this job would be competent in computing, so it wouldn’t make you stand out the crowd; just the software you use may be an advantage)
• Letter needs to be wrote as if it’s written simply for that person; tweak it suit the company you’re writing to. Although this takes time it does pay off eventually
• Designing aspects of the CV depend on the company. I based the CV from my website, shown below, to create a cohesive theme throughout my work. However work it around who you want to apply for.