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Spells like teen spirit

Thursday 15th November – constellation

In this weeks constellation we talked about the Post Modern Fashion. This is where we come into the 21st century and discuss how the modern tends are influenced by the past subcultures.

Looking at some quotes and styles I discovered that post modern fashion is a mixture of different elements from styles across the centuries. A Book written by Paul Sweetman 2004, claims that there is no distinct definition of a 21st century look. The style is seemed to be just a “mash up” with no clear style choices. “…postmodern fashion no longer refers to anything but itself and this lack of external referentiality means that everything is available…” This can be viewed that the current style does not make a political statement; the clothes are worn just because of a personal taste instead of letting the world know that you believed or were part of something.

In addition Muggleton (2004) perceives the thought of “them and us,” which can mean that the public does not want to be seen as outrageous or be the alternative. Continue reading his work we can assume that he believes that the rules from previous subcultures have been taken and altered to create an ever changing look.

The first person to look into this was Polhemus in the 1990’s. His work included the main concept of a “supermarket of style” (Polhemus, 1995). This is the ideology that each distinct style had one isle with in a shop – so the skin heads had one isle, the punks had one, the goths had another and so on. At that time and the past before the groups only shopped within their isle but with the modern fashion becoming more inclusive the style has adapted so that an average person can take things from multiple styles. As a result we get a classic mash up of styles.

A reason for the sudden change in ideals is the development of technology. With this ease access the public can take ideas from other groups as well as their own to create their own unique style. To add to this idea the concept of “the travellers” and “the tourist” (Sweetman 2004) had been developed. A ‘tourist’ would be seen as the more free flowing where they could one day have one style then change the next, these could also mix up a look and have more than one style within a single outfit. Whereas the ‘traveller’ would stick with one style for a sightly longer period but will still eventually change style.

One example of a post modern fashion we looked at in detail was be the steampunk. An image we looked into shows four men wearing similar clothing in the style of steampunk – all of which wear their own crafted back packs. These are in the style of a messy, non-minimalistic industry. This can imply that the men have hand crafted their costumes. The non-sleek design can mean that they are embracing the cluttered elements of the Victorian era. Another way to view this would be that they are all retaliating against the modern technologies where current style is to make things smaller and more minimalistic. Forlili said that the steam punk style is rebelling away from today’s technology; “The DIY component of steampunk effectively critiques the fundamental opacity of contemporary technology” (Forlini, 2010:81). This can be enhanced by the meaning of using ‘material things’ instead of the generic and more common online virtual things.

Overall today I have developed my skills in paraphrasing of a large quote and I have opened my eyes to the different ideologies of the past in comparison to current times.

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Initial Critiques

Monday 12th November – Group Initial Critique Discussions 

Today I had a small group conversation showing my work in front of two of my tutors and the group.

Capture

This is my first idea for my story board, which I showed today. The concept is simple as it illustrates the happiness of a party but with an underlining meaning that the children will ultimately become sick and diseased. This is visually represented through the balloons popping and releasing the chickenpox, thus making it a chickenpox party.

When talking to the tutors it was apparent that the balloons were the key aspect of the design, which could be taken further into the narrative. This could be where the balloons were the actual children with the emotions. I could take this further so that the strings could animate as well. Their could be one single infected balloon with many other balloons around that seem to be playing and having a good time. Then the single ill balloon slowly infects the others around it. This could be shown in many different ways through popping, deflating air onto other balloons or just as simple as a touch.

Another element we talked about was the sound. This could be as simple as party music playing in the background as there would have no need to have a narrator talking because the story line should be well presented. A different way to go would be to have children giggling and have children making weird noises.

To go further and make this come to life I will use the software after effects. This should help with the cartoon style and overall emotions that are being portrayed.

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Experimental Typography Workshop

Monday 5th November – Experimental Typography Workshop

After our weekly meeting where I finally grasped what our brief truly meant, I had a small work shop where I listened to a few different voices on repeat. We illustrated their moods and accents through the words they said.

This made me think about the style of language used, such as slang, American or the queens English in relation to who would be the target audience. I kept on rearranging the scale of the letters in relation to the volume; the spacing with the layout of the words can be used for the pace of the person talking.

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Creative Thinking

Tuesday 30th October – Creative thinking. 

We had an in depth lecture to engage our brains so that as a class we can be inspired by the smallest of things. The lecturer showed us some images and clips that had hidden elements within the over all image. Now with a new appreciation for elements of inspiration, we were given groups to research our own thinking techniques through one existing movement.

A few hours later all the groups came back and explained their technique given. This was enlightening as I did not know some of these methods. One example of this would be the 6 thinking hats. Each has a different colour to represent a thinking style which will help to look at the same work from a different angle.

From using these techniques I decided to brain storm ideas in the style of a mind map for my Movement Project. I came up with several different ideas; one being a cup of Tea is a God or a darker tone of regret-ism where everyone has a regret and the members have to guess. I also thought about having no make-up movement or even permanent make-up, however these were already ideas, so I thought about my surname “Fraser” and having it be a high up, well to do members only style club. Then I continued to brainstorm and thought about illnesses and how my parents held a chicken pox party where children would come to get chicken pox while they were young as it can be worse when you are older.

Therefore, using creative thinking techniques helped me to come up with ideas from a few simple everyday inspirations.

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Movement Opening Day

Monday 29th October – Introduction to Movement

I turned up eager to learn what are new brief would be. I knew the name and that was it- Movement. To start with we had a lecture on the styles and meanings of moments. This was a great lecture with mini clips and extremely eye opening information. The tutor spoke about the different elements that you need to know in order to create the best movement possible.

Informative – not to over load the piece, giving the right information

Focus – drawing attention to one part, being careful not to take away focus from something important

Expressive – create a mood or energy, making the viewer feel a certain way

The tutor also picked up on the other aspects of a movement piece, such as the musicality of the work. This can be seen as a harmony of sound and animations, thus increasing the 3 main aspects of the movement. Another aspect is the vitality, meaning that the animation brings life to objects. Much like the well-known animated lamp that is capable of human emotions, through using an exaggerated motions and shifts the creators were able to bring life to an inanimate object. In addition to all of this she continued to talk about the spacial elements, time and gravity of the features.

Moving onto the brief our task is to invent a new ideological movement or an “-ism.” Our piece must move, this can either be a YouTube style advert, a click bate on the side of a website or something new. The topic to design has to be brand new and can be as offensive as we dare to go.

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Final Poster Development

Friday 19th October – Poster Improvement

Throughout the process I was developing two different posters, Constructivism poster initialbut after some tweaking on both I decided on the better one to show my tutor for a draft of the final piece (picture to the left -colour version Constructivism poster). Talking to my mentor I began to truly realise the importance of the hierarchy in  every design and how the eye needs to be lead across the page.

I now understand that my work had no clear focal point as there was 2 or 3 different features. To move forward in my design I would have to shrink certain elements and enlarge others; this should allow the viewer to have a clear sight path to follow.

Another element we spoke about was the type. I have been unhappy with the placement of the 3 paragraphs however I currently know that I used the words to fill an empty space instead of being their own design element. Using this information I began to play around with different layouts with the paragraphs across the page. I soon realised that the top half was nicely presented but the lower half I struggled to find the correct placements. Constructivism final poster designs Over all these 3 designs are the best from this project and I will decide which one to print out after some votes from my group.

 

 

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Poster Development

Monday 15th October – Poster Critique 

After a short InDesign workshop where we refined our knowledge, as a group of around 10 students we had a mini lecture. This is were we spoke about the structure of a design, which includes the meaning of symmetrical and asymmetrical design. What I learnt is that if a design is symmetrical the viewer can feel a sense of stability, trust and order. Whereas an asymmetrical design can be thought of as adventurous, bold and pushing the limits. There is a third option which includes a mainly symmetrical elements but has a symmetrical focus. This can be seen as mainly secure with adventure.

Moving on to the poster development we spoke about what improvements we could make to get the poster to the highest standard. One improvement I could have made was to shift the focus on to the words instead of the abstract lines. All the group could clearly see that the design was in the form old Russian constructivism but it needed to be modified to express that to the general public.