Morag Myerscough

Morag left St. Martins in 88, a year after I was born, so I suppose she has had a long time to establish her career. It's scary and exciting that we are just starting out!

What really struck me about Morag was the fact she seemed to get involved with everything she did. I liked it that she showed pictures of her painting and building and putting the exhibitions together. She seemed to be thoroughly involved and have total ownership of every project. I really related to what she said about budgeting and the fact that if you try hard enough you can make anything work with the amount you have. It may sound dull, but I am super organised and would really enjoy working with budgets and being creative with them. More and more I am realising, that although I love what I do and have a passion for it, in a career I would never be fully satisfied just sticking to one thing. Idea generation and conceptual thinking are my strengths within design, but I'd want to work with the client, do the research, write briefs, write copy, check the budget, present the work, be part of building/designing it too. I'm not sure if this is possible for most people, I think you have to be extremely persevering and lucky to be in a position like this. Maybe the places to start are much smaller company's, and I certainly wouldn't rule out starting my own studio in the furture, working with a team of people who all have different strengths but ultimately work together. She did divulge however that she starts work at 5.30 and finishes at 9. I have a great admiration of that much dedication and think that is probably what it takes to be as successful as she is, but personally I don't ever see myself being in that situation. Don't get me wrong I'm not afraid of hard work, I spend 10 hours a day working most days, i'd put as much work as it took in to getting something done, and I get that if you enjoy what you do it becomes your life, but seriously? I think there is more to life and there's a lot of other things I want to experience besides work.


This is one of my favourite projects that Morag showed us. I love the idea that a school can be treated so professionally and with a design manor. Lately I have become really interested in what design can really do for society. Thinking a lot about what I want to do when I leave in June I've been reconsidering what 'advertising' can be, what I can do with my skills and how and whether it's a realistic goal to want to make a difference and do something worthwhile in a mainly cosmetic and aesthetic industry. When I look at this project it really makes me think, wow, wouldn't it be amazing if people cared enough to make schools amazing places where kids really wanted to be, where the design and atmosphere was totally based around learning and creating a positive environment. I think it's sad that we can't give all public places a touch of design which would really enhance the everyday experiences of the general public.

London born and London Bred, she talked about London as though we all knew where she was talking about (I for one had no idea of the areas she was discussing). I like it when people have been massively influenced by the place they were bought up in, I think it gives you a strong sense of identity and belonging. I never had that as I moved a few times when I was growing up and went to quite a few schools. Every place I've lived in has effected my life though and played quite a big part in the person that I am today. I couldn't imagine being so committed to one place that I'd never want to leave it though. I like different places for different moods, times, experiences. She said she could never live in the country because she loves to absorb things around her - a feeling I totally agree with. I love the country too though, I want a house in both in an ideal world =)

After the talk we had a chat with Morag in the studio and she gave us some feedback on the Degree show project that Alison and myself worked on. We had no visual feedback on our finished project yet, she gave us a few useful pointers and it was interesting to chat to her about her views of being a woman in a male dominated world. Her point was that she had never felt there were things she couldn't do because she was a woman and it's unfair to blame men completely in this day and age, which is something I have always felt was true, yet women always reach the choice of having a family or not which inevitably effects most women's careers significantly.

Wow well it turns out I had a lot to say about this lecture doesn't it!?

In the Loop

I watched the film In the Loop recently. I had never heard of it before and didn't know anything about it. It had a very 'office' feel to it, a 'real' fly on the wall style with shaky camera angles and blunt performances. A very satirical look at America and Britain in the run up to going to war. I'm not sure how much of this is based on any fact, maybe suspected facts or suspicions, but when your watching it you can certainly imagine that your peeking into the Whitehouse or 10 Downing street. I don't think this film is for everyone, it's very fast paced and you need a dry sense of humour and an interest in politics to get through it, but it's just my cup of tea and I loved it. The acting is impeccable and the direction is flawless, i'd recommend it to anyone who loves Peepshow / the office / shameless or just a good conspiracy theory to go see it!

''The US President and UK Prime Minister fancy a war. But not everyone agrees that war is a good thing. The US General Miller doesn't think so and neither does the British Secretary of State for International Development, Simon Foster. But, after Simon accidentally backs military action on TV, he suddenly has a lot of friends in Washington, DC. If Simon can get in with the right DC people, if his entourage of one can sleep with the right intern, and if they can both stop the Prime Minister's chief spin-doctor Malcolm Tucker rigging the vote at the UN, they can halt the war. If they don't... well, they can always sack their Director of Communications Judy, who they never liked anyway and who's back home dealing with voters with blocked drains and a man who's angry about a collapsing wall.''

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Amsterdam

On wednesday my boyfriend and I packed our bags and sailed off to Amsterdam on a very cheap ferry deal! I have been once before when I was in 6th form, but we only went for the day and spent most of the time in galleries. I felt that I hadn't experienced all that the city had to offer!

This time I must sadly admit we did nothing cultural (apart from one photography gallery), but the weather was beautiful, although freezing the sun was shining right up until we left. This time I just soaked up the atmosphere, wandering the streets and relaxed for a couple of days, but I appreciated the city a lot more than last time.

I can't get enough of tall town houses, its a strange love of mine but I actually adore them - I can't wait to have enough money to live in a house like this. I first fell in love with them in Bath when I was about 10, and have dreamed of living in one ever since. The architecture in Amsterdam was just beautiful, higgeldy piggeldy but elegant and original. Looking in through some of the windows the rooms were so grand and light and lavishly decorated. Floor to ceiling windows and high ceilings everywhere!

I have never seen so many bikes in my whole life, there are literally thousands and thousands lining the streets in every space. Many of them weren't even locked up, they were just left on the side of the road or propped up outside houses. Crazy! They were all old fashioned rattly bikes too, no shiny new ones or mountain bikes, and everyone was riding them. I wish we could have better bike lanes in this country to make it easier for people to ride their bikes, every Europe city seems to have so many more bikes than we do and I think its a real shame! Its the best way to get around a city fast and easy and a great way to keep fit.

Last time I didn't go to the red light district, and I don't know what I was expecting really because I knew what it was like, but I was still shocked when we stumbled across it! Suddenly there are girls in their underwear everywhere trying to seduce you! haha, it was funny for a while, fascinating even, untill I saw an old man going into one of the cubicles and I heard the girl say 50. Then it was just a bit grose and freaked me out.

So now it's back to the slog and preparing for my review on Wednesday, feels like I haven't even been away already. Amsterdam has pushed its way up to one of my favourite cities I've visited =)

Final Ideas

This afternoon we pitched our ideas to a room full of important people including David Crow, Phoebe Bois Rachel the Marketing officer and some heads of departments amongst others. It was only a 5 minute presentation but seemed to successfully and was good practice. They were positive about our idea, David Crow said it was very self explanatory which we took as a compliment. The concepts of each group were very similar, although we all came up with different visual solutions, so now all we have to do is wait for a verdict!

Our idea is based on a different symbol and colour for each of the 22 courses exhibiting. We took these symbols from brail and the actually spell out the initials of each course, but this was purely a visual experimentation and not really part of the concept. We've taken this beginning and made it more abstract to fit to our purposes. The final image of the poster is made up of these symbols, but is seemingly random.

Another reason we used this idea was that it translates nicely into decorating the university as well. Using vynal stickers to mark out each show and also lead people through the corridors. As many of our corridors are dark and scruffy, we felt this would really brighten up the place and create a much more accessible and enjoyable experience for the visitor.
The design could also be adapted across the website and any other digital portals that the university set up. We came up with the idea of stickers that could be given out at the degree show because visually it fits with the poster, and also gives the opportunity for an interactive element. As you peeled away the stickers, the sheet will resemble more and more the poster image, creating a new piece of art work. The stickers could be used for a number of things such as rating the shows, marking where you've been or simply adding to a bigger piece of art work.

Hopefully there will be an opportunity to come out of this for working towards the final design of the show, but if not we've enjoyed the week and have another successful project for our portfolios. This project has been a nice sideline from the other 3 i'm working on at the moment and I feel we have produced a lot of work for a week, and if nothing else, I have a finished and ready project for the reviews next week!

Degree show Brief

Early last week Alison and myself decided to take a quick shot on the degree show brief: To come up with a concept/visual idea that represented the breadth of creativity and diversity within the art school. As I haven't really kept a sketchbook in the last week, I thought I would post some of our research and inspiration on here.

We looked at a lot of visual identity's and signage, including David Crow's book and a few others.

Lots of crazy brainstorms later we came up with a few directions, stickers/badges/prisms/brail/colour/symbols. It was important for us to come up with an integrated design that could adapt across different media, especially into the mapping and navigation of the exhibition, which we felt has often been a let down in the past. We were also keen to get some interactive element to the show, similar to the Spiro-graph installation of a few years ago which stuck in our heads as very successful.

2nd year 3D Design

I went to take a look at the exhibition that followed ours in the Holdon gallery, a lighting display by 2nd year 3D students. The lights displayed were inspired by 'under the sea' plants and life. I immediately thought of my workshop project that I did with Jonny Hardstaff, Object React, because my object was called a Venus Flower basket that grows under the sea. I wonder if I could pass on my research and ideas to a 3D student and see if they could bring the beautiful object to life! hmm!

Degree show idea...

''What works wonders in the Now, is not the bomb or the bullet,

but the two humble objects: the hyphen and the word 'and'.

Northern Irish and British, Asian-English.''

My idea for the degree show came from the quote above I found during research for my current project. It is not a design or visual style, just an idea for the concept and name we could base the degree show on. It struck me that Design is such a multi-faceted disipline and each person on the course has their own unique style and ambitions, but in todays world people take on many roles and it is accepted that you don’t have to fit into one simple catorgory. We are not just designers, but communicators and artists/photographers and art directors and ideas-people, and also many of us feed lots of other parts of our lives into our design too. This name would be a celebration of all the sides of design and the variety of skills/job titles we will be graduating with as well as giving us a nice typographical name to play with and lots of scope to develop the concept/theme across the whole identity of the show.

Well I will present this on Tuesday along with everyone else and see what people think!

Holdon Gallery -

The second D&AD exhibit in the Holdon gallery for 3rd years opened up last week and this time I decided to exhibit part 2 of my silence project, a film called '9 minutes ago'. This was a great opportunity for me as I wasn't happy with the final version of the film I handed in for assessment, a few last minute technical hitches meant it was really bad quality. After spending so long working on the film I decided for my own piece of mind that I was going to try and fix it in the couple of weeks we had off before we got our results. I thought this would be an easy task, but no, this film I swear had a vengeance on my sanity and refused to make anything easy. (I will probably explain more of this when I can finally figure out how to upload the film onto here, which it won't do at the moment). Anyway, this exhibition meant I could finally draw a line underneath my silence project and put it to rest.

I think this gallery space is a really great opportunity to come up this year and I'm glad Allessandra is making the most of it for us, we don't often get a chance to see people outside our tutor groups work, or even to print things off nicely before assessment so this is a great chance to do this as well as let the rest of the university know what we're up to.