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.

Joseph Kosuth

Joseph Kosuth, American born artist:

Very similar to Stephan Bruggemann. But I guess everything is similar to something - nothing is really original any more. I think it's almost impossible.

Fred Eerdekens

Another artist rather than a designer, but one that works with type and the environment, and I think could easily cross over into the design world. I wonder whether the words really do appear from the shadows or if it's a trick of the light? Again this is one i'll probably come back to for the geography project!

Stefan Bruggemann

I do have a soft spot for art like this, statements in simple type but that really make you think. I realised I've picked out quite a few of them this year! Still, they always capture my attention and that's what I like about art. I like the simplicity as well, there is something about a written statement that appeals to me - it is so bold to just say it out loud rather than cloud the message in metaphors and images, putting the question directly in people's head, especially when the work itself questions 'art', I love that! A lot of my ideas in the silence project came out of research and exploration into the use of words and the difference of using words and images, and I enjoyed this subject a lot. I think I'll be referring back to this artist when I start one of my bigger projects later on which is going to be the Geography one from IDST about taking reading into the environment.

''Using all media, Brüggemann’s works often consist of small gestures, additions, or alterations to a given space, medium, or genre.''

Beat Streuli

I came across this photographer while looking in a book about Installation art. Now I've gone back to them to post them I realise I love them even more! He basically takes pictures of everyday people on the street. There is nothing particularly special about the photography technically, but it's the idea of capturing ordinary people in an ordinary moment which is kind of pure and unposed. It feels like celebrity snaps the paparazzi take Then he takes them and displays them in areas usually reserved for advertising. I just like looking at these people and wondering what they were thinking and where they were going!

Andreas Uebel

So I have spent the last week doing research for about 7 projects. I thought it would help me narrow down which ones I wanted to work on and which ones I might drop, but it hasn't, it's just made me want to work on them all. Dammit! Still it's been a nice week and I've found lot's of inspiration, some directly related to my projects which has mainly gone in the old sketchbook, but i'm blogging some of the stuff I've found which I know I'll want to look at soon for my other project and some other stuff which I just Love. =) enjoy...

Andreas Uebele:

''art writes its own laws. familiar everyday things are removed from reality. in the wordmark for the gallery for contemporary art the letters are removed as well. abandoning themselves to the rhythm of a siren song, they have sailed away from their standard spacing. through the apparently random blacking of the counters – the white spaces in the letters – the wordmark with its irregular spacing seems somehow syncopated. plain information is transformed into contemporary art''

This guy's website is full of quite diverse work, although it all has a very typographical and distinct style to it.

(www.uebele.com)

''the agency is active in all areas of visual communications. projects are handled by small interdisciplinary teams comprising communications designers, media engineers and architects.''

I have become really interested in the way that design/advertising agencies work internally this year. Since we are getting so close to the big wide world, I kind of worried that the kind of place I wanted to work didn't really work and was just a ideal in my head. I'm feeling a little more confident now that my perfect job is out there somewhere, I just have to find it.

Valentines sale

I helped out on the second day of the Valentine's fundraiser in the Holdon Gallery and thankfully it was a lot more successful than the first day, we managed to raise over £200 all together! I made lots of chocolate hearts and wrapped them up in red netting and ribbon. I also ended up buying about 4 cakes myself during the day (it was pretty difficult to sit by them all day and not be tempted). By the end of the day all we had left was a few cards so it was a success all round!

mmm lovely

I LOVE Wieden and Kennedy's work. Particularly at the moment, the Cravendale adverts are great. Every time I see them it makes me smile, they are so crazy and abstract, I think that's great for such a boring and everyday product like Milk.

Then there is Lurpack... mm mm mmmmmmmmm Lurpack omg my mouth is watering just thinking about theses adverts and the lovely melting butter and hot toast and crispy bacon and fluffy jacket potatoes! It's not just the food but the beautiful shots and lighting, the seductive man narrator and the sizzling cooking sounds. Beats M&S for me any day!

I also came across these posters for Ford Pick-ups by Ogilvy - very authentic, and it's always nice to see something out of the ordinary for car ads, especially from a boring brand like Ford!