LOOKING UP

AND LOOKING DOWN

Is the title of our new project. I'm about to go and use these photographs (which I took whilst looking up and down) to produce some work in an ipad.

Q

Here's a little development work on one of my designs from the alphabet book. I played around with the letter Q in different ways. Of course, because I didn't rotate the above two images it looks like I've been experimenting with the letter "d", but I can assure you this wasn't the case.

This is an idea for a "typographic concept". I wanted to make the spread without using images and just letters, and I started to think about different ways letters fit together, such as in the phrase "Q is for..."

The image above is just an initial sketch of an idea I started to colour to help me think about different zones in the text. The "Q" and "I" looked a bit strained and over stylised, so I re-sketched it to simplify it.

The image above is what was the "final" idea for the design but I decided not to use it. There are a few things that bug me and I realised the book's "gutter" would also distort the image. However much I alter the design I think due to my high and idiosyncratic standards I would never be satisfied with it, so I decided to leave it and move on from "designer's block".

Below is the image I submitted to use in the book. I haven't scanned in my sketchbook though so you can't see any development but it was pretty last minute and sketchy, and probably illegible to a lot of people. I always try to make my work stand out wherever it is and realised a lot of people working on the book were experimenting with exciting images and ephemera and using bright colours, so I decided to keep the work as minimal as possible. I am happy with this design, it certainly  does stand out but I tend to wonder what I could've done with the use of images and colour.

Sketchbook Pro

I made this image in Sketchbook Pro for the iPad, and as you can see I'm still getting used to it. I'm currently making a page for an alphabet book, with the theme "T is for Together", and somehow I've managed to end up with the letter Q. Quadruplets/quintuplets seems to be working for me at the moment and I'm trying to stick to the idea of the quadruplets being kids and still living together. I've tried to keep the image simple through colour and type and reminiscent of a child's alphabet book and while I could have drawn four/five identical quadruplets/quintuplets I wanted to let the audience think a little.

Directions Project - Development

One of the problems faced by the traders at Chesterfield market was how they could implement a set of rules without seeming impolite and losing 







                                                                                  customers to other stalls.

The design of signs asking "please do not touch" or "no ____ near the stall" etc was awkward because the traders still wanted to attract customers. Some stalls had no signs so the trader spoke instead.

I tried to come up with a way to communicate these rules in as subtly as possible. Here are some experiments

   

Then I experimented with negative space, and started to make patterns out of shapes I'd found

I started to use negative space to build up different letterforms

 

Rather than create type out of shapes found in the signposts which I had tried, I preferred to build up the negative shapes, which made more interesting and flexible lettering as I was able to re-use the negative space here and there.

I used a few of these ideas together to create an experimental sign using simple but striking colours. I think it works because of its unconventional design and bold aesthetics.

I tried to bring together some more different ideas together which would abstract a direction

and came up with these

Overall I think the development process has gone well and more smoothly than the initial observation and gathering of ideas. However I feel the project hasn't concluded particularly well and I would struggle to finish it satisfactorily. I am pleased with the aesthetic element but I think I've started to go down a difficult road to begin producing better work and I think this comes from setting myself such a wide theme and trying to tie a lot in.

Directions Project - Observation

I chose to look at the theme of "direction" and started by recording icons such as signs for
smoking, toilets, exits, and arrows.

 

 

 

 

I also started drawing people around me, and how they were 

reacting to directions

and how the sign writers
had anticipated their reactions

(I tried to keep the

   

   d              e            f        i              n         i         t         i                  o     n            

o                                                                f 

     d           i                 r       e                           c          t                  i       o                   n

as loose as possible)

The doors I came across were not only covered in directions and notices, but there were signs directing to them and a direction on the other side of them. I was interested by the light coming in through the gaps in the doors, so then

                                                                 

                                                             --------------------------------------------------------

        
                                                                 tive space and thought about how it c

                                            looked at nega                                                     ould be used

                          F
                          rom 
                          there- 

                          I was able                                                                                                                                           to develop all the icons and            - into something that would alter the audience's reactions

                          ideas that                      
                          I had f
                          oun
                          d

Martin Parr

When I first saw Martin Parr's work I was obsessed with highly saturated, kodachromish film photographs documenting the 20th century. I pretty much only looked at the colour, maybe the bit of composition and the analogue quality that appealed to me more than digital. I probably found comfort in the common aesthetic of my old family photo albums, and I became a huge fan of the superficial qualities he achieved. Now I've started to look more at the eccentricity and inadvertent humour in his subjects.

This photo seems like a visual contradiction to me, maybe a slight insult. Despite Parr delibrately placing the cross in the centre of the image and having the viewer focus on it straight away, the idea of christianity is completely irrelevant. The cross is made of gold and is probably worn more as jewellery than a religious symbol. The glistening sweat on the man's chest suggest he has time to spare in the sun, money to spend on tacky golden necklaces and prefers to spend it that way rather than give money to the poor or go to church. The shapes on the cross suggest it's facing the other way and hiding Jesus, maybe he's too embarassed to show his face. I think a lot of Parr's work is based around humiliating his subjects and perhaps he's created his own comfort zone in this. Perhaps the idea of humiliation stems from his work in fashion photography, and the ridiculous outfits he has to document? I prefer projects such as "Autoportrait", which carries a theme of identity, alongside conveying a huge range of culture with a consistent subject matter. It feels more like a science experiment than a photo project, and comes out with some great results. I also like "Boring Postcards" and "Saddam Hussein Watches" because they ask questions to do with money, necessity, and waste; these projects actually say something about strange objects and their purpose rather than focussing on people who Parr perceives to live their lives/spend money differently.

Experiments

These are just some experiments from messing about with the camera and pushing the results to their extremes in photoshop. With the camera I was more interested in the light and texture, and I was more interested in colour when editing them in photoshop.