Wednesday 29 February 2012

Communication Is A Virus Depression Research.

What is Depression?

Communication Is A Virus Smiling Research.

Positive effects of smiling.
  • It makes us more attractive and draws people in.
  • It can change our mood, it can trick the body into helping you change it.
  • It is contagious and can change the moods of others.
  • It relieves stress, taking time to smile can reduce it.
  • It boosts your immune system, it can prevent colds and flu.
  • It can reduce blood pressure.
  • It releases endorphins that make us feel better, it is a natural drug.
  • It lifts the face and makes you appear younger.
  • It makes you seem more successful and confident, smiling people are more likely to get a promotion.
  • It reduces the amount of blood flowing to the brain because of the constriction of muscles. Scientists believe the cooler the brain the happier we feel.

Ways of making other people smile.
  • Smile first.
  • Be chivalrous.
  • Be self depreciating.
  • Listen when someone is speaking to you.
  • Surprising someone.
  • Take on some work for someone who is struggling.
  • Be humble.
  • Make eye contact.
  • Offer a random compliment.
  • Ask people their name.
  • Shake hands, hug or physically interact.
  • Write a note to say thank you.
  • Set a fun screensaver or desktop on someones computer.
  • Buy someone their favourite candy.
  • Send an unexpected card.
  • Do someones chores.
  • Put together a book of someones achievements.
  • Share a funny story.
  • Leave a joke on an answering machine.
  • Ask a coworker their opinion on some work.
  • Bring some cookies to work.
  • Let a person know you really appreciate them.
  • Let someone cut in during rush hour traffic.
  • Leave a thank you note for the cleaning staff at work.
  • Invite a friend for tea.
  • Donate to charity.
  • Help someone with a heavy load.
  • Fill up the copier paper machine when you're done using it.
  • Share you're umbrella on a rainy day.
  • Email a friend some information on a topic they're interested in.
  • Personally welcome a new employee at work.

Tuesday 28 February 2012

Ten Significant Pieces of Source Material.

  1. http://scottyfivealive.com/ - This source was found during the speed dating task and was found after  when everyone put up their chosen designers. I think this will be helpful for this brief because it shows how maybe designers are going back to using hand rendered type, rather than digital.
  2. http://j-morse1114-dc.blogspot.com/ - Here is a link to my lecture notes on a 'History of Type'. This will be very useful in gathering important information or starting points of further research.
  3. http://www.doylepartners.com/ - I have chosen this link as a starting point for demonstrating new and innovative ways of producing type that avoid print all together.
  4. http://www.debutart.com/ - This is a website showing letterpress prints, which will be a big focus in my investigation.
  5. http://j-morse1114-dc.blogspot.com/ - This link goes to my manifestos post. I would like to consider this as I go through my work as they are things that are important to me and to ensure that I am sticking with it.
  6. http://j-morse1114-dc.blogspot.com/ - I think these notes on 'The History of Advertising' will also be helpful in considering how printing affected other areas and how it led them to progress.
  7. http://j-morse1114-dc.blogspot.com/ - This post is also relevant on how different typefaces are appropriate in different contexts for visual communication.
  8. http://j-morse1114-dc.blogspot.com/ - This is a link to my modernism lecture notes, where I look at type through this era.
  9. http://j-morse1114-dc.blogspot.com/ - Here is the task I did after our audience work. This will remind me not to stereotype the group I will be designing for and to find out more about them.
  10. http://j-morse1114-dc.blogspot.com/ - The five ultimate questions at the bottom of this post is what I'm focussing on, to help me analyse my own work in order to improve it.

Manifestos.

My Personal Manifesto
  1. I will experiment with letterpress.
  2. I will try and maintain a balanced work and social life.
  3. I will work with people who are positive.
  4. I will do more in depth research.
  5. I will push myself to achieve more.

Published Manifestos
'Do not wish to be your peers, make them wish to be you.'
I really appreciate this specific point from this manifesto, as I believe it is easy to fall into wanting what you create to be like what someone else has done and feeling like you don't measure up. This point puts across to have the power in yourself and that you can better what you do.

'I am a person first, a designer second. I will treat others as I would wish to be treated in the same situation. If I do not enjoy being misrepresented to, or have my intelligence insulted, neither should I do the same in my practice. In it's most primitive form, design should be informed by respect for the audience as fellow human beings.'
Here is my second manifesto that focuses strongly on ethics within a designers personal practice. I have chosen tho specific quote as I believe it is very important to respect others around you. In order to have a good working environment and to have positive relationships.

'We know that good design is not a luxury. It is a necessity.'
I have selected this point because I think it puts across the purpose and importance of what designers do. It is not something that is there just to be admired for it's visual beauty, but to get across information and to the audience in a clear way and that it is necessary for people to understand what is around them.

'Allow accidents to happen. The wrong outcome may be the right way of designing in the future.'
This point was chosen because it is something that I struggle with at the minute and is something that I would like to keep in mind. I strive for what I do to look perfect which leads to being afraid of making mistakes. I would like to break this barrier in order to improve.

'Ideas come from the little things.'
I feel that is a very important short point. Don't take anything for granted, as insignificant as it might seem it could be very valuable at some point.

Monday 20 February 2012

Poster Brief Poster Research.

I like the simplicity of this piece with the use of over laying text and image and transparency. The concept is also quite interesting with using translations of words from different languages that mean rain. I find the monochromatic colour scheme attractive and I like how it links with the grey skies you see when it rains.

This poster is from a selection of designs that look into portraying different types of weather and landscapes in a minimal way. I like the use a pattern and line that makes up the composition and also the textures that are integrated into the piece.

I chose this piece more for its design features than concept. I find the background design really attractive especially because of the use of tonal black and white that creates the form.

I find these designs really interesting because of the use of colour and shape. They are part of a set that is for the rebrand of a weather channel. The image of left shows the areas that will suffer from rain it also uses colour to show the levels of heaviness. The other two are icons to represent rainy and stormy weather, I love these and I like how the clouds have been created using the angular shapes.

There is a very strong contextual meaning behind these... 'A series of postcards designed to bring hope and support to the Japanese population. Each postcard shows, in both English and Japanese, the words: “After the rain, earth hardens”. These are the words of a Japanese saying which becomes a powerful message of hope for the future and a way to help people in the disaster areas in Japan. Three different prints convey the message through different illustrations of birds which are endowed with positive meanings and which are regarded as symbols of hope, peace and recovery.' I like the alternative colours scheme and how the imagery is constrained to a shape.

This poster takes on quite a different approach to the rest of advertising an event. I think it works well for its purpose because it appeals so much to the stereotypical images of rain that will attract the target audience. I think the use of shape is interesting and I like how it has been ted to create a frame for the text.

These posters take on more of a controversial approach, which may not fit with the aim for this brief. Although I really like the simplicity and block colour.

This piece is very subtle, I really like the pastel tones and how they have a watery effect. The only problem is that the text is quite illegible which could be a problem if I'm trying to convey a message.

My favourite part of this image are the raindrops, especially with how they fit together to create a pattern with variation because of the different textures and colours.

I like the naive quality of this image and I think the us of the block texture is really effective. Although I don't think it works well and compliments the surrounding pattern.

I think this piece demonstrates the power of simplicity, through monochrome colour and contrasting pattern. I think it's clever how this has been created and is so atmospheric.

This is one of my favourite designs from this set of research. I think the use of texture works well especially on the umbrellas. I also like the use of the raindrop symbol, the overlaid colours looks good as does the large size. I think the proportions of the composition also lends itself to the design.

The Poster Brief Initial Research.

Reasons people like rain...

Tuesday 7 February 2012

Lecture Ten - A History of Advertising.

Definitions of Advertising
  • The integration of art and technology.
Advertising Through Time
  • Large scale colour printing technology developed in 19th Century.
  • Advertising boom aided by abolishment of taxes on newspapers in 1885.
  • In the 1860's cereal companies figured out how to print, fold and fill cardboard boxes mechanically.
  • Second boom was because of technological progress. Pictorial ads in 1880's.
  • By 1890's technology enabled contemporary printings to be reproduced.
  • In the late 19th Century ad agencies sold space in newspapers for commission.
  • First soap opera on the radio in the 1930's.
  • Bill Bernbach (1911-1982) was the first to combine copywriters and art directors.
William Hesketh Lever (1851-1925)
  • Founder of Lever Bros with James Darcy, 1885.
  • Born in 1851, year of crystal palace exhibition.
  • First British tycoon.
  • He spent £2 million in the first two decades of making soap.
  • In 1899 purchased Philadelphia soap brand and others like it.
  • First world wide ECD. Overseer of advertising, constantly researching and studying.
  • Identified innovative spaces for advertising, like open doors at train stations.
Lever Bros
  • Lever was the first to prepackage soap and they ran their first ad in the 1890's.
  • The advertising transformed the company from local manufacturer to worldwide company.
  • There advertising was so successful because of the reproduction of images and the connection with the copy. They selected and presented artworks that communicated more powerfully the desired message and told it in an innovative way, which made it distinct from advertising that had gone before. Emotional strategy was also a common technique.
  • Target audience women. High feeling and emotive, mother daughter bond.
  • Organised exciting events like the opening of new offices in Geneva in 1889, where a washing competition was organised with the people in the area on a national holiday.
  • Innovative ideas of getting the consumer to buy the product consecutively. For example, saving coupons to receive an advert print and in the 1890's capturing the children to receive paper dolls with interchangeable outfits.
  • Received royal endorsement in 1892, democratisation.
  • 20th Century Lever used different international agencies.
  • Successful global campaign, consumers didn't just want the product they needed it.
  • Uni Lever now has 900 brands.

Lecture Nine - Media Specificity.

Definitions
  • Medium: material or technical means of artistic expression.
  • Media is the plural form of medium.
  • The dictionary defines media as all the communication devices and channels of communication used to reach mass audiences.
  • Medium specificity is the view that the media associated with a given art form (both its material components and the processes by which they are exploited)  entail specific possibilities for and constraints on representation and expression, and this provides a normative framework for what artists working in that art form ought to attempt. 
PowerPoint

  • Tufte argues that PowerPoint’s design inherently makes it more difficult to communicate with an audience.
  • Instead of giving an informative presentation, PowerPoint encourages speakers to create slides with ultra-short, incomplete thoughts listed with bullets. 
What are we?
  • The specificity of him sapiens: A large brain, most of the sense organs located at the top end and facing forwards, long throat, small mouth, flexible tongue and lips, an upright stance that frees the arms from any walking duties and allows the eyes to see further, hands with mobile thumbs and fingers that allow for fine grip and rotation from the wrist.

Friday 3 February 2012

Ten questions to ask myself.

  • Do you consider clothing and fashion important in your life?
Yes, I really enjoy going shopping and finding things that I like and suit my personality.
  • Do you enjoy travelling and going on holiday?
Yeah I find visiting new countries really exciting.
  • Describe your personality in 3 words.
Happy, creative, relaxed.
  • What do you spend your money on?
Food, clothes, nights out.
  • Are you independent or dependent.
Over the past few years I have become a lot more independent.
  • What is the most memorable experiences in your life?
Swimming with dolphins and riding an elephant
  • Do you have any hobbies?
Until recently I danced and had been doing so for 10 years.
  • How many people would you consider as close friends?
9.
  • Who is your favourite designer?
Eduardo Recife.
  • How important is a sense of humour to you in a scale of 1-10?
8.