Duplex Rodeo

I did this a few weeks ago as part of my Lego research but didn't get the chance to put it up here because my computer, after suffering severe depression at the loss of my Ipod, decided to pop it's own clogs. Anyway, here is my Lego house-building video, in all it's [non] glory:

One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell

Somebody down there likes me, my computer has been fixed :D

Upon switching it on for the first time in nearly a month, my Kaspersky internet security doo-dah started updating, and when it did I noticed it came up with a download bar that reminded me of the Unknown Pleasures artwork I'm looking at for the What Is A Line brief, so with my uncomprehensible quick-thinking [much like the reflexes of a cat on speed] I whacked out a few screen-grabs to put down as research. Check it:

Same sort of thing I want to do, only I want to use sound as the source material for the imagery. I was thinking of getting an album I like, taking sound wave bars from each song and doing it as a set of posters. Like a visual interperetation of the album. Feedback on that would be nice [hint hint.] But yeah, then I whacked the three of those images together in Photoshop and adjusted the gradient to make it look a bit more like Unknown Pleasures. See:

The Lord Likes Drum And Bass

[Aka: End Of Module Self Evaluation]

What practical skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

In this module, I have had a lot of time to play around in InDesign, an area where I previously felt a bit weak but I'm now more confident with the programme on a whole. If I hadn't decided on my final idea so late into the project I would've liked to have really gone overboard in InDesign with the layout but I am happy with my final design all the same. 

What approaches to/methods of problem soling have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

I'm happy with the way that I have ended up with a final piece that is totally different to the initial research I carried out on my subject, I feel that in this project I took more from the group crits and applied this to my design process, though I do realize that I could've gone much further with it and probably ended up with a totally different end piece, removed from my initial ideas. I've been finding it easier in this project to put ideas to paper than in the previous module, though I'm still not as good as I'd like to be at thinking visually. 

What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalize on these?

I'm quite surprised at the quality of some of the photographs I took in this module, and feel more confident with a camera now than I had done before. Also, this is the first time I'd tried stop-motion animation for a project and I was quite happy with how my videos came out, though I think that without the stimulus of Lego I wouldn't have approached working that way. Having said that I do plan to get more involved with video in the future given the results I got this time round. 

What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?

Again unfortunately I feel that my research and development work will be the part that lets me down in this module, and that is integral to the brief. I find it really hard to put my ideas down, and am stuck in the mindset of think it>do it, without explaining how I got there or where my idea came from. I've no idea why I work like this in comparison to my peers here but I know that it makes marking my work difficult, I think I do a small amount of research and then jump straight into working on the development/final without giving it enough time to grow organically, and next time I think I need to assess my time management to allow time for that to happen.

Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

1 -  Create an action plan from the start, set realistic deadlines within deadlines and stick to them, using things like post-it notes and google calendar for reminders. This should allow me the time I need to get the initial foundations of the work done.

2 - Back up everything I produce onto disk, this time round my home PC's graphics card failed and I haven't been able to access a lot of the work I'd done up til around the 3rd/4th week. 

3 - Although I feel I've used the blog more effectively this time round, I still feel that I could really exploit it, use it as a constant online critique of my progress and try and use it to gather feedback from my peers.

4 - Keep a visual record of the work I produce and not only post it onto the blog but print images off and stick them in a sketchbook to accompany my work.

5 - Try different media, this time round I saw people using the woodwork workshops, print workshops, etc. and towards the end I felt like I'd let myself down by not using the available tools to my advantage.

How would you grade yourself on the following areas:

5=Excellent, 4=Very Good, 3=Good, 2=Average, 1=Poor

Attendance - 3

Punctuality - 4

Motivation - 4

Commitment - 3

Quantity of work produced - 3

Quality of work produced - 4

Contribution to the group - 5

Hear Me Now, All Crimes Should Be Treasured If They Bring Thee Pleasure Somehow

What is a line - stop bugging me about it, I don't know. Given my initial ideas and research on the subject, I now intend to follow the audio-visual route, I want to stay far away from the idea that a line has to be a 2D entity, instead I want to be quite abstract. I'm drawing great inspiration from the Unknown Pleasures artwork and from that [given that it's 100 recorded pulses from the first recorded Pulsar...] I intend to look into astrology and sound recording, but also to see if I can create some interesting visuals using plotted star maps and different readings, ie: gamma, radio, etc.

I want to record people saying 'Line' and words relating to it, and bring up wave bars from the audio which I can then trace and manipulate, although it would be tempting to create an animation with them since they move anyway I want to try to limit myself here, because I think that'll force me to squeeze more potential out of the subject. Maybe limit my colour palette as well or something, I dunno. But I want to create a series of posters from

my research, and I don't just want them to be pretty images I want them to represent some of the data i gather. Maybe some weird pictoral form of graph or something. Anyway, time will tell and all that yeah?

Maybe get into a bit of the ol' scientific theory and see how the linear structure of time could possibly be bent?

Lovely bit of Graphic Equalizer there.

Pulsar waves. Pretty eh?

Airship Design For The Promiscuous

Bloody Hell, my third blog update of the day. Clearly the stars have aligned to have allowed this to happen, you lucky, lucky people.

Anyway, after the crit I just had, thought it'd be incredibly wise of me to post up here what my project is all about, to clarify the point and audience and all that malarkey.

So...

My book, The Big Book Of Lego Suicides, is meant to be a sort of coffee table book for the 18-30 age group, I want to make a comedy book, something to laugh at while you're waiting for your mate to come back from the chippy. I want to make it loose-leaf so that the reader can choose to take their favourite picture or suicide note and pin them up, the thinking behind this was that as a student, I'd like to have these images up on my wall so that I'm not staring at a blank space. See, I'm considerate like that.

I've taken inspiration from the books 'The Bunny Suicides' and 'The Big Book Of Death' - which I've blended together in my Graphic Design cauldron to create what can only be described as a Frankenstein-esque hybrid. Or mutant.

The suicide notes I've come up with are meant to be tongue-in-cheek and humorous, and that's where the real content lies, I feel. I didn't want to create a picture book, because I haven't been able to wop out a bit of the ol' creative writing in a while and I see making a book as a great opportunity to do so, I'm making the kind of book that I'd like to own.

I know the content may seem a bit on the morbid mc.goth side, but that's just how I roll, yeah?

This bloody blogger thing is tramp's pants, keeps screwing up the paragraph layout on the composition screen. Pain in the ass.

Vegetarian Gravy - What's The Point?

Since I last updated [what, an hour ago or something?] I've edited yet more suicide photos. Once again, for your eyes only, behold:

I know, I know, I'm incredible. And you're merely mortals. That aside - I've also been working on the ol' suicide notes, tell me what you make of these tasteful entries:

"How many times do I have to say it?

Male heads go on Male bodies, I'm not a fucking transexual."

"It's not a cult. Honest."

"They threw me in with the Duplo and now I don't fit,

haha - guess I'm a dead Epileptic..."

Lemme know if these offend anyone, and I'll promptly make the text larger. Much love.

Coconut Latte And A Bag Of Vegetable Crisps - Three Pounds.

Thought I'd upload a couple of the ol' Lego Suicides photos i've been editing, taken them into Photoshop and used my Christ-like skills to make them look fantabulous. Behold:

I'm starting to think that maybe 100 photos of a Lego Man committing Suicide may be slightly ambitious. Ambitious like taking up smoking with the attitude of 'They'll have cured lung cancer within ten years.' might be ambitious. So perhaps a change of plan is in order. To those who view this blog [and I know you do, because, well, you bloody well have to...], I might take 50 photographs of Lego self-destruction and have 50 accompanying suicide notes to make my 100. What do you think? I could probably get 100 photographs if I dug deep, but I'd rather have 50 good, semi-plausible ones than 100 mediocre photographs of the same formula applied over different scenarios. GIVE ME FEEDBACK. Please.

Do They Still Put Crap Jokes On Ice Cream Sticks?

I've been shifting more Lego men off the mortal coil, and I thought I'd better put some evidence on here to prove it. Feast your eyes on the demise of the Lego Man. Yo.









It's harder than you might think to think of ways to bump off Lego men. I need some inspiration. Maybe I should watch Man Bites Dog again.

Attack Of The Mega Bra

Right, as I predict everyone else in our class has, I've decided to go for the 'last-minute-panic' approach for the What Is A Line brief. First up is a little idea I pieced together where i've tried to think outside the proverbial cube, looking at Line as more of an idea than an actual 2D image. So yeah, i thought of using thickness of line as a way of documenting, so basically a timeline, where the thickness of the stroke corresponds to a particular activity. Gaze upon it with your eyes like:


Next is a little video I found [because it seems oh-so-fashionable to have videos on here for this brief...] based upon barcodes, it's stop animation, which means there's a slight chance I might even be able to replicate it, and I thought it was quite quirky:


I want to keep to the idea of line with this project visually, try and keep it as fixed and linear as possible, rather than try to manipulate line to create complex images, though this may change as I live my life and all that. An example of what I mean by this would be the work Peter Saville did for the cover of 'Unknown Pleasures' - a Joy Division album. If you don't like Joy Division or don't know who they were, switch off your computer, buy a couple of disposable barbecues, seal all ventilation in the room, light them, and wait. Only kidding, have a cup of tea or something.

Anyway, without further ado, here's Unknown Pleasures:


Apparently it's the reading given off by a star exploding, looks nice though eh? Anyway yeah i also came across another Video [Wow, yet more moving pictures!] which was based on this artwork for the song 'Disorder', really like what the guy's done here with this, if you think of it as basically starting off as a flat image like a barcode and all the possibilities that spring from there, it's quite impressive:



I'm not trying to turn this project into an Ian Curtis tribute or anything by the way, I just found it relevant and that. I think it'd be just spiffing to take something like that found anywhere in life, like for example someone's furrowed brow or the lines on a chisel and used that as a starting point to make something psychedelic.