G# Minor

This lecture was taken over by Sara. The theme for this lecture was based around the concept of G# minor and focused primarily on motion graphic pieces of work. I quite liked this as I got to see a range of videos, which were creative and utilised sound very well. This video was based on a minimalistic motion format of a graphic notation, showing the music being played by the vibrations of the string.

This was a really interesting concept.

Strings: J.S. Bach - Cello Suite No. 1 - Prelude from Alexander Chen on Vimeo.

This video was created using stop motion, which is a series of photographs taken and pieced together to form a scene. This then creates the obscure frame rate. I have had some experience with stop motion before but never to a scale like this. I have never thought about using this technical process to achieve the visualization of sound. It was at this point I had an idea to use this method to go and take photographs with a camera whilst going on a journey. This may create a unique music video of some sort and would be a nice experiment to try out.


Hyde Park at Night - In Stopmotion from Anatoleya on Vimeo.
AANAATT (by Max Hattler) from Max Hattler on Vimeo.

During the lecture we listened to a couple of songs which included the G# minor, one of the songs of which were Lady Gaga's Poker Face. Sara showed us this song because although more commonly used in older music, it can be used with pop mainstream music.

I really enjoyed this lecture, as it I was shown that many graphical experimentations that I could produce, could use be created in after effects rather than producing stills in photoshop.

Principles Of Graphic Design

In todays lecture we understood the five main principles of Graphic Design.

Proximity - This means the grouping of elements together so that you guided the audience to different parts of the message.

Alignment - Is how the designer generates composition within an frame, not just placing thing central but attempting to scatter and create new layouts,

Repetition - Repeating elements in design can produce visually appealing out comes and ofter do so.

Contrast - To make things stand out, understand that you need to get noticed.

Space -The use of negative space can have a powerful effect on a design, sometimes less can be more.

History Of Graphic Design

This lecture was focused around exploring the history of graphic design. During the lecture a range of artist were discussed, some of which stood out to me. These were as followed:

April Greiman

Fred Woodward 

Wolfgang Weingart

Chris Ashworth

Chris Ashworth has a common style in relation to David Carson, he was also one of the designers who worked on the Ray Gun magazine.

I found this lecture to be quite informal, showing a new spectrum of designers rather than the more common David Carson and Neville Brody. It also gives some perspective of how other designers have used previous work and design movements, adding there own creative vision.

Expanded Genealogy

This seminar was an extension of our previous genealogy seminar back at the beginning of the first semester. We explored the genealogical method, exploring questions between a method and methodology.

A method is defined as a process of doing, so what does methodology mean?

Methodology is a system of methods used in a particular area of study or activity - Google Definition

I then realised that the word methodology also applies to our previous seminar with James, based on Genealogy. A quote during the lecture stated that the "genealogist examines the preconceived and questions the phenomenon that we tend to feel is without history". At first I didn't quite understand what this quotation meant , however the idea behind this is that we don't tend to think about how others interprete our actions and life style. A perfect example of this is shown in cultural differences from the west and the east. This is why Genealogists claim that there is no eternal truth. When I think about the concept of eternal truth, I think about the idea of not one law fits all, for instance what is dictated as a crime in one country could very well be accepted in another, does this mean either side is right? I don't believe so, these are nothing but subjective opinions.

This is where We asked ourself the question are genealogist sound they engage in subjective or objective studies. Well the idea behind the word subjective is that this is completely based on personal opinion, where as objectively this mean to have the involvement of someone else. From what we discussed genealogist studies are primarily subjective as they didn't involve the Michel Foucault, who was a french philosopher.

Michel  Foucault quoted "What right do have historians have to impose their tastes and preferences when they seek to determine what actually happened in the past".

"The purpose of history, guided by genealogy is not to discover the eternal truth of a historical subject but to research ideas and bring idea and approaches together to link and makes sense of the subject."

This means that Michel is saying that genealogy is little more than speculation, with theory backing u there claims. It's similar in the ideal of science, you can only speculate based on the information in which you have.

This expanded source on the topic on genealogy was a lengthy but confusing seminar, however I have learnt that that genealogy is a subjective process, however its process of finding out information and putting it together to form an answer is a somewhat interesting idea, which I think can be applied to graphic design as a problem solving tool.

Film: Urbanzied

For this lecture I was introduced to a documentary film called Urbanized, directed by Gary Hustwit. This documentary focused on how design affects the modern day society, focusing specifically on city design, interviewing architects to gather a range of different perspectives on the matter. There is a huge focus on perspectives throughout this documentary and really makes you understand how much design is responsible for contemporary society.

Not only does this documentary look at the design of "urbanized" society, it looks into a much more deeper understanding, hi-lighting many different problems that societies around the world face in both the future and the present. A big concern mentioned in the film was that society is getting increasingly overcrowded, putting a strain on global resources and harming the environment, not to mention the poor condition of human living in places like Mumbai.

I thought that this film was a nice break from constant designing for commercial sales, it focused on looking at more serious issues that happen around the world. It focused on the ideal of problem solving and I really enjoyed this, after all designers are problem solvers.

Film: Helvetica

This was another film screening that I was introduced to from the director of Urbanized, Gary Hutzwit. This documentary was based round the font Helvetica, insulated by the title. The film was released on the 50th anniversary of the typeface Helvetica, talking about the process font has developed throughout history.

I also learnt the the reason why we have uppercase and lower case letter was because back during the printing press we had two cases both separating the two types of letters. These letters were stored on in a uppercase and a lower case. This directly impacted the deign of the keyboard and which is why we use the term upper and lower case to distinguish the different between capital letters.

This film talked to some of the most influential designers based round type, one of which I knew called Neville Brody. Brody is one of the most iconic typeface creators in the world, producing in my opinion some of the most inspirational works in recent years.

Overall I really enjoyed the film as I myself like the art of type and knowing more about its history, made me appreciate it all the more.

Typography

This lecture was focused primarily on the area of graphic design known as Typography. I have had experience with Typography before and understand that when used correctly that creative placement of text can have more impact than any image. Typography has always been something that I have had some interest in as a graphic designer.

What is typography?

"The art or procedure of arranging type or processing data and printing from it" - Google Definition

We was shown a poster which I have seen before, but which I still find really interesting, this is the bad typography is everywhere poster. With its simplistic colour pallet and neat design, the message I personally receive from this is that bad typography stands out more than good typography, shown with the red overlaid type.

However something that caught my attention during this lecture was the terminology of Typography and typefaces. I was unaware of how detailed and complex typography really was. The lecture talked about many aspects of type such as:

Ascent
Ascender height
Mean line
Descent

Tracking

Counter
Bowl
Spine
Descender
Serifs
Stern
Terminal
Ligature

Visualisation Of Sound Project Introduction

This lecture introduced the group to our new project, Visualization of sound. Unlike our sense of place project, we were given a much shorter time frame consisting of 5 weeks to produce 8 experimental outcomes, based on the visualization of sound. It was advised that we took a varied technical approach to generating these outcomes, using many different forms of media, such as, animation, stills and practical methods. This was basically to test ourselves under pressure, like the way in-which we would be in industry. I was really excited for this project as I had already decided that I would be producing a different outcome though a combination of stills and animation.

It was further discussed that like in real industry we would be provided source material, this came in the form of music, where we would need to use or respond to a select portion within our work. These music clips would be able to be downloaded through Unilearn. It was then the lecture focused on inspirational pieces of work, where we could get ideas for how the visualization sound could be achieved.

We was then asked what does graphic design have in common with sound. I came to the conclusion that sound can be represented by shapes, such coming from the idea of music sheets. This basic form allows for the production of music, visualising sound. This was a really unique way of looking at the concept as usually it would be more common to make a music video or just incorporating sound, rather than making a key to what each sound represents. However my favorite part of the inspirational material being shown was a video called Cymatics by Nigel Stanford. This video focused on using particular frequencies in correlation with equipment to visually see the effect that sound had on a substance. The way the music video was put together was really well done and had really inspired me to produce something for the project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3oItpVa9fs

Overall I thought that this lecture help me think much more broadly about the outcomes I could produce for my formative assessment. It allowed me to think about all the different possibilities I could do and think about which form of media would be the best to portray them in.

Narrative Design

For this lecture we looked at the process of Narrative Design. Narrative Design is of great importance when it comes to developing visual communication, and although it is commonly used in film, literature and games design, the process can also be used within graphic design. I consider graphic design a jack of all trades, being able to utilise many different medias in order to achieve its goal, design tells story's.

When producing a visual story you need to ask 4 important questions to best understand what kind of narrative you are trying to tell. These questions are;

What is the issue?

What will be the events?

If needed, who are the characters?

What is the content?

All these are very basic questions one should ask them self before producing a story.

Like all narrative processes we start with a beginning middle and end, planning our story and layout of the foundation. Due to the creation of Freytags Pyramid (1862), Gustav Freytag developed a visual graph after documenting the patterns of storytelling.

Afterwards we looked into the 8 series of conflicts. These are the proposed only style of stories currently told today, by Arthur Quiller Couch. I found this interesting as that I have never hear of these series of conflicts before, and it enlighten to me how limited stories really are. I also noticed that many books fall with more than one of the categories provided, which reminded me about the word convergence.

Series Of Conflicts

"Man Against Fate"

"Man Against Society"

"Man against The Supernatural"

"Man Against Machine"

"Man Against Man"

"Man Against God"

"Man Against Self."

"Man Against Nature"

Something which caught my eye during the lecture was Pixars 22 rules of storytelling. I knew that they had principles of animation, however I didn't know they had these rules. I found this rather interesting as I admire the works of pixar. The Rules are as followed;

Overall the lecture showed my that having a good narrative for design can really improve my over message I am trying to communicate.

Prequel Sequel

The focus of this lecture was around the themes of prequel and sequel. I have heard this term used within the film industry but not very much with design so I was interested to what context it would be relevant. The theory for this lecture was that nothing is truly an original concept, but you can still can design something with originality. With our sense of place project took into consideration it was explained that my exploration of the previous project based of a word, allowed for a range of approaches to design to take form. The time we had to explore possibilities with a lengthy research period allowed for myself to find inspiration from others and form my own development from that concept. While unlike the second project Visualization of Sound, we had little time to research are was therefore forced into designing quickly, coming up with our own ideas.

"Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing." - Salvador Dali

The point was made that graphic designers and animators have the same intentions to communicate a message, but when we seek to communicate we rely on predetermined assumptions to provide context to our purpose. What I understood from this was that everyone perceives a concept differently to one another, and this also applies to design as well, remixing our understanding.

The lecture then discussed these main areas of focus.

Connection

In relation to the sequel and prequel mentioned at the start of the lecture, they were explain to have have many different meanings all of which focus on connection.

Intent

Intent is the purpose of connection. This gives an idea of how in which to communicate in order to successfully connect with an audience.

Tipping Point

The Law Of The Few: Which is the idea that in any situation roughly 80 percent of the work will be done by 20 percent of the participants.

The Sickness Factor: The specific content of a message that renders its impact memorable.

The Power Of Content: Human Behaviour is sensitive to and strongly influenced by its environment.

Nostalgia

A trigger towards both positive and negative emotion, providing emotive connection to an audience.

Continuity

The consistency of a product, for example films that have unanswered questions are deemed to have plotholes, which are relevant missing pieces of information not explained in the story. This is not to be confused by ambiguous ending.

Standard Elements

Combining existing components producing appropriated, transformed and subverted outcomes from the original source.

Movements

The evolution of ideas providing the foundation of future concepts.


Overall this lecture enlightened me about how good design requires good communication and intent. It shows how many different factors can affect design such as nostalgia and continuity, and how can ruin or enhance experiences through communication.

Design And Emotion Lecture

For this lecture we began by being shown an photographic image and to express our current thoughts and emotions for what we could see. Collectively the group concluded that the image was of a under exposed photograph of a lamppost. For the emotive effect however, this created a generation of varied emotions towards the photograph speculating what the meaning behind the photograph could possibly be. I personally thought that the photographs was of a sinister looking nature, showing intense dominance due to the low angle shot. On the other side I tried to think of a more positive reason behind the photograph, this came to be with the expression of the light at the end of the tunnel, where the light symbolizes hope within the darkness.

This is done through a process called Sensory Information Processing.

We was then met by a series of illusions and perception challenges, the first being colour vision, where there were a range of dot patterns with some of the dots being a different colour to the background. This was to understand the effect colour blindness, and how colour can effect our perspective. We also looked at some of the more common illusion designs, where an overlaying pattern of colours consisted in a circle, created the effect of them moving in your peripheral vision, this was explain to be because of the, intensity of your brain capturing each colour simulating that they are moving when they are in fact not.

Something that caught my attention during the lecture was the way our perspective can be tricked into seeing something complete, when in reality it is not. Almost like a mirage. This is done because of the way in which our eyes process information, using pieces of data to construct for what we would commonly see as normal.

This has been shown by the upside down mouth on a photograph illusion phenomenon, where your brain is tricked into think that it is normal at first glance but isn't at all. However this was shown in the lecture through a You Tube video of a T-Rex, where when you position changes, the T-rex eyes keep following you. I was really impressed at how this was occurring and was trying to guess how this was happening. This eventually was revealed to be complex arrangement of mirrors design to reflect the T-rex, showing that our eyes can be easily fooled by great design.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4QcyW-qTUg&list=LLaJu6gGe3ieAEdT8PfprfOA&index=44

Perception = We Override Our Own Reality = How we Interpretate information

It was quoted in the lecture that "We Expect What We Expect To See", meaning that when our brain is met with some foreign information, it try's to normalise the situation, by processing what we perceive to be normal.

Example of this are show through: 

Inkblots

The Exceptions Effect

Priming

Depth Perception

Overall I found that this lecture opened my eyes to how we underestimate our mind, and sometimes to not fully question if what we are seeing is truly what we are seeing. I felt like this lecture was more about psychology, but the idea of design is to produce visual material for that which creates a certain emotion, and I think that I understand more about how to create emotion though design.

Message And Meaning

This lecture about message and meaning was to help understand what complications occur when communicating a message and how it maybe perceived by others. The sound of this lecture produced a common intrigue with myself and other students, as we are upcoming designers, and knowing more information about this would be very beneficial to our studies.

"The Difference between poetry and practical messages is that the latter are successfully only when we correctly infer the intention" Michael Rock

Message and meaning at base value seem like common knowlage and understanding, however when it comes to designing it is crucial that designers consider all the possibilities of reactions that can come from that piece of work. If not this can lead to miscommunication and can invoke a hugely negative or controversial responses from an positive intended product. This in my opinion has got much worse with the introduction of social media where opinions can gain influence with popularity and can completely generate a meaning from something which isn't present. This happens through standard communication through social interaction through digital means such as texting, where others can become offended though poor expression. With this in consideration I began to understand the pressure designs have constantly in the industry. 

Due to the fear of negative outcomes, it was expressed during the lecture that graphic designers and animators should constantly keep reviewing the message which can be interpreted no matter how small it could be.

What is Message?

"A short communication transmitted by words, signals or other means from one person, station or group to another."

What is Meaning?

"Meaning is what the source or sender expresses, communicates , or conveys in their message to the observer or receiver, and what the receiver infers from the current context."

We was shown an image of the process and how the communication transfers from the designer to the audience. This seemed to be an infinite process as perfection of message and communication seems rather unlikely in a consistently developing world, where morals, opinions and understandings change. 

Send/Encode: Represents the information translated into a message in the form of ideas or concepts.

Channel/Medium: Represents the Process in which the sender uses to communicate the message

Receive/Decode: Represents the way information is received through the channel.

Convergence Lecture

As part of my sense of place project the word 'convergence' is the key topic which myself and fellow students are basing our research and designs around for the Concertina Sketchbook. The purpose of this lecture was to further my understanding of the word convergence and how that it applies to my study of design. My current understanding at the time of this lecture was that convergence and how it applied to design, was a cross combination of separate ideas forming  together generating a new concept.

"Convergence is an ambiguous term used by various disciplines to describe and analyse processes of change towards uniformity or union. Its application in the communications sector often referred to as media convergence also encompasses valuable approaches and insights to describe, characteristics and understand the digital creative economy" - Media Convergence Michael Latzer / Quote from the lecture slideshow.

Uniformity definition: Google Definition

1 A state or condition in which everything is regular, homogeneous or unvarying.

2 Lack of diversity or variation, especially to the point of boredom or monotony; sameness.

Union definition: Google Definition

1 The action of joining together or the fact of being joined together, especially in political context.

2 A society or association formed by the people with a common intreat or purpose.

However from the first few slides of the presentation I knew that the word convergence would be something that was of huge importance to the theory of design, as design is a subjective practice and is heavily debated, the topic of convergence would be an interesting idea to explore.

Other Words For Converge:

Multidiscipline - Interdiscipline - Crossdiscipline - Synergy - Intergrated - Hybrid

The lecture consisted of a set of opening quotations of opinions on the overall idea of how convergence applies to design. Following the quotations our lector additionally showed designs of varying styles and medias. For instance I personally liked the exploration of logo designs, keeping in mind the word convergence, I saw the designs in a completely new perspective.

Screenshot taken of the logo's shown within the lecture

For example the Kleenex logo at first glance appears like a standard font based logo, however with the word convergence in mind, I started to see the relation to the word through the way in which the letters were conjoined. This small aspect proved to me that convergence isn't just about overlaying different design practices and experimenting with gradients. It made a statement to myself that it is more about the subtleness of design, understanding the sometime less is more.

Miles Thorpe: Fantastic Media

Miles Thorp, Head of Digital at Fantastic Media, is a former student of the University of  Huddersfield. His presence at this lecture was to give some helpful advice on upcoming placements and general importance on presentation and on how it can be beneficial in becoming a successful designer. This was incorporated with his success story, stating that he was the typical unorganised student and always tended to leave things to the last minute. He then carried on emphasising on the importance of keeping in contact with placements, even those which you don't intend on going to just as a reserve."Keeping in contact with placements allows yourself in the placements mind, keeping you one foot within the door. Just get noticed." He classed himself as rather fortunate in getting a place at Fantastic Media, saying because of his passion to learn and to always be willing to do additional work with his co-workers, he then managed to achieve his Head of Digital status. A key portion to Miles success is the invention of his portfolio site, Unifolio.

Unifolio is a free online portfolio aimed at creative students who are looking for a job or placement and allows themselves to showcase their work directly to the employer, much like the website Bechance but without the cost implications.

Photograph Of Miles During The Lecture

“No matter what technical skills you may have, if a client likes you, they will buy into you” - Miles Thorp

After talking about his success story with Fantastic Media, Thorp then talked briefly discussed about what things employers and placements alike look for. For instance, it was crucial that when applying for a placement that you submitted an online portfolio containing your best work, including some self made projects with real world applications, showing your understanding of how the process would work realistically. Fantastic Media in particular also admired designers who undertakes in learning new skills, allowing yourself to become much more dependable in situations, giving yourself more worth as a designer, as Throp stated "It doesn't matter if you are the very best at a particular field, as long as you can do it to a decent standard, your help would be a great assist when working with others in the company".

Something that stuck out during this lecture was how Thorp gave a set of questions which simplified my true intentions as an designer, understanding which placement would be best suited to myself, allowing me to at an early start on applying on the correct placements.

Miles Thorps Three Main Questions:

#1 What Do I Want To Do?

#2 What Do I Want To Learn?

#3 Where Do You Want To Do It?

Overall this brief lecture gave me a informed idea on how to go about the process of applying and working in a placement, what would be expected of me and what people are Fantastic Media are looking for. After this lecture I have decided that I will produce additional content out of lessons for my online portfolio, which will be developed on Bechance, this is because of Miles Thorp's Emphasis that it would give myself an edge over others. Furthermore, I also asked some questions post lecture and cleared some questions on how much content be displayed and if a large amount of research was required alongside a final product. Overall this brief lecture gave me a informed idea on how to go about the process of applying and working in a placement, what would be expected of me and what people are Fantastic Media are looking for. After this lecture I have decided that I will produce additional content out of lessons for my online portfolio, which will be developed on Bechance, this is because of Miles Thorp's Emphasis that it would give myself an edge over others. Furthermore, I also asked some questions post lecture and cleared some questions on how much content be displayed and if a large amount of research was required alongside a final product.

Photograph Of Miles Business Card
Images Sourced From - https://twitter.com/thorp88
Date Of Lecture 11 /11/ 2015