Saturday 13 December 2008

What if...?

What if...? Self Evaluation.

Im gonna go the easy route and just answer every question off the brief in order :) lol. Laze.
I've just realised, this post is gonna be HUGE!

Soooo...My group was Chris, Paul and David.

What problem did you identify?
People are afraid of the dark in Leeds.

What evidence did you find to support your decisions?
- 35 out of 50 people surveyed said they felt threatened in Leeds at night.
- Leeds had 12165 recorded assaults between January and December 2005.
- Stats from West Yorkshire police found that crime against students in Leeds happened most frequently on the A660 corridor.


What methods did you use to gather your evidence and what forms did it take?
Primary:
- We began with a survey (done by Chris) primarily identifying whether people were scared of the dark (in leeds). (Mainly quantitative.)
- Another survey on the internet for further research...

These images are pretty poor of the survey but this is a link to the actual survey:
http://freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=itz2akk5wlao8t2523396
It wasn't done by many people however, it gave us some qualitative research.
- After some secondary research, David took some pictures along the A660, of where we could put our solutions into the public.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmgasi/sets/72157610901207559/

Secondary:
- Research into existing (related) campaigns.
i.e. Stay Safe, Stay Secure booklet from Leeds university, Get home safe campaign from Stella, Get home safe in Belfast etc.
- Crime figures for Leeds. (Quantitative)
- Maps - of the route.
- Sticker artists (The london police was one that stood out)

What methods did you find useful and why?
All of them! Because they all contributed to our development and final outcome :)

How did these inform the response to your problem?
Secondary research showed us what sort of campaings were successful and as we intended to produce stickers, it showed what sort of stickers were popular.
Primary research gave us evidence that it actually was a present problem.

What methods did you find problematic?
To be fair...the surveys for primary research were somewhat problematic because we didn't get a huge amount of responses, however...it gave us an ample amount of information which was good enough!
Main method I found problematic...working in a group haha. Im terrible.
I don't blame the people from my group at all, we all produced a lot of work but I am such a control freak And find it hard to communicate with some people :s sooo, group work sometimes proves pretty hard for me. Sorry.

How did you overcome this? How will you address these issues in the future?
Hmm, for primary research i should probably just try and become more confident.
The other thing, i don't know? Maybe just shut up lol. Moving on.

What research didn't you carry out that would have proved useful?
I think we researched in a good variety of ways however, i think that maybe due to the nature of our problem...maybe actually going out when it gets dark and asking people of the public...on the A660 route (or near the universities). I think this would have been useful butttt, i wouldn't have done it so i wouldn't expect anyone else too :)

What five things would you do differently next time?
1) More primary research.
2) Be more organised.
3) Do the research more systematically.
4) Hmm.
5) Erm.

List 5 things that you feel you have learned about the design process over the past 2 weeks.
1) Importance of research.
2) Variety in research.
3) How well research can guide a project.
4) How research can change what you expect your outcome to look like.
5) Erm...that most crimes against students happen on the A660 :)

SOOO! Here's some visuals.

For my work, I looked at different types and taglines we could use for our 'campaign'
I thought I would make it look visually engaging, lol.
I went on to produce these. (i've already done a post on these so I don't need to say anything really.)


These are the only examples of Pauls work that I have. He wanted to go for a "cute" approach. Its not really my style but Paul developed it to look quite good.

As this is the only thing I had...I just put it on illustrator and simply traced it and added colour, it reminds of the MTV characters lol.
Davids work...I thought these worked quite well. I liked the one with the two figures on best as I think it portrays the messages best, but David didn't think it was needed.

Chris' work - To be fair, I feel quite bad because Chris did SO much work and I don't think we paid it enough attention/took it into account enough.
I really liked the graffiti teddy bear, I think with time we could have incorporated this into a different solution. The footprint idea is really good aswell...but I never saw that? I just stole it off his blog...like the other pictures lol.

Then we experimented with adding David's work into Chris's drawings and it works quite well! We would have used this for posters.

In the end, after doing a survey on which solution communicated best, we decided to use my Silhouettes and Davids type to produce a sticker.
I am pretty happy with the sticker...I think we could have looked more into the type because I'm not really sure about the one we used; as a group collaboration we decided to use this as a final sticker.
Soooo, we cut around the shape to make a...strange shape? Lol. But I liked it.
Then we decided to be naughty (tut tut) and go stick them on various surfaces alone the A660.
David took these because I didn't have my camera on me.
Noice pictures...
I want to go take some more though. There are only 3 of mine left up (or there were on friday) lol, Obviously people ripped them down because they wanted to keep such a beautiful piece of art :D
Chin Chin! x

Friday 12 December 2008

Intense...

I enjoyed the photoshop workshop a LOT! :D
I can honestly say that I would never have tried anything like this if it wasn't for the workshop, so i was Welllll pleased after it.

This is the one that I did in the workshop, I really like it! Its such a good way to fit so many different...ideas? or themes into one image.

Then I made this one when I got home :D I tried to reflect...me? through it lol.
- The camera - I love photography and I have that camera.
- The Ipod - I never leave the house without it.
- Pencils - I like drawing.
- Plane - Copy off the workshop but I like going on aeroplanes :D
- The tree - I took the photo
- The building - Wakefield cathedral...I live in wakefield.
- The person singing - I took the picture and its one of my favourite bands..
Mmmm, i love this stuff!

Soooo then! I decided...why not make a...logo? or whatever you'd call it, for myselffff. Woo.
I love it ha :)
Good times.

ByeeeE.x

Wednesday 10 December 2008

What if...

Soooo, on monday we decided our problem is People in Leeds are scared of the dark...and to solve it we would produce something to somewhat inform people on how to get around leeds safely.

I didn't go in to college today (wednesday) because I was busy in the afternoon and it seemed too much of an effort to go in for a couple of hours, so i kept in contact with them through email...
I was kind of working blind. But at least I made an effort...and I came up with these.
First off, I came up with some...tag lines? Or whatever you may call them.
- Don't be scared, be safe
- Travel safe
- Walk safe
- Stick together, stay safe.
- Stay safe, stick together.
bla bla bla.
I went with the Stay safe, stick together/Stick together, stay safe...
Here's a few of the visuals.
I like the idea of using silhouettes because....well, basically, im crap at making up characters? lol. And i like the characters you can portray through a silhouette.

Here, I was thinking about bus stops and feeling safe...being on your own etc.
This is pretty self explanatory...group of people walking...weirdo following them.

Here i just thought of type...because i love type :D
I quite like it....

I did more, but i wasn't gonna post Every single thing lol.

Because its group work it probably won't be used, but at least I have it for my records :D

night night.x

Tuesday 9 December 2008

Have a...

I never realised how much I liked envelopes until I saw this...


x

Sunday 7 December 2008

I'm lost...

So, we got told do research over the weekend for the group thing and i've only just realised...after looking around for a while...
I actually have no idea what I'm supposed to be researching.

I guess Im just gonna take in what I've got and hope for the best?

I HATE not knowing what we're doing. Im so confused :(

x

Wednesday 3 December 2008

Categorising.

So! With our 100 photos, we got into groups of 4 and laid them out in a certain way...in some form of categorisation method.
Firstly, we did it with our own photos.
We simply categorised them into 5 groups, the subjects that we were supposed to take photo's of:
Textures, Places, People, Words and Objects


Then...in our groups of 4, we got into pairs and went on to categorise other peoples photos.
I don't know who did mine...but this is what they came up with. I believe its in colour order. I like how they set it out.
Me and Leigh categorised Pearls and Ross'. We categorised Ross' in Time...Day to Night.
(The picture below is Terrible quality because I changed the perspective on it. But it is simple to illustrate what we did.)

We catergorised Pearls in Alphabetical order.
We determined what letter the image should go under by looking at the subject matter.

It sounded so easy when we were told what we were doing, but it was suprisingly hard to decide how to categorise the images and what order they would go in. Crazy...

THEN! We had to write down 10 subjects that were represented in our images, then we went around and ticked 1 subject on each persons sheet that we thought was best represented in their collection of photographs.

In the end, I chose Winter...and that was the one that had most ticks on it.

Now. I need 10 A4 sheets of primary research on winter and 10 A4 sheets of seconday research.
Go go go...
x

Sunday 30 November 2008

100 photos...

So, people have been complaining that the briefs are too "strict", or don't give us enough freedom...but this brief, made me go crazy lol.
And for that reason...Im not that happy with my 100 photos.

And the photo size 3 x 2.5...? That ruined mine aswell, lol. I sent them off to get printed, I put 2 images on one 7 x 5 page, and they look...pants. The quality is pretty poor but I know for a fact they wouldn't have been any better if I had printed them off on my printer plus I would have had to buy more ink. It also took away the effect of some of the images in my opinion...I wish I would have just gone for 6 x 4.

ANYWAY! I will stop blaiming the brief haha. Im just a bit worried mine won't be what we were supposed to do...as usual.

I chose landscape orientation and I took about 500 photos...and printed about 104 or something, I wish I knew what we were doing with them...

Night. x

Obvious.

Well. First off let me say,
I hate how weather or stress or people sneezing around you can make you ill...because I developed a cold last weekend and it was just...a bad cold on tuesday. But on wednesday :o I actually couldn't be bothered to move lol, because I knew I didn't Have to, I had no motivation at all.
Therefore...I missed the bloody martin parr talk :|
The one photographer who I have been researching since I was at high school.
And now I have a cough that sounds like a cross between a barking dog and someone whose been smoking about 30 a day for the past 30 years.

Anyway! :D Moan over...


2 Images off google...how crap am I? But I like them!

I love Parr's style of documetary photography; the colour and simplicity make them interesting to look at and they do actually document something.
His collection "Think of England" is so funny and true. More to the extent of how people "percieve" england...Tea, seaside, socks and sandals etc lol.

If I had one direct brief like 'produce images that sum up how people percieve england' I would hope that I would approach it in a similar way to Parr.

Woo.x

Britains missing top model...

This is where I first saw the next photographer.

Rankin :)
Well, John Rankin to be precise.

Now, I don't really take many portrait pictures but this is only because I don't like asking people if I can take pictures of them, I prefer them to Want me to take a picture of them...if that makes any sense at all. However, when it comes to inspirations or influences, I like a Lot of photographers that concentrate on portraits or at least pictures with people in them.



These pictures are just amazing. There is nothing else I can say about it...well there is, but thats the most important thing lol.
The clarity of these pictures and the honesty and reality that they portray is amazing.
Obviously these are just 3 pictures from a huge portfolio of work, and they're from his most recent collection I think...but they stand out to me :)
I really like the 'crispness' of the images and the contrast, it just makes them so eye catching and makes you want to look at them. Interesting!

Although Im contradicting what I just said in my previous post about the style of photography documenting something better than posed pictures, I think these shots...although they are posed...they are a lovely documentary images :)

x

At first I wish I hadn't looked at this...

Sooo...even though we handed in our module last week and were having a little rest...
It couldn't last for too long of course! Lol.
Seen as we got the next brief before we even handed it all in haha.

Im not gonna lie, I didn't look at the "Useful photographers" first, which was probably a stupid idea, because then I would have had a better idea of what to do :) Foolish.

Anywhoooo, I have looked at them for secondary research.

First off...Nan Goldin.

This is what I wish I hadn't looked at, at first! Because I simply typed it in to google and it came up with what looked like a child looking up another child's skirt or something? Lol.
But, after I got over that, I looked more and she's actually the kind of documentary photographer I like because for documentary photography, it doesn't look very posed!

She kind of reminds of Richard Billingham?


High class family, clearly.

The two pictures above are Billingham...

And the 3 below are Nan Goldin.


"Joana with Cigarette at the Chateauneuf de Gadagne, Avignon"

This one is called "Joan Crawford on fire; Thanksgiving in NJ"

I even love the titles of her work lol, so obvious but...especially the Joan Crawford one, Funny.

Both of the artists seem to take their pictures with a simple 35mm film camera, I think this, because of the quality of the images.
All the images are so simple and look somewhat "candid"; I think they 'tell a story' or 'document a moment in time' better than a posed image.

I have liked the work of Billingham for quite a long time but now I would like to do more research into Goldin.

Ahh :) Good times.x

Monday 24 November 2008

I forgot to post this...

My final mail shot :)

I have some better pictures of the final resolution, from the crits but I forgot my camera so I'll put them up when I get home.

And final typeface...

Not overly pleased with this, but I think it works quite well. 

See y'all.x

Well...Today is the day :)

When it will all be gone...
Module 1 - Deadline.

The only thing Im sad to see go is the last brief, my mail shots lol.

Looking back on the work we've done, when I was putting it in order, it surprised me how I developed in such a short space of time.

Mainly, becoming more involved with the briefs.

So...I enjoyed this module but, I sure am not gonna be sad when I hand it all in lol.

Thankyou :)
x

Sunday 16 November 2008

Oooo, shapes :D

Well.... I said I would take my shape alphabet into illustrator and so i did :)
I love it lol.

And then I added colour...mmmm. Except I think it might possibly look better without it?

Thats all. Thankyou please :)
x

Finally for today...

My beautiful envelope.
I got ridiculously excited by the idea of making my own envelope, so I got on with it :D
I have done other work i.e. my mailing list and message ideas. But I'll state that afterwards...

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Yes! It opens from both sides! :o

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NOW! I don't know about the brown paper fold out...is it too predictable?
Or does it relate too much to recycling?!...which in a way I suppose could could because of recycled words? :s

But...what about red or yellow?!

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I think yellow would be quite eye catching?!

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Mmmm :)

So, my message is "Everything has been said before"...Say it differently.
I intend for the fold out poster to be double sided, and very simple.
So one side will say "Been there, Said that"
And the other will have the quote "Everything has been said before..." Andre Gide, Literature Nobel prize winner 1947.
I also think I want to have "Say it differently" or something along those lines on the envelope, on the opposite side to the stamp and address.

My mailing list is going to be tabloid newspapers, politicians and publishers...as these are all saying things that we kind of know but they have the oppurtunity to say it differently.
I.e. Tabloid newspapers all have near enough the same stories in them, but how they say it can depend on the audience, like broadsheet papers can publish the same stories but because of how they say it...the audience is completely different.

If that makes sense lol.
It will all come together in the end! :)
x

Visual language...obviously the best 3 hours of the week...lol.

I've already posted about visual language, and the fact I do find it quite interesting!
Its also really helping in terms of communicating your message to your audience, good stuff.

Sooo...here's what I produced in the first week. With my lovely words from the Randomiser :| lol.

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I had to scan two of them because you couldn't really see what they them.

And here is what produced in the second week...

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Photobucket Snake

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Photobucket Dog

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I did have strong jumping aswell...but I can't find my photo of it, lol.

Pretty Crazy! :)
x