ameinta - Tumblr blog

[ameinta]

Overall : L4 Evaluation

In my opinion, university is about independent studying. Though our tutors are very supportive through all the studying progress developments, we have to explore more by ourselves on finding references, expanding design styles, and software skills. The weight of each project is quite heavy but as long as I manage my time well, I’d be able to follow the learning flow especially with the support of AUB’s platforms and resources.

The way I manage time is to decide priorities, since the project timelines are overlapping with each other, I’m setting my priority for each development process according to the closest deadline and how complicated the development will be. This helped me to go through the unit without missing any project to present and classes to attend. In developing my design decision, research plays a huge part on it. When generating core ideas, I collect data of issues that are happening in the midst of the society so bigger audiences would relate and the bigger chance it will be helpful to the society. For me, that other than our artwork has to communicate something, it has to hold a purpose through the development process.

For the Intersections project, I tried my best to find valid background reasons to create a strong structure to work on. Though I’m positive on what to deliver in the early preparation stages, I realised that there'll be a lot of change in the process, supported by the feedback sessions. I love getting others' perspectives on my ideas.

Feedback took huge part on my developments, as in early of the development I wanted it to be a perfect binding book with BnW line sketches, but after presentations and tutorials it shifted to a concertina book with one line sketches, to a colored line sketches because one line sketches are very hard to vectorise. For the printing, I wanted it to be double sided but it wasn’t possible due to the machine so I have to be flexible and do it manually even though the folds did crease because the paper is too thick to fold if it is doubled. These are developments that are necessary because for me, it is also part of the beauty in making artworks.

Induction sessions are also very helpful in my development. I operate softwares so much better after the sessions and so do the workshop sessions like bookbinding and letterpress. I wanted to use all these skills in my final projects such as illustrating on procreate, vectorise on illustrator, layouting on indesign, and book binding for the concertina. These also led me to independently learn more features about the softwares to be familiar with it.

Overall, I can’t say that I’m fully satisfied with all my final outcomes right now, but I am enjoying the development process and appreciating myself for it. It was a great learning opportunity to learn more about ways to communicate something through aesthetically pleasing visual outcomes and it definitely made me eager to learn even more.

[ameinta]

[Intersections : Final Outcome]

After all the up and downs through the development process, here’s my final outcome for the intersections project!

It turned out not exactly 100% like what I want because there are some crease and imperfections, but I’m positive that’s the beauty of handmade art and I’m appreciating myself for developing this idea and project done :D

I learnt a lot through this 6 weeks project development and I’m leaving my book under the paper press machine and I’ll be submitting it physically the next day.

[ameinta]

23 November 2023 [Intersections : Developments]

Coming to the campus, I got my printed papers from Jordy. But unfortunately, the rolling paper printer won’t let me print double sided and even when Jordy tried to do it manually by printing one side, flip it, and print the other side because the paper was rolled one way so it gets all curled if printed both ways.

So it was printed on one side of two different papers and the only solution was to cut it up and stick them together side by side. I was kinda panicked since it’s not on my plan at all and I’m aware it might get crease when I fold the concertina since it was using an over 200 gsm paper.

However, the best thing that I can do right now is try to make it work, so I cut the papers, stick it together, and bind it to the concertina.

[ameinta]

22 November 2023 [Intersections : Developments]

Continuing my work from the campus, after vectorising all my illustrations for the book, I try to start layouting my book in InDesign. I used A5 page size and used 8 pages in one spread since I’m folding it to a concertina.

After layouting it, I got an idea for the text placement and colour. Since some of my illustration is splashed with blue brush and some are in black and white, I’m gonna make some of the words on my text blue too then pair it with the black and white illustration

Since my project is gonna be printed on the rolling paper machine and only staffs are allowed to operate it, I sent my ready to print pdf to Jordy and have to get it the next morning. However, I also tried to explore the other bindings for this book like staple binding.

I actually like how it turns out. It’s like the simple and pocket-sized version of what I’m trying to achieve my real final outcome!

[ameinta]

21 November 2023 [Binding Concept Collider, Intersections : Developments]

After waiting for the Risograph printing ink to try, which usually takes quite a long time, it’s finally the day when we are binding it to a staple book!

Hannah did prepare us the book cover, so we just have to fold it up and staple it down.

And here’s the final outcome!

I’m happy with how the zine turned out, the composition is very artistic and aesthetically pleasing <3

After lunch, I took time to print my A Different Point of View final outcome which is a poster

Printed on a semi-gloss 170gsm poster paper, I’m quite satisfied with the final outcome!

I actually stayed till late on campus today, continuing working on my Intersections project in terms of illustrating and vectoring

I left campus at almost 9 and will be back tomorrow to print :)

[ameinta]

20 November 2023 [Intersections : Developments]

It’s the studio day, where we work on our project all day in the main studio and have access to the tutors for help.

I finished my final prototype with the bus printed and glued on the back of the book to show to Briony who’s in charge for the studio day and my sign up tutorials

Looking at this, Briony gave me more references to look at. One of it that really influenced my final outcome later is :

https://www.pentagram.com/work/two-hundred-fifty-things-an-architect-should-know/story

Two Hundred Fifty Things an Architect Should Know by Michael Sorkin

Designed by a global creative agency, Pentagram (Brit Cobb team) in collaboration with Chris DeLorenzo (http://www.chrisdelorenzo.com/) an amazing artist who did the line illustrations and also created a portrait of Sorkin.

Continuing my work, I draw digitally on Procreate and try to put some splash of colors to the illustration.

Primary Colors

Blue

Looking at how it looks when getting printed out, I’m leaning to stick on the one color option which is blue.

I also vectorise my illustration on illustrator with the image tracing tools and tidies the line up manually using the direct selections tool and arrange the path or anchor points.

[ameinta]

19 November 2023 [Intersections : Developments]

I made the concertina and japanese binding book for my binding mock ups, and decided to go forward with the concertina binding technique.

I also glued my print mock up from the other day on the concertina mock up to see how it’ll look as the real product.

As the back of the concertina is still a blank page, I thought on adding a long body of the bus on the back page, referencing from the USA-based artist :

https://www.isabellarotman.com/ (2015)

[ameinta]

18 November 2023 [Intersections : Developments]

I made the bus trip to Salisbury and back to Bournemouth for my intersections project. It was a one and a half hour for each way trip so in total, I’m getting almost 3 hours worth of content to put in my book.

I started to do quick sketches and wrote what I saw through the bus trip, just to remind myself what to draw when I’ll be doing the digital sketch in Procreate and also recorded some conversations between strangers on the bus to listen again when I’m deciding what to write in the book.

[ameinta]

16 November 2023 [Intersections : Developments]

I went to the library to explore about papers and I found some papers that I think will work well for my book, but since it is only available online, I’m still trying to decide if I should make an order even though the deadline is like one week away, or should i just stick with what papers the VisCom course provide.

Later on the day, I tried to print my layout prototype out and I found out that the illustration is pixelated since procreate is a pixel-based software.

The solution for this issue is I have to vectorise it first since just like Illustrator, it is a vector based software.

[ameinta]

15 November 2023

I attended Jordy’s third InDesign Induction covering how to do more text formatting, page numbering, reformatting with styles, auto and manual pagination. I found these InDesign sessions are very helpful for my final project since I’m going to do the layouts with InDesign.

[ameinta]

14 November 2023

Hannah did an assessment talk, explaining things that we should submit by the 27th November covering the learning outcomes expected. She also did a short explanation on how the submitting system works both digitally and physically.

[ameinta]

13 November 2023 [Intersections : One to One Tutorial]

Presentation deck : https://liveaucbac-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/g/personal/2308576_my_aub_ac_uk/ERT0nP9-koRMiM2UUziAlgEBU3TELMnX7pNlE6sZlZ7gCg?e=H40b0N

I had a one to one tutorial session with Hannah and got some inputs; names and sites references such as Concrete Poetry, Sam Winston, Chapbook, and Peonygent.com. We also talked about typeface options which led me to choose the Ten Oldstyle to keep it delicate and she also advised me to put a splash of color into the illustration and see how it turned out. I was also reminded to start making my mock ups since the digital might look very different after it is printed.

[ameinta]

10 November 2023 [intersections : developments]

As how from the last session Briony focused on reminding me to decide what kind of binding that I would do for the book, I tried to search for some types of binding that I would try and choose to work with

I also tried to do mock-up illustration and writings to form a digital prototype followed by the layouting on InDesign

In this phase of development, I also took this moment to look for typefaces that would work for my book. What I found as the options are Serif or Sans Serif typefaces which are either the Ten Oldstyle or the Printvetica

[ameinta]

8 November 2023

Today is the second InDesign induction session with Jordy, covering topics like setting up roll fold documents, paragraph styles,character styles, object styles, drop caps.

We also exercise after the induction, designing a flip brochure. I wish I had more time working on it, but I had fun anyway!

[ameinta]

7 November 2023 [Book Binding Workshop]

In the maker room, Hannah is introducing us to the initial concepts of making a book, some language relating to it and a selection of different binding methods. We made some books with the essential tools that we got the first day of induction like cutting mat, awl, needle, scalpel, etc.

The session was so fun, we explored 3 types of book binding in the session together and I even stayed overtime to make the fourth one with some of my classmates because it is that fun and interesting.

[ameinta]

6 November 2023 [Intersections; Mid-Presentation]

Presentation deck : https://liveaucbac-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/2308576_my_aub_ac_uk/ER_MVGcz0ExPv9liIOwJUkMBGjIqt7UGPLGXADMdkvueFw?e=ymAe8R

With the developments that I discovered before, I made an update to my presentation deck from last time for the mid-presentation session with Brionney. Even though I’m using Design Thinking Process as my main stages to follow in this project, my tutors introduced me to The Double Diamond Research Process theory too. Following the instructions, I’m dividing my contents of deck to these parts :

Discover - The process starts by questioning the brief and exploring and researching the space.

The part when first time I ask opinions about intersections to the people around me, and use their inputs to find one topic that I wanna focus working on to highlights

Define - The second phase is to make sense of the findings, find the insights.

The part when I do researches until finding a bus trip as the topic I’m leaning to work on, reading journals to find the red thread or the core idea that I want to communicate to the target audience and combined it with the problem that’s currently happening in the society, I chose the well-being issue combined to the solution which is acceptance and commitment therapy.

Develop - The third phase is to ideate, conduct experiments and develop visual solutions.

Knowing what core idea that I want to portray and what issue that I want to solve, I decided to do a book and actually tried to go on a short trip to Christchurch as my primary research, looking if any inspirable non-verbal interactions actually happens in a bus trip. Finding that it does happen makes my desire grow bigger to share these wholesome moments to the audience by making illustrations and writings, referencing great books by awesome writers like Rupi Kaur and Alicia Cooks.

After the presentation, I got feedback and inputs from Briony and my friends mainly on how the pagination will be like, and what kind of binding that I’ll be doing. At first, I was thinking of making it just like an A5 book with perfect or staple binding, but after this session I’m also considering the concertina book.

[ameinta]

3 November 2023 [Intersections; Developments]

Convincing myself to take the bus trip idea as my project, I started to do some more research about it and public issues or problem that might trigger a discussion for this project to be made.

Here are some keywords point that I’ve made to support the purpose of making this project :

Well-Being Issues

Issue :

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/statistics/relationships-community-statistics

Alternative :

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/therapy-types/acceptance-and-commitment-therapy

Explaining how relationships in communities does affect someone’s well-being and vice versa. For instance, Someone don’t go out at all has the chance to be mentally not alright, and it’ll be hard to go out exploring the world if you’re already feeling mentally unwell. One of the therapy as a solution to this issue is the acceptance and commitment therapy that explains how someone’s learning to stop avoiding, denying, and struggling with their inner emotions and, instead, accept that these deeper feelings are appropriate responses to certain situations that should not prevent them from moving forward in their lives. With this understanding, the person will begin to accept their hardships and commit to making necessary changes in their behavior, regardless of what is going on in their lives and how they feel about it.

Non-Verbal Social Interactions & Humanities Actions

As how I want to communicate about wholesome humanities actions and interactions that often unconsciously happens on a public spaces, I chose the public transportation bus as my intersection space because of the interactions that happen are mostly non-verbal which is a very friendly approach to someone with a well-being issue like social anxiety for example.

Two purpose that I found working on this project with physical outcome are :

- Engaging societies to go out and take public transportation as an acceptance and commitment therapy

- As a visual read alternative to the people that still can’t get themselves to go out so they won’t miss out on the wholesome and inspirative interactions that at least happened on my bus.