msvisoml5

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Tuesday 14th June 2022, Final Product

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Saturday 11th June 2022, Video from yesterday's experimentation

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Saturday 11th June 2022, Reflecting on yesterday's experiments

Yesterday was the first day I experimented with p22 blocks, and apart from the smaller experiments I conducted at the start, I also did some longer (and very time-consuming) experiments to explore further.

'Hello! This is a test for concepts of visual language'

These photos above represent the p22 layout I created on the roller and my final print. Surprisingly (but unsurprisingly in hindsight), laying these all out was pretty difficult! It took a lot of thinking and double-checking, and as this is my first letterpress experience on my own, I can really appreciate the craft that letterpress is... it's not easy!

After, I decided to experiment with how I can implement colour into my designs. I printed black first in different groups (as I didn't have as many dividers as wanted) seen below, and left blank lines in the middle that I then went back with and put red. The red didn't turn out as seamlessly as I had hoped. But in all honestly, it was getting so close to the end of the day that I almost rushed it and I wished I had spent more time properly thinking every step through.

Above is my guide on how I structured my letterpress. I created a grid with spaces that each represented 25mm x 25mm. This helped me visualise where to put each block.

^this was the scrap paper that I used to roll the roller back over the letters (to make sure my original print didn't bunk up and fold the paper). I loved how this turned out and I think it's really interesting to see the layered effect, and refreshing to not have perfectly sequenced blocks.

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Friday 10th June 2022, First Experiment with printing!

To kickstart my experimentation day, I started by doing a simple 'hello', one single block, and the phrase 'hello! This is a test...'.

^After this print I encountered a problem, p22 blocks print backwards (duh), I then made some minor adjustments to my code reference sheet by adding flip arrows to relevant blocks. This helped me understand my outcomes a bit better.

^ See how 'e' is flipped in comparison to my initial key

^'Hello this is a test' RIGHT way round. I decided to experiment with having a smaller spacing between each letter but realised that this spacing didn't give the weird pattern effect that was trying to go for.

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Thursday 9th June 2022, Creating p22 code

Today I created a simple code out of p22 blocks using the alphabet and a few key punctuation pieces I thought were necessary.

My process was simple, I just randomised the blocks around my key, making sure I rotate some of them to ensure I have enough to cover all areas.

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Wednesday 8th June 2022, Speaking with lecturers

After creating my p22 idea page, I decided to speak to my lecturers about my ideas to get a second opinion and a guide in direction. Sally suggested that I strip pack my idea of applying a single emotion into a glyph and instead assign a glyph per letter. She also suggested that I should base my 'story' on a pre-existing interview. This suggestion would add more depth and narrative to my story and this is something that I want to consider when finalising my idea.

I looked at a book by artist Kapitza called geometric. I loved the way the book on one side was full of black and white patterns and on the other had lots of colourful patterns. It's quite striking to see the patterns and familiarities between the different colours despite it being opposite ends of the book, showing the importance of colour and the way it makes you feel. The black and white side was interesting visually but made me feel quite neutral and plain, whereas the coloured side made me feel more vibrant and curious.

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Wednesday 8th June 2022, seeing what I can do with P22 blocks

Today I did some experimenting with the p22 blocks (blox). Using the stencil that came with the collection of blocks, I drew around them all, scanned them in and then created shapes (to scale) on illustrator. Then, using my colour wheel and identifying 'happy' or 'sad' P22 blocks I added colour to the appropriate blocks. Using a random order, I added them to a document to see how the shapes interact and look together.

In conclusion, how they interacted with each other looked nice, but didn't have the flow I wanted. I believe this is because of the orientation of the blocks and I want to find a solution to make the whole thing more interesting.

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Tuesday 6th June 2022, Experimenting in other areas with dingbats

Here's a collection of artboards with experimentations regarding using shapes as code. I don't believe I'll go down this path as I feel it all looks too static, but it was useful to try it out.

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Monday 6th June 2022, Colour and emotions

Taking inspiration from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's colour wheel/theory, I decided on the importance of colour in terms of context, which will be in my dingbats and shape. Here's some work I did in my sketchbook alongside a quick mockup of my own colour wheel.

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Friday 3rd June 2022, Wingdings/Webdings/Dingbats

Here are my sketchbook ideas for dingbats, an idea that I am going to carry with me till the end.

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Thursday 2nd June 2022, Presentation, feedback and moving forward.

Here are the slides that I presented yesterday for our final crit.

My presentation was very transparent to my lecturer and my peers; I still had no idea (really) what was going on and where I wanted to move forward. I showed sketchbook ideas alongside examples of dingbats (which I still really want to use but feel as if I haven't experimented with them enough).

My feedback was positive and helpful, with everyone understanding where I stood in the project in terms of being a bit behind.

I'm feeling motivated and ready to move forward with my project, but with just over a week until hand in, I have a lot of work to do.

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Wednesday 1st June 2022, Print room experiments

Today I went to the print room with the idea of using alpha blocks (p22 blox), and did quite the opposite.

Here are the sketchbook pieces I achieve with the p22 blox stencil. Unfortunately, I was unable to actually print with them due to certain circumstances, but I still experimented with them as I could. To help classify a system of emotions with shape, I categorised the different stencils into what I thought was happy, sad or neutral. Most of the 'happy' blocks were full of curves. Whereas the 'sad' blocks were made up of pointy and sharp corners, suggesting stress. The neutral blocks were simple shapes.

With these categories in mind, I started experimenting with spelling out the words using the different blocks. This is what you can see in the second image above.

After doing this, Joeseph (print and bindery tech) suggested that I experiment with what emotions show what shape. Here is a page full of ideas of what I thought different shapes represented emotion with.

After identifying these shapes, I cut them out using grey board which I then ran under the print roller, almost creating my own kind of letterpress block. Here are my results;

It was useful thinking about not only the shape but how its cut out and placed, as this can affect the way we perceive them even more so than the shape itself. For example, the circle shape with the cut out hole (lost) has tonnes of different meanings and perceptions based on what colour paper I put it on or even where I place it in a room.

This afternoon activity helped me think about creating my own shapes and also how easy it is to use the print roller!

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Tuesday 31st May 2022, Alphablock ideas

Here's a page full of sketches for my alpha block ideas. I am looking forward to getting to the studio tomorrow and experimenting with them.

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Tuesday 31st May 2022, not being stuck anymore!

Today I spoke with my lecturers about how I'm feeling at this point during my project. They heard me out and gave me some great pointers for the next part of my project, mainly focusing on dingbats.

Here's some notes/research conducted after our talk.

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Monday 30th May 2022, IM STUCK

Still to this date, I have little to no idea what I'm actually achieving in this project and it's scaring me as the deadline is fast approaching. I keep finding ideas and experimenting with them, but then changing and exploring other options after tutorials and crits and I really wish I had a solid idea.

In my research this term I feel as if is the strongest its been in my time at uni. This is great, obviously, but I also think that I've been exploring artists, movements and websites more than I've been practising refining my idea -its stressfull.

To help counteract my confusion, I quickly whipped up a 5 minute mindmap where I identified a few questions: What have I done? What do I want? What do I like? What steps should I take now?

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Friday 27th May 2022, Briony Hartley workshop (last one! :( )

Today we had our last workshop Friday with Briony. This week, our task was to design some social media assets for the secrets in stone exhibition we created a poster for last week. Additionally, we made some icons for our VisCom Instagram, because we all agreed that the page could do some work.

Having Briony come in over the last few weeks has been such an interesting and motivating experience. It's amazing to hear her story and get insight into her design processes. The things she taught us are skills and lessons that will help us in our creative careers in the future and I'm so thankful to have had that experience.

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Thursday 26th May 2022, Myers Briggs Personality Test

Today I did the Myers Briggs personality test. Similar to the adobe creative type personality test, this test helps you identify who you are as a person. Even though Adobe creative type is based around the creative personality aspects, this test is an all-rounder

Looking at this test has been interesting for my mini FMP, but its complexity and lack of creative questions make me think about whether it can be directly relatable to my project.