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A recent drawing using mainly stippling method to draw my dog. Can be time consuming and a lot of work to get the positive and negative areas working correctly.

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WHERE DO YOU STAND? 

Reflecting of late I have been pondering on a very deep question. How far does our ethics, moral, values or even beliefs impact the way we are as a designer?

For example, if you were a vegan would you still design for Mc Donald’s if they came knocking? Or how about if you are a Christian and your employer asked you to design a poster on gay marriage. Or you may be about mother earth and conservation and what then when a mining company comes with a bag full of money as they want you to redesign their visual identity image.

 Would you, do it?

The above is an example but has had me wondering as a designer what are my ethics and how far am I willing to sacrifice and fight for what I believe in, even if ultimately it may mean reducing the opportunities that await out in the world.

Any design work you do professionally will carry your name so if you ultimately designing for one thing but oppose it on a personal level, you can see the dilemma.

Freelancing certainly would give more control on what briefs you take on. Where working for any company you will always have their own ethics, guidelines and values. As an employee, you sign into if you want that job.

Right now, I have no answer to the question I have raised, but it’s certainly one I will need to research more into and work out where I even stand.

 Image - http://fistfuloftalent.com/2010/11/where-do-you-stand.html

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NOT ENOUGH TOMORROWS

  If only I had another day or another I do it tomorrow up my sleeve. At times, my time management is poor through assorted reasons. This certainly again came to the floor through my underestimating how long it would take for me to complete the Pecha Kucha presentation.

While researching Ken Cato was an interesting and intriguing process. It was putting it together where the time began to drift away.

Finding Images that would relate to my notes I had made, started to become like finding a needle in a haystack.

Even at times I would struggle once I found an image appropriate, to then put the right words with what I wanted to say. Often if I got up and walked around speaking off the top of my head about what I would say that things would come together. However, to write that down became a road block.

In the future recording those moments of speaking out loud so they aren’t lost would certainly make a better use of my time.

 Recording audio was also problematic, while the slides would automatic change after 20seconds. With audio, this wasn’t the case and this cause an extra action I had to remember while recording to manually change the slides myself.

This process certainly made me more flustered and with minimal time left to submit. Meant my product was a little too rushed in trying to have a fluent audio across my presentation.

In the future, I need to make more of a structural plan in breaking down what is required to allow myself more time to review the presentation in submitting. Because a Pecha Kucha should flow and be intriguing and not end up a car crash of words with images.

Image Reference - http://www.thedutchphdcoach.com/about-you/more-time-for-fun-things-in-no-time/

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HOW MANY PRODUCTS IN YOUR HOME HAS THIS LOGO ON IT ?

Why am I asking you this you ask ?

Well recently after researching Ken Cato who is the designer of this fine logo. I now see it everywhere in my home. From the breakfast cereal pictured above to frozen vegetables, vegemite, potato chips, frozen fish and much more.

There would not be too many logos or maybe none at all which has more placement inside everyday home then this one.

I challenge each person out there in Australia, that I bet you find this logo on half a dozen items in your home.

Apart from that it is a pretty cool logo with the two tone colours which are associated with our sporting teams and the  kangaroo which is native to Australia.

Just shows how successful a minimal design can be placed on so many products in the world around us.

References -https://au.linkedin.com/in/kencato

 Image - Jay Muldoon

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WORDS AND TYPOGRAGHY BRINGING IMAGES ALIVE

I had never really pounded design with the use of words or type and how that relationship worked.

One of the recent presentations in class had made it clear that an image within a book can come alive through the reader engaging with those words to interact with the image.

Another presenter had focused on Neville Brody and how he pushed the boundaries of typefaces into design and his work, through magazine layouts, album covers and posters. Through this visual language and element of design he was able to approach these changes to experiment with his typefaces he designed in the 1980’s.

These two presentations reinforced to me was the importance of the use of typography and words with design. That without type or words with an image it doesn’t tell a story or communicate to the viewer unless its performing an everyday action within the image.

As a designer, this now has me thinking more deeply with my own projects about the use of type I use or the words I choose to associate with an image. Is it successful enough to engage with the viewer to interact to make the design ultimately come alive?

As I move forward this will be a key part of my development within my work to ask myself this question.

References – Class Presentations, 4th October 2017

Image - http://www.ubuntuimages.co.za/its-alive/

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MINIMAL IS THE WAY TO GO

 Right now, I am working on creating a web design based on a town of my choice to be viewed on a desktop or mobile which is the latest brief for my projects class.

One thing I am very good at is putting too much information on a page.

Reading the article by Marty Neumier has made me now be conscious to make sure I am minimal with what is required on each of the pages I am developing. 

To not shove a link here or there or extra things that may look fancy but serve no purpose at all.

As a designer, it is important that the viewer don’t get frustrated, flustered or uninterested because of too much being thrown at them or it being difficult to navigate. 

A positive experience starts more with taking away what’s on the page and being minimal. So that ultimately it provides the result I need to aim for a user-friendly result in my design.

Article Reference – Neumier, M. How To Bridge The Distance Between Business Strategy and Design. Image Reference – Jay Muldoon

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Around a month ago, I had to vote in my local government elections. What does this have to do with design you ask ?  Well I received this  instruction leaflet for postal voters in the mail. What interested me here is the image of a hand holding a envelope ready to be put through a slot. It  is an example of how isotype is still  in use in todays society.

Image - Jay Muldoon

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POST DIGITAL ALIVE IN NEWCASTLE 

Not using the mediums or the tools that made up post digital era would be a mistake.

 As a designer, you want to stand out and in a day where most things have gone completely digital. Using what came before for little subtlety touches can bring a certain style or aesthetic to one’s work.

 Typewriters to input text as a different form of typography which you wouldn’t find on your computer is one way of doing this. For me it isn’t a sign of rebelling against the current system or as address in this article I have read. For me it is a way of embracing mixed media.

 The author Geoff Cox has talked about how there is push back to post digital methods such at printmaking. On a local level in Newcastle I would disagree as we have always had Newcastle Art School offering this in their Diplomas and one of the most recognisable artists teaching it in Michael Bell.

 On top Newcastle still has the Newcastle printmaking society and remaining students enrolled in fine arts at University of Newcastle so while printmaking may not be as strong as it was many years ago. On local level, I don’t believe that there is an influx of those rejecting current media devices for this post digital medium.

 One could argue that perhaps with fine arts finishing up at the University that the theory Cox suggested. Locally in time once printmaking becomes almost obsolete if it isn’t offered anywhere that then a rebellion may come back to the post digital medium.

Article Reference – Cox, G. (2014). What is ‘Post-digital’?, 1-21. Image Reference – Jay Muldoon

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Is there more to photography than what it seems?

  How do we know the meaning of a photograph without some information or a blurb? Photographs are left to the viewer to engage with. However, through human emotion it can be lost and the objects in the photograph can be missed.

 A success of an image comes from the ability to perceive what it is telling the viewer. With social media sites as Instagram. The hashtags or the few lines of information underneath. We are more likely to conceive what we are seeing but perceiving what it is about would be missed. This is important because without this you do not understand the language of photograph if its expressive or critical.

 As a designer is the use of a photograph the best way to communicate a product or idea, without some text or information with it? This leaves a greater chance of error or the main points being missed.

 Where if an image is purely design on a digital platform from scratch. It limits anything being hidden and a greater chance of those viewing it, understanding what is being communicated.

Article Reference – Barthes, R. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, 1-10.Image Reference - https://www.shutterstock.com/video/search/camera-lens-close-up/

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So a in situ mock up of my work in a more engaging setting. Let the daydreaming and anxiety start of how they can look better in another setting in the future.

Image Reference - https://au.pinterest.com/explore/master-bedrooms/

Artwork Images - Jay Muldoon

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FUTURE THINKING NOW

The insight into how the viewer sees objects, advertisements and products is important to understand. As an artist and a designer, I never realised the importance of how the past and the current can be so crucial. I have found that my designer skills can help in selling my artwork.

The current article I have read called ‘ways of seeing’. I have now seen that engaging people into wanting a product that they do not have is so important and to play on that anxiety of the public.  

As a designer, I now see that in situ mocks ups can be much more than just basic advertising. The food for thought is an artwork used as an advertisement on a train I did earlier in the year doesn’t work as effectively as a real life setting of an artwork on a wall in a house mock up.

Putting works into what they would look like in real life settings gives the chance to play on the emotion of the potential buyer that they may feel it could be displayed in a better way and in turn enhancing the chance of a sale. It also brings the past to the now. This engagement is required to get the viewer to daydream to think what can be if they have this piece in the future.

Article Reference – Berger, J. Ways Of Seeing, 129 – 155. Image Reference - http://www.belden.com/blog/datacenters/Installing-Category-6A-The-Future-is-Now.cfm

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Choices as a designer to communicate are unlimited

As a designer it is great that there is many ways to easily communicate with people now through the many cultural interfaces of which the digital world brings. The past restrictions of traditional storage such as paper, film and glass were for many years were some of example of cultural languages in use. The digital world has made it so easier for people to navigate and digest information but also to store it as well without taking up physical room.

However through this liberation that has occurred it brings also more problems because there is more options to choose when wanting to communicate. The need to know the audience is more crucial to correctly choose and use the right interface platform if it’s digital or traditional storage.

So do the choices of designer now days bring an unlimited freedom or more of a burden?

 Article Reference – Manovich, L. The Language of New Media, 69 – 89.

Image - https://www.smartsparrow.com/2016/04/07/designing-for-meaningful-choices/

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ISOTYPE STILL IN THE DNA OF TODAYS WORLD

There is a very distinct influence from Isotype.

 From the early 1920’s of when Otto Neurath gave birth to Isotype. In having a visual language that would be universal for the world to understand. Nothing has changed to this day with the need of information to be designed in a visual context to help ordinary people to be educated to make inform choices. 

You see this when you look at iconography, from that running man that represents which direction an exit is in a building. Or through the flyers handed out at state or federal elections that use pictograms on where and how to place your voting slip. To also the workplace health and safety posters which informs a person on how to be on a workplace site.

 Emoji’s could also be argued as the modern day pictographs evolving through the dna of Isotype. Emoji’s are universally understandable and being updated all the time. This is a classic example of how Design is not timeless or forever as Neurath discover when rolling out Isotype through graphs, charts, diagrams. This is all of how Isotype is very much alive in the design world today.

References – Burke, C. (2009). Isotype representing social facts pictorially. Image - https://www.mcgill.ca/channels/tag/epigenetics/channel_news

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Exercise in class, applying Isotype in showcasing instructions on how to boil eggs. This was without the use of words, numbers or letters. Seemed so easy at first but certainty was more of a challenge.

What I learnt was to make sure things are clear and easy to follow. The importance of which way the instructions are meant to go if it’s left to right, vertically or horizontally to be followed. The use of arrows which can clarify this and being bold and big enough for the viewer to see.

  The exercise was a good reminder of even the simple things to keep in mind when designing a set of instructions.

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Quote of the week

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Design and Modernism really made me ponder how much of an influence it is still today. Modernism gave birth to clean geometric forms through apartments on a large scale in the use of architecture. You see this is still apparent today if you take a leisurely walk around the centre of Newcastle. Through the multitude of apartments built on similar scale, size and simple athletics is all around the city.

In the early 1900s Modernism was clearly recognisable with design through adjectives of being clean, neat and pure to improve conditions of living.  Modernism quite often wrestled with the flooding of decorative items in stores that a person is not as cultivated. It could still be argued that decorative items to some extent are still in stores today such as the reject shop, hot dollar etc. So, similar issues as it were in early-mid 1900’s are still relevant to a certain extent today.

 As I evolve as a designer moving forward would my work stand out more if I keep in the lines of working clean, neat and pure. Or would I not be as cultivate if I went in and do a lot of decorative pattern work and does that in turn blur the lines?

 The qualities that have worked so well in the past in Modernism are perhaps essential in moving forward as a designer but also paying respect to those who have laid the platform before us in moving into the future.

Article Reference – Woodham, J. (1997). Twentieth Century Design, 27 – 63.

Image Reference -  http://www.street.net.au/Projects/Apartments/Verve-Residences

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HISTORY REPEATS

In a recent article I have read it has made me realise many things about the Industrial Revolution and the way design played a part in it. During the Victorian era with Marxism, designers hoped that the work they did would lead to awareness in addressing issues such as the working conditions and bringing about the changes that were necessary.

The use of early photography in the 19th century brought in the very mass media and advertising which has evolved into the graphic design field. While newspapers and buildings may have been a way for the 19th century designers to raise awareness about living and working conditions, this was a foundational way for designers to use their voice which has influenced in the current day.

  As a designer, there is more opportunities due to platforms like social media which has made it so much easier to interact with all people around the world. Today platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr etc., are used to present images/photography, text and hash tags to describe or voice a view about current issues facing our society e.g. marriage equality, free the nipple, mental health etc.

While social change had been a lot slower to change back in the Victorian era, it is this human characteristic in design which has led to the evolution of it, and it is much easier to bring change to today with design.

 Article Reference - Eskilon, Stephen J. Graphic Design A History. 2nd ed, 25-53.