Term 1 review

Specialist practice has challenged me with new ways of thinking that I have never done before. Take the first brief that I recieved for example, (true). This was such an open brief where by I could choose any statement I wanted and create a piece of design out of it, before I entered this course I had never been faced with such a brief. These work shops also made think about what brief to chose for the specialist practice unit.

I feel that I chose the correct brief as I this is the area of design that I would like to develop further as a practitioner. I have always been interested in web design and feel that by developing a portfolio based around this area of design will hopefully allow me to seek a job within this area of design. I was pleased with all of the work that I produced throughout this unit and will be pleased to put these projects into my portfolio.

BBC final outcome (iPhone)

Aswell as applying the product to a website I also chose to apply this to an iPhone, this way users can watch their favourite BBC content together where ever they are.

BBC final outcome

After developing the designs for the idea that I had for this project I have reached the final outcome of the website designs. These are some of the final outcomes to show what style I used and also the hierarchy of the website.

I feel that this idea that I have thought of is realistic and I could actually see this being made into a product for the BBC to use. The problem that I have stated is that if two people are too far apart from each other that they can't watch their favourite BBC programme together.

Work shop 3

I have been set a new brief which is the last one of the specialist practice unit, where by I am required to take one of Dieter Ram's rules and use a piece of design within bournemouth to express one of these rules graphically. Below features the 10 rules that I have to choose from

Good design is innovative
Good design makes a product useful
Good design makes a product aesthetic
Good design makes a product understandable
Good design is unobtrusive
Good design is honest
Good design is long-lasting
Good design is thorough, down to the last detail
Good design is environmentally friendly
Good design is as little design as possible

Work shop 3 (final outcome)

The rule that I chose from the ones set by Dieter Ram's was "Good design makes a product useful". From this rule I thought of various ideas, but one that I felt worked best was to use drawing pins to represent the rule. I then drew the type onto a cork board and stuck the pins in the appropriate places to create the type which spelt out the rule that I chose.

Orange Monkey

Orange Monkey player demo from Poke on Vimeo.

BBC Website (The problem and solution)

After thinking of different ideas for how to answer the D&AD brief that I have chosen in the best possible way, I have decided on one idea that I think works perfectly.

The problem

Take two people, who want to watch a BBC television programme together but can't because they are two far apart from one another to do so.

The solution

Create an aspect to BBC iPlayer that allows users to watch BBC content together, no matter what side of the country they are on. This will be done through the use of a web camera that is built into most modern computers.

I came across some work created by Art Director and Director Gustav Johansson, this is a great example of how to present your work as a designer. During my tutorial on tuesday I was told to think about how to present my work for the D&AD BBC brief that I am currently working on. I showed my visualizations to Martin and Phil during this tutorial and the main concern I felt that was mentioned was how it could be presented as a final solution. Rather than simply having square boxes of a website with pieces of type dotted off explaining each page. I feel that this way of communicating shown by Johansson would work well for the final presentation of my idea. Note as Phil stated in my tutorial D&AD briefs should be a really good idea, really well executed.

Explaining skype visually

After developing many ideas that I have thought of for the D&AD brief that I am currently working on I have decided to work on one idea which I feel is solid enough to enter the D&AD awards. My idea is to allow users to watch BBC content at the same time, for example if one user lived in Scotland and the other lived in England, and they both happened to want to watch TV together but are not able to because of the distance between them. My product will allow users to interact with each other and watch BBC content together. Its similar to Skype except that Skype only allows users to see each other, where as my product is designed so that users will feel as though the are sitting next to one another by creating a product places the users into a virtual room.

The video above is a great example of how Skype works, it clearly explains what the product does and how it works. And I feel is another strong way of presenting an idea across to the viewer.

iPhone 3G from Gadgets Malta on Vimeo.

After my tutorial for my D&AD BBC brief with Martin and Phil I have been thinking of different ways to present my final idea. As having square images of a website is not the best way to present an idea. The first image that popped into my head was the Apple i phone advert, this is a perfect example of a great way of presenting an idea, its clear simple and communicates to the viewer exactly how to use the product.

True (final outcome)

I decided to go back and re-visit the one week project that I got set at the start of the term entitled 'True". This is because I thought the outcome that I produced before wasn't good enough. I tried to think of a totally different outcome that I produced before as I felt that the statement that I used wasn't strong enough.

So I thought of different ideas that I could create. I wanted to keep it simple and to make a strong piece to put in my portfolio. The idea was to create a statement that would make the viewer read the poster and then take a second to think about what they have just read, then they count the amount of words on the poster and realise that it is a true statement.

Over the weekend I have been looking through the D&AD, ISTD and RSA briefs. I have narrowed it down to three briefs which turned out to be all D&AD briefs. The first brief involves creating a social and sharing aspect to BBC i Player allowing users to discover and engage with a greater range of BBC content. The second brief is to create an original and underground viral drive to a diverse and creative audience to the Fred Perry Subculture music website. The third brief is to create an unconventional brand campaign for The Body Shop to reinstate its position as the original pioneer of ethical beauty.

The main brief that stands out for me is the Body Shop brief, this is because branding is the field of study that I am interested in and wish to develop my skills in over this coming year. I also hope to retain a job within this area after my education at the Arts University College Bournemouth.

For the second weeks project we were asked to form a group and write our own brief. We were given a template which we were entitled to fill in with the problems that we found within the environments that we visited along with a solution to the problem. After a few days of getting out into the environment and going into environments that I would not normally go to we thought of a variety of problems within these environments. We spent a day as a group narrowing down the problems that we found as we felt that they were to broad. After a lot of thinking we decided on a brief that we felt was our strongest one to work with this was .... to design a service/system to help residents in a nursing home by designing an environment to encourage a sense of freedom.

After visiting a few nursing homes/residential homes we picked up on a few problems. I noticed that the residents found it hard to listen to the TV, I picked up on this straight away, and when I was talking to one of the residents we spoke about this problem and they went on to mention that some people don't want to watch the same program as everyone else. I came up with a solution almost as soon as we left the home this was to design a system were by each resident has a small TV attached to thier chair so they can choose what they want to watch, they would also be provided with a pair of headphones. The set up would be similar to the type of system one would find n an Airplane.

As a group we did not decided to design this solution as we found another problem within the home which we felt was more apparent. This occurred when we were talking to a resident called Albert. He mentioned that he misses doing the hobbies that he once left behind when entering the home. Above is our final solution to this problem, we decided to create a system were by the resident is allowed to leave the nursing home and go to a place were by they are able to still take part in the hobbies that they enjoy. Our system was designed so that each resident was given a card which stored all their information on it, they could then use this card to log in when they arrive at the destination were they take part in the activities. Also we thought if the resident loses the card there could be a system were by the resident scans there fingerprint and they will be logged in. We also thought about the staff of the home, so we created a website which would allow the staff to check were the residents are. Above features our final solution to the problem, which we presented in a pin up crit. I felt that the crit wet well as we received positive feedback, I also felt that our group worked really well together and we found answered the brief really well.

Today I had my second tutorial with Roger, this was mainly focused on our blogs and websites. I felt that this was very useful as we all got feedback on our blogs and websites, on how to improve them. Below is a list of what I personal was told to consider when writing a blog and designing a website.

Blog

• Correct spelling
• Readability
• Legibility
• Keep it updated (constantly)
• Inspiration, progress, ideas
• Documentation

Website

• Spelling/grammar
• Who I want to visit my site
• Navigation must be simple
• CV

Today myself and my group presented our idea for the solution of our problem. Our brief was to design a service/system to help residents in a nursing home by designing an environment to encourage a sense of freedom. Our idea was to create a 3d image of a nursing with each different environment placed into each room. The feedback we received was to not focus on designing the building etc as we are not architects, and were advised to go back out to as many nursing homes a possible to discover problems that the residents have and pick up on one of these problems that are mentioned through our conversations/observations and design a graphical piece from that.

Today I explained the change of my essay as I felt that the brands that I had chosen were not what I wanted to discuss. I explained the reason for this change to kirsten, who seemed to agree with me that this was a good decision if I felt the need to. Originally I wanted to discuss how the two UK's largest mobile phone brands (T-Mobile & Orange) have merged together over the recent years and have both become the largest mobile phone companies in the UK. During my research i felt that this is not what I want to discuss, as I wanted to discuss clothing advertisements. So explained that I was changing my brands to one brand (Levi Strauss). I explained that I wanted to use semiology to discuss the press advertising of Levi's. I was told that this was a good change as discussing two brands would be too long for only 4,000 words.

Whilst looking on typography served I found this simple design created by Canhur Aktuglu, the type has been created by using a black marker pen to fill in the circle shapes on the bubble wrap. Recently I have been looking for ways to experiment with type and I feel that this is a strong example.

The first brief for this year was to think of a statement that is true, and to then prove it by showing graphical evidence. I chose to to use the statement "Together black and white create a strong contrast". I decided to show evidence of this by creating a black and white typographic poster.

After looking through some of the links given by roger, I came across a website named Ted. Where one comes across a variety of talks on a variety of subjects, there is one specific talk that stood out for me by Ken Robinson.

This piece of typography was designed by Adolfo Correa, the design reminds me of the work of Si Scott because of the swirly lines that surround the typography. This design shows the development stages of how it has been designed, this has inspired me to draw more designs and scan them in and develop them.

Today I had my theory introduction and was met by our new tutor for this subject Kirsten Hardie. We discussed the time planning for the subject and consideration's for either the 4,000 word essay and also the 8,000 word essay. It was always in my mind to undertake the 4,000 word essay as I feel that this is my weakest area, but after the talk by Kirsten I was considering the 8,000 word essay. I have a week to consider which one I will be choosing as we were told that the deadline for our learning agreements is 22/11/09.

Today I received my first brief on BA Graphics, before the briefing I felt a bit anxious as I did not know what to expect. The first brief that I received was in-titled True.

The was to take a statement (proposition) and convince us that its true, or at least likely to be true.

I felt that this was very open and that a variety of designs could be produced from this. As this is my first brief I intend to think it through thoroughly. The brief was cleverly written as I could take something which is not true and convince them that it is true, this could be a good way of tackling the brief.

After returning back to the AUCB, the first thing I was told to do was to start reading the books that was given in the list by Roger. I have purchased three of these books, the three books that I chose to purchase were:

Designing Design, by Kenya Hara

Design in the elastic mind, by The museum of modern art, New York

Visual research, by Ian Noble and Russell Bestley

I intend to start reading the books straight away and will be updating my views throughout this blog.