Finalising Project 1

So after a lot of trial and error, I’ve come up with a few images which I am quite happy with. Initially I was struggling with reconciling the material (concrete) and the meaning behind the word honest. I explored different ways of approaching it, including using thread, which ended up losing the meaning of the material. In the end I felt that retaking some photos using light shone through a stencil highlighted the dirtiness of the concrete, which is where its honesty lies.

These are my three final shots. I’ve included a lot of patination in the concrete I chose for the composition to highlight that this is how concrete acts as a material – it weathers, ages and becomes imperfect – and there is beauty in the material because of this.

Any feedback on which photo I should choose is welcome!

 

 

Project 1 Sketches

I’ve been developing my concept for project 1, and have done a few sketches to try and work out how I want to approach it.

I initially explored the idea of suspending card pieces over concrete to create a shadow of the word honest, but this would have been hard to achieve when shooting outside on concrete. The other option above left uses transparency sheets which could be overlapped. These would cast a subtle shadow onto the concrete sidewalk below, which would allow the ‘honest’ quality of the concrete (the patina, dirt, texture, etc.) to show through. This may not be effective enough to cast a shadow though.

Further developing this idea, I started looking at the idea of creating a stencil out of card, which either light or shadow could be cast through to form the word on the concrete below. I’m not sure which will be the most effective; I think I may have to do some trials to see which turns out the best. I’m happy with the direction the project is taking so far though!

Design Document Layout Part 2

Following the initial sketches for the publication layout, I’ve created a few different options in InDesign, trialling my ‘inspiration’ page. Let me know which one you like best!

Design Document Layout

I’ve been trialling a few different layout options for the design process document for project 1. They’re all quite rough at this point in time, but I’m hoping once I start trying these options out in InDesign I’ll be able to refine them further to create something I’m happy with!

 

Typography: Week 1

For Project 1 my given material was concrete and my given word is Honest.

I’ve been exploring ways of affecting the word onto the concrete without having to use it to form the word itself.

I thought this was a really interesting way of placing the word onto the material surface in a non-permanent way. This could be great as whatever surface it is placed on could imply a different meaning.

Another non-permanent way of placing a word onto concrete is using another material – in this case soil – super-imposed over the top of it. I’m not sure this would work for this project however, as it would dilute the impact of the material, rather than allowing the concrete to come across clearly as the dominant material.

This idea is probably the closest to what I’m currently thinking. This example uses shadow created by the different shaped pieces of card suspended above to create the Kanji characters below. I’m thinking I could try something similar, maybe using a stencil to create a shadow onto concrete with the word honest on it. I need to further explore how this would relate to the meaning of the word given though.

 

A few different mind maps of the two given themes. The overarching connection seems to be between concrete as a metaphor for definite and substantial and honest being truth and authenticity. I could use these together as a definite truth, looking at the concrete as a way of conveying something we know as a fact; or maybe exploring the authentic nature of concrete as a material. These ideas will be developed further throughout the week.

 

Reference List:

‘Best Graphic Design of 2011’ 2011 [image], Best Graphic Design of 2011 in Dominic Dominguez’s Ideas Board, Pinterest, viewed 18^th July 2016, https://au.pinterest.com/pin/384565255653864248/

‘Observe’ n.d. [image], Observe in Christian Notland’s Inspirasjon Board, Pinterest, viewed 18^th July 2016, https://au.pinterest.com/pin/394839092303557940/

‘Shadow Type’ n.d. [image], Shadow Type in Ting Saw’s Art Board, Pinterest, viewed 18^th July 2016, https://au.pinterest.com/pin/169940585914787947/