Visual Communications - Illustration Brief

For the second week of Visual Communications we focused on communicating the meaning of our metaphor purely through an illustration, no text allowed. For me this proved much more challenging than the typography brief, and it wasn't really until Thursday night (and typically the weekend after I finished Visual communications) that the ideas started coming. I spent so much time each day racking my brains, and when nothing was coming I started to panic. This made it even harder to think of an illustration.

I had some weak ideas, like a pair of hands holding small calender days, with the days slipping through the fingers. But that was all just disgustingly literal.

I took a walk around town on the Wednesday in the hope that divine inspiration would intervene. No such luck. On my travels I happened to pass an arcade. I remember being told once before that compulsive gamblers get so consumed by the slot machines that they never know what time of day or night it is. Somewhat relevant? Kinda. Anyway I had to try everything. I thought, for people in the arcade the days really do slip by. I knew getting photographs wouldn't be easy, but I tried to be as discreet as possible. As soon as I took the second photo I was approached by an angry manager. However I reassured him that the photos would not be made public (I feel bad now) and managed to haggle myself out of the situation without being forced to erase the pictures from my camera. I printed the photos below in black and white because I felt it communicated that sense of lost time and time not acted upon more strongly. I was hoping to incorporate these photos somehow into an illustration that would communicate my metaphor 'The days slip by';

I had some more thoughts on it too. I was looking at the idea of animals in a zoo, particularly those with long life spans, elephants, tortoises etc. I tried to illustrate how the days must slip by for these animals by using photographs of all the decades of people they must have seen pass by throughout their lifetime. For example, a tortoise lives for about 250 years. The back view of the animal was then in the foreground looking out at this line of people from all the different decades. Compositionally this was complicated, with the strength of the communication being lost. While I could work on simplifying the composition, I wasn't satisfied that this idea communicated my metaphor clearly. I then moved onto looking at objects I had when I was a child and looking at those I have now. Things that were indispensable to us back then and things that are indispensable to us now, then looking at the difference and the change in between.

I then started looking at children's toys, for eg. a play-doctor's kit. I was then looking at equivalent items to people my own age. Using photoshop, I placed half of a childs open toy doctor's kit containing a syringe, a jar and a stethoscope beside an open kit containing illegal drugs - a syringe, a bag of cocaine and a bong. All the items mimicked the shape of those that were in the toy kit. I looking at the idea of how innocence can be lost quickly (The days just slip by) and what events in between might lead up to this. Again this was over complicating the meaning of the metaphor which weakened the communication of it. Getting desperate for an idea, I retreated to looking at the movement of the sky (the changing from day to night). I made reels of abstracted cut outs of the sky ranging from day to night day to night.., all taken from magazines;

I cut the pieces at a slant to communicate movement and the idea of speed. I was intending on making an animation with these pieces to communicate the idea of the days slipping by. The plan was to turn off all the lights in the room, and with a torch and a video camera move along the row of sky cut outs, with the pieces of sky merging from the darkness, being illuminated as the camera and torch pass over and then retreating back into the darkness when the camera has passed. However this failed, miserably. These are some of the stills regardless;

Things were getting critical. It was 8 o' clock on Friday morning, and my assessment was at 11. And still, I hadn't an illustration I was happy with. I needed to use what was around me. I thought of my clothes and the things I wear everyday. All the combinations of outfits I must have worn since college started. So I landed a big ball of clothes down on the kitchen floor and started recreating lots of the outfits I've been wearing to college these past few months. The amount of variations I had made, made me realize just how unknowingly quickly the days slip by.These images were much more visually interesting too than anything I had done to date. When I was finished I ran into college and printed out these photos thumb nail size in a montage on A3 paper. I loved all the colours and I was happy with the piece compositionally. It wasn't perfect in terms of communication but it was the best concept.

Visual Communications - Typography Brief.

For my second elective I chose Visual Communications. I knew that Visual Communications covered a broad spectrum from illustration to product design to typography and more, so I wasn't quite sure what the two weeks would entail.

On the first day we were each given a metaphor that we would be working with for the two weeks. My metaphor read 'The days slip by'.

For the first week we were focusing on typography, which meant you could only use text to convey the meaning of your metaphor. I love text and typography so this brief really excited me! I began by separating out the metaphor, focusing on portraying the words 'days' and 'slip'. For the word 'days' I started off looking at the sky at different periods of the day, but quickly abandoned it on the grounds that it was very literal and boring. I was thinking of things/objects on which days were listed/stated on. I started off playing around with the library book stamp, printing the word 'days' made up of stampings of various days (I was able to rotate the stamp to change the day listed). The pictures should explain this better;

Although very typical, I was also cutting up old calender diaries that I found at home to make letters. I then used these letters made up of days of the year to write the word 'days'. I mounted these cuttings onto cardboard painted white to appear as though reels of paper had been cut up to make these letters, thus reels of days listed within the text. Again, I don't think I have explained this too well but the photos should do the trick;

Then I was looking at use-by dates on various foods and drink. I headed to nearby Supervalu, shamelessly creeped around the store photographing the use-by dates on a myriad of food and drink. The images that resulted were a collection of days. I loved the mix of bright colour within the images too, and I hope this will make for a striking piece of typography;

Now taking a more sinister approach I headed to a nearby graveyard to photograph the dates on the headstones. Photographing the day in black text on the stone background, the images resulting we simple but stark. I really liked the images that resulted. However the tonal range wasn't as great as that of the use-by dates, so I wasn't sure if it would be as noticeable a piece of typography.

I also experimented with newspaper dates. I went up to my attic because I knew we'd have things like ornaments wrapped in newspaper which would more than likely be from the nineties/early two thousands. And sure enough I found newspapers as old as 1991, nice and yellowed too. I mixed these with cuttings of dates from present day newspapers. I even managed to get my hands on a chinese newspaper;

Moving onto the word slip, I used various kitchen and bathroom substances to portray the word 'slip' slipping. I also had the text slipping beneath an imagery line and through a hole in the page. I also wrote the word 'slip' on the wall with finger knitted wool to appear as though it was slipping down behind the bed;

At the end of the week we had to present two typography design proposals. For my initial proposed finished pieces, I had the word days written on one piece using a collage of use-by dates and on the other using a collage of the graveyard dates. I wrote the rest of the metaphor using the Helvetica type face, with the word 'slip' appearing as though it was slipping. I chose the Helvetica type face as I believe it is sharp and clear, communicating clearly. I also want to emphasize the word 'days' as it is the most interesting piece of typography within the design. When I presented my ideas to my tutors they advised me to do away with the slipping effect of the word 'slip', opining that it took from the strength of the deliverance of the metaphor. They also advised that I improve the layout of the design as it was at present not clearly legible. Removing the slipping effect did in fact improve the clarity of the metaphor, as did re-arranging the layout of the word 'days'. I also mounted the word days on card board painted black to improve on clarity and define the text. This was my final typography piece;

Day Seven In Fashion

On Wednesdays we are left to work independently, without any guidance from tutors. This is always challenging as you have to work using your own initiative. However I always find that the most learning happens when your left alone to solve and deal with the problem. We had a Critical and Contextual Studies lecture in the morning so I was going to be pressured to get what I needed done, done. In the afternoon I retreated to visualizing and sketching some shapes in 360 view, and I devoted the evening to contextual research. In my searches, a piece I found to be particularly intriguing and innovative was the 'Mobius Dress' designed by Meejin Yoon; http://mystudio.us/ <--- definitely worth a read!


Mobius Dress - Some of the forms and shapes created on the body;