Design competition. Critique review

On Friday we brought in all of our current work for design competition, such as our live brief works, visual identities work and anything else related to the module. I brought in my new printed portfolio a part of my visual identity as an illustrator and my current work on the secret 7 brief and the work for beyond limits brief.

I presented my new portfolio and it was well received as I explained how I had evolved my work from being carried in a  generic black portfolio to an orange letter portfolio bespoke printed with my Illustrator handle ‘Ginge’ which is how I’m presenting myself to clients and the industry.  Imo very happy with how my portfolio looks as I feel I’m making a step in making myself stand out from a

crowd. Working with a sense of humour that I use to my advantage of taking an insult into my defining trait, I can’t count the amount of times I’ve had the word “ginger!” shouted at me like some kind of horrible insult, but now i actually like it and I’m called ‘ginge’ by my brothers and many fiends. This is also why I have made the colour orange part of my colour palette.

I presente my current work for the secret 7 brief but am not allowed to show my work as of yet until we are told to do so, but i did show my work the beyond limits brief. Ive taken on a surrealistic  theme to the brief and have decided to create illustrations and partial accompanying sculpture for a prosthetic thigh piece inspired by Viktoria Modesta and the album cover work to Bjork’s crystalline cd.

I am currently still in the design stages so I am experimenting with different mark making to convey the idea as suggested by Cecile.

Cecile ended the class by showing us her portfolio work and how she presents her work to clients and their ideas. Her finished work and display boats a professionalism we should all strive towards, the ideas are clean and she presents her initial ideas in hand bound books, this was lovely way to  present that i had not even thought of.

 

 

 

 

GingerMoose exhibition

As part of design competition, myself and Marta collaborated in a solo exhibition entitled ‘GingerMoose’, we decided on the name through personal nicknames for one another and the idea of possibly forming a studio after graduation. The preparation for the exhibition for me involved finishing of the pieces for the collection of art I was going to show, buying paper for prints to sell, budgeting for printing cost and material buying, sourcing cord to hang my prints from, nails etc.

Setup problems..

Marta booked the space for the exhibition for the entire day however we ran into a problem on the day of the exhibition. The student body who gave us the space did not inform the cafe that was in the space that we had booked it for the day, this caused a problem between my and i with the cafe owner. They also said that we could not move the tables in the space which was ridiculous due to the fact that we had to curate the space which means to empty it. However we made a deal with the cafe owner to leave the tables till 2, this was cutting it close for our setup as the show opened up at 5 but usually there is no one there that early so we took a gamble but worked like maniacs to curate the space in time. Hanging my prints became a nightmare as the nails would not penetrate the hanging wood I was displaying  my work from, my friend Leon aided me in hooking the black cord around the ledges on the wall instead of using nails. This worked perfectly. Crisis averted! After hanging al of my prints using paperclips, our exhibition itself was technically quite loft, we had no smart arse graphics or devices to display our work, we simply went pretty old school in our exhibition.  After setting up my pieces I set up my table to sell my stickers and prints. This didn’t take long and I had my table flush with Marta’s. We then set up a table with food and drink. I chose the table cover, plates and cups all in the colour orange as this was our signature colour for the exhibition. I suggested this to Marta as I thought it would show wed taken more interest into he decor than simply plain white table with food. We also chose childlike food, like hungry hippos and cheesy ball crisp. The tone of our  show was not a crisp clean and graphic design, we are fun and lighthearted illustrators. Marta had no problem in her set up other than the easel falling over twice with her work attached, we fixed this by manipulating the legs so the easel leaned backwards as it was top heavy.

 

The shows open..

We had music playing, the space was curated, the floor was clean, we had the posters and banners put up in the building, we were suited and booted and ready. Marta sold almost all of her prints and every sticker she made. I sold one print and all stickers. This was great for Marta and I but we were little deflated about the small turn out, a maximum of twenty people turned out and maybe we didn’t publicise the show enough, but a lot of the students from the course we returning from New York so we knew the turn out would be halved. We canvased around the university telling to come to the show. Two tutors came to the show, Ricardo and Kieron which was lovely to see!  We wrapped up the show around half eight. We received great comments on our prints and style of work from everyone who came, especially a group of  girls from the street who came in on their way to a dinner date with their boyfriends, this was really humbling.

Opinions and improvements..

I believe i didn’t realise how much work and consideration there is to an exhibition you curate yourself with just two people, it could have been publicised more and to a more professional level. By this i mean more consideration taken to the flyers which were made very quickly in last minute, which means time management was an issue but i struggle with this due to my cognitive disabilities but none the less this needs work.  However this has proved in informing Mart and myself on how we should work on our next exhibition, what to do and what not to do. More publicity and better advertising for the show is a major point and also the consideration to displaying our work in abetter way than we did. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enterprise & Enterprise.Collage.

As part of my FMP I looked at maybe using college as a way of visually communicating my ADD. Combining a lot of text, imagery with hand drawn work on top creates a very busy piece and this was what I was trying to work with, to convey the impulsively and hyperactive tendencies to ADD. This was just a play around, which i intend to revisit if I can find the right imagery where I will find images that convey dyspraxia to me, objects, places or instances and experiences, making the work deeply personal but well fitting to creating awareness of a disability. 

Empathy & Enterprise. Video Journal idea

After my tutorial with Susanna I toyed around with the idea of a video journal for my FMP documenting my experiences with add or dyspraxia. I made a mock up trial where I recorded myself speaking about my conditions as i drew on a aper pad. The set up was not exactly professional..I used a coat hanger to support my iPhone to record, I used a stack of dads each side to hold the coat hanger above my hands as I drew. I found this to be not very interesting for me as a designer, I didn’t think much of a video blog of me just speaking about myself, I wanted it to be something else..I”m not quite sure what but I’m not sure if i will continue with the blog in this way. But still it served as experiment and try outs.