Project 1: Self Directed Study

For the first project of the Graphics Pathway we were asked to construct a poster including a created artwork, a picture of ourselves and a brief description of our interests and hopes and aspirations for this course and beyond into the future.

Below is my finished poster:

Summary

After spending the last 6 weeks working through the rotational stage of the Foundation Course, I have been given the opportunity to realise my potential and to gain more of an understanding and an insight into the practises undertaken within 3D Design, Lens Based Media, Graphics and Fashion.
I have therefore chosen to continue working within the graphics sector of this course as I believe this is where my skills are strongest and it is also the area in which I have the most interest, in particular typography.

Fashion & Textiles, Rotation Week 4- Final Garment

In our final day of fashion and textiles we were asked to create a finished garment based on our previous days experimenting with different patterns, textures and where the garment will be worn.
Although I focused on headwear throughout my research, I eventually decided to make body wear in the form of a chest/shoulder piece because I felt my designs for headwear were better suited to the body.

I then had to find a model for my garment, in order to present my piece as it would be worn by a person.



Fashion & Textiles, Rotation Week 4- Patterns and Textures

Progressing to our fourth and final week of rotation, we had Fashion and Textiles.
Our first task was to create different textures and patterns by manipulating paper in various ways, e.g. ripping, folding, cutting, twisting etc.
We then had to duplicate one of our patterns twenty times, this would then lead on to creating a piece of clothing using not only our own paper forms but the forms of others in the group as well.
These are just some of the strange but effective pieces I created

Lens Based Media, Rotation Week 3- Story Boarding

As we progressed to the second day of LBM, a recurring theme of story-telling and narratives became apparent.
From the first day our drawings had a different narrative depending on the framing used and on the second day we had to draw characters which we both knew and were made up, alongside places of imagination or places we had seen/visited.
These drawings would make up the characters used in a short 6-frame story board which we then presented to the group.

Lens Based Media, Rotation Week 3- Framing

Coming into the third week of the "Rotation Stage" we were able to try Lens Based Media.
The day began with a presentation about the subject, then we were asked to select a photograph we had taken and to draw it on A1 paper using pencil

This simple drawing was then used as the focus for framing. We were asked to rip/cut/fold pieces of paper and frame sections of our drawing to given different effects which added a new perspective to the drawing and was able to give off an entirely new meaning depending on which section was framed by the paper.



Graphics, Rotation Week 2- Faces

To begin our second week of the Rotation stage, we had Graphics which began with a task involving drawing people in our group using our left hand, with our eyes shut, holding the pen in our mouth and as a continuous line drawing. This lead to some funny and childish drawings but was very interesting to provide a new perspective to the way in which we draw things.

 

Moving on from this we were asked to draw the ear of the person sitting next to us, we then placed all of our drawings together in a group presentation to compare the different drawing styles and the varying display of media, colour, style and complexity used.



3D Design Rotation Week 1- Spaghetti Structure

On our third and final day of the 3DD pathway we were asked to create a structure which would support 3 balls without them touching eachother or the table using only spaghetti and glue guns.
This project as particularly tedious when trying to fuse together pieces of spaghetti with the hot glue running within burning distant of our fingers! However, it was a very fun task, and although not my favourite I learnt a lot about designing a product before making it. The importance of sketching initial ideas rather than jumping straight into the task allowed me to think in detail about my structure and create something which would meet the specifications given

As a class, there were some very interesting and almost unbelivable designs

 

The second part of this task then related back to the paper manipulation of the first and second days in which we had to create a casing for our spaghetti structure in order to protect it from a basketball and also a rather heavy plastic cutting matt.

It is safe to same my casing was not strong enough to resist both forms of destruction, I could have improved by using a more structurally sound design, as opposed to the layering on top of my original structure



3D Design, Rotation Week 1- Bridge

On the second day of the 3D Design Pathway, we were asked to create a bridge which would be able to support the weight of a toy car, spanning a specific distant and using only 10 sheets of car, 30 bamboo sticks, elastic bands, and packaging tape.
This was a fun project which enabled team work and the chance to bounce ideas off of eachother and gave everyone a chance to have their input.

 

After creating paper models of different formations to help inspire us to create some unstereotypical bridge designs, we then had to construct a replice of our bridge using the described materials above.

Although the initial ideas were very different to our final bridge, we created a bridge which may not have been the most visually attractive but was practical and featured something which no other team had used, liftable end sections to transport the car safely back down to the table.