What is Graphic Design?

What is Graphic Design?

Write a brief that defines what you consider graphic design to be. Describe clearly what it's aims and outcomes are. Once written produce that brief.

Graphic design can be a variety of different things - advertising, identity (logos and branding), publications (magazines, newspapers, and books), advertisements and product packaging. It should communicate to everyone, and where-as fine-art can be subjective, graphic design should be clear. We had to create our own briefs to try and show what we think Graphic Design is. For me to get a broader understanding and the different types of design I first made a typographical poster containing lots of different quotes of what design actually is, using a variety of fonts. Reading these quotes gave me a better understanding of what design was and helped me when I wrote my project brief. 

"When you break it down into single parts, we do book jackets, we do record covers, we do logo designs, it sounds really dry, it sounds really dull, and I think a lot of people don’t quite realise how much it touches on their lives or the subconscious pleasures it can give or the subconscious ease it can bring to their life." Huw Morgan - Graphic Thought Facility

For fun I also created a poster poking fun at the graphic designer musts: Thick rimmed glasses, pantone items, negative space etc:

For me, graphic design is sometimes doing something you don't want to do. You need to be paid, and sometimes you can't just design quirky posters for art gallery openings. Therefore my brief was this:

Graphic Design is sometimes doing something that you don't like, campaigning for someone you loath, or advertising a product that you know is rubbish. With this in mind, pick a topic you dislike and creative both a postive campaign, and a negative campaign, preferably only shifting the design slightly. 

When designing for political parties I wanted to show sometimes you have to ignore your own political views and try and promote your candidate in the best possible light. I used images of each of the MP's eating (except for Theresa May so I found one of her grimacing) as I prefer natural looking shots over styalzied forced pictures. I also think, from the perspective of a polictical campaign, that shots of someone eating make the M.P's (an often out of touch breed) seem more human. I sketched out images of each of my chosen candidates, and imposed them on a posters using the Tory blue for the Conservatives and Red for Labour. It's amazing how a pithy slogan and colour can completely change the political backing. 

Impressions of London

Impressions of London

A visual and typographic essay

I moved to London two years ago to move in with my partner and to be closer to the university. I knew that living in London would be different to my comparitivly small town in Sussex. I grew up in a Village outside the new town Crawley where everyone knew each others business and the patrons of the local pub where I worked all had their own glasses. In a way it was stifiling - everyone I knew who hadnt gone to university were setting up home with their partners and working in office jobs - and after frequanting the same two pubs in the town centre, and the one club, I knew it was time for a change. 

Moving to London was going to be a shock to my system but I felt an exciting one. My partner lived opposite the Olympic Stadium in Bow and I had friends in Bethnal Green and Brick lane. I pictured myself in cooler clothes, drinking in Brick Lane every night with a cosmpolitan selection of artists and eccentrics. But after the first summer my priorites started to change, and the urban bleakness of the old industrial estate where my flat was based began to grate on me. I began dreaming of surburbia, of a local pub - not an overpriced gin and tonic bar, and places to walk to at the weekend. This apparently is not an infrequant occurance - I call it the London Cycle.

I decided to base my visual postcards of London on this - making light of the cliche's that happen when people move, and the change in views as the years go by. I wanted to use photographic images of London with my own drawings on top of them. I was inspired by 'fashion dolls' - cut out paper dolls that you could put paper clothes on top of in any style you desired. I drew the images with black outline and left them white, leaving the sender free to personalise their cards for their own means. 

My postcards follow the story of a young girl moving to London. With an assortmant of suitcases and no furniture, she moves to trendy East London to escape her country life. Shopping on brick lane, only buying "vintage" clothes, she hopes to be photographed for 'Dazed and Confused' or similar. She gets a job working as a runner for a television production company, earning minimum wage to collect coffee's and try and source increasingly bizzare lists of items. Eventually the bills from the retro clothes shopping start to fill up, so she takes a job as a Personal Assistant in 'The City', telling herself its just for now and she's going to leave these corporate arseholes soon and act/write a book/become a artist. However she soon get's used to the money, and the people aren't really that bad. Now those nights out are becoming less regular because who wants to queue at a bar for half an hour for a £17.50 gin and tonic when they could pop to the local offliceance for a bottle of red instead? No, she'd rather spend her money at the amazing Borough Market and have her friends over for a few bottles of wine and a home cooked meal instead. At least they can hear each other now. Eventually East London becomes too expensive, she's paying £1200 a month for a one bedroom studio apparment. Some tree's would be nice, and a pub she can walk to for a sunday roast. So she moves to a place in Kent, where she can sit out in the garden and grow some vegetables.

The story is a mixture of my experiences of moving to London, and my partners. I see it happening to some of my friends, and I thought this really gave a personal view of the London experience.

 

Mirrors

Mirrors 

Our homes are mirrors of ourselves - produce a visual discription of your home. 

To start this project we had to first make a list of our associations of our homes. I moved from my parents house in Sussex, into a flat with my boyfriend and also another flatmate in East London, and then a flat with my just my partner in West London. During this time I also had my parents move out of my childhood home, where I had reigned for 22 years, into a new property, in the same town, but to one where I had no memories. 

My list for the property I was then living in was for my flat in East London:

Balcony:

1 dead plant - now ashtray

1 view of Olympic Stadium (irritation)

Occasional peeping Tom

Living Room:

Coffee Table - formally a cardboard box with red blanket thrown over the top, now high-tech slidey black table from Dwell. A life advancement. 

Said Carboard box used to contain the TV. The TV is a monster, 52" and is the focal point of the whole flat.

Playstation - main stay of any house with men living there

Home phone: Recant acqusition - the only people who have the number are my parents and my grandparents. 

2 Chairs, ripped leather, "rescued" from the Bin Store on the ground floor 

2 sofas - navy blue from IKEA these came with the flat

The flat is open plan but we have seperated the kitchen and living room via a large black shelving unit, containing all our DVD's and books. Included in the books are Philosphy text books (flatmate Ben's degree) American History textbooks (partners degree) and graphic design books.

Kitchen:

Wooden stand alone table - this is my domain so covered in spices, rock salt, chopping board, recipe books

Coffee machine - no coffee pods. A gift from another couple for our new home (we are shortly moving)

Microwave - Before I moved in this sat broken for two years as they couldnt be bothered to replace the fuse. I sorted within 2 weeks. 

Kettle and toaster - donated by my parents

Oven - filthy

Dishwasher - never used. Broken and smelly.

A variety of kitsch cooking equipment - it's ok to be a female cook as long as you do it in an ironic way.

Bathroom:

Flatmates - disgusting.

Dining Room:

Rarely used glass dining table and a selection of board games. I am at the age where scrabble and a few bottles of nice red is much more appealing than a night out at Fabric (or similar). 

My bedroom:

Double bed - lumpy pillows and sheets

Bookcase - covered in a variety of items that don't seem to fit anywhere else including replica wrestling belt (partners) and Barbie and Ken dolls (mine)

Two wardrobes and two chest of drawers - literally bursting with clothes despite regular clear outs. 

What this rather pathetic list shows is that home is, and forgive me for this, really where the heart is. None of the above was really important to me at all - I loved that flat because it was the first place I lived with my partner, because of smoking and drinking red wine on the balcony, having parties in the open space and spending all day in bed when I was too hungover to go out (and had no parental influence looking on dissaprovingly. I therefore created my poster as a timeline of events that happened in the various places I've lived. It was the events that left me nostalgic for the places I've moved on from, not a broken microwave. 

A disaster waiting to happen

A disaster waiting to happen

Big or small/personal or global. This project is about causing consternation and anxiety among the populous. It can be reactionary or be subtly understated. Your project will contain a solution to the problem that arrises. 

One of my favourite types of literature is one that portrays a dystopian future, therefore a project that is about future disasters was something I felt naturally at home with. From 1984 by George Orwell, to Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick, my fascination with a future that has gone so wildly wrong is boundless. Most recantly I read Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road'. The Road is a story of a father and son travelling accross a wasteland that is scorched and nearly berifit of all life, after some either natural or man made disaster. One particular scene really resonated with me; the father and son had found an empty house, and set about searching it for food. They noticed a cellar door in the kitchen, and on opening it, found a collection of humans being kept prisoner, some with body parts hacked off but still alive, all emaciated. These humans were being kept as a food source by a cannibal gang. This particular scene really resonated with me - would I resort to the same tactics if I was starving - at what point does that become something you feel is acceptable to do? 

Cannibalism is something that used to be fairly widespread until around the 19th Century is parts of the South Pacific and tropical Africa. In Melanesia there was instances of indigenous flesh-markets. More recantly is has occured in wars in Liberia and Congo although this was strenuously condemned. The only known tribes that are believed to carry on the practice are the Korowai and some Melanesian tribes. This got me to thinking about what would happen if natural food sources started to fun out? If we couldnt synthasise some sort of tenable alternative would we start harvesting humans? And who would the first to go. 

Of course, as with most things, if someone saw profit it in, it would natually turn into a business, and be marketed to seem a much more socially acceptable thing to do. And who would naturally be behind this than the symbol of all corporate greed and evil, but everyones favourite fast food restaurent McDonalds.It already has thay "I shouldnt, but I want to appeal" so would therefore easily make the natural transference into human meat. 

I turned this idea into three difference posters and a book aimed at children to the nursery rhymes 'Old McDonald had a farm'. The posters all carry a the distinctive brilliant reds and bright yellow from their own branding, and depecit Ronald McDonald holding a finger and human heart, a dissection of the human body as if it was food (normally done when showing the different cuts of beef available) and a re-hased 'Happy Meal' with tongue burger, finger fries and a blood milkshake. Delicious. 

The book was made as a nod to the use of books to tell children something that may be difficult for them to hear in a friendly, sing-song way. I drew images of animals and intspersed them with the Old McDonald had a farm rhyme that I slightly re-styled. My version is as follows:

Old McDonald had a farm,

ey-ei-ey-ei-oh

And on the farm he had some Cows,

ey-ei-ey-ei-oh

He had some pigs and chickens to,

ey-ei-ey-ei-oh

But then those animals started to die,

ey-ei-ey-ei-oh

So what did old McDonald do,

ey-ei-ey-ei-oh

He started farming humans too,

ey-ei-ey-ei-oh

And soon Ronald came a knockin'

ey-ei-ey-ei-oh

"Let's take these humans and make some profit"

ey-ei-ey-ei-oh