Meeting with tutor group
I went along yesterday not all that happy with what I’ve done so far, I think especially because I’d done the same as previous projects in leaving making until the last day. I really have to be strict with my timekeeping, I’ve decided, because days trickle into each other if I’m not.
Anyway, going in in the morning and presenting both weeks’ work, I was Initially met with confused faces (perhaps through not explaining my bottles part of the project properly, due to not touching it for a week).
Bottles
It became apparent (as with last week) that having a collection of empty bottles wasn’t hugely relatable for everyone, being as most of the group don’t share the same English view of alcohol that my house-mates and I have.
Alice also felt that the labels were de-valued in being cut up, and that this was a contradiction to the idea of a souvenir, where she felt it should be preserved. That’s a matter of opinion though, I think (and I still feel that cutting the labels gives them more value).
It was questioned whether the bottles have been kept as souvenirs or whether they’re more like trophies marking the achievement of having drunk so much…! Maybe it’s different for my housemates, but for me they certainly act as momentos.
Rathna liked the link between the ephemeral nature of both the labels and the conversation I talked about bringing in to the work. The ‘typewriter textiles’ work of Linda Hutchins was mentioned when I talked of cutting conversations out of the labels.
Sports bag
As with the bottles idea, it seemed that my intentions weren’t very clear to the group when showing what I’d done the past week. The bag was seen as having been picked at random, and perhaps not personal enough as an object to share with others
A few people also questioned whether it was a deep enough subject. I would argue that it was, but that this depth wasn’t communicated because of the short amount of time spent on each of the experiments.
Possible reference/inspiration: ‘Exercises in Style’ by Raymond Queneau.
Decisions to make
The gist of much of the feedback was that I should be thinking much more about the statement I wanted to make; the problem with both halves of the work I took along was that their purpose wasn’t clear, and they weren’t communicating well enough—which I do agree with.
From what I’d been talking about, and from other projects of mine in the past (like the illustrated writings about home), Alice picked up on the strand running through some of my work of capturing memory, which might be of interest to continue…!
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As I was thinking about in a cafe the other day, though… a bigger on-going theme that I keep coming back to is the struggle between naivity and knowledge; and strangeness versus the everyday.
This was the inspiration that prompted imagining the sports bag’s history, and was why I felt more interested in exploring there than I did with the bottles. Cataloguing the everyday as strange, in some way, refreshes our view of the world—taking us back to the naivity we would have if it weren’t for civilisation.
- I wrote my dissertation about mystery and intrigue, and the unfamiliar systems that result in these.
- My pop-up shop project aimed to reveal more epic ways of seeing everyday things.
- That sort of interest is why I’ve taken to Romantic paintings/ways of seeing nature in the past too I think, especially considering our modern-day relationship with the planet, consciousness, the universe, time…etc. (ie. we still don’t understand these things but act as though we do, with all our cataloguing and systems).
- During last term’s tutorial sessions I found that I could relate my interests to either ‘feeling’ or ‘systems’ (although it may be that I can only take this separation as evidence, rather than the individual interests—because playing a musical instrument, for example, involves both).
These things all relate but I haven’t directly acknowledged that fact before now.
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More notes made during session:
- Rathna -> Laura… “If you’re designing a system, let that system design the form”.
- (Note to self) With a piece of work, maybe we should question whether a clever idea is just a clever idea… Does it actually change the experience? Perhaps a clever idea for its own sake is just as bad a sin as an object that’s merely beautiful.
- Ken Garland (paraphrased): ‘Do what you enjoy and take responsibility for it’.
- Methods for decisiveness: Mindmaps / One-day projects…?
- Looking at my thought process so far (from last week’s developments)… I’m all over the place! It seems I don’t stick to decisions when I make them (and this could be because I’m not making the decisions based on what I’m most excited by or interested in).
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So, still on the subject of cataloguing (though a vague link), I’m hoping to further the ‘history of an object’ direction (with the bag still being appealing).
It does come from an honest place - an area I’m really interested in - but I need to make sure that this comes through! The intention now is to be decisive, and to really get into working on something I’ll enjoy.
Rathna did bring up my thoughts from before about being both a designer and author… And in fact I like the idea I had before of a situational story, or at least more extensive story behind an object which moves across media, that really contrasts with the object’s everyday-ness…with the overall effort to show how we take elements of the everday for granted and don’t tend to consider what we can’t see.
Developments during last week, from bottles to bags
- Had the idea of making a film about the collection of bottles—reflecting accumulation, and objects forming out of events…with the message that objects can be indicators of events. Objects have stories, and are links/portals back in time.
[storyboard sketch]
- Questioned: Do people connect with the idea of collecting bottles? Does that matter? Why do we keep things anyway?- sentimentality, memory of event, clinging onto the good, a reminder.
- Felt there was a comparison to museum collections—went to the Natural History Museum…where they’re still building knowledge/cataloguing/preserving things. Also a link to magpies collecting shiny things, and the Borrowers. Maybe I use proper ways of cataloguing for documenting the bottles?
- Felt as though the problem with the bottles was that it’s not a usual collection, so wondered if I should make it about momentos generally—’how strange is it that we keep useless things…’
- Went to John Soane’s Museum…
Compartmentalising, things labelled and hung, enlightenment/cataloguing. Really feel I want to be a kid amongst all these layers of things. Each object is a glimpse of another time and place. Maybe I experiment around that. Maybe I inspire other people to realise, perhaps by giving a better idea of the object’s context or history somehow?
A piece of text can change your view of something so much. ie. A bit of carved stone in John Soane’s Museum is actually part of a canopic chest (containing internal organs) of Sethos I, King of Egypt…from between 1293 and 1279 BC! So could I write a piece of text accompanying an actual object, inspiring rather than being a long-winded description. This post I wrote last year comes to mind, where I’d found a piece of text that did this.
Maybe visuals can change your view too, but I wonder how…?
- Decided to make something that would somehow share my enthusiasm to look closer at objects (ie. instructions/questions to ask…?)… maybe a guide to a certain place/museum/road/familiar thing? Focusing on the idea that objects are glimpses of past places/events/lives. The kinds of stories an object or place could tell, imagined and shared with people to trigger off a speculation of their own. Everyday objects and events probably best, so as to be relatable.
- Further thoughts… Lost & Found as a collection? Objects displaced from their contexts? An iOS app where you take a photo of a thing and it links a piece of text that’s been written (not unlike Google app, where you can use an photograph to actually search the internet)? Situational story, linked to a physical space…?
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- Some ideas/sketches [Sheet side 1+2]
[Visual experiments with manilla board - ‘shards’]
- Having been to Broadway Market on Saturday, I’d seen an old sports bag that then triggered the idea of showing what could have been kept inside it over the years. I liked how its contents would have changed over time in addition to its surroundings. I wrote the following list as an example of what it might have been used for: Sports equipment, gold bars from a heist, dirt, records, schoolbooks, a toaster and blender (in the loft), other items for sale at the market.
- Thinking about the sort of format and media to then take it into, I decided that I wanted some of the following elements: timelessness/classic/epic/archetypes/ethereal/ghost-like/playful+imaginative. These translated into ideas of slightly naive, clearly human drawings…flat block colours, or just thick coloured lines?…translucency…thin white paper?
- I then produced the following, to take to the tutorial meeting yesterday:
[sports bag visuals]
Rethoughts this morning
It’s taken a couple of days since my interim, but I’ve realised why I’ve been struggling a bit with the bottles project!
I did choose the bottles for a reason—they’re symbolic of my housemates and me—but I’ve realised that I’ve not been trying to say anything through the work besides ‘the memories of the events are important to me and so these objects should be cherished as precious things’.
What I realise is missing, though, is the picking of a thread that’s either interesting, funny, inspiring or shocking (etc, with my previous post in mind, about design as human), any of which would bring more impact to the piece of work. For example: it’s interesting that all of these bottles have come together as a collection over time, as we’ve become better friends, and then as soon as we leave our house in a few months (after 2 years there, and 3 years living together), the bottles will be recycled and will disappear. There, the bottles could represent fading memories.
I’m thinking that I want to adopt a similar way of thinking to the one I used to write my ‘Poetry of Modern Life’ pop-up shop project… Trying to see the interesting/epic/funny way of looking at different things, and then making things from those thoughts.
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Looking more at tone of voice than aesthetics, Bob Gill demonstrates that way of picking up on something funny with a cover design for ‘a booklet about the subtle differences among various white papers’:
You can really imagine a person (perhaps Bob himself) joking about how funny the subject is when we really think about it!—and that closeness to the designer’s personality/conversation is an element I want in my work.
Interim crit with Paulus
I took everything along to the crit (including the wood-type prints and collages, as I felt these informed my process too), with the following questions I wanted help answering:
- Was there enough ‘doing’?
- Was there enough ‘thinking’?
- Does the concept work?
- Do the objects need text? Would that improve them?
I’d chosen Paulus as he’d really helped with my last self-directed project, in the questions he asked and the viewpoint he had.
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The feedback from him was that, although he thought it was great that I’d made things already, I needed my experimentation to be more strategic. He felt I should go into more depth than I had so far, and really get to the heart of what it’s for and who it’s for.
The group agreed that the event (barbeque/Christmas etc) should be brought into play, so that the idea was more easily relatable than something abstract—perhaps by quoting conversations as I’d done with the very first sketch (my drawing of a label in which I’d replaced the text with part of a conversation).
In my defence: I’d envisioned the objects as being for my housemates and me to keep, in which case they didn’t need to be explicit and understandable to outsiders. It’s good, though, that I’ve now been made to question if this introversion is what I want. If it is, I would have to get used to the idea that people won’t be able to relate (and therefore, perhaps they won’t see it as a good piece of work). We’re used to graphic design being the kind of thing that’s broadcasted to a large number of people but, in this case, I’m not all that sure that an open, communicative approach is all that relevant.
Paulus then went on to say that he wasn’t completely convinced by the concept just yet, but that he welcomed the idea of me convincing him of it with what I show in two-weeks’ time.
He advised me, though, to leave what I’d been doing so far and go back to the starting point of the bottles, to analyse them further…exploring the sound made when a bottle smashes for example, or is drunk from, or is opened…or visiting a glass recycling place… He spoke of all the bottles left in the road from the night before (and having to swerve around them riding a bike!)
During the crit, I took these ideas as being too far away from the personal aspect that I’d decided I wanted to focus on — as Paulus said the subject of the events was only one of the directions I could take — but now I think he just wanted me to dig a bit deeper into the physicality of the bottle, to somehow better inform what I did (even if this was a precious souvinir in the end).
Fernando also mentioned a book that Underware designed/printed, where the ink it was printed with was made of the author’s blood (Here is the specific page, and the making of). Following on from this, he threw up the idea of printing using the left-over drink in the bottom of the bottles.
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Paulus did say that I should think about the ‘curation’ of whatever I do, however, and that made me really think about the context in which my piece(s) of work should be placed. It’s made me think, in relation to the sorts of objects I’ve produced so far… Could their image be reproduced or would they be best kept as authentic one-offs? Should they be singular objects or collected together in some sort of album?
What was also said about bringing the event closer will be helpful, I think, if I choose to develop the precious labels further.
Scalpelling/folding experiments
Went to Print Club to work with Fran yesterday (Sunday), taking along a load of labels I’d soaked off in the morning, along with a scalpel. Though there was a lot going on in the place, I felt like there were less distractions than in the house. Chatting with people every now and then made what I was doing more enjoyable too (and saved me from ruining my eyes!)
Really I was playing, and I realised that I much prefer using that word to ‘experimenting’—anyway, here’s the process:
I started by looking at how I could make plain paper feel special by cutting:
Then some sweet wrappers lying around:
And then onto the real labels (where, as mentioned before, I’ve tried to affect the paper in a way that makes obvious the fact that time and physical effort has been spent on the object):
And here dissecting the label so as to separate the special, shiny part from the rest (where I felt like the man in The Mummy who gouges precious stones out from a wall, before being eaten by a scarab!):
The following is a version where I’ve tried to bring in something relevant about my housemates and where we live (house number 39):
And with the next few I was looking at how folding (like origami? to possibly be opened up?), painting and scraping could be brought in too:
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Of all of the above results, I much preferred the more intricately cut ones
and I think these were my favourites because they felt the most delicate, and like the process I’d applied really worked to reach a preciousness not far away from what I was hoping to reach.
I wondered how I could do a similar pattern that was in some way relevant to the events I wanted to relate to or to my housemates, but saw this as over-thinking/over-complicating matters. I did get the feeling that it’d be good to make more of a direct reference to either of these things, but didn’t manage to try that out before the interim crit today.
Should the object(s) be precious anyway?
Yes—preciousness seems, to me, to be simply the process of making something feel special in order to raise awareness of its purpose (in this case, to highlight the importance of the link between us as mates). If the objects were more ephemeral/everyday, I don’t think they would do justice to the occasions that the bottles have come from.
I did think that following conventions of preciousness (gold/shiny, delicate, small, ornate, decorative) might be a bad idea for some reason, perhaps because of not feeling directly relevant to the tone of our friendship.
However, rather than decide against the idea as I might do normally, I think I should just be mindful that an object can seem ‘special’ even if it doesn’t conform to these conventions. The conventions only exist because minerals like gold are rare, as are craftspeople who can produce such intricate things. As a starting point I am happy to go with delicateness/ornateness, as I don’t think those properties limit the object(s).
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Maybe I’m over-thinking! I’m just going to carry on as I was.
Labels as keepsakes
So tonight I decided to try affecting some of the labels in a way that would exaggerate their preciousness. These are my first few attempts:
I thought the gold made them precious-feeling enough as soon as I took them off the bottles. I wondered how I could build on this, and so cut/decorated in a way that I felt would enhance them.
Linking back to previous thoughts, I had in mind that the longer I spent on something, the more precious it would feel. Spending the best part of an hour cutting out the gold part of the Stella label felt worth it, as did decorating the Honey Dew label.
I wanted to get rid of the logos as I felt that including them made out that the brand was meant to be the focus.
With the decorated Honey Dew label, I questioned whether the decoration should be relevant in some way to the event (Christmas) that it was linked to. I preferred the idea of building on top of the form already there though. In its current form, I don’t think it works all that well as it is—but at the moment I’m not worried so much about the overall effect, but how each alteration made to the object gets it closer to feeling like a relic.
I’m hoping, in carrying on with affecting these and other labels, I’ll be able to incorporate the event that each is linked to—perhaps in the form of text commemorating it.
One variation on the idea is bring together a number of labels (perhaps those of the same occasion) in the same composition.
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This evening’s experiments were definitely helped by the playful making earlier in the day, which gave me conviction and optimism that I think I need. Fran saying ‘just let go Will’ probably helped too somewhere along the line!
Re-evaluating
I decided this evening that I needed a real think about what I wanted to get out of this particular task of our project. I’d felt from the start that I’d just wanted to see where experimentation got me, but the thoughts we had about hitting a balance between thought and play made me realise that I needed a stronger sense of an idea.
Having no apparent purpose for the experimentation was more limiting than anything, and so after a fair bit of thought I decided on a direction. Since yesterday I’d seen the bottles as momentos—symbolic objects that remind us of certain periods in time. I decided, then, to further the idea that the bottles are souvinirs, and to attempt to make objects that would really function as such.
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Buying an acre of the moon came to mind:
And naming a star:
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Earlier on Fran and I had also talked about how much we liked objects owned or worn that meant something and were real rather than just image. Like signet rings, St. Christopher pendants, tattoos and other things that signify ties between people.
I wondered how I could make a keepsake that would signify the friendship between my two housemates and me.
Could I make a certificate for the wall? Could it be something to keep in your wallet? Could it be an ornament?
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Could I use the actual labels in some way? Or a bit of the glass?
Religious relics (bones of saints) came to mind… and bits of crucifix, that are/were sold to tourists in certain parts of the world. With these, the factor of (supposed) authenticity is important, so maybe owning part of an original bottle would give the thing something extra.
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Perhaps linked to my dissertation, could I make this thing intricate and precious?
If I were using the actual labels or glass and altering them, perhaps I could decorate or mark them somehow, or coat them in something, or cut away sections. The cutting idea reminded me of Rob Ryan’s work…
Playing with wood type
Quite a while ago I’d bought 10 wood type blocks of different faces and sizes, and only tried them out at the time using ink. Now I had thick acrylic paints, we decided to have a break from what we were doing and have a play (the following of which were my results):
Though this wasn’t directly related to the concept-driven work, it felt like this playful experimentation was useful to free us up a bit. We talked about how we were reverting back to being children, which I think was good for us.
We wondered how design could be more like that, and then realised that the fun (along with fresher output) came from switching off thought completely. Maybe, then, we need to find a mid-way point between the two extremes of thought and play.
With Fran round…
…I carried on trying to explore the conversation idea, exploring two people talking by allocating a bottle to each:
The idea was then to have each part of the conversation on each strip that I’d cut up and stuck down, alternating between the two people. I didn’t get as far as putting text on because I became unsure as to what I was trying to say.
Collages
Because I was frustrated with my lack of experiments the day before, I started off the day by collaging bits of paper together for fun, I suppose inspired a bit by Rex Ray. Getting back to basics, doodling with paper, I felt as though certain creative connections in my brain had started working again. I quite enjoyed making these!:
Bottles—yesterday
Yesterday morning I decided to make a start by photographing the bottles. I thought about how I could group them according to alcohol type, bottle size, bottle colour, shelf number, country of origin… But what I soon felt was that it’d be far more interesting to focus on the occasions/events during which the drinks were drunk.
The bottles have been brought together into a collection because of those events. And so I began to pick out the ones I could link to events…
Christmas 2010 (where George made sure the drinks were drunk in order!):
When George and I cooked for each other the other week:
Barbeque with Jian, George and Jamie
Our house party last year (the whiskey that made us ill, and the tequila June and Karl bought for us):
Funnily enough… in the last three photos, by chance (?), the bottle colours match!
I then went about photographing each of those bottles individually, as well as a few more that I liked the labels of:
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My first thought about somehow exploring a link between the events and the bottles was to involve conversation. At Fran’s yesterday afternoon, I felt creatively stuck (despite taking all the equipment I could possibly need), not really knowing where to start in order to make something.
This stuck feeling is the exact one that’s been hindering me for quite a while (and, I think, is why I’ve often left making things right til the last minute). Uncertainty, critical thinking etc… mainly about what format and medium to start with.
So what I ended up forcing out a pencil-drawn visualisation of one idea I had:
Ideally I was looking to re-make the label so that it looked just like the original. I like the interaction between the image/text, but it felt like I’d already imagined the finished piece in my head and so decided to do something else.
I did try recording a 20-minute conversation between my housemates and myself last night, in order to get more credible text, but the mood wasn’t the same as Christmas or a party so I couldn’t translate the conversation that well over to what I needed!
My collection: the bottles in our lounge
Thinking through making
A few weeks ago, Fran and myself realised that we had similar negative feelings about the way we’ve gradually come to work on college projects. We both felt unfulfilled, and decided we wanted to enjoy graphic design instead of fretting over ideas (through overly-critical thinking, and the resulting hesitation). We both liked how this artist described making.
Douglas is another person who’s described thinking through making, and (only remembering now) this interview that Laura and I did with him last year will be a useful thing to listen to again tonight I’m sure. The transcript I wrote at the time is here.
So after chatting every now and then during the past few weeks, Fran and I got the following brief together today…
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Thinking Through Making
Explore reactions to each given task, with tight deadlines and in competition in order to reach a more productive method of working. The aim is to experiment but with purpose, working by instinctive selection (as opposed to hypothetical selection/over-planning, and losing interest in an idea as a result).
Working in the same space will also bring about a studio atmosphere that will hopefully encourage critique throughout.
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We are:
Against preciousness and overthinking.
For decisiveness.
Against apprehension and anxiety.
For excitement and enjoyment.
Against being clever with concepts for the sake of it.
For natural, felt output.
Against planning outcomes first.
For doing, and experimentation.
For intentional, thorough development.
For working in the moment, under short-term pressure.
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-TASK 1. Bring together a collection of things, and explore the relationships between them. (Set by Fran, in an effort to explore cataloguing/collections)
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Interim crit, Monday 7th March
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-TASK 2. Pick a news story and somehow encourage other people to care about it. (Set by Will, as a way of producing work that relates to current events)
-TASK 3. Write a letter about a problem relating to your design process, as if to an agony aunt. Then solve each-others’ issue through a designed solution. (Reasoning: As designers we are problem solvers, so perhaps we should start solving our own personal problems before solving/creating new ones).
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Presentations about unit 10 work to tutor group, Tuesday 15th March
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- DEVELOP one project further (or alternatively write a fourth task, which can progress from/involve a previous task).
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Round-up crit, Tuesday 22nd March (Will) & Thursday 24th March (Fran)
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Hints:
For the first two tasks, base your choice of collection/news story on what interests you.
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As Fran was at Print Club today we met there, and it was a busy and productive-feeling environment! I got a good idea of how screenprinting works, and it made me keen to finally get round to trying it myself. I’m intending to sign up for the inductions at college (finally) while I still can, as I’ve got a feeling I might want to experiment with the medium for future projects!
