Traveling

Over the christmas holidays I went with my family to South Africa. I am now realising the importance of experiencing and seeing new places and environments. I found the trip very inspiring and since my 'not just fleurons' project was coming to an end it was the perfect opportunity to be thinking up ideas for my Extended Major Project. I found the country incredible due to the divide between the richer and poorer people, some sights were very overwhelming and others were just like being in a city like London.

As far as graphics goes, this penguin logo for the penguins at Boulder's beach near Cape Town was probably the nicest bit of design I saw.

This trip made me realise how much I enjoy taking pictures of the people of a country in order to capture the mood and feel of the country. I now strongly believe that even though the sights and views can be magnificent, it is only after meeting and watching the locals go about their daily lives that you really see what a country is like. I would absolutely love to spend time photographing people from all over world! I think by doing this, it would open up my eyes and allow me to have the inspiration to become the designer I really want to be.

Deadline

I haven't updated this for awhile, but I had my Specialist Project hand-in yesterday so now I have a bit more time! My last post was about flowers, pixels and numbers. The brief was an ISTD competition brief called 'Not Just Fleurons'.

On November 26th I started my final piece and approximately 163 hours later on January 3rd 2011 I finished it.

This typographic piece is made up of approximately 130,572 numbers. The flower (a marigold) is made from 14,508 (approximately) pixels, in the form of RGB numbers.

Since climate change is a very topical theme in the current environment, this typographic piece portrays to the public the severity of climate change. Since each pixel of type represents a plant in the world that is under threat from extinction. Keeping the numbers as RGB with the relevance into that it is how humans essentially see relates to the idea of extinction. Since how we see the world and climate change is very important, and perhaps it is only when we are shocked with the facts and figures that we understand the truth and damage we are causing: It is in the detail that we realise the truth.

With the font at 10pt, the piece fits nicely onto A0. I think I would quite like to sell this piece. It would be a one off, and I would give half the money to a chosen charity (most probably Alzheimer's Society). If you think you would like to buy then please get in contact with me. Thanks

Flowers and numbers

My current development with the ISTD brief... below are my images from the flowers I flower pressed.

After inspiration from looking into Fibonacci and the Mandelbrot set I decided to magnify one of my photographs of a flower. In photoshop the maximum zoom is 3200% and this is what that looks like:

I decided to write down the RGB of each and every pixel from the selected area shown above. I did this to relate to the idea of numbers and sequences I've research about. I then made the colour of each written RGB numbers correspond to the actual colour.

This progressed to this image below (which shows what the image would look like if I was to repeat this process over and over):

This is another idea, inspired from an image in a typographic book:

We will march 10/11/10

I attended the student demonstration in London on the 10/11/10 with my Canon 400D, 18-200mm Tamron lense. Although I joined in with the march and we had one of the biggest banners there, I was still able to get some decent shots. I really enjoyed being a 'photo-journalist' for the day and capturing the atmosphere of the march and the individual people.

This is something.

This is Nautical Nonsense.

This is something is a brand and event held in Bournemouth. Last year I went to one of their exhibitions and decided that this year I would take on their brief as an extra bit of work along side my current ISTD and dissertation briefs. It has helped my creativeness hugely as it has been a project I have been doing for myself and for fun. I have entered my final piece (see below) for the 'This is something' competition and I am still waiting to hear back...with any luck my piece will get chosen to be exhibited in 60 Million Postcards on the 23rd November!

Cardiff poster competition

This coming thursday, all of third year graphics are going to Cardiff for a poster competition. The posters we have produced are in preparation for our dissertation. My essay this year is following on from last years as I really enjoyed the topic. My essay title is "How does Orange advertising communicate the brand?" This poster explains what my essay will be investigating and how.

ISTD brief

First brief of third year: We were asked to choose either an RSA or ISTD brief. I decided to explore the ISTD 'Not Just Fleurons' one. Below are two posters designed to show my current research and how I have taken elements from the brief that interested me and broadened my knowledge around the topic.

Third and final year

First week back at university, ready for last year of degree. Slightly overwhelming. Even though its october, today it was clear skies and warm, taking advantage of this, housemates and myself biked down to the beach with sketch books in hand. Below is pretty much all we could manage after an ice cream and quick nap in the sunshine. Its nice to do fun, creative things which do not relate to the degree!

Picture Consequence:

attempt one

attempt two

Thanks Sarah Plowman and Emily Wilson. A fun afternoon!

Weekend trip to London:

Diana photographs from the protest outside Coryton oil refinery on the 16/10/10. Housemates and myself attended what we thought was just a march in central london called Crude Awakening, however we ended up at the largest oil refinery in the Uk in essex. It was probably the most exciting and inspirational thing I have ever done. The atmosphere was incredible.

Traveling Photography

This summer I went to Mexico for two weeks traveling up the Pacific coast. My biggest mistake was not taking my canon 400d with me, however I did have my 'Pentax 12 megapixels point & shoot' and my newly brought 'mini diana' cameras with me. I found Mexico was a photographers paradise as there was so many colours and extraordinary sights. Although I do Graphic Design as a degree I still have a passion for photography and enjoy experimenting with different styles.

Here are my favourite shots:

primary umbrellas

storm

green

orange

three chairs

And my favourite Diana prints:

Layers of Mexico

Home

Gaby

I found the graphic design in Mexico to be pretty poor, ie their adverts/billboards/typography in menus etc. On a beach in a tiny fishing village these signs got my attention as I found them to be the first example of good design in Mexico:

There is a huge amount of graffiti in Mexico; pretty much any house in any town or village will have some kind of graffiti on it. Most of it is not tasteful at all, but in the old town of Mazatlan I came across an abandoned house with this graffiti:

Work Experience at AB Design Group

My first experience in a Graphics company was last week (Monday 29th March) at AB Design Group in Exeter, Devon. (http://www.ab-uk.com/). I didn't really know what to expect but enjoyed every second of my time there and found it was a really fun and creative environment to work in. On the second day I got briefed along with another designer and a web developer for a live project. I was given the current website for the project that was wanting to be re-designed (http://www.pawtrack.com/).

Below is my attempt for a re-design of a home page and the live tracking page.

Home page:

Live tracking page: