EXHIBITION CONCEPT WORKSHOP

GROUP DISCUSSION

In today's session we were briefed on the new studio brief, we have to promote the exhibition space on the first floor graphics corridor. This will hopefully inspire next years 1st years and 2nd years to produce work to fill the exhibition space. We came up with different words and ideas that could link with the whole theme of the exhibition space. I found this workshop pretty unhelpful to be honest and am No clearer in what I want to produce.

Exhibition

Spectacle

Showcase

Public

Discover

Communicate

Present

Opportunity

Interaction

Observation

Educate

Inform

Inspire

Whats the purpose

Show people the potential of the students

Inspire people to get there work out there.

The Space itself

Traffic

Platform

Recreational 

Educational

Environment

Resting

Walkway

Relax

5 minutes

Surroundings

Changes/Rotate

Revolver

Adapt

Weather

Alternate

Regenerate

Seasons

Trends

Technology

Cycle

Time

Fashion

Flip

Climate

Metamorphism

Evolve

Bi Monthly

Parallel

Reflection

Fresh

Turn Over Time

Periods

 

GROUP BAR CONCEPT WORKSHOP

In this session we were split into groups of 5, from here we were each given 3 words to choose from. We decided to choose the word pipe to work with as we thought this has the widest scope for ideas. We decided to go down the word association root to try and find possible subtle links we could work with.

After coming up with loads of different routes to go down we ended looking at the

idea of a lab, and the tubing used within experiments. etc.

We decided it would be a high end secret cocktail bar, that is kitted out like a secret lab

with exposed pipes and tubes everywhere. We wanted this to be situauted in a dark alley way

with just a pig pipe like a sewer that you would walk through to get to the secret bar. 

The staff would wear lab coats and goggles to serve the cocktails which would be 

presented as a cocktail menu in the style of the periodic table. There would be

shots in test tubes, and drinks in flasks and beakers etc.  

We decided on various different names but 

ended up goingwith THE LAB. 

The drinks would be made by linking various spirit bottles up through tubes

in order to guide the right liquids into the beakers etc. 

We also propose to do pipette shots too

after thinking back to chemistry all those years ago litmus paper stuck out

so we wanted to incoprate this into some aspect of the bar, We decided to 

on litmus paper napkin's and match books.  

The Uniform the staff would wear would be

lab gear and googles / glasses. 

We wanted to take the pipe concept to the extreme so

designed some pipe furniture etc.

This exercise was really helpful and showed us how many ideas you could come up with in a few hours. It was good to bounce back ideas off of each other. It also meant we pushed our concept to the extreme. It was interesting to see what we could come up with, with just a word to start with. Word ascosiation was a helpful process too which opened up some avenues we might not have thought of without doing it.

GLOW IN THE DARK EXHIBITION CONCEPT

WHAT I PLAN TO DO

In order to make the exhibition fun and engaging to a younger audience I want to create a glow room, which is blank during the day light but when the lights are off information will come to light. This will have quite a powerful effect I feel, which hopefully create some excitement amongst the exhibition.

 My phosphorus powder recently arrived, The charge does not last very long so I'm thinking maybe a black light could be left on in the room to power up the artwork so that the images glow brighter when the lights are out. This could also double up to help find information if all the charge runs out.

FINAL ORGANISMS

I have chosen 20 different organisms, to work with this is quite ambitious but I think its a nice contrast between land and sea. Theres a combination of fungus and insects for the land organisms, and fish and marine invertebrates  for the sea. I think this is a good amount to work with and will hopefully fill a room.

LAND

Critters

Motyxia Millipede

Glow Worms

Click Beetle

Railroad Worm

Tropical Landsnail

Fire Fly

Fungus

Panelius Stipiticus

Foxfire Mushrooms

Mycena Luxaeterna

Ghost Fungus

SEA

Vampire Squid

8 Armed Glowing Squid

Sea Pens

Aequorea Victoria Jelly Fish

Comb Jelly Fish

Cookie Cutter Shark

Copepods

Angler Fish

Lantern Fish

Flash Light Fish

PICTURE FRAMES

I want to create a gallery like exhibition, with the work displayed in picture frames. The plan will be for the frames to be blank in daylight, But when the lights go out the images will appear.

LASER CUT CUSTOM FRAMES

I Thought it might be a nice idea to laser cut some frames out that might reference the animals when the canvas is blank. I could have fish bowl shaped frames for the sea and logs and grassy frames for the land organisms. This creates a bit more interest I feel as it makes you want to guess what the organism could be.

OTHER PRODUCTS

I needed to think of how I could extend the concept across other products so drew up a few Ideas. An invitation to the exhibition will be a nice product to produce, It can be easily screen printed in the same way as the prints and is a nice touch. A concertina leaflet can also be printed easily displaying info on the exhibition and a bit about the organisms etc. Signage and way finding could be an interesting route to go down to add an extra element to the exhibition. I will also need to produce plaques displaying the name of the organisms & information about them.

FINAL CONCEPT BOARDS

SELF INITIATED

Screen Prints

Laser Cut Presents

CLIENT WORK

Inizio Design

N.A.D.S

Stag Do T- Shirt

Mountain Trike

COMPETITIONS

Gem & Stone

MMZ LOGO

Winston Churchill

Individual Winston

HELLFIRE

Lego

OUGD503 MODULE PROJECT REPORT & EVALUATION

Here is my project report book created on In Design.

EVALUATION

1. What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

Throughout the module I have gained a variety of different skills. I have undertaken various different work over the module which has involved responding to clients feedback and wishes. This was helpful most of the time and helped to narrow down my design decisions on the other hand I found certain  feedback quite contradictory and unhelpful, but its important to produce something the client is happy with and throw out your own personal opinions, this taught me that there are always gonna be problems when working with a client and that its never going to be easy.

My collaborative skills have also improved, I have worked on 2 briefs with 2 separate people. The experience was not as a daunting as Fred made out, I managed to get on with both partners fine, it helped the design process as it was beneficial to bounce ideas off of one another, the combination of both minds helped to build a stronger concept and design style. It was also useful to see how other people work which also built each others knowldge of vaious software.

2. What approaches to methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

The module has allowed me to build on my idea generation skills I feel, crits and collaboration work has allowed me to think in different ways, working with other people inspires you in different ways, whether its design style or research methods. Working with others has definitly helped the way I think about a project, its important to cover all different angles.

I have also built on my screen printing skills, the self initiated project I took up involved producing a 5 colour print, this was an ambitious task and took days to design and produce but I was happy with the end result. I made lots of mistakes along the way but I managed to sort out the problems, you learn from your mistakes.

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

One of my strengths I feel has been my willingness to try something new. I have tried to do as many different styles of projects that I can. I have looked at branding, campaigns, digital work, print based and other forms of media. I wanted to try and get an idea of the different processes, to try and find something that I would like to further improve on in the future.

My briefs have been mainly been directed towards branding, as this has been something that I have become more interested recently. I have had the chance to brand a few companies over this module which I have really enjoyed. I have learnt how to say allot about a company with the least information, I also learnt the importance of branding running across a series of a products, the possibilities should be endless.

The module also lead me to concentrate more concepts when designing, as something can look shit hot, but if it doesn't comunicate the right message to the right audience its essentially useless. So getting down a solid idea was key to most projects and this fed into the design in a later stage. I found crits really helpful as well during this module as its always good to get an outside point of vue.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?

I feel I fall down when it came to the finish of products, I still think there is room for improvement when it comes to print finish etc. I also need to work on my layout skills as this something I am still struggling with. Even with laying at the simple project report I feel I could be much more experimental. I will experiment with grids in order to design in a more structured but playful way as my designs are quite simple and unambitious when it comes to publication layout.

My photoshop skills have been a constant let down I feel, I don't feel I have committed enough time to the software in order to get to grips and use it to its full potential. I hope to develop these skills over summer so I come back to college with a new skill set as I am limited greatly when sticking to Illustrator.

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

Time Management 

Although this always comes up in my evaluations it is something I still struggle with. I personally find it hard to break off and do a bits of work from each module on separate nights and find it much easier to see one through to the end then start on another. But this means I am falling behind on other aspects of the course. The workload has put allot of pressure on this year. I need to try and find a solution to the problem.

Experiment with Different Design Styles

I seem to have a ver illustrator based design outcome for most of my projects so In order to try out different styles I think it is important to get to grips with other software as I am quite limited when it comes to designing. I need to work on my video editing skills and also Photoshop as this something I fall back in.

Developing a Concept

My concepts have become stronger over the course of the module, and I have begun to think more about the message rather than the aesthetics of the design. It is important to keep pushing and pushing ideas to try and produce more unconventional work which has innovative and creative whilst communicating the right message to the intended target audience.

Photographing Work

It is a bit of a shame when I produce some well printed design work and the photographs let the piece down. Often the colours are not clear and there are unnecessary shadows within the photos. I think this is due to my terrible camera and also my photography skills. I will try borrow a decent camera from now on and use correct lighting in order to document my final products in a professional manner.

Picking Briefs Carefully

I think it is important to choose briefs that challenges my skill set but also improves on it. Although it is good to try something new its not always the best idea. If I have a short period of time to do the brief building a website would be a bad idea as I am not very good at this. So I will make sure I carry out briefs that benefit my design practice.

6. How would you grade yourself in the following areas?

(5 = excellent, 4=very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor)

Attendance = 5

Punctuality = 5

Motivation = 5

Commitment = 5

Quantity of Work Produced = 4

Quality of work produced = 4

Contribution to the group = 4

Video Re-Think

Having realised I had not given my Publication much thought I needed to find other ways to link it to my essay. The video footage was only really outlining one theme of panopticism. I will need to have other examples that highlight some of the other theories. In my essay I mention the documentary We live in public, this shows 2 very different effects of constant surveillance  Some people play up to the camera and others become quite reserved and shy away from the cameras, I want to try and show the different effects surveillance has on the public. Over the footage there will be quotes taken from my essay which is relevant to different aspects of the video. 

The footage will be burnt onto a DVD, to go with the DVD I will produce a booklet which will have a copy of my essay within , illustrated with snap shots from my footage. The Publication will hopefully visually explain how panopticism works and what the different effects are. I want to try and capture this invisible force in action, and show what kind of people are influenced by CCTV and others that don't conform so to speak.

Sections from my essay I could use with the Video:

Strict Partitioning

Firstly “a strict spatial partitioning” (Foucault: 1977: 61) is needed, this prevents the ‘in mates’ from coming into contact with his fellow inhabitants, “He is seen, but he does not see; he is the object of information, never a subject of communication” (Foucault: 1977:65). 

Surveillance

Automatic Functioning of Discipline

,  “hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power.” (Foucault 1977: 65)

. “The inmate must never know whether he is being looked at at any one moment,”(Foucault 1977: 65) its this ‘not knowing’ that causes the subjects to start correcting their behavior for fear of being watched, they are “caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers.” (Foucault 977: 65)

“it can be claimed that through surveillance cameras the panoptic technology of power has been electronically extended: our cities have become enormous Panopticons.” (Lyon, 1994; Fyfe and Banister, 1998; Tabor, 2001)

“He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself. He inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection.” (Foucault 1977a: 203)

What Foucault is referring to, is a form of self discipline that is caused by this “all seeing all knowing power,” which Foucault refers to as “omnipresence.” (Foucault 1977: 62) 

Registration

The collection of data on an individual, that builds up a digital version of our selves. This can be seen at college everyday, swiping us in and out of college each day, with files will of information about each of us, under constant monitoring all day.

“Computers become machines for producing retrievable identities.” (Lyon 2001: 115)

Playing Up to the Camera

“a chance to display oneself under the gaze of the camera” (Ernst, 2002: 461)

“Being under the constant watch of the world influences people to carry out actions they would not usually do. They may either play up to the camera which encourages the subject or they will be more reserved and up tight” (Koskela 2003:)

“the constant torture of the random but ever possible gaze,” (Ainley 1998: 90)

The majority of society will conform under the watch of CCTV but a select few will feign conformity, these people understand that even though they know their actions could be on camera there is no definite chance that the footage will be accessed. “[t]he sheer mass of the data would be impossible to handle’”

(Lyon, 2001: 52)

The Gaze in Advertising 

“In this culture, the look is largely controlled by men. Privileged in general in this society, men also control the visual media. The film and television industries are dominated by men, as is the advertising industry.” (Coward 2000: 33)

“The command created by an image obsessed culture is ‘do some work! Transform Yourself! Look Better! Be more erotic!” (Coward 2000: 39)

“Women’s experience of sexuality rarely strays far from ideologies and feelings about self-image. There’s a preoccupation with the visual image – of self and others – and a concomitant anxiety about how these images measure up to a socially prescribed ideal” (Coward 2000: 33)

“women are compelled to make themselves attractive in certain ways, and those ways involve submitting to the cultures beliefs about appropriate sexual behavior, women’s appearances are laden down with cultural values, and women have to form their identities within these values, or with difficulty, against them.” (Coward 2000: 36).

“The camera in contemporary media has been put to use as an extension of the male gaze at women on the streets” (Coward 2000: 33) Coward is referring to voyeurism.