ijam

Right I have to stop in the middle of my research to tell you what I’ve found! I’m looking into how companies promote themselves to clients, as this is what LBi want us to try and do for them, and I found this. Shackleton, a Spanish design company, couldn’t decide what to give out to there clients for Christmas to say thank you and to promote them. The decision came down to get them either an ipod or a leg of ham (Jamon in Spanish). So they thought why not combine the ideas together to create ijam(in english iHam). This consisted of creating the box, an online website, booklet and a video to explain how to use your new ijam. In a month, the website had 350,000 and the You Tube video had a 100,000 viewers but these weren’t just companies having a look. It was the general public as well. A great example for the LBi project on self-promotion on a wide scale and I’ll use the example in my essay as well. It’s great when you find something that can connect to so many parts of your work. A nice find from just browsing the Internet.

Live brief

LBi have given out a brief on the D&AD website for student/designers a like and myself. The brief is

“use typography across any medium to explore the possibilities of meaning behind the LBi name”

Now, I thought it would be a nice brief at first but I’ve found that I now need to have a good look at the audience to see if I can get more ideas for acronyms. So I’ve set a deadline 2 days of research, so I can then get on with ideas. Hopefully this will be something I stick to because you can get so involved with the research sometimes. I think I need deadline more and more now. The silence brief hasn’t had the a real deadline only for January but I think by setting deadlines with this and the other projects I will keep on top of the work. Wish me luck…

Jessica Heffland

For my essay, Mac gave me a list of people to read up about so it could help me with my writing. Jessica Heffland, a writer for the Observer and a x-student of Paul Rand, was one of them and I have to say her writing is exceptional. I found myself reading article after article because there so easy to read and so insightful. Her writing is refreshing and clever, connecting to her readers from what I can see in the review sections. She covers so many topics in graphic design that if you need a extra quote or two for your essay, or just want some fun reading, have a look!!

http://designobserver.com/author.html?author=397

My little adventure

With a big hole in my pocket, I can honestly say that I enjoyed every minute of my adventure to the Big Apple. So many photographs, happy memories and a note pad full of notes, it’s a time I will never forget. Seeing the big city has given me a need to visit it again... and again! I feel like I’m chattering on but it’s because I can’t explain how amazing it was. The only way I could explain it is by telling you to go yourself. Thanks Sue, Liz and Hitch.

Let the right one in

A lot of people said this film was going to be scary. With Halloween on the Saturday, personally I didn’t want a scary film because I’m not particular good watching them. By that I mean I usually find myself hiding behind my pillow and screaming like an idiot. I was glad however to find I was gladly not scared to my core. In fact the film was amazingly done. Not the scary cliché blood and gore film that I was expecting.

The film is based on a novel from 2004 by John Ajvide Lindqvist. The relationship between the boy, Oskar and the girl, Eli is lovely. She is a vampire but in spite of this they have a beautiful friendship. This is helped by how the writer has effectively chosen to not have them speaking all the time. The pauses in the film are so effective especially when the girl locks Oskar behind a glass door. The pause is long. Then he eventually asks her “are you a vampire?” The pause is almost poetic. A film I would defiantly watch again. If I did have one point to say, it would be that the swimming pool scene, where you see the legs moving through the water, it seemed a tad unreal. It didn’t balance with the rest of the film that was fantastic.

Corner house- Bloomberg New Contemporaries

One Tuesday, I took time to go to the corner house new exhibit. There is a quote on the Internet about it.

"New Contemporaries, formerly Young Contemporaries has a long and illustrious history, dating back to the first exhibition of young graduates in 1949. For the past 60 years this annual show has been dedicated to profiling the work of young, new and emerging artists at the start of their professional careers. Through its annual presence, New Contemporaries has identified serious artists from each generation and given them the opportunity to show for the first time. The premise remains the same today."

The exhibit itself was ok. Nothing really special in my opinion but there was one piece of work I liked. Freya Wright, created small canvas pieces that had some really lovely narrative imagery. I could imagine the story in the image, which is something I like doing when looking at design work. It was definitely a hidden gem in the group as there were some really strange pieces in there. One was work about sex, which I looked at for about 5 minutes and walked away as it seemed so out of place. Very strange work t exhibit together but nice to take some time off from work.

Nicola Rowland

A self-employed designer, who graduated last year, she came in just to give us some extra advice and it was really helpful. She is personally interested in seeing the connection between words and images but I found here advice to be a great. Here’s a list of key things she says we should do.

• Be nice to teachers in uni
• Email genuine letters
• Be yourself, don’t be wacky
• Online presence or pdf portfolio is needed
• Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, try everything
• Ask questions
• Be aware of everything
• Keep in touch with placements

All great advice I’ll definitely keep in mind! Here is some her work that I like also. Really nice work too.. think i might be tad jealous of her talent and advice!

Diving Bell and the butterfly

To start I can only say this was my favorite film from the Kino series so far! I had never heard about the film before and the only description I had heard was “just wait and see, it’s great” I agree completely. This film is about Jean Dominique Bauby, who had a big stroke, which left him suffering with a medical condition called locked-in syndrome. A truly beautiful film, he has no control over his body, except for being able to blink, his only way of communicating. The film is so well done that you can understand how frustrating it must be not to have any control. It made me realize how fragile life can be and is for many, to a point where it touched me emotionally. I haven’t been to a film that’s has done that in a long time! An amazing film I’ll watch again. I bought it the day after!:)

Silence update

I was told of these two designers, Michael Craig Martin (first image) and Patrick Caulfield (second). They helped me with my experiments to try and show a world without communication. They’re designs seem to show an everyday scene but it has a surreal feel to it that’s almost silent. They helped a lot, as this was the type of idea I had in my head but couldn’t describe verbally. Even thought it helped in my experimentation, I wish I could have a “eureka” moment with my final design idea! Ah well, back to the drawing board.

Apology!!

For the last couple of weeks, life has been so busy! Does seem like things are getting out of hand, I guess that’s the price of 3^rd year for you. So this is my big apology for the non-blogging recently. Hopefully the plan for the next couple of weeks will help me keep on track. Let’s hope it works..