Advising next year's First Years about my experience on the course so far...
My initial 5 chosen problems for this new brief were quite broad:
1. Managing work for deadlines.
2. Balancing workload with time outside college.
3. Being independent - living away from home.
4. Balancing college work with a part - time job.
5. Making the most of the course.
From these I decided one of the biggest things I have had to deal with, or learn how to be successful at, is the whole issue of moving away from home. I thought about the obvious options I could choose to do with the course, e.g. advising them on how to overcome nerves, make new friends, be punctual, be organised, or how to balance briefs and use the space/time given effectively. However, these all result in the same answer - that you will only succeed if you put 110% effort in, and this course helps everyone learn from their own mistakes anyway in order to move forward.
So instead, I thought about a more lighthearted issue to do with living in halls/on your own and know from experience, and speaking to others, how difficult it sometimes is to be independent and stay on top of the boring chores that come with living away from home.
PROBLEM: Lack of enthusiasm to do the laundry.
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? Persuade them (in a humorous, entertaining way) to keep up-to-date with the washing, so they don't end up going to college with their last clean pair of socks on!
HOW ARE YOU GOING TO DO IT? I want to use type and image, or illustrative type, to create designs for mini laundry bags, to encourage those first years that live in halls to get into a routine of washing their clothes more often, instead of letting it build up...or worse, taking a mountain of washing home at the end of every term for their mum's to do it!
Tuesday, 28 April 2009
Thursday, 16 April 2009
Type & Grid 2
The subject of our double page spreads came from interviewing someone else on our course and using images from their blogs.
After my interview with Mille Haughnaess, I chose to write about her, and design my layouts in the style of celebrity magazines, as this is the style of magazine that Mille likes to read and that best reflects her interests and who she is. Here are my 500 words that will be the content of one of the double page spread designs:
Mille Haugnaess
When Mille Haughnaess, from Dubai, moved to Leeds, we caught up with her to see how she was getting on...
Originally born in Norway, Haughnaess has lived in Dubai since the age of 6. She has now ventured overseas to Leeds, to study Graphic Design at Leeds College of Art & Design.
Haughnaess, 20, laughs when asked if she has any particular interests away from Design. "I play football!" she said, trying to remember the days where she had a free hour away from her work! It is obvious to see that design is now playing the main part in her life, but Haughnaess still considers herself to be laid back and doesn't let the stress of multiple projects on the go at the same time get on top of her.
When asked about her favourite style of working, she wasn't sure. Haughnaess considers herself to be indecisive in her decisions, (we guessed as much!) but has plenty of ambition and drive when forced to work under pressure. She hopes that her experiences and time at the College will help her form her decision about what path she wants to take, as she can't narrow down what her strongest field actually is.
Unusual materials and mixtures of media are her passion - being influenced by the likes of Hockney, Christopher Williams, and Stefan Sagmeister. But Haughnaess has a wide range of tastes for design, and her Fine Art background still shows through in her interest in experimental and expressive work.
After getting slightly distracted with the excitement of her interest in the Twilight Series and Perez Hilton, we also discovered her love for manipulating photographs. She enjoys creating images that leaves an impression, and shocking images, like Christina Follmer's Road Safety work, inspire her.
This interview proved to be a step in the right direction, as normally Haughnaess would shy away from presentations and speaking out about her work. She wants to be more independent, hence her move, miles away from her home comforts, but loves Dubai and goes back every holiday and every chance she gets. Not the average student, living on a budget and eating beans then! "I do eat out a lot at restaurants [laughs] to avoid cooking!" What happened to the 'wanting to be more independent' Mille?
Haughness describes her current project she is working on, 'What is a Line', saying "I really enjoy the freedom of this brief, as i can be more experimental and work in a way that interests me." However when asked what a line actually is - hoping, may we add, for an amazing definition, imagining that she had discovered it at 3 o'clock in the morning after numerous coffees and cried 'Eureka!' - she just laughed and said "Good question!" So we are still none the wiser!
Feeling slightly worn out after an intense start to the course, Haughnaess is looking forward to her summer break back to Dubai, and begin her second year with fresh enthusiasm and a chance to up her game. "Our tutor tells us we are not students, just designers who aren't employed yet". Better let her get back to it then!
The 5 images I have chosen to use in the article are 2 pieces of her own work:
And 3 existing pieces from Hockney, Christopher Williams and Stefan Sagmeister.
After my interview with Mille Haughnaess, I chose to write about her, and design my layouts in the style of celebrity magazines, as this is the style of magazine that Mille likes to read and that best reflects her interests and who she is. Here are my 500 words that will be the content of one of the double page spread designs:
Mille Haugnaess
When Mille Haughnaess, from Dubai, moved to Leeds, we caught up with her to see how she was getting on...
Originally born in Norway, Haughnaess has lived in Dubai since the age of 6. She has now ventured overseas to Leeds, to study Graphic Design at Leeds College of Art & Design.
Haughnaess, 20, laughs when asked if she has any particular interests away from Design. "I play football!" she said, trying to remember the days where she had a free hour away from her work! It is obvious to see that design is now playing the main part in her life, but Haughnaess still considers herself to be laid back and doesn't let the stress of multiple projects on the go at the same time get on top of her.
When asked about her favourite style of working, she wasn't sure. Haughnaess considers herself to be indecisive in her decisions, (we guessed as much!) but has plenty of ambition and drive when forced to work under pressure. She hopes that her experiences and time at the College will help her form her decision about what path she wants to take, as she can't narrow down what her strongest field actually is.
Unusual materials and mixtures of media are her passion - being influenced by the likes of Hockney, Christopher Williams, and Stefan Sagmeister. But Haughnaess has a wide range of tastes for design, and her Fine Art background still shows through in her interest in experimental and expressive work.
After getting slightly distracted with the excitement of her interest in the Twilight Series and Perez Hilton, we also discovered her love for manipulating photographs. She enjoys creating images that leaves an impression, and shocking images, like Christina Follmer's Road Safety work, inspire her.
This interview proved to be a step in the right direction, as normally Haughnaess would shy away from presentations and speaking out about her work. She wants to be more independent, hence her move, miles away from her home comforts, but loves Dubai and goes back every holiday and every chance she gets. Not the average student, living on a budget and eating beans then! "I do eat out a lot at restaurants [laughs] to avoid cooking!" What happened to the 'wanting to be more independent' Mille?
Haughness describes her current project she is working on, 'What is a Line', saying "I really enjoy the freedom of this brief, as i can be more experimental and work in a way that interests me." However when asked what a line actually is - hoping, may we add, for an amazing definition, imagining that she had discovered it at 3 o'clock in the morning after numerous coffees and cried 'Eureka!' - she just laughed and said "Good question!" So we are still none the wiser!
Feeling slightly worn out after an intense start to the course, Haughnaess is looking forward to her summer break back to Dubai, and begin her second year with fresh enthusiasm and a chance to up her game. "Our tutor tells us we are not students, just designers who aren't employed yet". Better let her get back to it then!
The 5 images I have chosen to use in the article are 2 pieces of her own work:
And 3 existing pieces from Hockney, Christopher Williams and Stefan Sagmeister.
Wednesday, 15 April 2009
Type & Grid
We have been given a brief that is quite different from all the rest and it involves a lot of thinking and time consuming detail to get it right. The main aim is to, at the end of this, come up with 3 digitalised double-page spread magazine layouts. However, the process to get to that point and the sessions we have already begun this in, have already taught me a lot about how magazines and newspapers actually use grids and how technical it is to do it all by hand. I am currently designing hand-drawn layouts sticking to a specific grid for the columns and researching interesting magazine layouts.
Here are some that show interesting grids and layouts of columns and images across the spread:
Here are some that show interesting grids and layouts of columns and images across the spread:
Tuesday, 7 April 2009
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