Graphic Design

We learnt that in Graphics you will explore areas of design as well as typography. A form of visual communication, through simple to complex images, the role of a graphic designer is to inform and inspire the viewer to want to buy the product they're trying to promote. This can be shown with 3D graphics, language images and typography. Looking at designers like Jonathan Barnbook , you can see through his minimalistic designs that he is taking into consideration his target audience,  to help create a stronger impact on his work. Other designers we covered on Mondays session were Saul Bass, Carolyn Davidson, Kelli Anderson and Alan Fletcher amongst other names, all artists used either typography or images to create a visual language with their work.

My group was presented with the theme Education, through a mind map key issues began to arise, the education gap being one of the biggest. The students who are most disadvantaged need to have better quality teaching in order to close the gap and strengthen society. Another was the lack of sex education being taught in schools, in particular religious ones, the act of avoiding uncomfortable conversations and leaving children ignorant only hinders the younger generation. Creating an open dialogue and confronting such issues we believed would help with problems with the education system.

From there I drew up a few ways we could visually communicate these issues. Focusing on the idea of investing in children's education as they are our future, I used natural objects that represent growth such as trees, brains and fire. In particular the symbolism of fire used to show inspiration and as its an active element, it works quite well with trying to put across the idea of quick action.

These two beside each other helped create the kind of message I wanted to put across about education. The image on the left shows a (mandragora) in legends this plant was commonly thought to be sleeping and the root would take form of a human, showing their desires to be something more. I thought this would be powerful imagery to use for the take on equal education and trying to close the education gap. The design and writing is quite simple and all one colour to emphasize the idea of equality in learning. To reinforce this further the words  'LACK OF EDUCATION LACK OF POWER' was meant to compliment the logo on the left but it is strong enough to also stand as its own design.

The next set of design work was to confront the issues with sex education. The colour scheme I stuck with follows the basic girl boy stereotype with the representing a link between the two for those who are in between. Having the next stage to be three dimensional representation the question mark seems to be the most practical. This was something to also consider when working, as a 2D design, visually the three figures below seem to be more interesting with the layout and colours combined. However the question mark is more clearer in shape and has less components therefore in 3D the design would come across better.

 Our group chose the question mark because we felt that sex education needs to be discussed. The word that seems to be so hushed we wanted to go overboard and cover the question mark with the word sex.

For our first location we chose the bathroom , the door provided additional imagery of girl/boy which helped amplify our 3D design. Working in a team to complete this task proved helpful when everyone was on board and we all had our own individual tasks which gave us more time to look for locations in the end.












For our second location, we took photos inside the bathroom. At Ravensbourne university the toilets are unisex which is a feature we wanted to point out. This kind of progressive attitude is something I didn't see in my previous schools. The mirror was another element that we incorporated into our overall message, It became almost an installation piece as we wanted others to get involved and think about sex education, the mirror would show the reflection of the person questioning which tied in to the idea of reflecting back on your own personal experiences with sex education at school.

 On Tuesday we began with a series of drawing exercises. One of which was to draw with your left hand, I found that the lines were much more chaotic and gave room for more spontaneous forms as I didn't have as much control . It interesting to see the difference between my usual clean lines and these more frantic ones.

The colour used has made it hard to capture on camera, however this was another task that stood out to me. We had to use our hands to be able to create a likeliness of our own faces, this I found particularly challenging as I had to rely on the information my hand was giving me which wasn't something I had done before. From this exercise I can see how much more life like objects can become as the artist is experiencing the subject with other senses other than eyesight.

Developing on from yesterdays sex education topic, looking into gender identity was another theme we thought to explore. Our task was to find a way to represent this only through images. I found from previous sketches that these stick figures would work best to portray an emotion or atmosphere. The key idea was to create a feeling of being trapped or confusion. This can be shown through the pink and blue pulling the figure in different directions.

This was our groups final idea, we made some last minute changes in the design. To show how confused the individual was ,the female symbol is in blue and the male symbol is in pink, swapping the 'gender colours' to show how the figure is feeling. The stick figure was left androgynous as this kind of inner conflict can affect both men and women, showing how powerless the person feels they are left suspended in mid air.  

 Wednesdays session had us working on software's such as Photoshop. Using the tools on the programme I was able to insert an image of myself onto a photograph of a desert. I found the day quite challenging as it was hard to keep up with pace of the instructor as we used a multiple of different software's which were all new to me.


The logo I designed for my profile was kept very organic and curved in shape, making the pupil blue was to reference my own eye colour and make the work a little more personal. Under time constraints I was unable to write alot about what I liked and disliked, however the afternoon gave me more of an awareness of the kind of processes graphic designers do on programmes.

Fridays task consisted of creating protest posters of things we were passionate about. To show this we had to create portraits of ourselves alongside a quote which we identified with. A sample of the possible outcomes are shown on the left, there was an ongoing theme of nature and patterns within nature that I identify with. In particular curves found in organic forms, I kept to 3 colours maximum so that it wouldn't look too chaotic.

For the quote I looked into sayings that I could relate with below were possible quotes that would compliment my final idea.

-Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the words without the words and never stops at all- Emily Dickinson

-Now I am here, what thou wilt do with me, none of my books will show; I read and sigh, and I wish I were a tree- George Herbert

-Some see nature all ridicule and deformity... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of man of the imagination, nature is imagination itself- William Blake

I decided to keep it simple and use pencil in the final idea as I prefer pencil over other mediums which gave it a more personal touch. Also adding colour to the poster would take away from the forms so I kept it monochromatic. I chose to use seaweed as the image to represent myself because I love all forms of nature and I wanted to capture the movement of the plant. In addition the quote by William Blake was finally chosen because I felt like that quote resonated the most with me, as I find inspiration by the nature around me but can also understand how to another a tree is just a green thing in the way.