Week Eight
Lecture Notes
Lecture Reflection
I think this weeks Lecture was particularly striking due to the honesty of the designers awnsering questions about not work which some people find difficult when they are in this small art revolving world. The questions that were asked were as follows:
What would you like to be doing that you are not doing in your work?
The answers to this question were mainly - “I love what i’m doing and we are very fortunate to be doing what we love doing. “ I think this is one thats so hard for designers and artists in particular as it does take time to get where you want to be. We as creatives, take on extra work to make money and endless side hustles to make ourselves known in the creative world and to also be able to afford life whilst doing our passion. One quote from regular practise ‘We make it happen’ which I love.
How important are side projects and are you currently working on any?
A lot of the answers to this question is making a list of all the things that you want to achieve and if they are still important in years to come thats when we complete them. But there is also mention that the side projects that we do work on do become the main job and there are side projects within your job. I hope that this means when you do become successful you no longer need to do the side hustle projects.
I think the term side projects is so that you take your creativity into other areas but also keeps your mind busy not only focussing on your current project.
Resource Notes
Resource One and Five
Resource Two
Resource Three
Resource Four
Resource Reflection
Resource One and Five
“Brian Eno's legendary Oblique Strategies cards”
These cards are so interesting especially reading through the knowledge about them on Wiki. One of the things that stood out to me on Wiki was the printing of them and that its now available as an Alexa add on - which made my queeze inside but also interesting how the modern day has thought this idea is so amazing we are going to make it available for Alexa and iPhone + Android users. A lot of artists seem to use this but it would be interesting to find out if any designers use the cards themselves and whether its helped them. I guess it helps people see their project from a different point of view especially for those working alone - what a fab idea! I would be interested to try this out myself within the creative process to see if it works.
Resource Two
“Brian Eno on Creative Potential”
This was a small snippet video of Brain Eno talking about how you could push your creativity potential. One of the main points that stood out for me within this video was how he points out the first thing you should do is try making a living out of being and artist but then he’s really contradicting when he says “im here to persuade you to not get a job” which is a really interesting thing to tell artists. I think a lot of the time we are pushed into employment right from when we graduate which I know I was the whole way through my degree but at the end of the day should we just be absorbing as much as possible and find our own way?
“Leave yourself in a position where you can do things with your time”
Resource Three
“The Importance of Vulnerability”
I think this little video was eye opening as a lot of us do take our vulnerability as a negative. Everything that was said was true. But we all have these vulnerabilities that we see as negatives so we try and hide them from others but in-fact this can become our strength. We can use these vulnerabilities to be different and to show others to come out of their shells. I also love the graphics within this video. The simple character images with pink and white are so effective also their heads remind me of thumbs!
Resource Four
“Keep Going”
What a positive little clip - The points that were made throughout are so true. Sometimes we expect everything to go right the first time as we get so excited to create and build but actually reality is that it takes a couple times to really understand and redesign and get to grips with the Project.
Research
This week i’ve taken a particular interest in Brian Eno and his cards that allow him to explore different avenues. But I started thinking about other ways of improvement to ourselves and how to get out of a creative blank.
This interesting concept is called the reflection card asking you questions about your life so that you are able to reflect and improve your daily mindset. Mindset is something that is so important with design and creative subjects because its how you approach things and get them done. Overall I think the graphics of these cards are equally beautiful - when they are in the pack they are all rainbow coloured and the back of the cards are various different illustrations that are just simple but effective.
I also researched different ways that we can overcome creative block.
I thought this was a great diagram - mainly because I love the bright colour yellow and it seems more positive but also how between the ideas theres like a thought that you would portray that makes the image a little bit more fun and entertaining.
This video that I found on youtube, this particular photographer went around London taking portraits of people. He has said a quote mark dwane “in 20 years from now you’ll only regret the things you didn’t do not the things you did do”. He talks about some days he will go out to London and he won’t take any pictures - we hit this wall that means we stopped being inspired.
Conscious mind falls out of sink with my intuition (All stuff that you have explored before)
Stop Trying - Subconscious mind up and running
Go somewhere different (different perspective on work)
Spend Time with people but also learn from people
Stop Worrying
Let go of Bad Ideas
This led me to researching about why we aren’t accepting of our fears which was another point that was made within this weeks resource:
“Leon F. Seltzer, clinical psychologist, says: There are many different reasons that we may endeavor to hide, or disguise, the emotional pain that comes in the wake of negative beliefs about ourselves evoked by a particular person or situation. But what they have in common is that they’re all fear-induced.”
“By hiding feelings, i.e. emotions, people are usually in fear of how they will be perceived and even of their own self-images. Unfortunately, the most frequent way this is manifested in behavior is by silence and withdrawal”
“This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Polonius to his son Laerte”
Within the video above there were some really heart hitting points and somethings id never really realised before especially in terms of thinking yourself into an illness. It was also eye opening as this whole video shows you are much more likely to create and be creative when you aren’t stressed or in a stressed state of mind. So in terms of having a creative block, this probably happens when you are in the surviving mode and then when your ideas come back to you, you are once again in the creativity mode.
In the video above It talks about killing the brain to social media and the addictions. I think that social media does slowly kill our brain due to the over exposure meaning we aren’t able to cope. We cannot resist the temptation of it.
Workshop Challenge
A list of my Skills:
Collaboration
Photography
3D Modelling
Communicating
Colour Palette
Layout
Expression
Computer Creativity
Organisation
Imagination
A list of skills I wish to develop:
Videography
Filming
Illustration
Drawing
Typography
Time management
Illustrator software
Remembering to Save
Physical Creativity
Visualisation
Process Model:
I like the idea of how this process is kind of going in a circle or a wiggle that makes me think it looks like a board game with various options.
I liked the look of this game ‘ the growth board game’ around personal growth about your attitude towards certain things.
Since my little brainstorm above I have been researching about trying to find a game or something that enables me to maximise my communication of my working process. I thought about possibly doing dice or a spinner as sometimes it can be really random. But I have thought through all those ideas and have agreed that nothing would work.
Onto a new idea of using logos in a mind map? The thing that i’m struggling to digest is the gaps between. I started thinking about circles and as designers once we get through one hoop per se we have to jump or get through another. I wanted my process to be based around this.
For inspiration of circles and circle art work I started researching some famous circular paintings. I like how the image above has a centre point almost a destination for where they are going.
I came across the Enso Circle which is the circle for enlightment, I found this a really interesting symbol and wondered if I could turn my words into logos or symbols. Showing that circles that overlap and come together. To do this I needed to make my list of skills I have and don’t have smaller as well as the process so it wouldn’t get over complicated.
A list of my Skills:
Photography
3D Modelling
Colour Palette
Layout
Creativity
Organisation
A list of skills I wish to develop:
Videography
Drawing
Illustration
Typography
Illustrator software
Visualisation
I began to sketch some circles and ideas based on the circles and the overlapping. Below shows the process video:
as soon as I wrote the word cycle on the page after drawing some circles I realised about the mechanism that makes the bike go is the chains that hold both wheels together - the process and the two sides were one learning and one to learn.
It also came to my mind about coggs and how they fit together in terms of moving things forward and i’ve often seen the brain as cogs as they are constantly working to solve problems.
This is an example of different types of cogs they all have holes in - which demonstrates and shows the gaps within my gaps but maximising learning.
An example of how the process could and would work, I will now try and sketch this out and plan whether to put imagery or logos.
I think this actually worked out pretty well - but I just want it to look a little bit more professional but also have 6 strands for each side section as well as the writing that is clear around the outside.
I started to take this into adobe create on my iPad to hand draw the cogs with the chain round.
I then took that fit into photoshop to start to drop some of the key wording ontop.
This was my final design - I really like the way that it feels 3D or pops out at you. The red around the outside really pops out.
After some feedback from Harriet - the aesthetics seemed a bit outdated so i’ve decided to go back to my original enso circle and use this as a starting point for creating a more modern look. As shown in sketches below going back to the original - But also a video to show the process.
From these sketches - I took a water paint outline from create on my iPad and uploaded this to photoshop and started playing around with the basis that I previously had.
I decided that this really didn’t work - I had previously draw circles within circles so I decided to try this again and see what happens.
The circles within circles were really hard to read, so I tried one continuous circle within each other to see if that was giving the effect that I want.
I really liked the circle within a circle and this was exactly what I wanted to achieve - I thought that some of the text was a bit high so next was to play around with the font.
This was the final image before changing the font on top - I will try thinner text to see if this changes the effect of the image.
I really like this with the font fira sans - overall I think I have modernised the image but the same concept still comes across really clear.
Weekly Summary
This week was about looking at self critisism, where we get our creativity from and, also, how to get out of a creative rut. As shown, having negative influences such as social media but also stress within your life stops the natural flow of creative ideas. Often when you are calm this is when the creative ideas are able to flow clearly.
Brian Eno, talks about being able to put time towards the work that you want to do but also being your own self critic when you are stuck with work. Using the wellbeing and oblique strategy cards, allow us to check on oursleves and our work.
Taking process as inspiration for this weeks workshop task and the areas i wanted to achieve, I used a bicycle cog as inspiration for the constant turning. I think this simple typography and illustration diagram clearly shows where i want to improve and learn. It has also become clear to me this week that sometimes even when you finish a project or think you have there’s always so much work that can be added and improved.
This week has been challenging in a sense that I often get creative block or too many ideas. The tips that were shared this week should help me get on the right track quicker.