Video Vs everything else

I do think that videos communicate far better than any type of media! print: meh web: meh
videos can keep your attention... I must have a short attention span... anyway... youtube channels can be quite addictive.. I just watched a load of videos by a guy who read the twilight books and talked about them.. and he does songs... and general tom foolery...
why? you ask...
well, it's all because someone posted one on facebook. it got me hooked. i've watched them for a good couple of hours now... got a good link from it though (the guy who paints on chewing gum) from a previous post...
Also i do like ...
what's it called? ellipsis
I LOVE GOOGLE and FACEBOOK and YOUTUBE

Painting on gum; does it pay?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11677462

This guy paints on chewing gum!
He can't be arrested either.
Though one does wonder... does this man have a job?

Aardman animations 'Dot'

Lovely stop motion to advertise N8 Nokia phone and its new technology.
http://www.wk.com/campaign/dot

Malevich Suprematism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suprematism

WAKE UP FREAK OUT THEN GET A GRIP

Really effective climate change campaign animation.



Wake Up, Freak Out - then Get a Grip from Leo Murray on Vimeo.

Willi Kunz

Swiss born designer Willi Kunz adheres to his own methods and aesthetic ideals, avoiding the currents of fashions and style.

Inspired by avant-garde movements of the 1920’s and 30’s, he has a design tradition of mixing modernism, rationalism, functionalism, swiss design, and international style which developed out of constructivism, De Still and Bauhaus.

These modes of design were fuelled by the belief that a ‘universal’ language of geometric grids, systematic typography, simplified drawings and objective photographs can overcome cultural differences and historical change. Modernism became an official corporate and institutional style in the 1950’s and 60’s so as many designers and architects questioned its aesthetic and philosophy, it became seen as elitist, anti-individualistic and overly abstract. Kunz argues the relevance of the swiss aesthetic and ethic while using the key visual principles of space, structure, sequence, contrast and form in today’s computer dominated typography because without fundamental principles, typography could no more communicate visually than could language without grammar and vocabulary communicate verbally.

 In a quest for originality, designers often become preoccupied with typefaces, with the result in ideas being degraded to meaningless decoration.

A general audience, he believes, is more interested in content than the typeface. if the goal of the typographic design is to communicate information, the audience is best served by a classical typeface, like the Univers family, which he has used throughout his career as a staple.

In his opinion, universe is still contemporary, functional, appropriate, and versatile and, with its large programmed family, comprehensive. 

The final choice of a typeface is a question of personal choice, preference and taste and typographic design, he believes, has little to do with typeface selection and that

the typeface should be as unobtrusive as possible. 

Kunz does not spend a large amount of time working on preliminary sketches but instead works on

basic ideas, then sets type then develops final solution from looking at the possible ways of organising the outcome.

He does not construct work on a predetermined grid but instead starts with a visual composition and permits structure and alignments to grow from the design process as he begins with a concern for the essential message, and the structure then unfolds in response to the information being conveyed.

He first isolates the crucial elements corresponding to the clients character and purpose then manipulates it into his own language so that the clients words read with unmistakable clarity.

Grids, typographic rules and restrictions are selection and decision making machines for Kunz’s method. These create an architectural style using rows and columns, a limited palette of design elements and stylistically distinctive images through rational choices.

His crisp designs are tied together with geometric frameworks, boxes and rules and a use of rational, limited design elements and colours, which advertise his approach towards typography. These aspects give a formal visual vocabulary to communicate clearly, directly and efficiently with power. His use of visual hierarchy brings order and clarity in order to control the way the viewer reads the information and he create patterns and connections for effective communication, balanced aesthetics and a sense of a completed whole. Grids allow disciplined structures and applications, as the mathematical, geometrical concept requires precise thought for a classical harmony. The acts of reading and seeing are then combined as one experience through composition and form. 

Kunz uses intuitive visual sensitivity to inform his design and composition choices, as it is a key element is such rationalist design for a selective process that eliminates superfluous and ordinary, leaving only the essential and extraordinary. 

Sometimes this sensitive eye may even over ride the grid, as he is willing to abandon this restriction if it is not useful rather than turn it into a prison for his designs.

He juxtapositions photos with interpretive abstract shapes or patterns which show kudzu’s need to leave a unique personal mark on a potentially anonymous, neutral design which is not determined by an agreed problem or specific demands but by the designer’s taste. He adds a personal ‘geographic commentary’, or ‘functional decoration’ onto the images with flat shapes that are not confined to squares, circles or triangles, but extends these to any shape that can be created by combining, cutting, and distorting. 

The addition of these elements, plus their layering, gives his typography a modern, interesting form. This is because stated problems or given functions cease to provide enough cues for a visually or intellectually engaging object as there are too few demands, so designers go towards an expressionistic flip side of functionalism with the addition of personalized, self expressive images. These organized structures are not for communication value but for sensual effect. They are structural, representations of semantic meanings in geometric elements, which reflect the impact of semiotic theory on design in recent decades. 

Kunz believes that function and form should be fused and that design is a search for balance between legibility and readability, utility and beauty, and if that balance is unattainable, it is more appropriate to use the basic typographic principles that stress function rather than to resort to limitless self expression. 

He believes there are two types of primary visual components:

Macroaesthetics are size, form and colour, which first catch the eye.Microaesthetics are the details; typefaces, letterforms and spacing, words, and graphic elements. He says, “a design which does not work on the microaesthetic level will often fail as an effective means of communication”. 

I think by this he means that it is not enough to grab someone’s attention with a beautiful design. If it does not communicate anything then it does not work. This is what i believe to be functional and rational design as a breath of fresh air in a pollution of ‘pretty’ design without meanings. He believes also that the quantity of information we are subjected to outpaces our capacity to sort filter and select which makes high quality disciplined typography essential in order to communicate most effectively. 

It is Kunz’s approach to communicative design and limited, functional aesthetic that has inspired me as a designer. These ideas have encouraged me to think about every aspect of my designs in how to make me think whether it is clear. v

This piece of information design I created to show the distribution of my clothes in the washing cycle demonstrate my limited choice of key colours, simple shapes and carefully chosen typography using only Helvetica.

(my essay as a double page document)

(my video essay with visual references)

Integrated Theory and Practice: Disruption

Disruption is the (usually deliberate or intended) interruption of normal work or practice.

Paraty: equality, as in amount, status or value.

When every company or agency jump on the band wagon, the market comes into a state of parity. 

When someone disrupts this with something new, they get noticed, and so become more successful, bringing more business.

Then they all jump on that new band wagon, and so the cycle carries on. 

But how do we stand out from the crowd and use this as a business tool? 

We have to be original. In order to do this, we must first research what the competition is already doing, then ask 'better questions'. Why is the industry how it is? How can we change or challenge the way we look at it? How can we change the consumer's view of it?

We have to make an emotional connection with the audience. This is why funny adverts are memorable, along with sad, moving ones, such as charities. 

They way we use media can also be challenged. For example, the tippex viral ad is very memorable as it is funny, interactive and challenges the way we use viral ads and media. 

The new coding which allows the character to interact with the advert next to it, for tippex, is surprising and clever, as is a progression in the way viral ads are used in advertising. The viewer can then interact with it and type in whatever they like and choose where the story goes.

Another way of challenging conventional methods of advertising is guerilla advertising. This involves using the environment and context to take the consumers by surprise and create a memorable experience. 

in 2005 3M came up with a unique ambient ad campaign in Canada to promote its 3M Scotchshield security glass.

The company modified a Vancouver bus shelter ad and filled the unbreakable postersite with stacks of play money, and 500 real Canadian dollars on top to lure Canadians to take an attempt to lay their hands on it by breaking the glass. The idea clicked and many attempted fruitlessly to get access to the banknotes. However, the glass remained intact.

The remarkable idea, created by Rethink Communications, not only gained the public’s attention, also newspapers, tech- & ad blogs and a local news station covered the stunt. Now three years later The Ladders, marketleader in $100K online recruitment, takes 3M’s unique idea one step further …

TheLadders, a popular site (with 2 million members) for job seekers for executive positions that pay more than $100K a year, conducted a social experiment in July in New York, to target recruiters at Fortune 1,000 companies.

To make a point to employers about the kind of attention $100,000 can attract TheLadders placed a stack of $100,000 cash (unguarded), protected by a clear shatter-proof plexiglass case, in Columbus Park in Brooklyn and 10 hidden cameras to record the public’s reactions.

Some observers did the classic double-take, while others were so mesmerized that they could only stare and comment and a few attempted to knock the case over. The ad closes with: “The conclusion? $100,000 will attract a lot of people. TheLadders.com helps you attract the right people.”

Nobody succeeded to break the 3M security glass, but some people did at TheLadders experiment: “We did see a good amount of violence and vandalism, at one point six guys got together tipped it over and it smashed, and the security guards jumped into action.”

This just shows how some businesses can take a new, effective marketing idea, turn it around to fit their marketing needs but fail or have it be less successful because it was not initially moulded to fit their own brief. 

Integrated Theory and Practice: Information overload

As I sat on the train home, I tucked into a cheese and tomato pasta pot. My surroundings were more or less a blur in my memory, but the food is the most vivid recollection of the short 20 minute journey. 

I may not remember the fire exit instructions, or the adverts on the walls, the nutritional information on the pot, or the headline on the metro sitting on the seat next to me, but they were there, and my subconscious picked up on that fact. I could have read it all without even noticing, taking in information without the slightest conscious thought. Then there was what I DID notice. The litter sign; as I binned my rubbish. The manufacturers name on the train door; as I waited to exit at my stop. 

We are constantly bombarded with information. Only a tiny fraction of that is consciously taken in, and an even smaller amount is processed, understood and remembered. The rest is subconsciously banked within memories. Not only is it visual information, but also audio. People's conversations can be unintentionally over heard along with music, and background noise like traffic. 

If we are directly targeted with a piece of information, we will not notice it unless it catches our attention. 

Swiss designer Willi Kunz believes that the quantity of information we are subjected to outpaces our capacity to sort, filter and select, which makes high quality, disciplined design essential.

I also believe this, along with the idea that design must scream to stand out as much as possible to be seen and heard, but that is difficult when every other designer is trying to do the same. There are only so many ways you can be original.

My brain feels like a tightly wound ball of thread. When I talk or write something down, it unravels. This long thread it seems is compiled of memories, information, thoughts and an attempt at organising all that is thrown at me into some kind of comprehendible structure. Only when I unwind it and compose these into some kind of pattern does it all make any sense.

Sometimes, if there is time, I can unwind a small portion of thread that I have taken in, in order to understand and think about it further, there and then. For example, I may notice a poster on the side of a building, but not read it, and so I cannot take in that information, even if i can remember what it vaguely looks like. However, I might notice it another time and stop briefly to read it. At this point I am understanding it and taking it in. 

In order to take in information, then understand it, and remember it, I find that it helps to organise everything by breaking it down, putting it into categories, then deciding on the most important points. This is how I tend to learn most effectively. 

Important Information in every day life can get lost amongst other irrelevant, unimportant pieces aimed at us in order to sell something. 

As a sponge, a consumer sucks up all that is thrown at it. I am a consumer so I cannot choose what I take in, but I can choose what to squeeze out and relay to others as important and useful information.

Information Graphics

Well, I've never counted all my clothes before, though I knew I have a lot. However, I can never seem to find them when I need them!! So, as well as an experiment to find this out, I put it into a simple info graphic.
Figures apply only on 25th March 2011 and may only be approximate as I could have overlooked some... and I just realised I forgot to count the clothes I was wearing at the time, but it gives a good idea.

Unbranded magazine: Issue 1 preview

sneaky ;)

http://www.unbrandedmag.blogspot.com/

Brainiac Jack

My character design and ideas for an American educational series for 7-11 year olds.

Integrated Theory and Practice: Semiotics

Iconic Signs 

resemble the object or action they represent, e.g: a hand washing sign.

Indexical Signs

have a direct link to what they are indicating. 

e.g: medical symptoms are a sign of an illness 

smoke is a sign of fire

the link is causal, as the fire causes the smoke, and the illness causes the visual symptom

Symbolic Signs 

may not look like, or have a link to what they represent, so we have to learn what they mean through constantly being shown a link between the two. 

e.g: the apple logo means nothing on its own but because we have seen it in context so many times, next to the macintosh branding and on the products, we now know it as a logo as well as a symbol. 

Signs can only be interpreted by looking at its at its context. The simpler they are, the more ambiguous the meaning, so its surroundings are needed in order to understand the message. 

A circle is so simple, that it could represent many things. However, if a point is added, it becomes another, more complicated shape, and so it can resemble a drop of liquid (even though a raindrop is spherical). 

A black, red or blue dot does not mean anything, but does connote certain ideas based on the colour. If the colour is then put along with another sign, such as the shape of a raindrop, it gives it a context, and so it can now resemble, and represent something. 

The black could mean oil, the blue; water, and the red; blood.

The signs on toilets are iconic, as they look like men or women. However, if they are not placed somewhere specific, such as a toilet door, they do not have enough meaning to convey a message. On the door, they can mean; 'mens room' or 'ladies room', or which we have learnt tends to mean toilets.

Then, with both symbols together, this then means unisex toilets. 

If these symbols were simply on a wall, they do not have enough other signs around them to signify a meaning. 

Here, I have combined symbolic and iconic signs (fire and smoke) to represent the idea of indexical signs (which have a causal link to what they represent). So, in this case, the smoke would be an indexical sign for fire, and fire is an indexical sign for combustion. 

The red circle with a cross through it would mean nothing on its own, without another sign within it, making it another symbolic sign. 

Integrated Theory and Practice: Information Design

"Form Follows Function"

Information Design, I find, is very much like architecture and product design, in the sense that it serves a purpose, facilitated by its aesthetic, by the form it takes. For example, an important document such as a bank statement is laid out in a precise grid, to make it as easy as possible to read and understand what money is going in, or going out, from who, and when. These categories are separated by single lines, in columns and rows.  If a bank statement was three-dimensional, it could be visualised as a building much like a block of flats; the windows being where each piece of information is entered, and the levels are transactions, and the columns of windows are the categories; date, paid in, paid out, etc. Then inside the building, are the rooms, also in a structured grid fashion, in order to make them equal in size and so that they fit in all the furniture and facilities needed.

American architect, "father of skyscrapers" Louis Henri Sullivan, coined the phrase 'form follows function' in 1896.  It came from his article 'The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered" in which he said;

'It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic,
Of all things physical and metaphysical,
Of all things human and all things super-human,
Of all true manifestations of the head,
Of the heart, of the soul,
That the life is recognisable in its expression,
That form ever follows function. This is law."

Louis Henri Sullivan
Prudential Building
New York 1894
















The Bauhaus tries "to derive the design of an object from his natural functions and conditions."
- Walter Gropius, 1925

Walter Gropius
F51 armchair
1920


'The F51 armchair is the first ever piece of Bauhaus furniture designed by Walter Gropius in 1920. The chair and sofa were designed for the director's office at Bauhaus school and quintessentially represent the philosophies of the early Modernist pioneers.'

Walter Gropius
Interior sketch

Bauhaus style of design, within architecture, furniture and print is highly functional; it serves the purpose which it was intended for, using its form to deliver, clearly and easily. This is the idea I believe to be extremely important in information design. It must be as clear and as easy to follow as possible, in order to put across the information quickly and directly.







"Form follow function- that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union."
- Frank Lloyd Wright (American architect and writer 1867-1959)

Frank Lloyd Wright
1894


By this, I believe Wright means that a design should serve its purpose, while at the same time should take a form which also serves its aesthetic purpose. For example, his design, above, is structured, appears functional, while also having a minimalist style. It did not need to have two windows either side of the door, but the symmetrical design adds to the style.


The house below, however, has a very different style. It is curved and far more complicated and yet is functional as it has enough windows and enough space for living. The two tasks of a beautiful aesthetic and a functional form have been combined in 'a spiritual union'.

Frank Lloyd Wright
Walter H Gale house
1893















Theory based on Practice: Practice based on theory

Swiss graphic designer Willi Kunz creates precise, structured works.

Willi Kunz
Black and Decker 3D symbol 


This piece of design incorporates graphics and 3D products in a way which brings in structure.

Willi Kunz
catalogue design


I see this to be quite inspired by the term 'form follows function' in that it is highly structures within a grid format, minimal colour and has a clear typeface.  The information is easy to read with a clear visual hierarchy.
The bold orange strip, then the name, then the orange dot at the top, then the title of the book, and finally the details within the lines.
The lines, colour or dot are not needed but add to the interesting design and structure.








In the newest (March) Issue of Creative Review, the special featured designer is Gerd Arntz. His Isotype symbols are the perfect example of information design. Their form is their function; to communicate precisely an action or specific image, clearly and quickly which requires them to be instantly recognisable as a person or an object.

These symbols are clearly people drawing or writing. The linear work indicates the arms, face and pencil, while simple shapes show the person leaning forward, wearing a particular length of sleeve and with a specific hair style. These designs allow one colour to be used, and are clear enough to be used small or large. 

Information design in signage has an important function to be universally recognisable and compressive.

E.g; Exit sign

'Party Starter'

Dan and I have produced a stop motion viral video to promote a fizzy drinks company's new can-top speaker; the party starter.
here's the cast:

Here's the ad:

Party Starter Advert from Daniel Cooper and Emma Quirk on Vimeo.

'Smile' Toys

A logo for a children's toy company named 'Smile'.

Book Cover Design: The Book Of General Ignorance

Re-designing the cover for this book proved very exciting- there was so much imagery to go on, as the book is so full of varied facts, on many different topics. As it is based on a comedy entertainment TV programme, i decided to go for a humorous approach. The original cover was not so enticing, nor inviting to those who many not have seen the programme, as the images were of the people which it features. I wanted to put across the intrigue which I experienced while reading the book, and in turn attract a new audience of inquisitive people by designing an interesting, comical and vibrant cover.

original cover:

Sketches:

My Emotional Chameleons:
This book is full of facts, which are commonly misconceived, put right. Their strap line sums this up: 'everything you think you know is wrong'.
Chameleons are thought to change colour to blend into their environment, but this not true. They in fact change colour depending on their emotional states. This is what inspired my bold, child-like illustrations of chameleons, to make fun of those who have 'general ignorance', in a innocent, comical way.

My final design:

MMM mac

I really do love my mac....

.... enough even to make it a late valentines card.

Pre-Raphaelites

The Poetry of Drawing: Pre-Raphaelite Designs, Studies and Watercolours

http://www.bmag.org.uk/events?id=1038

A fantastic, breathtaking exhibition!

Some of my favourites (photographs from exhibition book)

William Mulready
seated male nude mid 1850s
red and black chalk on wove paper

- i would never have thought of using red and black chalk! works so well!

Francesca Alexander
Rispetti

beautifully detailed!

Max Beerbohm
Dante Gabriel Rossetti in his back garden
1904
something a bit different...

Florence Claxton
The choice of Paris: an Idyll
1860
it seems so modern for this time!

Edward Burne-Jones
The good Shephard (stained glass design)
1861

can you spot the pokemon ball? CHARAZARD GO! haha

William Holman Hunt
The finding of the saviour in the temple
1854-60 oil on canvas

Russell Brand was destined to be famous!
Can you spot him in the picture above?