www.danboomedesignpractice.blogspot.com

OUGD104 Evaluation

BA (Hons.) GRAPHIC DESIGN LEVEL 01
Module Code OUGD104
Module Title VISUAL LANGUAGE


END OF MODULE SELF-EVALUATION

NAME Dan Boome BLOG. ADDRESS www.danboomebagd.blogspot.com

1. What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

I think the skills I have developed throughout this module are mostly approaches to/ideas for how to solve other design problems, for example how to utilise negative space and simplify forms.
I now have broader photography skills, as before I knew how to use a camera, but none of the specifics, and learning that has helped me to be more confident I using photography in my work along with a knowledge of how to vary the results I get.
I have learned to use different media, mostly working with alternative stocks and papers, and how to utilise them as part of the outcome not just a background. Also working on different scales, from small (icons) to large (what is a line) and the differing results that can be achieved with each, to again become part of the outcome.

2. What approaches to/methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

I have a general problem with doing research for research sake, as in not to inform a final idea I already have, and though I still think I’ve not quite figured out how to do this as effectively as possible, I have learned to break the mould somewhat and to develop and research without knowing where it was going, especially with the what is a line brief. I think this is where I faltered at first but towards the end I got hold of this way of working to produce work that doesn’t have a definitive end goal. Which is probably the worst time to figure that out, at the end, but that’s how it happened. Having realised this hopefully in future projects I can follow this way of working from the start to produce a larger body of research and a more informed final outcome.

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

I think my biggest strengths are initial ideas and concepts, and having a focus from the start. This works best with smaller briefs, especially in workshop situations where there is only one afternoon to produce work.
I think I have a good understanding of what is wanted and of how it is to be resolved. This also links in with having strong initial ideas, to quickly formulate in my mind what is required.
I am also able to understand and pick up techniques and processes quickly and to be able to then implement them, such as with the perspective drawing workshop and also photography which I hadn’t done much of before.



4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?

I think my biggest weakness are initial ideas and concepts, and having too much of a focus from the start. The biggest problem with this is that on longer briefs, such as What Is A Line, the ‘middle section’ is fairly unproductive. This is because forming a final idea straight away and focussing on it forces me in only one direction, which can only be taken so far, and it ends pre-maturely, leaving a lot of time and an already resolved solution. This diminishes the quantity of work produced, particularly research and development based, and a rather less informed outcome. This has been my biggest weakness in almost all of my projects, but I have begun to address that in my most recent work and I feel that I’m starting to rectify that.
My secondary research is below par, but more importantly implementing or being inspired by secondary research to inform my work. Again, I’ve started to put this right and recently am beginning to research ‘for research sake’, both secondary and primary.
I lead a fairly busy life with most evenings and weekends taken up by other responsibilities and duties, and generally have been loath to dedicate what little down-time I have to furthering the work I do in college hours. This, I have seen, has diminished my works quantity and quality, and so I need to set aside time outside college specifically to further work, and not just ‘as-and-when’.

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

1. More primary and secondary research – a broader range of influences and inspiration to inform finished product.

2. Dedicate more out of college time to work and specifically set time aside for this – get into routines with no distractions, producing a larger quantity and quality of work

3. Use my blog more – links with primary and secondary research, but also and outlet for any thoughts and ideas I may have but then forget

4. Be more excited about the work I’m doing – firstly I will be more willing to work, secondly able to produce more quality work, and third to be constantly pondering it for inspiration to strike anytime.

5. Be willing to broaden my ideas and change and move – so that the work wont get boring and repetitive and becomes more organic


6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas:
(please indicate using an ‘x’)

5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor
                                           1 2 3 4 5
Attendance                                              x
Punctuality                                        x
Motivation                              x
Commitment                                      x
Quantity of work produced              x
Quality of work produced                    x
Contribution to the group                      x

The evaluation of your work is an important part of the assessment criteria and represents a percentage of the overall grade. It is essential that you give yourself enough time to complete your written evaluation fully and with appropriate depth and level of self-reflection. If you have any questions relating to the self evaluation process speak to a member of staff as soon as possible.

Tapes

This is my first foray into tape-based work, and i really like it. One cos of the scale, its ace on such a large scale, but also because of the inherit structure of the tape, it stops my natural urge to curve my lines and leaves a lot more rigid result at the end. Tape=awesome.

Black

Here's a couple using different takes on the same technique - the first is exploring dark tones to light on a dark background, the second is inspired by the wiring systems of before but is more about synchronisation

Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades

Very loosley based on lines, i know, but nonetheless...



what i love about this video is the relationship between such an interesting concept with the music. Lyrically, there's no relationship, but emotionally there's a huge connection.

o>REC

This is and artist called BuffDiss who works in almost all white tape on walls, floors and generally anywhere, inc his trademark pointing finger. Check it

So i really like the concept, and after being nudged in the general direction by Luke Hallam i began starting to think about scale and tape and how i could utilise that in my specific style. The main problem i've always found with what i do, along with being extremely time consuming, is that, when drawing in a rush, and generally due to human error, the straight lines start to become....less straight and sometimes just plain curves. So coloured tape would fix this, while also giving serious weight to the lines, making a lot more ordered and structured resolution.

Here's my attempt...

i'm thinking if i have enough time at the end to do a video of me taping it, similar to this by Buff Diss

Short Circuit

So a few of the reactions i got in the last crit to my work was to look at circuit boards. So i did. these are just a few images, i also took apart an old nintendo controller and tape player which i have yet to photograph.




The main point about these is the way the lines interconnect, so as im starting to deal a little with colour as well having all these interconnecting coloured lines makes for an intersting mix.

And here's my video based on circuits. Its very basic, don't laugh, and my pen was running out, AND it looks a mess, but its a general interpretation.

Justice - D.A.N.C.E

Tape

This is a guy called Alexander Stewart who used tape cassette tape

Watch to the end...

How The West Was Won

HOW TO.....create the perfect pavlova.

I wish.

How to create a reading list. Well easy - get some paper and a pen and write the books you want to read on it.
But this is obviously not meant to be that simple.

First off, i signed in, went to my home page and voila!



albeit without the red and yellow boxes, i added those, pretty aren't they? Everyone should use Paint and only Paint from now on.
So i even have a reading list in my blog! Which i didn't know.
The main problem that i can see is how to make making a reading list interesting/relevant. I think it'll be a case of simplifying the instructions and making it seem like something everyone should do. Hmmm.

The Mummy

Here's another one i'm working on, though its only half way through, if that, so the first video is half what i've done, at a slightly faster frames/second speed, the second all i've got so far but slightly slower.

Evolution

This is an animation series called La Linea (The Line). is an Italian animated series of about 100 episodes created by Osvaldo Cavandoli in 1969. Its awesome stuff, very professional as you would expect, but with really quirky and interesting stories to it



This is a morphing line drawing Amber should be interested in because there's a dog in it.



And this is more what i'm currently working on except without the shapes. This is quite a small and basic video but it works nicely for what it is.

The Cube

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-check it out...

End Of Module Evaluation

1. What practical skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them

The practical skills i have developed are how to research more, to experiment with form. I haven’t developed many practical skills i didn’t already utilise.

2. What approaches to/methods of problem solving have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

The one particular method of problem solving i’ve learned this module is how to move from the subject into another that is more suitable to the brief and to develop that idea rather than sticking with the original topic. This has meant that when i got stuck i let the idea develop away from what i thought it would be. I have also learned to experiment more, and base my ideas on my research rather than the other way round.

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?

Similar to above, i think the strengths in this modules work was being able to move and develop my ideas into something completely different and not stay on the one idea.
In future projects i hope to be able to explore the tangent ideas and to let my work develop rather than having an idea and just doing it.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?

My biggest weakness was struggling to get to the place described above. I got to a point where i didn’t know where to take my work and stangnated for a while. It took a fair while before i discovered how to change my idea and let it flow more. In the future i will try and reach that point sooner/implement that way of thinking from the start.

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

1. Work with more enthusiasm - a greater appreciation for my work
2. Work faster - produce a larger body of work
3. Develop my ideas before reaching a final decision - hopefully my work will be of a higher standard and quality
4. Not waste so much time - get more done
5. Manage my time more effectively

Are there any things we could have done differently that would have benefitted your progress?

Not particularly

6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas:
(please indicate using an ʻxʼ)

5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor

1 2 3 4 5

Attendance 5

Punctuality 5

Motivation 3

Commitment 4

Quantity of work produced 3

Quality of work produced 3

Contribution to the group 4

Way Of The Gun

What Is A Line SOI:

Right i'm going to be concentrating my efforts on continuous line, a la my drawings posted earlier. I intend to experiment with different shapes and not just squares, in pictures and possibly film, looking into line drawings that then become animation. Also i plan to investigate the natural forces at work with line, in portraits and the like but again using the technique i developed before.
And thats about it. We'll see where that goes.

Crank

Ok so now i think i've cracked what i'm going to do. Finally. After discussions with various people i've settled on the faces thing. Hope it works now.

While i was sleeping

Right about now i'm sat with a quizzical look on my face whilst i attempt to stare down my ever mounting mass of papers and cut outs, trying desperately to pull some string of coherent thought out of the mess. And it's not going too well. After hitting a mental block the size of a small mountain for about 2 weeks, i now have 3 semi-formed ideas for my final book. The problem is, none really relate to the theme of 100 (although that can be fairly easily rectified - just do a hundred of whatever), the problem is these ideas are fairly small/basic and i have no idea whether my execution of any would yield results that are even lightly comical let alone interesting. I, friends, am stuck.

No change there then.

The first idea started as a flip chart of face parts, each face part having 6/8/10/12 versions (to correspond with dice that have said numbers), so the reader would roll a die, consequently selecting a face part, and so on throughout the face.
How to apply it to 100? Have 100 faces! Easy. So it cuts out the dice part, so what, thats called idea development.

Then Phoenix showed me this:



Someones already done it.

Numero 2: A Q&A book, but one where you roll a dice to select a question, roll a dice to pick a page and then again for an answer, so in the end you get a completely wierd, yet highly comedic, question and answer session. The only problem is i thought that up yesterday so i have basically no interviews. Ah.

Trois: a flow(ish) diagram or dice-directed turn page book involving actions/daily events.

So now i'm just confused. And they told me i have to work wednesday. Bummer.

Shanghi Kiss

Something that struck me from the opening ceremony for the Bejing Olympics was the mass uniformity of the dancers and particularily the rather impressive drummers. They stood, all in long rows, hundreds of them, banging out the same beat, which im sure did nothing for the old Western stereotype of "they all look the same". Haircuts, clothing, instruments, all near identical. No facial hair either.





Thinking about this now, and with my post about american football, it got me wondering about other sports and cultures where uniformity and lines are involved.

Naturally there is the Armed Forces, both current and times past, whose form on parade, and indeed during the 18th and 19th centuries on the field of battle, were regimented and strictly uniform occasions.


WW2 soldiers preparing to be shipped off to the fronts.


The most famous historical military structure was the romans, whose lines of soldiers doubled for solid protective defence.

The Bourne Ultimatum

I actually prefer the credits to Bourne Supremacy, but i couldn't find it, but its very similar, maybe a bit more linear.



Again with the Spiderman credits they're all very similar, but i like this one especially because it references the first film in a kind of round up. Its done by Imaginary Forces who i've mentioned a few times already, but they are awesome, and capture the essence of webs and spiders in the sequence.
On an aside they also did the Transformers sequence which is unbelievable, and a new Pepsi ad which is brilliantly simple too. Check it.

Walk The Line

Here's some stuff i've been trying out using a technique i use mostly when doodling - basically only horizontal of vertical lines following clockwise from each other. Its just an interesting way, i think, of shading/drawing.

The Butterfly Effect

This is a guy i looked into last year, and his work is fantastic, he's called Mark Grotjahn, and his pieces are all pencil drawn straight lines. There's so much detail its unbelievable, bearing in mind these are usually about 5 - 6 ft tall and 3-4 ft wide.
Check out http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/madison-avenue-2008-02-mark-grotjahn/#/videos/1/ for his latest exhibition video and pics.

Man On Wire

If this isn't a line i don't know what is....



This is Phillipe Petit who in 1974 tightrope walked a wire that was illegally rigged between the twin towers, then the worlds tallest buildings. Born out of a dream and an idea, Petit and his team of accomplices spent eight months planning the execution of their ‘coup’ in the most intricate detail. Like a team of professional bank robbers planning their most ambitious heist, the tasks they faced seemed virtually insurmountable: they would have to find a way to bypass the WTC’s security; to smuggle the wire and rigging equipment into the towers; to suspend the wire between the two towers; to secure the wire at the correct tension to withstand the winds and the swaying of the buildings; to rig it secretly by night – all without being caught. Not to mention the walk itself…

The Hole

This is a guy called Andy Gilmore







And something a little more...basic

The Escapist

I don't know if you've ever seen a tube station escalator but they NEVER look like this



they're always PACKED more like this:

Domino

Here's another couple of advert i liked. I think as a way of getting an original idea out there there's no better way than adverts. After all you have a mass audience who can't change the channel cos its adverts on every other channel too, so to breal the mundane of air freshener and bank commercials something interesting and memorable can really capture the audience's attention. So here's a famous one -



I think the line relationship is obvious so i won't explain...
And here's a more recent one that is just a lot of fun -

Le Mans

Production lines, lines of cars, lines of traffic, car parks, and what we've been seeing a lot of recently rows upon rows of cars on disused air strips.

This is the new Porsche museum in Stuttgart and, naturally, being German, the architecture is distinctly solid and straight. The exhibition includes prototypes, early turn of the century originals and classics such as the 911, the 917 driven by Steve McQueen in Le Mans, and the 550 Spyder, the model James Dean had a fatal accident in.

Mean Machine

So onto other sports also, obviously footballers line up (ha see what i did there) in lines, in formation



Tennis courts are rigidly set out



Marching bands



And even santa's sleigh...

The Replacements

A line of scrimmage...

"In American and Canadian football a line of scrimmage is an imaginary transverse line crossing the football field across its narrower dimension, beyond which a team cannot cross until the next play has begun. Its location is based on the spot where the ball is placed after the end of the most recent play and following the assessment of any penalty yards.



A line of scrimmage is parallel to the goal lines and touches one edge of the ball where it sits on the ground prior to the snap. Under NFL and NCAA rules, there are actually two lines of scrimmage at the outset of each play: one that restricts the offense and one that restricts the defense. The area between the two lines (representing the length of the ball as extended to both sidelines) is called the neutral zone. Only the center, the offensive player who snaps the ball, is allowed to have any part of his body in the neutral zone. In order for there to be a legal beginning of a play, a certain number of the players on the offensive team, including certain eligible receivers, must be at, on or within a few inches of their line of scrimmage.



Many fans and commentators refer colloquially to the entire neutral zone as the "line of scrimmage," although this is technically not correct. Others use the general term to refer specifically to the defensive line of scrimmage, since it is the line relevant to the measurement of progress toward the goal. Referees, when explaining a penalty, will refer to "the previous spot" instead of the "line of scrimmage" in order to avoid confusion."



Thats the definition. Basically its the line the teams line up on before the "snap", when the offensive center snaps the ball back to the quaterback. There are lots of lines in American football: obviously the sidelines and goal line, but during play, once the ball has been downed, the offensive team has to get the ball to a line 10 yards past the line where it was downed. They get 4 attempts at this, called "downs". So stating on first down there are 4 lines in play - the line of scrimmage (where the ball was originally downed), the line 10 yards away they have to get the ball past within 4 attempts, then the sidelines and goalline with endzone. Confusing? Now ask yourself why its called football.



As you can see there is a line of scrimmage (the players lined up on the right) and 10 yards towards the opponents end zone there is another "line".

The players themselves are placed in "lines" as well; namely the offensive and defensive lines. The offensive line consists of five players whose job is to protect the passer and clear the way for runners by blocking members of the defense. The lineman in the middle is the Center. Outside the Center are the Guards, and outside them are the Tackles. Except for the center, who snaps the ball to one of the backs, offensive linemen generally do not handle the ball. The defensive line consists of three to six players who line up immediately across from the offensive line. They try to occupy the offensive linemen in order to free up the linebackers, disrupt the backfield(behind the offensive line)of the offense, and tackle the running back if he has the ball before he can gain yardage or the quarterback before he can throw or pass the ball. They are the first line of defense.
Behind the defensive line are the Linebackers, whose job it is to rush the quarterback or cover potential receivers.



The bottom blue line of players are the offensive line, the top line of 4 red players is the defensive line.

Blank Cheque

This advert makes me laugh so much. It is also a from of LINE being a line of food on a counter, and line of people in a queue. And 4 lines of kit kat.

Fargo

Now i dont know whether this is just an ingenious application of unused space, or an actual support structure, but either way its ace. I used to know this nice old lady who stored bottles of water inbetween pallets that had been "planted" around her garden as a fence and topped off with a flower bed. Very clever.




Check this out...an Igloo made from books ha! Although somehow i doubt it would be of any use anywhere, judging by the massive HOLES IN THE FREAKIN WALLS. Gosh. Ah wait... my bad... Its an igloo shaped bookcase. And there was me getting all excited. Filled with books however it would make a fecthing bookcase.

Paranoid Park

This is a compilation video of this guy Daniel Eskills work, with a mixture of all his different vids from 05-07. There's some ace stuff in here, mainly to do with playing on perspectives and things like that but its really inventive and very simple in reality. It is actually a book of sorts, which is why its on here (not just cos i like it). In my oh so humble opinion, a book is a collection of ordered information, recorded for a future point, be it for personal use or for others. So a film cataloguing the films of a film maker during a certain period is in my view, a book. Discuss.



All his stuff is on his website eskills.com, and my personal favourite is an advert he did for Protest boardwear. Its a film of a film, but with a twist. Ingenius.

See No Evil

Here's one Luke Hallam ffffound (see what i did there luke?) earlier...



the quality's not as good, cos i've just joined them all together (check out lukehallambagd.blogspot.com) but it kind of encapsulates what i was trying to do with my 100 rolls of 100 dice when interpreting them visually. Now i'm moving in a different direction its not as relevant, but still some nice work. It's by a company called Instrument and Grid/plane (weareinstrument.com & gridplane.com)

A Beautiful Mind

So my idea isn't going very far. After rolling over 50 dice 100 times i got brain melt and had some ice cream, then realised my idea was at a bit of a dead end. No one wants to read statistics for a whole book. I had a lovely idea for how the book should look though, but depending on where i take it next i dont know if the form would be appropriate. So yeah. Where next? I haven't a clue. I think maybe something along the lines of The Dice Man book, something to do with chance and choices, but i have a fairly boring life in contrast to a murdering dice-worshipping psycho so it'll probably have to be fictional. I helped organise and am attending a Beetle-drive on friday (a game involving dice and beetles. Intriguing non?) so i'll take a camera and we'll see what happens there. I'll do some surveys of crazy stuff to decide with dice too and see where that takes me but other than that je pas.

Apocalypto

A Brief history of signs, symbols and pictograms