yellowbluepink

Ann Veronica Janssens' new extraordinary show entitled 'yellowbluepink'. Part of her States Of Mind collection the exhibition explores light and colour as Janssens invades the gallery space with coloured mist. The gradually shifting colour is caught in a state of suspension, obscuring any detail of surface or depth. Instead, attention is focussed on the process of perception itself.

The exhibition was highly disorientating, and even isolating at times when the twenty or so people in the space simply disappeared into the mist, but was also revealed to be obscurely uplifting when exiting the space and sight was fully restored. The use of colour appeared to be so simple, and yet remarkably complex once inside. The sensation of being surrounded and engulfed by a medium such as colour that isn't usually accessible in such a physical form was unlike anything I've ever experienced before.

An accompanying publication was also produced by Hato Press

Photography Induction - Aperture and Shutter Speed

In this simple task we had to demonstrate an understanding of the importance of aperture and shutter speed within photography. A low aperture (a larger hole in the lens) lets in more light, which results in an overexposed photograph, and a high aperture (a smaller hole in the lens) lets in less light, resulting in an underexposed photograph.

overexposed

underexposed

Using a slow shutter speed means the shutter is open for longer, which blurs fast moving objects, whereas a fast shutter speed captures fast moving objects quickly and in greater detail because the shutter is open for a shorter amount of time. 

slow shutter speed

fast shutter speed

End of Module Three Reflection

The feedback from my first module submission on this course came back very positive, with a grade of 74%, or the equivalent of a first. I was very pleased with this result, as this module had tested me in many new and different ways. Each project within the module was new to me, as I had never before undertaken a rebranding project, or a typeface creation, or a serious logo design. I was unsure about how to approach all of these briefs at first, however I worked hard to learn as much as I could about each of these different areas, using the supplied texts and recommended designers to inform my work, and applied my own knowledge of design to each one. The results were successful as this is a high grade for the first module. I hope to continue this level of research and use a more varied range of production methods within my next briefs.

Adana Letterpress Induction

An introduction into the Adana flatbed press: I had never done letterpress before this induction, although I knew the basics of how the machines worked and how to set up a chase. I chose to press a quote from the artist Jenny Holzer, and setting the metal type was a relatively quick process, but getting the type to stay in the chase was a lot more difficult. The print itself was very successful, with the exception of the letter 'T' at the beginning of the last line. However, I liked the way the half printed letter created a different texture to the rest of the print, and shows that accidents when letterpress printing often turn out better than a straight clean print.

OUGD402 - Study Task 02 - Why Am I Here? What Do I Want To Learn?

Why did you chose to study on this course?

Leeds college of art is a specialist art college and that kind of purely creative environment is something that really appealed to me. The chance to live and learn with other creatives, and the potential for cross disciplinary collaboration was something that excited me. I found the course itself is a much broader graphic design course than others that I applied to and seemed to give students a lot more freedom within the field; students are encouraged to extend their practice far further than just commercial design. Personally I was keen to stay in the North of England as that’s where I grew up. The art scene in the North is still emerging but is highly unique and far more diverse than most people realise, so one of the main draws to this course was that it just wasn’t London.

What do you want to learn during your time on the course?

One area I've always been keen to explore is curation - having gained some minor experience through curating my own small exhibition in August 2015 I am excited to gain more knowledge in this area and perhaps extend this through further personal exhibitions and/or launches. During an open day at LCA I was introduced to the letterpress studio and since then I have been keen to learn these techniques and how I might utilise traditional printing methods within future briefs. One of my main interests within graphic design is publication design, both the digital design and the physical printing of publications, so I'm eager to learn as much about this as I can during my degree, and alongside this book binding is also an area I would like to extend my knowledge in.

Identify and explain 5 things that you think are your strengths

Thanks to my foundation course last year I learnt a lot of skills which have been invaluable so far at LCA. I'm now able to work in a broader range of mediums, from screen printing to glasswork, which has allowed a greater diversity within my work. Because of this I feel I am also quite a diverse thinker when it comes to resolving briefs, as I already have pre-existing knowledge of many processes and therefore know how I can utilise them within different projects. Public speaking has never been an issue for me and I can be confident in front of an audience, so formal presentations aren't usually a problem. Whether it's considered a strength or not, I can be fairly stubborn, meaning I pursue issues that come up in my projects and work through them, resolving problems in a way that works for me. I'm also an organised person in both my personal projects and when leading and working in group projects, so work is delegated and evenly spread and deadlines are aways met.

Identify and explain 5 things you would like to improve
There are a few key skills that I would like to improve on during my time at LCA, the first of which is screenprinting. It is a medium I already enjoy but would relish the opportunity to expand my knowledge of screenprinting techniques and practise these within future works. I would also like to improve my knowledge of the Adobe programmes as I have not yet had the opportunity to use the full range, and I am aware of how much a good knowledge of the software will aid me in creating my works. Furthermore I would enjoy extending my knowledge of publication design - having produced a number of publications through self-taught methods I am sure that my proficiency in producing future publications would be increased through further knowledge of layouts, colour theory and printing methods. Another crucial area that I feel I need to improve on is my ability to network. Although this is not necessarily something that can be taught I know that working in a professional environment will naturally aid these skills and bring many opportunities to network with both young and experienced professionals within the creative fields. As an extension of this I am also keen so improve my self-promotion as being able to exhibit and market my skills is essential in being able to successfully enter the design business. 

Identify and explain 5 things that inspire you
I find it very difficult to fully determine what inspires me - I don't have one source that I keep going back to because lots of things inspire me, but there are general topics and areas that I find inspirational, the first of which is people. I find people to be my most valuable and interesting resource because there are an endless number of people to talk to and all of them have different experiences to me. Space is another than that I find infinitely inspirational, quite literally. I've always had an interest in the universe and as a kid I wanted to be an astronaut, and I've found that I use it a lot within my work as a way to explore the human interaction with the world around us. This love for space could be tied back to the upbringing I had - although I lived in a creative household, half of my family were also scientists and this somewhat informs my work. Whenever possible I like to look at how I can use experiments within my work and tie what I create back to understood scientific ideas. As an extension of this I've often found that time is a common theme within my work, whether that's looking at how time affects processes and people, or simply that it takes time to produce whatever it is I'm making. Either way it's something that I enjoy utilising in my creative practice. 

Identify 5 examples that demonstrate your fields of creative interest

Harrison and Wood

Harrison and Wood are a performance duo who explore how the human figure navigates the world in terms of physical sense, architecture, and the objects we interact with. Through short and humorous single-channel and mutli-screen videos, their works maintain a strict internal logic where play is encourage and action is allowed to happen for no apparent reason, as exampled though the below work entitled 'Board'. In this sense, performance art is a field of creative interest to me. I'm interested in how we can use our bodies and our actions to convey ideas, humour, or emotions, or evoke some kind of reaction. Harrison and Wood's work demonstrates pure, unadulterated freedom, as both a physical and a creative human and that is always something that I search for within my own work.

Katie Paterson
Katie Paterson's work 'As The World Turns' is comprised of a turntable that rotates in time with the earth, one revolution every 24 hours, playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons. If performed from beginning to end, the record would play for four years. The movement is so slow it isn't visible to the naked eye, yet the player is turning, imperceptibly. Personally, having come from a musical family and been musical all my life, I have an inherent interest in art that incorporates sound in some way, whether that's through a sculpture that emits sounds, an installation that uses sound or a purely sound based piece.

John Baldessari
John Baldessari is an American conceptual artist known for his work featuring found photography and text. His extensive body of work revolves around simple ideas and observations, and the narrative potential of images and the associative power of language. They are endlessly thought provoking and often humorous and this is the kind of simplicity I would like to strive for within my work.

Josef Albers

Josef Albers is a German-American artist, painter and educator. His 'Homage to the Square' works are very influential as to how I look and perceive colour within my work, but I also find his educational career highly inspirational. His teachings formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the twentieth century, and I've become very interested in his practical way of engaging his students in the physical world of art. Although I myself might never reach such heights I find it motivational to become a 'teacher' in some capacity within my career.

John Cage
John Cage was a pioneer in conceptual and immaterial art, and is famously known for his 'silent score' work 4'33". Cage has done many pieces that involve the creation of essential nothing, but use only ideas and concepts to create the pieces. Personally I am very interested in this form of conceptual art - using the absence of something to inform and create art. Many other artist also use this form within their work, including Yves Klein and Carey Young.

4′33″, John Cage (1952) - The piece is a three-movement composition, composed for any instrument or combination of instruments, and the score instructs the performer(s) not to play their instrument(s) during the entire duration of the piece throughout the three movements. The piece purports to consist of the sounds of the environment that the listeners hear while it is performed.

Yves Klein, Zone of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility (1959-1962) - The work involved the sale of documentation of ownership of empty space (the Immaterial Zone), taking the form of a cheque, in exchange for gold; if the buyer wished, the piece could then be completed in an elaborate ritual in which the buyer would burn the cheque, and Klein would throw half of the gold into the Seine. The ritual would be performed in the presence of an art critic or distinguished dealer, an art museum director and at least two witnesses.

Missing Mass (2010) is a sculptural work featuring dark matter particles and a legal disclaimer which proposes the particles as the only truly free entities in existence.

OUGD402 - 10 Years Time (I'm Still Not An Astronaut)

A studio presentation that invited us to reflect on our current aspirations and where we might envision ourselves in ten years time.

I found this presentation rather challenging, as I don't tend to plan too far ahead, but ultimately I concluded that for my future, I wouldn't ever necessarily have a specific job title in mind. I've had a (somewhat unachievable) dream of becoming an astronaut for most of life, but if in ten years I'm in some kind of creative job then I would be satisfied. I would never like to box myself in with labels and specific job titles (graphic designer etc), but a job that would allow me to follow whatever creative interests I have, whether that's publications, printing, exhibition, would be the most productive way of working for me. Collaboration is also important for me in the way I live and create, so I would perhaps work as a member of a collective, with the freedom to pursue solo projects if and when I pleased. Ideally this future creative job would be situated in the North of England, either Newcastle or Manchester, but I would also enjoy spending some time in Berlin and Amsterdam. Whatever I end up doing, I am certain that I would like to avoid working for 'the man'. My only real goal is to become self sufficient in this creative job, because if I'm able to sustain myself by doing what I'm most passionate about, then I'm pretty much set for life.

OUGD402 - Time Planning

In order to see how productive we were ourselves, every morning for a  week we had to write down a plan for the day:


Friday 30th

8:15 - Get up
9:30-3:30 - Uni (crits)
3:30-7:00 - Relax, dinner, friends over
7:00 onwards - Flat party/relax


Saturday 31st

9:30 - Get up
10:00-1:45 - Mooch, watch telly, water plant
2:15 - Doctors appointment
3:00 - Meet friends, eat, shop, hang
6:00 onwards - Dinner, go to cinema, chill


Sunday 1st

9:30 - Get up
10:00-12:00 - Mooch
12:30-4:00 - Meet friends for lunch, shop
5:00 onwards - Dinner, chill


Monday 2nd

8:15 - Get up
9:30-3:30 - Uni
4:00-6:30 - Blog, reading, CoP analysis
6:30 onwards - Dinner, typeface work, tidy room


Tuesday 3rd

9:00 - Get up
9:30-12:30 - Blog, hang, lunch
1:00-5:30 - Uni
6:00 onwards - Dinner, blog, Parallel work, hang


Wednesday 4th

8:15 - Get up
9:30-11:00 - Uni
12:00-4:00 - Blog, typeface work
4:00-6:30 - Parallel work, dinner,
6:30 onwards - Parallel work, chill


Thursday 5th

9:00 - Get up
9:30-12:30 - Blog, typeface work
1:00-3:30 - Uni
4:00-7:00 - Typeface work, dinner
7:00-11:00 - Parallel work

OUGD402 - More Time To Daydream

Entrepreneur's article entitled 'How To Manage Time With 10 Tips That Work' is full of the usual clichéd but nevertheless important advice on how to manage your time - sleeping the correct amount of hours a night, removing social networking sites from your workspace and writing down plans. But the most distinct, and perhaps enlightening, point made is that it is not productive to work in 'physical time'.

According to this article there are two types of time: physical time and relative time. In physical time there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year, and all time passes equally. In relative time however, time flies or drags depending on what we are doing, which is why three hours of housework can feel like a week and an hour of your favourite tv show will only feel like 5 minutes.

It is therefore important to recognise that we don't perceive time in a linear format and so we cannot expect to work and be productive using the physical time system. However, we can increase our productivity by specifically factoring for the tasks that we love and the tasks that we dislike, the things that need to be done and the things that we want to do. In terms of writing down an actual plan we would still need to use physical time to allot hours to these tasks, but it is more useful to factor more time for the tasks we dislike (as they will typically take us longer to complete) and divide up that time into manageable chunks separated by small breaks or fun activities. If we know that the tasks we enjoy take a shorter time to complete, these can be scattered throughout the day in order to provide relief from the bigger tasks, while still maintaining productivity.

Ultimately there is no set formula to increasing productivity, and a productivity plan will be unique to each person, but recognising how your individual time is spent allows for a better understanding of where you are losing time and most crucially, where you might gain time.

OUGD402 - Be A Sponge

Inspiration within any practice can never be limited. Regardless of what your practice is, influences can come from anywhere - blogs, galleries, zines, the street, socials, performances, poetry, the past, the future, friends etc. Here are just a few sources that I find inspirational in my work:


    Re:Surgo! Berlin

One of two spaces run by the Swedish-French printscreen duo Christian Gfeller and Anna Hellsgård. Gfeller and Hellsgård have been working together since 2001, creating and producing prints, artists' books, sculptures and zines across both Berlin and Stockholm. The space itself is used as a studio and to display their own work alongside works and publications from local artists, as well as serving as an exhibition and launch space. I was lucky enough to visit their studio in Berlin last summer and already being a fan of screenprinting, their enthusiasm and commitment and to what they loved was something that really resonated with me.


     Valentino

Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani, simply known as Valentino, is a world renowned Italian fashion designer. I have always loved his work and his more recent collections have been, for me, awe inspiring. The intricacy and delicacy in his designs is simply incredible and the dresses above from his Pre-Fall 2015 collection heavily influenced a publication I made in May 2015.


   Antifurniture

Antifurniture, in their own words, are 'a mobile bookstore and image research lab'. They consists of a simply website and an instagram, which is where the majority of their content is posted. They collect together miscellaneous materials, ranging from prints and sculptures to photographs, books and furniture, and post details of the artist as a way of inspiring others. I have followed their instagram closely for several months now and I always find something of note.



   Josef Albers

Josef Albers was a German-American artist and educator. Best known for the hundreds of abstract paintings and prints that make up his work 'Homage to the Square', he was also an accomplished designer, photographer, typographer and printmaker. His teachings, at the Bauhaus school in Germany and at the Black Mountain College and Yale University in the United States formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the twentieth century. Colour is a fascinating area for me personally and I love both his work and the many papers he wrote on the interaction of colour.


   Katie Paterson

Katie Paterson is a Berlin-based visual artist from Glasgow. Her work crosses many different mediums but most often takes the forms of sculpture or performance art and concerns the solar system and our position in the universe. The above work for example, Timepieces (Solar System), consists of nine wall clocks that tell the time on all of the planets in our solar system, including Earth's Moon. The durations of the day ranges from planet to planet, from the shortest on Jupiter to the longest on Mercury. Each clock is calibrated to tell the time in relation to the other planets and to the time on Earth. Paterson's work inspires me to think more conceptually, outside of the sphere of 'graphic design', and consider the broad range of mediums that even simple ideas can be communicated through.



   The Mezzanine 

The Mezzanine is the debut novel by American author Nicholas Baker. It details 'what goes through a man's mind during a modern lunch break', in sometimes excruciating detail. The plot meanders from one thought to the next, from the upgrade of cardboard milk cartons to glass bottles, to whether shoelaces wear evenly and if they both snap at similar times. The book take a very slowed-down look at modern life and becomes almost absorbing as Baker hammers out the infinitely small details of floating paper straws and the miracles of perforation. This book is both a fascinating read and an eye-opener to the everyday things we never even think about in life, and I increasingly find myself pondering things in Baker's stream of consciousness style.

OUGD402 - What's Happening in November?

Ladyfest Manchester        14 November

Featuring a mix of legendary female performers, local favourites and up-and-coming bands from across the country, Ladyfest MCR will showcase some of the finest female talent in Manchester and from further afield. As well as a musical lineup spanning 11 hours across 2 rooms they have art, zines, stalls, film and a wide selection of workshops including zinemaking, podcast making, photography and more




yellowbluepink          15 October 2015 - 3 January 2016

This new installation by Ann Veronica Janssens explores light and colour as she fills a gallery with coloured mist. The colour is caught in a state of suspension, obscuring any details of people, objects and depth. Questions are raised about states of consciousness and perception of time. At The Welcome Collection, London.

OUGD402 - The John Peel Lectures 2015 With Brian Eno

This years annual John Peel Lecture featured notable English musician, record producer and visual artist Brian Eno. In the lecture, Eno sought to demonstrate the complex nature of 'culture' - how both the individuals and institutions involved are crucially connected, and how they combine to create 'culture' as we know it.

He raised some very interesting questions about art and whether art is simply a luxury, or does it do something for us beyond that? He defined 'art' very broadly as 'everything we don't have to do'. And in many ways he is right - we don't have to create art, and we don't have to express complex emotions, but we do simply because we can. That comes in a similar vein to Eno's suggestion that we don't have to learn how to dance - movement is essential to our livelihoods, but we don't have to learn how to waltz. We do simply because we are able. From this he concluded that 'art' and by extension 'culture' are the embellishments we add to our lives.

But art does serve a purpose beyond that. Art allows us to see things, realise things, talk about things that would otherwise be considered too ‘sensitive’ in our actual lives. Things such as sexuality, gender, racism or death. In the American aesthetician Morse Peckham's book entitled 'Man’s Rage For Chaos: Biology, Behaviour and the Arts' he states that "art is the exposure to the tensions and problems of a false world in order that man may endure the tensions and problems of the real world." Eno then adds that it is also the exposure to the joys and freedoms of a false world that allow us to recognise those and locate them in the real world. He says that art provides us with a safe environment to experience feelings that we may or may not have felt before - 'it gives us the chance to have feelings about things that are not dangerous'. And this is possible because when you walk into a gallery and see an image, a painting, a sculpture that deals with extreme emotions, there is always the option to switch it off and walk away.

This lecture was an extremely interesting listen because to be able to define 'art' and 'culture' in such simple terms was fascinating to hear. Begin able to define my practice and what I'm doing within my work is something I have tried to do many time before but realising that anything in life that we can embellish can also be considered 'art' was eye-opening.

OUGD402 - Study Task 01 - Design Studios Matsterpost

Hey Studio is a graphic design studio based in Barcelona, Spain.


Heydays is a design studio in Oslo, Norway who are recognisable for their minimalist Scandinavian  design.


LUST is a multidisciplinary graphic design practice based in The Hague, Netherland.


Studio Dumbar is based in Rotterdam, Netherlands and are the third most awarded design outfit after Apple and Pentagram.


Build is a Yorkshire based design studio that has had work published in over 100 books and magazines worldwide.


Elmwood is 'the world's most effective brand design consultancy'.


Bleed is a multidisciplinary design consultancy in Oslo and Vienna.


Face. are a supermodernist design studio specialising in delivering honest branding across the world.


Dessein deliver effective, clean, clear, fresh, modern, colourful and contemporary design.


Wolff Olins are creative partners for ambitious leaders.


Studio AHxHA is a communication and graphic design studio established in 2011.


Sagmeister and Walsh is a NYC based design firm that creates identities, commercials, websites, books and object for clients, audiences and themselves

The Gentleman of Letters

The Gentleman of Letters is a short film documenting the work of sign painters in Ireland. Looking at the history of sign painters through the generations it highlights the lasting impact of hand rendered signs and the importance of continuing a dying tradition.

It was a very interesting watch that led me to research further into hand rendering type and it served as a perfect example of heritage, which linked in with my Studio Practice brief for the rebranding of the betting shop Coral (OUGD403 Collaborative Study Task 01)

Made You Look Documentary and Q&A

'Made You Look' is a documentary exploring the challenges artists, illustrators and graphics artists face in a hyper-digital age. Interviewing a handful of artists and design studios from across the country, it provided a fascinating look at the views of both younger and older creatives and their opinions on traditional analog medias over digitally produced methods.

Some interesting arguments for analog production were made, the most poignant of which was by artist and illustrator Hattie Stewart. She made the obvious statement that when lifts were invented, stairs were not replaced. Both continued to exist and people just used whichever one was more convenient to them at the time. Therefore digital medias will not replace analog. Artists will simply use the method which applies most to their work, and will ultimately have more options as to how they create (which is no bad thing).

It was also interesting that many of the younger creatives still believed in the future of analog methods. Analog medias are still just as relevant today as they were yesterday, if not more so as many are looking for fresh approaches to their work. In the way that Photoshop is new to the older generation, screenprinting is new to the younger generation - there will always be an old method of creating that younger artists haven't tried before, and that they can reinvent to comply with todays demands. I think that whatever older creatives argue, analog is here to stay.

When asked about their personal opinions on using digital platforms to promote their work, many said it had left them feeling that 'it's like a million people putting their hands up at once' in terms of being noticed. But there are actually many more opportunities for an individual's or company's work to be seen when it's online, and for it to be seen globally by people who might otherwise have not seen it at all. Digital promotion has the huge benefit of allowing anyone anywhere in the world to be kept up to date with any artist, at all times, and it is a hugely useful tool that has been responsible for the launch of many artists careers.

However, I was disappointed to hear that when asked how they would feel if the internet was turned off many, if not all, of the artists replied that it would be of great benefit. They felt that many aspects of communication would improve and content production would increase because everyone would have the same level of artistic output and expression. I have to disagree with this, and not only because I am part of the digital generation, but because turning the internet off would ultimately have the same effect as turning it on - people would learn adapt to their conditions, learning how to use the recourses they have, but I don't personally think production or even the quality of work would improve. The internet and digital media as a whole has given artists a new freedom of expression that they would never have been able to find otherwise and has been such a valuable tool in the evolution of the art world today.

'Made You Look' was an incredibly insightful documentary that gave me many new ideas about both the industry and my own practice. The Q&A afterwards with local artists and businesses was also a very interesting listen and gave me insight into the art community that exists within Leeds - something I had been previously unsure of how to enter in to.