Work in Progress Exhibition

I've been trying to make my project relevant for my future careers plan, so one of my plans is to make a handwriting campaign. These posters was made for the Work in Progress Exhibition.

Mid Point Review: Text

The following paragraphs includes:

1. Evaluation of my project proposal as a part of a self-directed programme of study

2. Where I need to develop my study plans in relation to the Unit 1 Learning Outcomes

(please refer to handbook pages 41 and 43 )

1. My project proposal is about the lack of handwriting in a digitalized world, and my aim is to put focus on handwriting. I had some problems with the project the first three months (oct – dec), I could not really get it started. I was unmotivated because I was unsure whether I had picked the right subject, and I was also not used to the working methods. Making my own projects was new to me, and I found it difficult to find the motivation. Being in a “new” city and speaking English was also unusual, I was actually a bit confused. It was hard to find joy and inspiration working on my project.

After Christmas I had the courage to ask David and Sigune if I could change the subject, and that day was really helpful to me. They, and people in my class, gave me lots of ideas and inspiration, and advised me to continue on the handwriting project. Things are going much better now, and I have many ideas to new projects. One of the methods that I find very useful is to work on several projects at the same time. I have also read many books about the historical aspect of handwriting.

2. Looking at the Learning outcomes plan there is some points that I feel that I need to work on:

I have recently read many books about the history of handwriting and I feel that I am starting to know the background information very well. Now I need to focus on the present time, and as I wrote in the Context and Methodology part in my Study Proposal, I have to contact some people working with handwriting, and maybe most relevant: read studies and text from present time.

Under the Technical Competence point there is also room for improvement. I am confident using InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop, but I have never been good at drawing and my handwriting is rather poor. By doing a project about handwriting, I think it is important to be able to know all the opportunities and be able to try things out, so I need to work on this. I will try to improve my own handwriting, and it would be nice to be able to do my own drawings and writing in some of my projects.

I also think that I should be a bit more experimental about my project, maybe take it to a bigger scale. I tend to think a bit too straight forward, I am not taught to be very creative, so a big (possible public) project scares me, but I definitely have to look closer at this point.

My debate and discussion skills (Learning outcomes, page 43) need improvement. I am a bit shy when it comes to discussions and presentations, and it has also been a struggle for me to have to do that in English. I feel that I am getting better, especially during the recent workshops (Sam, David: Research Question Workshop, Ana: Website). Please give us more sessions like that. I think that I am not the only one who find them more interesting and engaging than some of the other stuff we have been doing.

Mid Point review: Design

I'm working on a few different projects at the moment, and the plan for the exhibition was to create an art book showing the development of human writing. After reading several books about the development, from the early days of cave painting to the computer based world we live in today, I was so tired of all the fact, so I decided to put the plans on ice... The books were so boring and a nightmare to read...but I wanted to show some of the same facts, so I have tried to do it in a funny way. I have created 4 posters (I've made more, but shortened it down to 4 for the exhibition), each with some facts taken from the history of the written word:


I can't upload the files at the moment...think the .jpg size is too big for this blog, the posters are in A2, but I will take some pictures and upload them tomorrow after the exhibition!

MA Graphic Design Website

For the past 3 hours I've been working on a sketch for our website. I've made 6 different proposals:

Cool stop motion movie from YouTube

CSM: Work in Progress Exhibition & White Cube visit

Today Malin and I went to Hoxton to view the Work in Progress Exhibition held by the MA Communication Design students at Central Saint Martins. There were many interesting projects and the old, a bit creepy space they had found for the exhibition was really cool! We went to the White Cube Gallery after the exhibition, they hosted an exhibition called ‘Most Wanted’ by Richard Phillips, which contained paintings of ten of Americas most recognisable celebrities. From the gallerys web page:

"Phillips uses a traditional oil-painting practice that refutes photorealism and, with its luminous colours and meticulous detail, evokes the methods of Northern Renaissance painters. As a constant cascade of celebrity imagery crowds our visual environment, the language of painting slows the rush to a dead stop, giving us time to consider our relationships with these icons and the vested interests that support them. A strong sense of these personalities, as well as the self-consciousness of their well-rehearsed images, is communicated through the nuanced flesh tones and expressions."
http://www.whitecube.com/exhibitions/rp%202011/

Walter Turncoat

I have never had a blog before, and I'm having some BIG problems trying to change the design/font/colours in my blog. The template page won't show anything, it might be my web browser (although I have tried with Firefox, Safari and Opera), or maybe it's just me beeing stupid. Well anyway... I recently saw a blog who used a font who looked like handwriting in some of the texts, and by looking at the source code, I found that the font is called Walter Turncoat, which is a Google web font. I might use it if I figure out how to...


Here is the blog who used the font. A bit confusing and I don't like the design, but I might use the font some places. At least this blog is about handwriting...

Research question - Session at uni

Today we had a session with David where we had a small "workshop" about our Research Question. Everybody wrote down 3 keywords from their projects, and then we had to switch notes with another student. I got TTs note which said: "anti-smoking advertisment", "fear", "effective". I had to use these three words to create a question. I made two different questions, can't exactly remember how I wrote them, but I think it was something like this: "How has the emotion of fear been used in effective anti-smoking advertisements?" and "Is fear the only emotional tool we can use to make an effective anti-smoking advertisment?"

Malin got my three words; "lack", "handwriting" and "digitalization". She made the following sentences: "Can the lack of handwriting be seen in light of the digitalization, and the changes in how we communicate?", "Has the need for handwriting disappeared in relation to the digitalization the society has gone through?", and "Does handwriting play an important part in our digitalized society, or is it a lost art form?". These question is very useful, and the following debate gave me loads of input. Thanks Malin:)

David and my classmates gave me loads of stuff to think about, here is all of it:

• Think of lack as not just in the context of handwriting, but at a deeper level. Hand drawing, coordination, carving+++. It might be useful to show that deeper lack is at risk in the introduction, but mirror down to just focusing on handwriting in the main text. Show that you are aware of that.
• At which age do we learn to write?
• Lack - normal measure - what is normal? Why is it a lack? What is excess? Find normal.
• Look at it in another direction: opposite of lack: plenty, excess ++
• Define lack
• Look at the pre history/history. Early, pre historical. There is a lack of knowledge before mankind could write, they just left us with marks, but not enough knowledge. Absence of memory and history.
• (I)literacy (Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read and write.) (I had some problems understanding which word I'd written here...bad, bad handwriting...)
• Lack condition
• Technology: Connects - get inbetween
• Handwriting - personal - fingerprint. (Connects people, but hold them apart at the same time)
• Handwriting is more personal
• Connection but separation at the same time
• Loss at social context, before (in the earlier days) peple had to get other people to write letters for them (not many people could write). When the letter arrived, the receiver had to get another person to read the letter for him/her. You couldnt write that many secrets back then...
• Opposite - when/where/what context/occation do we use handwriting now?
• Michelangelo Pistoletto did a project where he wrote with his both hands.
• For the Essay: narrow it down to " In the 21st century", not "from human mankind started to communicate--)
• Write down 3-4 with the essence of your Research question. How is it related?
• We also got a movie recommandation from David: The end of Suburbia. The movie is about the pattern of urban developement.

Ohh...this is a really long text... as you can see I got loads of inspiration and feedback today. I dont blame anyone if you can't be bothered to read it, but it's useful for me to just write everything down, I might forget or loose it if I don't.  :)