Identity
The Ramblings of a Mad Man The Reflective Writings of a final year Graphic Design student
by James Iredale
Covering Modules: DN6001
Module no: DN5003, DN6031
The Stories We Tell A showcase of the lesser known decade defining narratives over the last 100 years James Iredale – London Metropolitan Unveristy
1928 The Death of Harry Houdini
1931 Amelia Earhart Takes Flight
1947 Jackie Robinson’s Debut
1950 A Vaccine for Polio
1961 The WWF is Created
1978 The First IVF Baby is Born
1982 Time Magazines MOTY
1990 Dinosaur Sue is Uncovered
2007 Darcey Bussell Retires
James Iredale
James Iredale
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Module: DN6001
IDENTITY Statement of Intent
What excites you about the brief? The idea of developing a project around identity is what most excites me about this brief. Through this process, I will be exploring the idea of how I conceive identity and whether I want to take a more literal way of thinking (i.e. through branding) or a more conceptual way (abstract animations or a series of photos).
What Prior learning can draw upon to work on this project? I think throughout my final weeks of this project I have relied heavily on practices like 2D animation with After Effects as well as the principles of creating a visual identity. This was largely because at the beginning of this project I wanted to explore different mediums of design and try to get out of my comfort zone. Ultimately though it did lead me back to my specific areas of interest incorporating moving images into visual identity in order to tell compelling narratives.
What themes, materials, processes and research sources will you explore in the project? This project has allowed me to explore many different processes of design. In particular, platforms like Cinema4D, going back to basic crafts utilizing clay, broadening my knowledge around grid systems used for identity and experimenting with abstract techniques like acrylic pouring. Overall it’s been great to have the opportunity to play around with different processes rather than sticking with what I’m comfortable with.
What skills and techniques would you like to develop and use for the project? At first I was very excited to research the process of 3D animation and platforms like Cinema4D - utilizing and integrating them with practices I know quite well like identity design. However, as the year progressed I found myself more exploring the structure behind identity marks and how powerful they can be when creating a consistent theme throughout a piece of work. Complex grid development has been a key aspect of this project for me.
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Module: DN6001
Studio Project 1:
IDENTITY
Ideally I wanted this project to be something new and utilize technology that hadn’t really been seen in university teachings. I really wanted to incorporate the use of Augmented Reality into this project, using products like Adobe Aero. Alas, I couldn’t make it work - but by using QR codes I still believe that I have achieved this in a way that’s a bit different to a traditional outcome.
Examples of specific practitioners you will have to research the project. When looking at designers in terms of illustration, I looked at designers that were synonymous with the 80s like Neville Brody, April Greiman - as well as a modern take on them such as James White. However when going back to my foundations of branding and animation in a Swiss style, I heavily relied on the teachings of graphic designers like Jens Muller and Julius Wiedemann - particularly their works in the book ‘Logo Modernism’.
Define your audience. How will you reach them/interact with them? I really wanted to create this piece as something a bit different for the summer show (if that was still going ahead of course). I wanted people to engage with the piece rather than just have it be another part of the show that viewers can just walk past. This is why I added the QR codes to the poster. Although they may stand out and look blocky - it does capture people’s attention and offers a chance for them to engage with the poster. Also I think adding a voice over of a Morgan Freeman impersonator will add a level of humour to the piece that I hope viewers will appreciate.
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Module: DN6001
What is the scope of your ambition for the project?
IDENTITY Brief Introduction
In today’s session we were introduced to the Studio 3 project 1 brief and its overarching topic around the word ‘Identity’. We discussed as a group the different meanings that identity could have, both in a personal, philosophical and commercial sense. For our first exercise, we were asked to draw what we all thought represented identity. Everybody had something different, some personal to them like a new chapter in their life that they were embarking on, some breaking the boundaries of what an identity could mean to someone. I decided however to draw the Nike swoosh depicting a well known brand identity (not the most artistic thing but still somewhat relevant to the task at hand). These were then posted up on the wall next to each other to compare the differences in what we all would associate with the word ‘Identity’.
We then all participated in a second exercise to see what other words could be associated with identity using the Thesaurus website. Starting with the word Identity, we compiled an almost rabbit hole list seeing where we could go from that word and seeing what other words would splinter off from it. At the end we all put our lists onto the wall (next to the first drawings) to have a look at where we all ended up.
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Module: DN6001
1. Studio Project 1:
IDENTITY
Reflections I felt that this task was a really good introduction to the studio and a good look into viewing tasks and brief not in one linear direction, but to look further into what is asked of us. Today, RIcardo introduced us to some keywords that we should focus on this year, such as ‘Lateral Thinking’, which is defined as “the solving of problems through an indirect and creative approach, typically through viewing the problem in a new and unusual light”. This term in conjunction with our studio brief of creating ‘Identity’ really goes well together and challenges us as students to think about factors like who our audience is, how do we best provoke interest and the idea of constantly testing our ideas and results
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Module: DN6001
Finally, from that everyone’s list, we picked a word that we liked in particular and wrote it onto ping pong balls placed in the center of the room.
IDENTITY Brand Sprint & FMP Tutorial
The second Studio 3 session was focussed around the idea of branding or more specifically, the practice of Sprint Branding. We were split into groups of 4 or 5 and tasked with giving our studio a complete visual identity. The visual identity would include: Studio name; creating studio values; what, how, why golden circle; drafting a studio logo; discovering our ‘audience’; and developing the studios visual guidelines (i.e. Stylescaping, Colour Palette, Typography/Typeface design). Our initial timeframe to have all of these completed by the end of the day (although this was later changed to a later date by the end of the class). Our first task after being split up into the groups was deciding two roles within the team, first who was the “decision-maker” and the other was the “note-taker”. I was chosen to be the decision maker, solely off the basis that I had done some branding and identity work over the summer (also being the only level 6 in the group) whilst a level 5, whom clearly had the best handwriting was chosen to be the note-taker. These roles however were very quickly pushed to the sideline as all 4 of us would be very engaged with this project, drafting and collaborating ideas, constantly taking each others opinions into account before coming with an agreed outcome for each of the aforementioned tasks.
After the FMP tutorial session, we headed back to the studio where the rest of my group had designed the mood board compiled of some of their favourite artists and imagery. With this, and all the other tasks completed, we got to work on the studio name and logo. After narrowing down a group of words (using the synonym exercise that we were introduced in the previous session) we compiled a list of 4 in total. The words we all felt spoke with our studio message of ‘Challenging Conceptions’ and using past teachings to progress forwards. The 4 names we had it narrowed down to were: ‘Flow’, ‘Duality’, ‘Aim’ and ‘Mash’. As we couldn’t really decide on which of these we were entirely happy with, we decided to anonymously vote on one name. ‘Studio Aim’ was chosen and so we progressed on with the logo. Using one of the larger sheets of paper, we all began
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Module: DN6001
2. Studio Project 1:
IDENTITY
Overall I really enjoyed this process of sprint branding and would like to practice this again (although without the FMP session in the middle of it). It showed me how even under time pressure, you’re able to come up with a lot of creative ideas particularly as a group. We haven’t done a whole lot of small group based projects, but I felt that because of the fast paced nature of this exercise, a compromise had to be made which really helped the flow of our group. If we were to do this exercise again though, I would like to see more time spent on digital outcomes, perhaps even splitting off into mini groups to focus on the outcomes for different tasks.
Reflections After completing the first few studio tasks, the level 6’s participated in an introductory FMP session with two former viscom graduates of The Cass: Carl and Rose. Although both of the graduates were illustrators, it was interesting to see the direction that they took their projects in whilst at university. Carl was a graphic artist who specializes in doing recommissioned movie and band posters. His work was in such high detail that a lot of his work looked entirely painted, however all of his projects are done using photoshop. He discussed his process creating these images as well as the freedom of doing more of the work that he wanted to do (such as his own ideas and narrative) during his FMP rather than what he is usually commissioned to do. Carl, for his FMP collaborated with a friend of his who specializes in script writing in order to help come up with a narrative for his graphic novel. I found their joint process really interesting in that they would both come up with seperate pieces, sometimes not even discussing what the other would be doing, and they would then come up with creative ideas to include these in their novel centered around a dystopian reality of the Sussex countryside (around the Eastbourne area).
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Module: DN6001
drafting some ideas of what we associated with Aim and what could be good ideas for the logo. After about 10 minutes of “doodling”, we had one low fidelity option that we wanted to explore further that would include our tagline as well.
IDENTITY Module: DN6001
Rose was the second former student to speak having graduated last year with her FMP focussed around the idea of fake social media posting. It was a really interesting take on a project, in particular considering that she’s predominantly an illustrator. However her project involved very little (if any) traditional illustration, rather conducting the process more as an Art and Set director. Rose subtly added a lot of powerful pieces within her art as well, really emphasising the detail that she went into during her project.
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IDENTITY Research
1980s Graphic Design and Vaporwave Graphic design in the 1980s is known for its brash and attention grabbing style that hooked the decade. It has been making somewhat of a comeback in today’s design, in particular with the Vaporwave style that has been paying homage to the design of the 80s. The styles can be identified by different sections such as Neon Noir, 80’s Deco, Memphis-Milano, Tropical, 80’s cute, Fantasy and of course Digital. Each of these separate styles, although vastly different are easily recognised with being apart of 80s culture, carrying over the brashness of the 70s and referred to as the ‘Me Decade’. Its heavy use of bold / neon colours, jagged typography and often questionable hair / fashion styles. Vaporwave is more of a music genre, a proclaimed dead one at that when speaking about it today. Its rise came as a reaction to huge economic and social forces like globalization, consumerism and manufactured nostalgia. In terms of design, the music videos were often aesthetically pleasing visuals, could be referred to as ‘trippy’ based of the 80’s and early 90s subculture. Its visuals predominantly consisted of glitched out photographs, old graphic designs like Microsoft Word Art, ancient statues, tropical elements (e.g. Palm trees) and japanese cityscapes. This style was picked up by mainstream media with some large artists using them for their album covers like Drake and Flume. It could be said that the style takes a refreshing look on retro artworks. It’s still seen today with examples from the recent Japan 2019 Rugby World cup, where this Vaporwave style is often used in their advertisements / cut aways.
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Module: DN6001
3. Studio Project 1:
IDENTITY
Memphis helped refine the design industry in the 1980s. Memphis was all about being bright, bold and solid colours with random geometric patterns and shapes layered on top of each other. The style was brought to mass attention by the Memphis Group in 1981 which was led by Italian Architect Ettor Sottsass. The style derived from design patterns popular during the 1960s in Italy, focussing on breaking the rules of modernism in architecture.
Brutalism isn’t actually derived from the word brutal but rather the french word for “raw concrete”. This style was huge in architecture, creating smooth bold geometric concrete buildings. Brutalism is relevant, particularly as part of the Vaporwave web design aesthetic approach in early 2016. They keywords for a Brutalist design is “Bright Colours” and “Chaotic Clashing”. Although the result can look messy and filled with mistakes, everything is in fact executed correctly and doesn’t hinder the usability of the design. It provides a twist to the status quo of how web design can be portrayed.
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Module: DN6001
Memphis and Brutalism
IDENTITY Screen Printing
This refresher screen printing session was a bit different from the other two that I have done in the past. Rather than coming up with a set amount of prints that we had to have by the end of the class, we were told to get very playful with how we were printing. This included collage with the what we were printing on, using different types of paper to print on, ripping up the paper into various different shapes and sizes and also playing with the paint and the way we would use the squeegee. It was good to have the freedom to do whatever we wanted with our images and play around with the different colours that were on offer. During the session, I really tried to experiment with the colour and trying to create different gradients in my image. Below are pictures of some of the other students work.
Upon reflection, I don’t feel that I really experimented with collage as much as I could, nor with the variations in my image. I would like to go back and do another session during an independent study and try to use a more versatile image, blocking certain parts of it to try and present a certain degree of contrast in it. I’d also like to see how much contrast I could create by utilizing different techniques within collage. I also liked Joe’s idea of directly screen printing into our sketchbooks, so I do intend to go back and do this once I’ve experimented a bit more with screen printing in general.
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Module: DN6001
4. Studio Project 1:
IDENTITY Cinema 4D
We had our first session with Hashmuk Kerai, a former student and a professional motion graphics design and 3d illustrator. Although we have been introduced at Cinema 4D at a base level last year, this session seemed to get into a bit more of the functionalities and shapes that C4D has to offer. The aim of this session was to try and recreate the scene shown below, customizing and positioning the different shapes as well as adding textures and colours to them.
I want to do further research into this topic and look at some of the online tutorials that are available. For my studio 1 project, it is so far all digital illustration. I would like to explore how this would look with more complex 3D shapes and textures. It will also give me the opportunity to explore animating the posters giving it another layer of dynamism. Although it would have been nice to touch on the animation side of things, it was good to look at the general layout and shape distribution/creation. I would’ve liked to explore the camera tool a bit more, learning practices on creating the best angles for different scenes and lighting. However a lot of what I wanted to do will probably be introduced next week, until then I plan on getting a head start and viewing some more online tutorials from YouTube. It would also be beneficial to play around with C4D to create interesting abstract posters.
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Module: DN6001
5. Studio Project 1:
IDENTITY Humans Behaving Badly
During the session we were asked to create a fashion piece made only out of accessible materials / recycled materials. To do this we were split into groups of 3. Originally the idea was to relate it to some form of fast food working, such as making apparel out of burger king wrappers. We began by drafting out some ideas like the uniform could be made solely out of the wrappers from burgers. After realising this would take far too long, an idea around creating a concept for a character. From the previous workshop around makeup, we thought it would be a good idea to create this character, still using the makeup as well as acrylic paints for body colour to form a hand puppet character. After much discussion, we decided to make a piece of fashionwear (an opera mask to be exact) out of recycled coffee sticks from the coffee shop next door as well as some fabric material that was brought, being held together by staples and super glue. After creating the mask we wanted to setup a proper photoshoot for it. The intended idea behind this project was to show how pointless the large fashion brands can be in charging extortionate prices for the same piece of clothing. However this was contested by the rest of the class group and tutor. The piece that we created didn’t firmly represent the idea, nor was the concept around the idea necessarily true as the pricing comes down to what the customer is willing to pay. In short the concept wasn’t strong enough. The final product itself though was well put together.
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Module: DN6001
6. Studio Project 1:
IDENTITY Feedback
Today’s session was a chance to get some feedback at the later stages of project 1 from the tutor and other students. It was useful to see what the other students have done with their projects and along with the advice from Joe has allowed me to focus on my final outcome for this project. Following from the discussion I had with Joe and upon reflection, I have certainly played this outcome safely - not wanting really giving it any meaning behind the work and not wanting to cause any possible chance of disagreement. After our conversation though, I do agree that especially as this is my final year this is the sort of project that I should be daring with and creating something eye catching rather than to blend in and get a safe mark. The majority of my development for this project has been around exploring the different processes that I could go with, from 3D animation to Clay and Acrylic pouring. However, now I want to focus more on topics that I am interested in. As I said during the lesson, I’m conducting more research around living sustainably and actively trying to help with the climate change disaster (in my own day-today life). In order to come up with a more focussed idea that includes all of my current research, I’ve started with a mind map to get the mind rolling for ideas around climate change. My key findings from the research assessing the impacts of climate change include: carbon footprint; brands needing to do more; plastic in the ocean; and natural disasters. Given my previous research around the 80s and Vaporwave, I want to try and make this piece dark in meaning but brash and colourful in its outcome. I immediately think of the work by Francis Bacon, in particular his piece The Study After Velazquez Portrait of Pope Innocent X. When discussing the painting, Bacon states that his motives “He says he has nothing against popes, and that it was an excuse to use those colors” (Ingram, 2014). My initial idea is to create a short moving image utilizing the colours like pinks, blues, purples and yellows (similar to those of vaporwave). The moving image I want to depict a tree slowly being built by human hands. These hands could then decay into skeletal bones and the colours could change into something more sinister as random shapes ‘float’ around in the background (meant to represent the plastic polluting the oceans).
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Module: DN6001
7. Studio Project 1:
IDENTITY Critical Evaluation
We were tasked with researching, conceiving and developing various outcomes around the explorations of identity - what it is and what does it mean to us? We were encouraged to discover and present our own concept of how we interpret identity through various workshops, masterclasses and group tutorials with peer feedback. When asking what identity means to us, the question can be rather complex and taken in a variety of ways. I noticed that some took a more theoretical approach, relating identity to how they see themselves within the world. Others took it in a more practical approach, viewing identity as what we see based physically on how they look. At first, I wanted to explore the many different approaches of identity, exploring the different processes of design that would lead me to finding an appropriate fit. My goal though was to try and avoid processes that I was comfortable with such as creating and portraying a visual identity through the principles of branding. This goal led me through a very extensive process of trial and error, from 3D modelling in software such as Cinema 4D, going back to basic crafts utilizing simple modelling tools and producing an outcome with clay, and even approaching the task through abstract experimentation by using the acrylic pouring technique - leaving me unable to predict the outcome. Though my research was extensive, I was unable to avoid going back to the area of design that I am familiar with. Branding, or more specifically logo design may have been something that I was experienced with but, I still intended to challenge my thinking and utilize this opportunity to learn. Drawing upon one of the studio workshops at the beginning of the year, performing a brand sprint, I wondered if this could be done as a series of brands. I came up with the idea of creating a visual mark for various events of each Decade over the last Century. Originally these were to be designed utilizing the Golden Ratio or Fibonacci Sequence that is commonly seen in logo design. After consulting with Ricardo though, it was agreed that I should use a complex grid system similar to what I had done in my FMP.
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Module: DN6001
8. Studio Project 1:
IDENTITY
Overall this task was very challenging for me. In an effort to try and pursue an outcome that was far away from my comfort zone, it only led me back closer to it. I would deem the project successful - but it could’ve been more had I spent less time exploring different processes and ideas. It could possibly have allowed me to fully explore an area that really interested me like Augmented Reality rather than revisiting old techniques like clay sculpting.
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Module: DN6001
Differentiation is the key though, and I still hoped that I could find a way to produce a project that had that something extra within it. Animation was a clear route to take, but what if I could take that further? I had been looking into the different programs such as Adobe Aero that allowed its users to create an augmented reality scene - truly bringing designs to life. However this wasn’t feasible for me to complete as I did not have the capabilities of producing 10 unique, AR ready animations. I decided then that I would include a voice for my narrative - Morgan Freeman, along with the user of QR codes that offers viewers an opportunity to engage with the design.