Process Book 2

2

1

Process Design Think and Make Fall 2014

What Language Looks Like Veronica Villhard

THE PHYSICAL BOOK (STICHED AND DOUBLE SIDED)

TABLE OF CONTENTS Description of the Project 6 Definition of Conquer

7

Hand-Constructed Word Collages

8

Refined Word Compositions in Illistrator

Photography Essay’s Summary and Reflection

10-11

Original Ideas

14

Difficulties

15

Difficulties: Images

16

12-13

Solutions 17

Reflection on CONQUER 18

Research 19

For the countless nights, cardboard-cut fingers, and carry-out chinese.

We made it.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT

For this project, we analysed an assigned word with an assigned group and discovered different ways to emphasize the meaning through placement, spacing, letter manupulation, and context in both 2D and 3D environments. We were exploring how to express the meaning of a words such as absent, addition, compress, disrupt, etc. The word my group was assigned was ‘Conquer.’ After photographing our 2-foot-tall word at multiple locations across campus which applied to the definition of our word, we were to create a fold up photo essay, much like a collage, which also comunicated the meaning of ‘Conquer.’

6

CON·QUER verb (used with object) 1.

to acquire by force of arms; win in war:

“to conquer a foreign land.”

2.

to overcome by force; subdue:

“to conquer an enemy.”

3.

to gain, win, or obtain by effort, personal appeal, etc.:

“conquer the hearts of his audience.”

4.

to gain a victory over; surmount; master; overcome:

“to conquer disease and poverty; to conquer one’s fear.”

verb (used without object) 5.

to be victorious; make conquests; gain the victory:

“Despite their differences, their love will conquer.”

7

HAND-CONSTRUCTED

8

D WORD COLLAGES

9

REFINED WORD COMPOS

Creating these 2D compositions was an exercise to kick-start a new way of thinking about words and their meanings. I explored different ways of depicting my word ‘Conquer’ by only using the type and no extra images. I narrowed down my most successful composistions from the fifteen I created on paper to creating five of those on Adobe Illustrator. We did this exercise to 1) create a more professional and clean layout, and 2) to learn the program. I decided that these three designs were better than my paper layouts, but they are not the best out of the five designs I created on Illustrator.

10

SITIONS IN ILLISTRATOR

I decided that the designs above were the most successful out of all of the compositions I created. The one on the left uses both capitalization and lowercase formatting in order to separate the word visually at the syllable. Capitalizing the ‘con’ along with making it look like it is stepping on the lowercase ‘quer’ of the word makes the idea of the first hald of the word ‘conquering’ the second half more understandable. The design on the right uses repetition to show how the use of force and numbers can be considered a form of conquering.

11

PHOTOGRAPHY ESSAY’S: SUMMARY

The first photo essay, Photo Ops, elaborated on the wonders of digital photography and the endless posibilties of the medium. Each page briefly discussed different ways to handle and try digital photography.

Symmetry & asymmetry, repetition, framing, close-up, continuous mode, exploration, movement, and even serendipity were the topics of digital photography with example photos placed on the page in a thoughful manner. The goal of the essay was to get the reader thinking about photography and everyday life in a new, more inquisitive way. The most important thing is to always have a ‘digicam’ on the person so that snapping a picture at the perfect moment will always be possible. Notice the simple details in everyday life.

The second essay, Documents and Pictures, has a misleading title as it is not about the division of ‘documents’ an ‘pictures,’ but about ‘documentary’ and ‘art-photography.’ After thoroughly analyzing the history of what counts as artisinal craft and thoughtful production, the essay goes on to mention that the beginning of art-photography paved the way for subjectivity and invention in all forms of photography.

12

PHOTOGRAPHY ESSAY’S: REFLECTION

After reading the photo essays, I felt inspired to go on a picture taking rampage. The first essay I found to be very helpful in regards to my photo essay and this assignment, in general. The second essay, however, felt more historical and like unnecessary background information for something unrelated to this project. While it was a very interest essay about documentary photography and how it can be both analytical and artistic, I struggled to find a relation between it and this assignment. Something new I learned from Photo Ops was the use the continuous mode on a digital camera. It reminded me to have fun with this project and experiment. Also, not to be afraid to try something that might look silly. I wish I could have applied this mode of photography to my images.

13

ORIGINAL IDEAS

While my group and I were first brainstorming, we had a few ideas of where to place our word on campus.

Maybe on top of a bus? CONQUER IT! Or maybe on top of people!? CONQUER THEM!

Better yet... Fraser Hall!??

Or climbing up some stairs... that’s do-able...

14

DIFFICULTIES

My group had to be very adaptable as many unex-

pected difficulties came about throughout every process of this project.

LOCATION: Getting the permission to make our location ideas become a reality was a struggle. Especially when we dropped every location for the rock-climbing wall idea. Lack of communication between parties made for a very difficult time.

We were even “on-call� from 5:30am-7:30am the day of installation, but the head of Outdoor Pursuits never got our call.

CONSTRUCTION: Much of the group relied on at least one other person to understand how to build the letters, so when only one person would show up, nothing would get done. (unless it was that one person) PAINTING:

Our original plan was to cover the card-

board letters with white paper and then paint over that so that the edges would be clean, but the paint ended up warping the paper pretty bad.

THE BOOK:

Par recommendation, I went to Jayhawk

Ink to use the guillotine to get that clean, even cut on the top and bottom of my photo essay. I handed them the booklet and when it was returned, it was clean and evenly cut, but there was also a large dent in every page. (Most prominently on the title page of all pages...). This was because of my magnet clasp. The magnets were completely destroyed in the process.

15

DIFFICULTIES: IMAGES

The wall installation, a week later.

The paper-paint failure.

The dent and magnets which I then fixed by using new magnets and reprinting and pasting the title page.

16

SOLUTIONS

LOCATION: Hanging our word up on the rock-climbing wall never would have happened if I hadn’t known the head of Outdoor Pursuits at the Recreation Center, and for that I am grateful. We ended up working something out the next week. We also managed to find other great locations for our word.

CONSTRUCTION: That one person showed up very often, so the project and construction got finished in a timely manner.

PAINTING: The group quickly adapted and ran out to the store to find craft tape, but had no luck even after checking 5 different stores. We ended up using packing tape for the edges and painted over everything 2-3 times with a roller.

THE BOOK: I ended up printing out the title page a second time and then I cut it as neatly as possible so that it would be as unnoticable as possible. I did not want to take away from the crisp-ness of the title page.

17

REFLECTION ON CONQUER

As far as the decisions made regarding the construction of the word, everything was intentional with a meaning to back it. ‘Conquer’ is in all capital letters because it is a strong word used in strong situations. We chose futura font because it is crisp, clean, and to the point, just like conquer: no time wasted. The word is white for purity, power, and strait-forwardness.

Choosing the rock-climbing wall made sense as one of the definitions of ‘conquer’ is ‘to climb successfully.”

We also placed the word “on top” of a person, “ascending” a staircase, “rising above” the horizon, and sitting “victorious(ly)” ontop of a tall, stone wall. We chose to take our photos in black and white because when it comes to conquering, there is no gray area: you are either defeated or not. It’s simple.

18

RESEARCH

Watched the provided video on making pulltabs.

Google Images search for different ways to fold paper.

Looked up the definition of ‘Conquer’ many times...

Looked up how to tie special pressure knots for hanging the word on the rock-climbing wall.

19

THE PHOTO ESSAY (ACCORDION FOLD)

W h a t Language L o o k s L i k e B

D

S

1

0

1

c o n t r o l

t o

-

t o

a s c e n d

b e

-

v i c t o r i o u s

o v e r

By: Veronica Villhard

t o

d e f e a t

t o

t o

c l i m b

r i s e

s u c c e

a b o v e

e s s f u l l y

-

t o

-

g a i n

t o

-

o v e r c o m e

t o

t o p

-

-

t o

c o n t r o l

t o

a s c e n d

The

Conquistadors