BRITISH MUSEUM

Went to the British Museum mainly for the "Manga at the British Museum, by Hoshino Yukinobu".  The drawings were amazing, and the layouts he had produced were very influential.

                       Manga at the British Museum 

drawings by Hoshino Yukinobu

Professor Munakata poses in front of the British Museum © Hoshino Yukinobu, Hokkaido Shimbun

BRIEF TWO: ZINES (PRESENTATION)

We had our first presentation for the first week of this project. There was a lot of mixed requests, such as taking on all the advise given over the past 4 weeks,  and being more experimental in the visuals within our presentation...and lastly sticking to what we know.

I was not particularly happy with the last request made...but this was the route we opted to take as a group.

Feed back on our presentation was positive, and similar requests, such as coming out of our comfort zones, experiment etc were once again advised.

After the presentation we had a group discussion regarding our identity, reminding each other what wr stand for, and what we want to achieve throughout this project.

A lot of ideas have been put forward, and taken on board, and we look forward to showing these over the next few weeks.

Below is a link to our presentation of Nursery Crimes "Zines".

http://issuu.com/nbrown88/docs/nursery_crime_week_1a_presentation_final2

BRIEF ONE: SCREEN - DEVELOPMENTS (FURTHER)

All though this unit has been completed, we felt we still want to work on this as a group, and hopefully get it running properly.

On our outing to the V&A on Friday, we walked past the Science Museum, and saw that they have opened a new darwin section.

New Darwin Centre, at Natural History Museum

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/darwin-centre-visitors/index.html

So myself and Jason are going to have a look at it and see if we can develop our site further, so we can become an actual fully functional creative team, with a form of digital contact.

ZINES!!!

Images of Zines. 

What is a zine?

A fanzine (portmanteau of fan and magazine or -zine) is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomonon (such as a literary or musical genre) for the pleasure of others who share their interest. The term was coined in an October 1940 Science fiction fanzine by Russ Chaveut and first popularized within science fiction fandom, from whom it was adopted by others.

Typically, publishers , editors  and contributors of articles or illustration fanzines receive no financial compensation. Fanzines are traditionally circulated free of charge, or for a nominal cost to defray postage or production expenses. Copies are often offered in exchange for similar publications, or for contributions of art, articles, or letters of comment (LoCs), which are then published.

A few fanzines have evolved into professional publications (sometimes known as "prozines"), and many professional writers were first published in fanzines; some continue to contribute to them after establishing a professional reputation.

Types of zines...

- Underground Press: One could argue that in their loosest form zines exist since people began to write, copy and self-publish. Zines stand in this long tradition of self-publication. Historically, they could even be traced back to 1517 when Martin Luther published his "zine", the "Ninety-five Theses," a time when Johannes Gutenberg had just invented the printing press and self-publication began to spread. Self-publication has always been a political medium and frequently used to express resistance, for example during the French Revolution.

- Art, Artists' Books, and Mail Art: Self-publishing has been a method closely associated with several art movements in the 20th century. In journals, magazines, leaflets, and mail-art, Dadaist, Surrealist, Fluxus and Situationist artists employed techniques such as collages, bricolages, and detournment of magazine images and had a strong influence on zine editors later on. Since the 1990s, many young artists use zines to create their own creative spaces, distribution networks and audiences independent of the established gallery and exhibit system. - Science Fiction Fanzines (1930-1960). As a distinct form, zines originated in the 1930's in the United States when fans of science fiction began to publish and trade their own stories. The term "fanzine" became recognized as the abbreviation of "fan magazine" and later on was shortened to "zine."  - Punk Zines: In the 1970s, when punk rock music emerged, the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) ethos found a fertile ground in zines. This ethos combined with the increasing accessibility of photocopy technology fueled an explosion of zines. 

- (Riot) Grrrl Zines: When in 1991 the riot grrrl movement emerged out of the alternative and punk music scene in the United States, thousands of young women began to produce personal and political zines with explicitly feminist themes. Bikini Kill called in their manifesto upon young women to form bands, to mutually learn and teach instruments and to publish zines. Nowadays, some women ("grrrls") who grew out of the riot grrrl movement have chosen to reclaim the title and call themselves "ladies." Their politics remain devoted to assertive feminism and activism.

- E-Zines: During the 1990s the zine network expanded enormously into the realm of e-zines. In addition to the typical objectives, these online zines serve often as resource and network sites. But although the Internet makes e-zines available worldwide and allows geographically isolated people to correspond, one should not forget that it is still a privilege to have access to computer-technology.

V&A - ILLUSTRATION AWARDS 2011

 As a group we went down to the museum to view this, the idea of looking at illustrations and typographic styles was the first thing which came to mind with regards to producing a zine(s)

DISPLAY: The V&A Illustration Awards celebrates the best illustration published over the last year. Original artwork from the best illustrated book, book cover, magazine and student illustrator of the year will be on display, together with a selection of all competition entries.

This year’s panel of judges include the writer Bel Mooney, the artist Rob Ryan, the photographer Robin Allison-Smith and the author Francesca Gavin. The competition offers the most substantial prizes in this field.

Although this exhibition was not as big as we thought it might be, we still came away with fantastic forms of illustrations. 

I took a few pictures of the work and the way it had been presented to the viewers, as seen below. 

Boxer Beetle

Illustration Lorenzo Peteantoni

Author Ned Beuman

Publisher Hodder and Stoughton

Editorial Oliver kugler

Ullustratord Journal XXI - Vingt et un

Publisher Rollin Publications

UNTITLED

Iron Man Illustrations

Each of the illustration styles are fantastic, and each have their unique and individual form.  This is something I would like azide to have, a style that is memorable and has impact visually. 

DECONSTRUCTION OF THE BRIEF

As the two members in my team where unsure on the brief, and they had a lot of questions, such as 

1. What is a Zine

2. What is the point of a zine

3. What are Nursery Rhymes

4. What is the aim of a Nursery Rhyme

So we took it back to the start, forming visual and analytical brainstorms, breaking down meanings and definitions of the both NURSERY and RHYME, and took the project on from there. 

I had originally purchased a book a few years back for a previous project which I knew would aid them both in terms of visuals and what a fanzine looks like and does. 

Fanzines, Teal Triggs

This book is fantastic as it shows the developments of fanzines over the years, and the different styles and techniques that where used.

Our first call of research was to look at different illustration styles, designs, book making/paper folding, typographic forms and styles, and so with this we headed to the V&A, Foyles Bookstore, and spoke to people in both of these companies on where else we could go to view and see Zines. 

I purchased a book whilst at Foyles, that I hope we could use in terms of final production as the book has fascinating forms of book making. 

How to Make Books, Esther K Smith

BRIEF 2: NURSERY CRIMES

Brief 2

This brief is very exciting and as a group we will be able to bring in our own personlaities into it.  Last brief we was told that we played it safe as a team, design wise (and that this was a good thing) but to now take risks, and have FUN

FINAL PRESENTATION (interactive website)

Nadine, Yolanda and Jason - Creative Team "Azide" BRIEF ONE: SCREEN (Final Presentation)
Tuesday 18th October 2011

As a group we took the initiative to simplify our website down further, which was a major risk we felt for us, but thought it was the right move. 

We had a lot of interactive and full on designs which did not relate to our identity, and because we had so much ideas we went back to the basics, an the idea of the solution, being the key element of our group. 

Feedback given was advice that I would continue to take on, and use it to its fullest potential within all presentations from this week onwards.

1. Good design and presentation 

2. Practice on narrative and telling a story

3. Think about experience

4. Sketches, 3D Modelling and Presentation style (Very strong)

5. Experiment outside of digital (e.g clay, paper, ........) 

6. Create own font

7. NASAR colour theory

8. Colour and vision perception 

9. Good design practice

10. esp. wire frame great

11. Think about user journey

12.  Website experience

AZIDEs' Homepage

We sat down together as a team to reflect on how our presentation went, and we felt it went really well. We had answered the brief fully, and our down fall on this was purely the fact that we did not fully explain our processes, and that we were very safe we our design (although we felt we went past our boundaries) especially not ever working with each other before.
The fact that we are very open with our thoughts as a group and happy to talk through things when we are not happy, is definitely a fantastic start for a creative team....and we are 100% sure that the next brief is going to show how far we can excel. 

Model head (moves 360 with mouse)

When click on the solutions it takes you to 1 of 3 options.
1. Portfolio
2. Blog
3. Contact Info

The viewer is taken down the tube and into the brain of AZIDE model

Solution is then seen entering the particular section which is connected
to the brain e.g.
Portfolio = Vision, Blog = Memory and Contact = Auditory

T-SHIRTS!!

Our Logo - Printed and Iron on by Nadine Brown

Our Logo - Printed and Iron on by Nadine Brown

Earlier today I went to get some Iron-On Transfer paper for t-shirts so that I could print and iron on our logo on to t-shirts, so we can look like an official team tomorrow. 

Very excited for our final presentation. 

We have worked so hard and so well :)

SIMPLIFY

As a group we had to come to a decision very quickly to simplify the design we had original felt would be the one we would like to execute. 

We asked people individually for feedback on both our presentation and our final idea.

PRESENTATION: 

Some things do not need to be explained further e'g Timetable, Gnatt Chart.

IDEA:

It looks great, but maybe disability idea is not necessary. 

Good idea and want to see the final 

All these constructive critiscim is fantastic, and will be taken into consideration 

The website yugop.com was shown to us, and to see such a simple straight forward interactive website to promote ones self, really did get us thinking and to deconstruct the ideas we had and to make it simple and image driven. 

http://yugop.com/

Fantastic idea of simplicity this website has. 

yugop.com homepage

CREATING A TEAM BLOG & HOTMAIL

I realised that part of my role of managing and directing the team that I had to further develop our organisation. 

I had been sending a lot of emails and getting loads of responses from the two members in the team so I created us an email account, of which we send our emails to it and will be our form of contact for the team

Email address: azide_creatives@hotmail.co.uk

Secondly I did a blog for which all our work goes up there.  I am currently the one putting up posts, but I hope for my other team members to do this also when there is work we have done as a team is in the process, also influences and exhibitions we have attended either as a group or individually, that we can feed through to our expanded creative minds :)

Blog: http://azide3creatives.wordpress.com/

BLOG!

STRESSED

Today as a team we spent a full 10 hours on re-looking at our website down. 

Understanding the saying, "less is more," we asked various people for feed back 

1. on the presentation we gave

2. on the our concept ideas

3. the idea we had chosen to develop

A lot of the feedback given was very good, and how are presentation structure and visuals were fantastic, through to our concept being great too.  As a group we still had a feeling in our head that maybe we had too much going on for our page.

So suggestions that came back was to simplify the visual and the operation of how the site works. 

Look back to our first basic experiments and how can just a simple idea form a fantastic and memorable statement. 

By the end of the revising, re-looking, redesigning we all came to a conclusion on a particular, as a team we feel that all members need to be happy with the design and how it operates or when we are talking we will not be passionate about what we have designed. 

So with this mock up and sketched illustrations we have come to a conclusion to sleep on the idea and tomorrow decided on whether we are happy with it or not.

At the stage of developmentation, it is such a hard thing to re-look and redesign when we literally have 5 days to have something executed. 

BRIEF ONE: SCREEN - DEVELOPMENTS

First theme test by our team AZIDE

Above is a tester of what we want our final to look like (form wise) we want to have a 3D model affective, which is moveable and rotational.  Allowing the  audience to interact with our site through touch pads, mouse, web cam (when you move the head moves) to list a few. 

This mock up helped us view and vision much better than just in sketches, and to explore dimension not just on the facade, but also interior wise, which we aim to develop and explore and have a sound idea to present by next week. 

So we have currently stripped it back down to its original form of sketch, and identifying the key tools and interactive areas we want. 

Illustration ideas taken from all three members in Azide 

BRIEF ONE: (WEEK TWO) IDEA GENERATION

Wire Framed brain sketch

We had our presentation this week, showing our ideas and background to it. 

I feel it went well this week, and the weaknesses that I have outlined in the presentation we developed on successfully, such as delivering the presentation without cue cards, and to have limited points per page. 

Below is a link to the full presentation:

http://issuu.com/nbrown88/docs/1110the_idea_generation_presentation_?mode=window&backgroundColor=%23222222

Feedback was given to our group, which we all made a note of.  This week we individually took in the comments from different perspectives, so currently there are mixed opinions on developing this. 

We quickly reviewed the other groups  work such as

Amaze, Magique, Fog and (the new formed group)

We looked at the strategies of delivering, and the method/narratives with regards to their website and their identity. 

We also applied a quick SWOT analysis done very roughly and have now gone away on ideas such as

1. how we can communicate with a mass audience (as the design and the content we currently have was seen as relating to one audience (which were designers))

2. What do we want to say about OUR creative team

3. What message do we want to give out 

4. The idea of taking "people" on a journey

The way we work as a group definitely has a good chemistry, and when either one of us have a problem, or do not feel comfortable with an idea or how things are going we speak up and we try to address the problem, so currently we are try to establish a story/narrative behind our web site, as one member feels this needs to be address, and I do also think this is a true and valid point.  

Literally a week left to the final presentation ....... :)

AZIDEs FINAL LOGO DESIGN

As viewed in my previous posts, the team Azide came to a decision to redesign our logo after form the Science Museum, were we all came together once again with individual ideas, (PREVIOUS POST SHOWS THE DIFFERENT STAGES WE WENT THROUGH TO ACHIEVE THIS), which when pieced together formed the new brand identity. 

AZIDE' new brand identity

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Quote mentioned by Damian Chapman.  Typographic Layout Nadine Brown

SKETCH BOOK

Mark Ryden 

Mark Ryden 

Inji gave a quick talk on documentation and having a folder/book filled with inspiration, ideas, anything that influences on a daily, weekly, monthly basis.

There were a few books by designers which she introduced, but the main one which had an impact on me due to its style and context was by Mark Ryden, his style and inspirations to produce his collection of "wood nymphs" is a real fantastic route to look at , especially how he has done such in-depth research into trees, through to idea generating.

Inji later showed us her documentation of influences and designs that she has drawn through to different materials and ways she has experimented with.

from Inji sketchbook 

Generally as person I do like to collect postcards, takes pictures, and draw to document things that have a massive impact on me, or think I should keep as it may be beneficial to me one day.  My only problem is keeping it in a note/sketch book (sticking things in).  I feel that it takes away the uniqueness and essence of the image that you may choose to stick in.  With regards to illustrations and quick sketches I have they are only ever on single sheets, purely so I can have them loosely instead of back to back on another design.  So my sketchbook is literally a box of stuff that I constantly look through for inspiration.

IDEA GENERATION AND DESIGN ROUTES

Damian gave a fantastic presentation *04.10.11(note book).  Where the lecture originated with him talking about what inspires him and why.  It was actually inspirational, and I really like the way how he manages to connect his inspirations and influences and feeds it through to a lecture.  The video below is of Andy Mckee, a guitarist, and the instrument he is playing is made from recycled objects.

This then led into paintings, by artists such as Mondrian, Matisse, Picasso to list a few, the idea of analysing an image was brought through, and is something which Damian is always stressing about, such as metaphors and meanings behind the objects viewed in the photograph or paintings, the idea and concept of a colour.  These were the main points which I took away from the lecture, and have been applying this to work I have looked at, and most importantly work I create.

BUILDING DESIGN ROUTES through themes:

• EVOLUTION - consumer, you know as you have proof
• REVOLUTION - start again, rethink!!!
• URBAN - is it concrete and grey?  (it could be exciting) do not stereotype!
• NATURAL - green/organic (do not stereotype)
• ECO - is it clouds and green trees (RETHINK!)

MIND MAPS & VISUALISATION

This particular theory based lecture opened my eyes to the way things can be conducted, in terms of getting from A to B, and that it is not always a simple linear route.

Maps and visualisations, are used to:`

1. Useful tool to understand new connections

2. Mind maps to baffle someone

3. Identify that there are different routes

A book which was suggested is "Visualising Research, 2004 by C.Gray & J. Malins. : a guide to the research process in art and design.  

So I have new purchase to order shortly :) 

INFORMATION GRAPHICS ( tools to simplify how you think)

e.g Venn Diagrams

1. Non- Linear

2. Give an overview of a topic (synopsis)

3. Help you to develop new creative pathways in order to refine or organise your creativity.

*NOTE TO SELF:

Analytical Processes:

1. 5w's and 1h (Journalistic Pyramid)

2. SWOT

3. PMI (Ed Dubain)

4. Learning Cycle - Do, Review, (Colb and Solber)

5. Sign, Signified, Signfier (Saussire)

I have started to use the above processes throughout my work and presentations, it help to revise and re-analyse the work I have produced independently and as a group, as well as looking at others and learning from their good and bad points.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Quote by Nicolas Negroponte, Author

This quote basically summed up Azides research week and early stages of the initial designs.  We really have bonded well as a trio, and when we work individually and come back with our ideas although they are all from different perspectives, some how they all manage to merge together and form into one idea, which works fantastically.

I am currently thoroughly enjoying our Initial Design week for the BRIEF ONE: SCREEN project and will be posting next week our sketches, prototypes, experimentations and our presentation for week two of three. 

BRIEF ONE: SCREEN (TIMETABLE) & INDIVIDUAL GNATT CHART

The first thing that came to mind once we had received the brief was collate a timetable so that we could realistically complete the brief successfully and efficiently, whilst adding in the fact that some of us work, have internships to attend, etc.  Below is our initial timetable and during the research period we have actual managed to stick to the time constraints we gave our selves.

Initial Timetable

We managed to collate a mini gnatt chart which just before our presentation the times (hours) changed slightly, as I had to redo a few pages, and check over spelling mistakes etc.  As English being my first language my two team members look to me to double check and organise the presentation layout etc.  Which i do enjoy, but most often is very nerve racking as any constructive criticism given I always have to take into hand and develop each week,  which is a good thing.

BRIEF ONE (SCREEN): CONTINUED - RESEARCH STAGES

The aim of this 3 week brief is to create an Interactive Website that will enhance our identity and who and what we stand for as a creative team of three.

Below are a few slides from the presentation, but the presentation can also be viewed in full at

http://issuu.com/nbrown88/docs/the_october_briefa1ab?mode=window&backgroundColor=%23222222

Front Page

Pie Chart - Research Breakdown

 


Research Marketing Questionnaires designed

Science Museum Research 

Pie Charts from Questionnaire outcomes

The research which we did as a group overall aided us for our next stages regarding our initial design processes.  We gained knowledge on whom will be

1. Our target audience

2. What type of layout/interface

3. type(s) of interactive/moving image and digital sources within our site

These three main points are areas that we felt we had to know, to understand how we would structure our designs

We went to the Science museum as well as conducting questionnaires and looking at various websites (within the link above) for influences, ideas and forms.  This was in fact a fantastic starting point for us as a group, and we also came together with ideas that either were similar or we could develop of from one another.