The Cob Gallery

My of my favourite designers has to be Kate Moross and finding out that she had her work exhibited in the Cob Gallery I immediately had to go. I absolutely loved this gallery and her style is something that I can't get enough of and I would love to recreate this.

The gallery not only exhibited her final pieces but the whole work process which was really interesting to see as someone who inspires me greatly. The tapped up pieces of hand drawn research and end results had a really unique feel which represented Kate Moross' personality and style of work. Her patterns are amazing and the style she uses is something that is something that I wish to recreate in my own work. I feel that the colours she uses as well as the hand drawn images put into computer software really mirrors my own style and I can learn a lot from this work. Some of the pieces were nice to see as a confirmation of stuff i've already seen though her work for products such as dairy milk and magazines that were published.

The way in which the work enhanced both my love and passion for this designer really made me want to go home and recreate some of her works in my own style. I feel that her work is something that I want to use as a main inspiration to my project and use a patterned theme throughout my work.

Although all of the works are amazing, my favourite piece has to be this one because of the bold colours against the black background. I also like how it has been presented alongside other works which make it stand out a lot more than just on a white background. The bubbles really enhance the text making it not only a poster of information but a work of art.

Having triangles all around the walls also promotes herself and adds a playful feel to the room. Overall, I absolutely loved the gallery and her work and it was a real shame that I missed her talk.

 

Kemistry Gallery

I visited the Kemistry Gallery where the works of Yoni Alter were presented. I visited this gallery because i wanted to see the bold colours as this is something I wanted to recreate with my own work. Yoni Alter had some different works to what I have seen before using bold colours and familuar surroundings of London's city skyline however it was uninspiring because it was overworked when it could have been kept simple.

Some of the images where made shiny which meant that the light reflected the glitter in them and made it hard to see. They really made me feel like my eyes were playing tricks on me and this was uncomfortable to view. Although these were not my favourite I can see that the shiny feel could be used to show the reflection on the buildings.

The big wall as you walk in is very striking as it makes you feel like you are looking up at these  tall buildings. My initial thoughts are of my days a child when my dad took me to Canary wharf for the first time and as I looked up outside of the building I was amazed by the height. This image although a better one than the rest could have increased the amount of depth it produced by using colour maybe in a different way. I would have preferred the image to have more detail although this isn't the style of work presented.

Howard Griffin Gallery

Today I visited the Howard Griffin Gallery because I wanted to visit the works of Thierry Noir someone who uses a lot of bold colours in his paintings. This is something I want my book to be in style if and although his work features cartoon like images the contrasting colours and bold lines really inspire me to achieve something similar. The gallery itself was something I was not expecting the two floors mirrored the style of the work including the walls and TVs into the spaces around the hung paintings. Thierry Noir painted the Berlin Wall and having the hanging space being the same stone like textures it felt very stripped back and meaning from the paintings shone through further. Having been to Berlin a couple of weeks ago it was good to see more of his work having briefly seeing his work there.

The bold designs all resemble this human like figure which seems to bends in weird ways making them appear to be cartoon like and un human in a way. I love the bold contrasting colours on the simple backgrounds of flat colours. The black lines around the paintings rather than tones of colour are unique in style and makes the painting feel more of a cartoon style than a pop art feel to them. They are very striking as they are big paintings that fill a lot of the wall and I can see how they would have made the Berlin wall feel more bright and colourful.

FMP Week 3

During this week I have decided to continue with my research and finalise my idea before going into production. I have now decided not to educate clients but to help the client / designer relationship by creating a book in which aids the decision making process due to the fact that this idea would have made the client feel undermined. I want the relationship to be a good one as this will help the whole process but I have little idea on how to do this at the moment and therefore I feel that it would benefit through extra research. I have managed to speak to Michael from Cog Design and he suggested that clients are just people, like me or you and his relationship between his clients is a unique one. As long as the client is not disrespectful he doesn't mind if they take charge but if they do overstep the mark he simply walks away. This was interesting for me to learn as being a designer who also sells there work i understand that it is hard to work with a fussy client, as not everyone gets along. I will be also creating an app because technology is increasing in today's world and a book could not be as effective as a digital based design. The app is something that could also develop my digital skills as this is something I am better at than building and constructing a book.

The app will have to complement the book both in style and design; this week I have researched into how I could make this process easier and have now made the conclusion that the book will have to be fun or the client will not want to even take part in making things easier. I want the book to be an interactive thing and make sure that it excites rather than bores and therefore increases tension between the client and designer. I have researched into different ways of doing this and velcro is a good way to get them involved as well as things that pull out and ways to write down initial ideas in the process.

After researching into app design I have now found out that this is a hard idea to develop as I do not have the skills to generate an app and therefore I will have to either learn or find a way around this. For example an app is made through HTML and I only know a little of the vast amounts you need to produce such complex designs. I would need to research this further to ensure that I knew exactly what I was doing to ensure I have the correct design and layout.

Due to the change of my idea and lack of enthusiasm for the others I have not started to create my project yet and this is beginning to worry me. I am probably a week behind but in week 4 I hope to have caught up with my action plan and finally get back on track.

The Design Museum

Today I went to the design museum to see both the exhibitions Hello, my name is Paul Smith and Designs of the year 2014. Both the exhibitions were nice to see and although didn't exactly link to my project I did enjoy finding out about other works.

Paul Smith's exhibition was amazing to see a fashion designers work and how well he uses colour and pattern. The screens in which he played mesmerising images and his voice overlaying was incredibly beautiful to view and be amongst. I loved how bright and colourful the whole place was and even by having a wall covered in colourful buttons was simple but so effective. It was nice to see his workspace and how colourful it was. This is something that made you feel more connected to his work rather than just a load of works of his planted on the walls of a gallery.

Whilst being at the museum I was able to see the his style with the stripes and put products i've seen to a face. The products such as the Evian bottles which were something I really liked and didn't know until now who made them.

Another exhibition that was there was The Designs of the Year 2014 and although I didn't really have an opinion on the works there it was nice to see some of the things like a car made out of Styrofoam. I didn't really enjoy nor not enjoy this however I feel this because I wanted to find things to link with my project and this was hard to do. Overall, it was a nice visit however didn't really benefit me in this project although may do in the future.

Creative Week

This week was not what I wanted to do but it was something that introduced team work again. We were to group up with people from LBM and Media Production which was a task in itself to include everyones skills. I was able to group up with Anissa from graphics as well as Louis from Media production and Ben from LBM. We were to come up with an idea to create anything from the skills we had. The daunting task was something that all of us thought was pointless and lacked enthusiasm for it because we felt our FMP was more important.

We first discussed what our FMP's were and then decided to draw out a key element that linked them all together. The linking word was fear. We then had to decided how to include all of our skills into one piece. Ben was sound design which is something that I was interested in including because I had not worked with sound before. Louis was animation and he was someone that I had worked with before due to being at the same school prior to Rave. I was quite interested in what we could do to include all these elements and it quickly came to me that we should use one of Louis' characters and build it physically. The character is a robot, Ben would make the robot speak and me and Anissa would make the graphics which would be projected onto the robot. To bring in the theme of fear the projection would be of a situation which is a happy one and then the sound of the robot would be really sad and would say the worries involved in the situation.

We all then went onto produce our own elements of the final piece and then met up on Friday to assemble them all together. Although we did not enjoy the project and simply did what we had to do we were able to come up with quite a good idea and managed to get it together in time. During the final assemble our projector did not work and we were not able to project the graphics on the robot but rather had the laptop in from of him. This was disappointing and I felt that it did not have the same effect I wanted.

Saatchi Gallery

I decided to visit the Saatchi Gallery as I was very interested in the work I had seen on their website. I was near the gallery and although it doesn't fit with my project I felt it could benefit my research by looking afield. The first room was filled with ants made out of sticks and skulls. I felt incredibly small as though an ant would feel and started to feel a bit uneasy stuck in the room. Nevertheless, it was one of my favourite pieces. I was taken back by how realistic they actually looked for a couple of sticks put together and the way that they had been placed on the wall must have been carefully thought out as they crowded towards the far corner of the room. Having read the information about the work I can understand why Rafael Gómezbarros has used the skull casts. 

 His intention was to make a statement about the millions of displaced people who constitute the invisible but pervasive mass of immigrants crossing the planet. Ants are usually associated with hard work and show complex social organizations that have acquired the capacity to take over national monuments. He has managed to put his ants onto historical buildings such as Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino – the haçienda where Simón Bolívar spent his final days – as well as Barranquilla’s customs building. 

I also saw the work of Richard Wilson where at first I had no idea of what I was meant to be seeing. It then hit me that it was not just a room but one filled with recycled oil. It was reflecting the ceiling and therefore meant that a lot of people where confused on what they saw at first but after the initial reactions many admired its natural beauty from something so dangerous.

Someone else who I felt had real meaning to their work was Ibrahim Mahama who makes enormous drapes by sewing together the sacks imported by the Ghana Cocoa Board and repurposed by charcoal sellers.

The sacks have the markings and traces of the traders’ names and locations and I love this because you can see where the bags were imported to as well as the purpose. The bags filled the entire room and once you stood back and looked it was quite dark and mysterious to see brown material bags the way they were presented. 

There were many other works in the gallery but these were my top three. I feel that they possess the most meaning and make you think a lot more than your first initial sight. However I do love some of the other works for example the works by Vincent Michea who's works were of a pop art style. He had made albulm covers and generally showed stills of people in a comic book like way. It was interesting to see such bright colours as well as a contrast to the rest of the gallery. I loved the way block colour was used to create a flat image but also a used dots combining processes.