LAB: DAY 2: MARY IKONIADOU - 'MAKING DO'

Mary spoke mainly about the project she is involved in, the collaboration between three designers and one artist which call themselves 'Making Do'. Their manifesto and core belief is to 'deal with what you have not with what you don't' - 'Making Do' is a platform for lots of things such as music, fine art, philosophy and debate. The publication is driven by content and not just by aesthetic, challenging authorship from the perspective of a designer.


I found her talk relevant and motivational; Mary mentioned Ken Garland and his First Things First manifesto which has played a significant part within my work since I discovered him during my first year, and as a result, I feel it will always have relevance within my practice. She urged the importance to have a manifesto, a statement of intent, a direction within our practice - or to unearth this idea if we hadn't already, as it would shed great enlightenment on our discipline. The talk was driven by the idea of constantly questioning (your/my) work; what is it about? Who is it for? Why?


The talk was followed by a workshop where we were asked to re-produce an issue of 'Making Do' named 'Translation'. We were to use the original publication as a starting point and encouraged to think about form, structure, collaboration, production as well as content. As a group we produced a series of 5 postcards that represented 5 areas of the original publications content. The purpose of utilising the postcard was that it is a form of transportation of communication, a means to translate a visual experience into a written form.

http://www.makingdo.org.uk/

LAB: DAY 1: The Girls - Zoe Sinclair

Talk led by Zoe Sinclair, one half of The Girls; a collaboration which explores identity and character using photography as the medium. Zoe spoke about their rigorous working methods, processes and commissions as well as advice about the 'real world'. It was refreshing to hear about the lows as well as the highs while working within the creative sector; the stresses and struggles of working closely with others which can become intense and sometimes testing, as too, completing university and facing the ‘real’ world for the first time is equally testing. Her talk reinforced my worry of third year approaching and thrusted me into realisation that I should be using my recourses as a ‘student’ wisely, while I can. 


Zoe told us five things she felt were necessary to go out into the world with: some kind of web presence, confidence to self publicise, self initiation, the tool of borrowing and the importance of 'chance possibilities' (to go out, find out, probe and see what comes of it - you have nothing to lose) Their work explores themes such as feminism, death, characterisation and juxtaposition. Viewing the work allowed me to appreciate what power and impact a photograph can possess; whereas I mainly use it as a tool for documentation I felt the intense urge to get playing with the idea of the ‘portrait’.

The day continued with a workshop. We were asked in groups to produce a photographic portrait that represented us as a group. Our group was formed by Abi, Gemma, Laura and myself ; we connect well together through being friends originally and now we wanted to allow this to channel into our work. We thought about our qualities as a group – we know each other pretty well. The idea of our sense of humour, playfulness and ‘boyish’ ways were key and had to be at the core of our concept – placing ourselves at the very extreme of all our characters and becoming men for our portrait was appealing. We thought about props, make-up, stance, gesture and location as well as looking closer at artists such as Sarah Lucas and Cindy Sherman. Although our idea initially sounded comical, we realised that it was definitely making a big statement that we would like to develop further.

http://www.thegirls.co.uk/

LAB WINTER 2011

UCA GRAPHIC DESIGN LAB WEEK

A week that both 1^st and 2^nd year graphic design students dedicate to a whole range of possibilities; working collaboratively to produce ideas and work that can then be externalised/elongated throughout the year, produce a group publication, discover new ways of working and generally just to get to know the people in other years who we rarely see.

This year the LAB is from 21^st Nov - 25^th Nov - staff led and then another two weeks of LAB after Christmas, which will be student led. We are lucky enough to have five fellow practitioners come in each day this week to deliver a talk about their work and passions with some good handy advice chucked in there too!

Monday 21 Nov: The Girls: Zoe Sinclair

Tuesday 22 Nov: Mary Ikoniadou

Wednesday 23 Nov: Roderick Mills

Thursday 24 Nov: Hellicar & Lewis

Friday 25 Nov: LE GUN, Robert Rubbish

Yummeh!

i love her

Watch her interview on the link. She's the best. Think-Work-Play is a pretty cool website to see how other practitioners work too...

http://think-work-play.com/kate-moross-2/

http://think-work-play.com/

What I feel like eating today...

insomnia

Could watch these all night long

HANDMADE & BOUND

Getting ready for Handmade & Bound, heres a sneaky peak at one of my books I will be selling :)

I will also have some zines too.

Sun 20th Nov, St Brides

http://www.handmadeandbound.com/

FRIDAY MORNING

Feynman is a GOD.

b r e a k d o w n

So my independent practice this year will be formed around the subject of waste and consumerism. I have previously made alot of work around these subjects and feel its time now, to return to it. I have been listening to a few TED Talks; in particular, Graham Hill, Rob Hopkins and Barry Schwartz. A few themes that arose and may take me somewhere were choice, possession, categorisation, simplification and commodification.

Obviously, from my last blog post you can see I have been reading about Michael Landy, who is an amazing artist - he will never bore me... as well as Stuart Brisley and Martin Creed.

Heres a Ted Talk fo you to watch :)

Graham Hill: Less stuff, more happiness | Video on TED.com

Landy you will always be my favourite.

http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/michael-landy-frieze-2011

BEST.