As a followup to the previous field project we have been tasked with creating a protest, for this part of the project we are to be put into larger groups, ours, in particular, is a group of 5, containing students from both Graphic Communication as well as two students studying Illustration. As part of developing our protest we are tasked with many different smaller tasks that are one week in duration, some more focused on the Graphic Communication section and some more focused on the Illustration section. However, all the different tasks would serve to give more detail and increase the complexity and quality of the issue that we would be protesting about. We would be working both independently to develop initial ideas and idea generation, while also doing the same collaboratively within our groups to finalise and perfect the final outcomes which will then be presented at the start of every new week.

Introduction Task

Beginning with a starter task to introduce us to our groups. Whereby we were given newspaper and tape, we would then create an animal of our choice, there was minimal guidance previous to the creation, other than when showcasing the creation of the animal it had to include three of our five group members. Only being given a short amount of time to create we quickly decided to create a jellyfish as our chosen animal, having one group member function as the top wearing a newspaper dome made of scaffolding type tubes covered over by sheets of paper and tape to give a round and smooth finish, this would be work as a hat, the two others would stand aside and act a the swinging tentacles as the group proceeded forward together. This task not only served as a valuable icebreaker to introduce the group members to each other, it also helped to quickly let everyone get first impressions of each other, giving them valuable insight into one another thinking process and how we could utilise our minds collaboratively rather than simply going through the creation process alone.

PROTEST! Topic Development

To begin the brainstorming process which would decide what topic our group was going to protest, we quickly created a list of roughly 10-12 initial ideas that we agreed would have potential. These ideas included:

• Deforestation
• Illegal Diamond Mining
• Homelessness
• Climate Change
• Mental Health
• Farmers in South Africa
• Brexit
• 3rd World Problems

The way that we determined whether or not to consider an idea was if we could immediately think of some initial ideas for a protest, as well as everyone having a base knowledge of what the topic was an what it was about, as well as ensuring that everyone in the group was happy with creating a protest for that topic. We also felt it important to be very clear what we wanted to change with our protest, factors like this ruled out a few options immediately but we still couldn’t decide what we wanted to protest. The group then turned to the internet to quickly search each of the remaining topics to see if any of the topics remaining had been over protested or if there was not sufficient research to be able to create a persuading protest. This ruled out topics such as Brexit which the group felt had been far too over protested, if an issue is already known we felt as though creating yet another protest about it would have minimal impact. I personally suggested that if we were to present an audience with an issue that they had previously not heard about/heard very little about and convince them of our point of view while also displaying a knowledgeable and fair argument it would show a higher level of not only design skill but protesting and arguing skill overall. This narrowed down the choices to my suggested topic of Illegal Diamond Mining.

Illegal Diamond Mining

Upon initial research our group found that Illegal Diamond Mining mostly occurs in Africa, as well as the fact that much of the research was a few years old, suggesting that once this was a huge problem that was within the public eye however different issue came along and overshadowed it. However the problem was never solved, meaning that those who are victimised by issue are still suffering without the hope of immediate help, as a group this finalised that this would be a perfect topic to protest in the hope of once again rallying support to help prevent the issue forever. Many countries are affected by Illegal Diamond Mining, after research we discovered these are more commonly called “Blood Diamonds” or “Conflict Diamonds” we decided to name our movement after “Blood Diamonds” as we felt it was short, impact full and began to explain the problem effectively while still grabbing the viewers attention.

We began to research much further into “Blood Diamonds” how they go undetected and what processes are already in place to prevent their sale into large, respected diamond and jewellery selling and cutting companies.

A “Blood Diamond” is a simple term often used for a diamond that has been mined within a country that is controlled by rebel forces or insurgents, most commonly occurring within a civil war, the diamonds will be mined by citizens against their will and very often for very little or no pay at all. The workers will then be forced to hand over the mined diamonds at gunpoint, the diamonds mined from these mines will then be sold to fund the civil wars efforts, resulting in further conflict. Often these diamonds will be bought cheaply in comparison to other countries where diamonds are found, such as Canada. Due to the poor working conditions the diamonds can be sold very cheaply and the insurgents are still able to make extremely large profits. These diamonds are sold to large companies such as Rolex and De Beers, where they are cut and cleaned therefore making them untraceable and undetected.

The seven main African countries affected by Blood Diamonds include: Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola, Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo. However there is a particular mine located within Zimbabwe named the “Marange Diamond Mine” where blood diamond mining is particularly publicly known and consistent. Due to the president of Zimbabwe “Mugabe” being part of a corrupt government there is very minimal to no regulation within the forced mining of diamonds within mines such as “Marange”. Government appointed corporate entities and members of Mugabe’s inner circle are given unrestricted access to the mines, using the mines and the revenue generated from them to maintain the grip of power. Given the fact that there are already interactions efforts to stop this, therefore another protest would make little difference. Because of this, within our group we have decided to point our protest more so in the direction of forcing those large companies such as De Beers to publicly and clearly display where each collection/shipment of diamonds have been traced from. This will stop the allowance of “Under the table” cheap blood diamond purchasing, this will also, in turn remove the demand for blood diamonds and hopefully reduce the supply and help prevent the torture, mutilations and kidnapping of those affected.

Further Research Into Blood Diamonds

Blood Diamond Research

https://www.hrw.org/news/2010/02/01/blood-diamondhttps://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/conflict-diamonds/zimbabwe/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/aug/05/blood-diamondshttps://www.pambazuka.org/land-environment/marange-diamond-fields-zimbabwe-overview

Manifesto

For the first of three, one week projects we were tasked with creating a manifesto for our chosen topic, to begin this task we filled out a sheet that serve as a guild line as to how our protest would work, covering basic things like; what changes we would like to achieve by doing this protest as well as who we would like to make these changes (Display Picture from group chat).

Delving further into the research of blood diamonds, I discovered that there has been efforts in the past that are currently still in place to prevent the distribution of illegally mined “Blood Diamonds”. This is labelled “The Kimberly Process” which is a government led scheme which was launched in 2003 tasked with the purpose of cleaning up the diamond trade, particularly within Zimbabwe, over 75% of the worlds diamond mining and trading countries have become part of this scheme. However this process was quickly outsmarted and made irrelevant, due to the fact that it only has a slim definition of what a blood diamond is, according to the Kimberly process a blood diamond only classifies as a problem if “rough diamonds are used by rebel movement to finance again legitimate governments”. This makes illegal diamond mining particularly easy in countries such as Zimbabwe where corrupt governments are in power, an entire country full of diamond rich reverses can continue to operate without being threatened by the Kimberly process. Additional facts concerning blood diamonds include

• Roughly 4-15% of all diamonds mines are conflict “Blood” diamonds with an estimated value of around £6.1 Billion.
• Wars funded/caused by blood diamonds have cost Sierra Leonne 75,000 lives and caused in excess of 500,000 refugees. Crimes include murder, rape and mutilation

Through the form of illegal diamond mining Sierra Leones government has also been cheated out of many millions of pounds, simply adding to the problem

Designing and Developing the Manifesto

After extensive research into the chosen topic the group then began creating initial ideas/imagery that could be collaborated together to form a potential final outcome. before creating my initial ideas i began by searching Pinterest for already created designs for two reasons, firstly to ensure that I was not creating something that had already been made as well as using Pinterest to get me inspired, creating a flow of ideas from already created and successful designs. Below are some examples of posts that i felt inspired me throughout the manifesto designing process. The following designs were all found published on Pinterest.com.

 

After being adequitley inspired by designs found online i then began creating some rough initial designs using a combination of Photoshop and illustrator. After the first day of initial research the group decided that a good way of achieving a diverse pool of designs was to all go away and create a number of initial ideas and then post them into a chat where each collection of designs would be critiqued and praised so that we would continuously come closer to the manifesto design that the group wanted to create. However before we split up for a day or two we first decided a basic colour scheme, this included a large amount of black and red to help symbolise the coldness and the danger involved with the merciless killing related to the mining of Blood Diamonds, as well as white to contrast with the darker shades and free up some space. Finally small amounts of light blue were planned to be used, this would help to contrast the dark, bloody red as well as assist in representing the crystal blue to the diamonds.

Following on from the research into blood diamonds I have also researched into what companies have been known for buying diamonds mined within these conditions. I found that companies such as Rolex were one of the worst offenders. After doing this I then looked into the logos that these companies use, I found that the majority of diamond selling companies use a logo similar to this kind of design

Many companies use the image of a elegant looking geometric style diamond alongside a symbol of royalty such as a crown or wreaths surrounding the diamond.

After viewing these i tried out a few sketches and concepts that appeared to mock these logos, by first designing something that was very similar to the design above but being careful to change certain parts of it, I then began changing certain aspects by applying “Blood Diamond” effects, this included things like, changing the colour and adding blood drops to make the diamond appear less elegant and to help symbolise the corruption and murder that goes into the mining of some of these diamonds. I also experimented with the idea of presenting royalty and power within the logo, by adjusting the crown to make it look more disturbing, surrounding the crown with thorns that echoed the same colour as the blood red that dripped down the sides and over the edges of the otherwise crystal blue coloured diamond. I found that this design seemed to take already existing logos and show hidden truths, by taking something that already exists and changing it in such as way as to make something so elegant and royal as a diamond appear corrupted and evil would help to not only get the protests message across but also helps to show where the problem of blood diamonds really is. By imitating famous diamond company logos it helps to show that the problem lies within these companies purchasing their diamonds from places such as “Marange Diamond Fields” where corruption is rife. I have also added chains surrounding the diamond to help symbolise the slavery that those who are put to work within the mines are forced to endure. I think this imagery works effectively and delivers its message correctly, however it would work much more efficiently when placed alongside some text that helps to make the viewer think about the imagery, perhaps placed on a protest sign alongside a slogan that denoted the company that it is imitating. While this could be used alongside text i find that this design would also work effectively as a sort of logo for the entire protest, including a small title underneath or above with the words “Blood Diamond” and perhaps a slogan, utilising a logo that would appear on all of the final designs and every bit of material produced for the protest would help to tie the different areas and designs together and help viewers to realise that it is all part of one protest. If i were to make this imagery again I would improve is by including more detail within the “crown of thorns” placed above the diamond itself, this would help to make it more clear exactly what the thorns were, assisting to not only improve the aesthetic nature of the piece but to also increase the effectiveness of the message. Originally i did want the blood parts that appear on the diamond to look more dirty and unpleasant to look at, however due to the fact that i was using illustrator so that my imagery would be vector and could be resized to any size desired without loss of quality my tools were somewhat limited, sticking to mainly the pencil, brush and pen tool to create this piece the final finish appears slightly too clean than I first imagined. However this did also have unforeseen advantages, due to the lack of large amounts of extremely small details this design would work equally effectively when sized both very small and very large such as a banner or placard within a protest. The design described has been displayed below,

After seeing how successfully i felt my first initial imagery went, I decided to create more, utilising both typography and imagery to achieve a more varied range of outcomes, in turn making my groups outcomes more effective. For the following designs I did not include any of the crystal blue colour that is so prevalent in my previous design, this is due to the fact that after viewing some of my groups early outcomes, they seemed to not be using much blue if any at all. In order to achieve a greater level of collaboration i decided to attempt to make more designs only using black, white and shades of dark red. I feel the left hand side deign has a large amount of potential, having a more three dimensional feel than the first design due to the fact that the entire work appears from an angle rather than head-on. I feel as though the diamond illustration went much more successfully than the hand underneath it, the strong geometric shapes make it extremely clear what i am attempting to illustrate. As well as the strong sense of symmetry within the diamond make it appear clean and elegant. However the blood dripping down and the hand under it are very asymmetrical, making it look more informal and less pleasing to look at, however I feel it does accurately represent a blood diamond without having to explicitly explain what has been designed. Giving the viewer a sense of satisfaction when they figure out the meaning behind the work, I feel that with slightly more time and precision put into the work it could become an extremely strong example of blood diamond imagery. A way to achieve this would be by implementing more colours to give it a greater level of detail as well as making it more interesting to look at.

My second design uses majority typography as i felt it was important to create a typography based piece so that both my and my groups work was more varied. Using a block like, sans serif font to display the words “The True Price of Diamonds”, our mantra chosen for this manifesto part of the project. I then included a large, very opaque drop shadow to the entire mantra, by doing this it not only gives more focus to the text itself it also leaves me with a large black plate whereby i can then include imagery relating to the text itself. My initial idea was to draw many different types of diamonds within the black space alongside currency symbols, however i decided to go for something more simple and create a blood splatter effect using a dark red. I like the way this design looks, although when placed on its own the purpose of it becomes somewhat unclear so I feel it would work much more effectively as a title for a larger piece, surrounding it with relating imagery. If i were to create this design again i would like to implement more imagery into the surrounding areas of the typography in order to develop it further.

Final Manifesto Outcome

For my final outcome for the Manifesto I decided to present this to my group, I feel it serves it purpose effectively and efficiently, displaying all the relevant information in a tasteful, themed and consistent manor. Giving insight into what our manifesto is about as well as ensuring to keep to the agreed colour scheme, using one of my previously created designs and enhancing it further to include the protest name as well as the manifesto essentials. Although this was very quick to create I feel it expresses the groups ideals adequitley. After presenting it to my group we tried creating some different colour alternatives however the original colour scheme seemed to work most effectively. The vibrant blue contrasting nicely with the dull grey in the background. As well as ensuring that the black body copy is still clearly legible.

Presenting Week Ones Work to Peers and Staff

Presentation

After presenting our work to the class we were given feedback on not only our initial designs but also the design we decided to present as our final outcome. While receiving much positive feedback about the groups general imagery, as well as a general feeling of consistency throughout most members. There was improvements that could be made to the chosen final design, as throughout the group we had achieve some very effective examples of imagery that correctly and effectively represented both our protest and the ideals that we had placed within our manifesto, matched with extensive amounts of very accurate and interesting research and knowledge, however the abundance of typography as well as the overall lack of imagery within the manifesto. Since the design chosen was mine I quickly thought of ways to include appropriate imagery. Trying to include any of my already created 4 designs did not work very well, the size and style of the imagery did not match the manifesto.

Oxymoron and Improving the Manifesto

Moving onto the second week and second project of this Field Project, Week two was more focused on the illustration elements of our groups. Tasked with creating a visual oxymoron that did not use any typography and therefore must visually represent the chosen oxymoron using purely illustration. I found this particular part of the project the most difficult week, me and the two other graphic communication students within my group allowed the two Illustration students to take a lead role in this project. However due to the success of the previous week the group decided to use the same work structure as previously, however due to the focus on illustration within this part of the project there was a distinct difference between the graphics and the illustration students work. On the first day of working the group chose what oxymoron to visually represent, initially choosing “Harmless Crime” we then began sketching initial ideas that did not relate to our manifesto, this was done simply to introduce us to the new project and way of working. I found it strange yet challenging when only working with illustrations, in particular the absence of text made it difficult to get a clear cut point across, relying solely on visual metaphors made it so that sketches had to be simple and clear in their message, below are the groups sketches from the first day of working, meant to represent the oxymoron “Harmless Crime”.

 

I feel as though the initial sketches were very effective in their purpose, that being to acquire a base knowledge of how to represent oxymoron’s visually without the use of any typography. Particularly as a Graphics student i felt this introduction task was necessary, moving onward, the group then went away to create our initial designs.

My designs were influence in particular by Alice’s “Dove Draft” keeping with the idea of the dove representing a symbol of peace and therefore would represent the “harmless” section of the oxymoron i began sketching out ideas for different birds i could draw to represent what I desired in the most effective manor possibly.

my design process is as follows below.

Already having an idea of what i wanted my final outcome to look like i began sketching each of the individual elements that would come together to make my outcome, using the idea of a bird to represent the harmless section of the oxymoron as well as a shackle to represent the crime aspect, linking into slavery and therefore having a loose connection to the blood diamond protest itself as well. initially I simply drew any kind of bird however after placing it into a design i noticed that it did not translate the right kind of message, i then went back and illustrated something that was very clearly a dove. After placing that into a design i noticed that it did not blend into the shackled foot, this meant that it would require additional lines to make it seem like an extension of the shackled foot, my design was also require a revision on the colour scheme as it did not match with the rest of the groups. My final design is shown below.

For my final outcomes I feel this one works effectively as a visual representation for the oxymoron “Harmless Crime”. The minimalism line drawings make it so that this design could be used as a very effective spray painting stencil, this is a positive factor due to the fact that within the brief for the oxymoron section of the project there was specific mention to explore with more than just digital outcomes, by creating a stencil i feel as though I have done this to an extent. However where i think this design could be improved is to make it relate closer to not only the rest of my groups work but to also relate closer to the blood diamond protest, I feel there is very loose connection however there is much i could have done to make it relate more closely. In response to the feedback given during the groups presentation I plan to create more designs that will hopefully fulfil this.

In response to my previous work I have created another potential design for the “Harmless Crime” oxymoron, although slightly baffling upon first glance I do like the finish yielded by this design, in particular the hand and the detail applied to it. By presenting a drug baggie and placing a blood diamond within it rather than drugs helps to relate the crime of mining blood diamonds to the crime of drug dealing and taking, as drugs are normally seen as a “victim less crime”, linking in with blood diamonds not often being seen at all or blood diamonds only ever being seen as the clean cut and already refined and sold versions of the diamonds, making it also seen as a victim less crime. This design could be improved by implementing both a background as well as inserting more blending into the bag itself.

The final outcome decided amongst the group was a GIF that is hand drawn and put together similarly to a stop motion animation. Shown below.

 

Improving the Previous Manifesto

After receiving feedback for the previous week of work the group set about improving the previous presented manifesto, I improved my previous design by including imagery, the imagery I included was a low poly diamond. Created myself by using an image for reference and made through Photoshop, i think it improves the overall design massively, the images look like they belong in the correct place and help to give the manifesto a more vibrant and attention grabbing finish. I did not need to change much about the rest of the design as I felt I used the space very well previously, the design simply needed to include some imagery to make it look more interesting.

Low Poly Work

Deconstructing The Practice of Others Within Low Poly

Giselle Manzano Ramírez

Giselle Manzano Ramírez is a Colombian born, Brooklyn based graphic designer.

Her Illustration project “Low Poly / High Poly portraits” has received press from national and international media such as Adobe Illustrator, DesignTaxi, Digital Arts Online, Fubiz among others.

The majority of her work is low/high poly styled portraits. The way that she creates these portraits is relatively simple, to begin with she picks an appropriate subject, preferably a face that has a large amount of varying colours and sharp contrast as these make for higher quality low poly portraits in the end. After this the face is then cut up into multiple different sections and the contrast/saturation is changed slightly on the different sections, this makes the colours pop out more prominently. The different sections are ten combined back together sing Photoshop so that the face becomes whole again. The next step is to begin creating a mesh like grid on top of the face, enrapturing the different areas of light within triangles. This is continued throughout the entirety of the face. Once this is complete the file is loaded into illustrator where each point of the every triangle is connected until the face becomes a complete mesh. Finally each triangle is then coloured using a single shade of colour approximate to the skin that it is covering, this is then repeated throughout the entire face until the mesh is not longer visible and every triangle has been filled in. I like the finish that low poly work yields, alongside its easy to understand work process means that I would like to produce low poly works of my own.

This is an example of Gisele Manzano Ramirezs low poly portrait works. The subject of this piece is famous silent film actor Charlie Chaplin, the use of an extremely famous actor as the subject makes the work more recognisable, the colours used are not that which reflects accurate skin tones, this makes the work more abstract and fits in nicely with the shades used in the background and the unrealistic look of the low poly style. When viewing this piece my eyes first look to the centre of the face, I think this is due to the fact that there is a much denser concentration of polygons located there. This in turn also makes  those areas look more realistic. I like the way that light is captured well and reflected in this piece, the contrast in concentration of triangles in various areas of the face, for instance the areas with the lowest concentration of triangles is the hat, this works well though since the area is very dark and therefore does not require such a large amount of detail. I like the finish that this work yields, the clean cut and high contrasting colours make the finished work look very professional and with the relatively low creation time I would like to create my own examples of low poly portraits.

This is another example of Giselle Manzano Ramirezs low poly portraits, this example has an extremely high number of polygons within it. Upon first inspection the viewer may mistake this for an actual photograph. However the brighter areas show the borders of some triangles and gives the polygon finish. The subject for this piece is Kanye West. The lighting for this piece is accurate and realistic, it also matches nicely with the shades of purple and pink within the background. The focus of this is piece is the entire face as the concentration of polygons is consistently high through ought the subject. This makes the work highly demanding to first view as all the minute details are visible all at once, almost making it overwhelming at first glance. The rich shades blend the colours more naturally creating a smooth finish in darker areas.  This work has been creating through direct observation, this piece would have taken a very  long amount of time to create due to the fact that each individual polygons would have to be filled as the artist slowly made her way through the various areas of the subject.

Creating My Own Low Poly Work

To create this piece I first had to acquire the photo from Google I decided to use a secondary image for my first attempt as it would make grasping the concept of creating a low poly portrait easier, allowing me to focus more on the application of the techniques as opposed to ensuring a high quality and appropriate image has been captured. After this I then began encasing each separate area of light within a triangle, each triangle was drawn using an extremely thin brush of one pixel wide. I decided to make this “mesh” out of a bright white colour so that the mesh would never become hidden in front of the image, making it easier to complete. After this mesh covered he entirety of the image I then began colouring each individual triangle an appropriate colour that I felt accurately represented the colour tone that was encased within the white borders of that specific triangle. to do this I first outlined a chosen triangle by following the white lines with a pen tool and then selecting “make selection” after ensuring that the feathering option was disabled I clicked OK, I then used the colour picker tool with one of the “X” by “X” average settings, this means rather than selecting the exact colour that that specific pixel is, it instead creates an average of all the pixels within the area. I continues this until the entire mesh had been coloured.

Placard

For the final week of the project we were tasked with a Graphics related topic, creating at least two final outcomes in the form of placards, one was to be purely typographical and another was to combine both typography and imagery. Since the last two projects went smoothly using the design process that we were using we have decided to do the same again, however because of the shift in subject focus, it on being on Graphic Communication, the group have decided to give the three graphics students a more leading role within the group. To begin this part of the project we started coming up with slogans that could potentially be used for text on a placard, as well as the original group mantra “The True Price of Diamonds” we came up with these slogans as well;

• Clean cut doesn’t
• Lives weighted, wrists weighted
• No money for your luxury
• Diamonds are a war efforts best friend
• Cut clean conflict
• DIEmonds
• Under pressure
• Carbon cult

Further Slogan Included:

• “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend” – blood diamonds are a ??? best friend
• Insurgents best friend??
• Murderers best friend??
• Rolex slogan-
• “A Crown for Every Achievement”
• De beers slogan-
• “A Diamond is forever”
• ALROSA slogan
• “Real is rare”
• Diamonds are made under pressure.
• Shining like a diamond
• Diamonds shine while slaves bleed.
• Diamonds are a war efforts best friend.
• They really are “Heart Stopping”

I think these slogans are very effective at doing what they are meant to do. They are all punchy, memorable and carry a strong message that can easily be remembered. These then became our final slogans so the group set about creating initial designs, we met up several times during the week to compare drafts and sketches as well as to share new ideas. We knew that we wanted to continue with the same colour scheme as it seems to have been very effective in the past, the silhouette based designs seemed to be most effective, so we decided to create designs that use silhouettes as well as being inspired by Jake’s previously created work using screen printing and stencil type finishes.

(SHOW PICTURE)

Designing My Placards

For my Placard design I not only used the slogans that we, as a group agreed to use, but I also went further to research the slogans of companies known for being involved in the purchasing of Blood Diamonds and incorporating their slogan somehow into a graphic placard design.

An example of using a companies slogan is seen on the bottom right, using Rolex’s slogan of “A Crown For Every Achievement” by taking this slogan and creating a pile of crowned skulls helps to represent the people killed simply for the diamond rings that people could be wearing on their hands. I think this possesses a very powerful message and find the ideas behind this design is my personal favourite, although I feel the design could be vastly improved by simply spending slightly more time implementing more detail into both the crowns and the skulls, implementing more variation into their design would help to make the design much more impact-full and overall a far more powerful placard. More striking colours for the text and background could also be used to make it pull more focus when displayed within a large crowd of people.

For this part of the project all members of the group brought forward previous imagery that was created during the manifesto stage however was not used within the final manifesto outcome. We decided to use some of this imagery due to the fact that the majority of it had already been presented and the majority of the feedback the group received was extremely positive.

In terms of design mine and my groups personal favourite was the placard with the slogan “Carbon Cult” on it. Using a previously created image from the manifesto week I then repeated the slogan to fit the shape of the image, I think this is an improvement over just simply using the imagery. I also ensured that all of my designs fit the agreed colour schemes, overall I like all of the outcomes I have created, they all display our protests message using a combination of imagery and typography.

 

After being brought up for presentation we received overwhelming positive feedback about our designs overall, stating that our groups imagery was one of the strongest out of all the groups presenting that day, however if i were to continue working on placard designs i think I would benefit massively from exploring further experimentation with the typographic elements of my placards, Possibly experimenting with shadows and different font being used to exaggerate certain words and phrases that I felt needed to be seen with more urgency or I wanted to give more impact to over other words.

The Protest

The following day after presenting our Placard outcomes, a live protest was organised around the university campus where we would be given the opportunity to showcase our work as we walked around in order to evaluate how effective our outcomes actually were out in the world. Noticing what elements worked best when viewed from a distance, when walking around I noticed that the purely typographic placards that boasted large block text and sharp contrasts in colour worked most effective, when combined with a snappy and easily memorable slogan the effect they had was hugely positive and striking. I found my design would have worked much more effectively if printed onto a larger paper size than A3, however due to time restrictions I was able to get anything larger before the protest began. I enjoyed the protest as a whole as it gave e an opportunity to be part of  protest for something i felt passionate about

Below are photo examples of both the protest in general as well as photos of our groups designs that we chose to print out.

Evaluation

What went well?

Overall I feel the second half of the field project went more successful, the second group i was placed in worked much more effectively in terms of collaboration, cooperation and communication. Within the second part of Field I think the most successful part was the placard Graphic project, I feel this way due to the fact that there was very large volumes of work produced and it was mostly extremely positive and completed to a very high standard.

What did I learn?

Throughout these two projects I have learnt a plethora of new skills, some of the most prevalent include; vasts amount of knowledge on both blood diamonds and Bullying, I have used Adobe Illustrator throughout the second half of the project so I now have a much higher and more complex understanding of the tools, techniques and processes involved within the use of the various different tools available within Adobe Illustrator. This has not only helped me thoroughly throughout the project but will continue to improve my work over the course of my three year degree. Working in groups has also taught me valuable communication skills as well as due to the fact that this project has had mini deadlines every week rather than one large deadline at the end it has forced me to keep organised and watchful of what work I do with my time, ensuring not to leave everything until last minute.

 

What didn’t go as well as expected?

Within the second portion of the Field project I felt the Oxymoron week did not go very well for me in particular, although combined my group did produce some beautiful looking outcomes that carried strong and memorable messages, I felt I personally did not contribute enough during this week, instead hiding behind the fact that it was an illustration week so I let the Illustration students take a very strong lead role within the work for the duration of that week.

What would I do differently next time?

Next time i would like to experiment more, in particular more so within physical outcomes. I feel it would be extremely beneficial to me if I were to stretch my designs further than simply using digital mediums to produce my outcomes, taking inspiration from my group members to experiment with light and hand drawn sketching. although I feel these outcomes may not be as high quality as my digital work, it would still be worthwhile to learn more hand drawn based skills. Giving my work a greater variance and possibly discovering skills that I was unaware that I possessed.

How did I use my skills to contribute?

My skills remain within the digital fields of design, so throughout the project I was combining initial sketches that me and my group had completed alongside making designs of my own, providing the final outcome for the manifesto as well as multiple final outcomes that i presented for the placard project. Alongside this I also presented many experimentation outcomes for the Oxymoron project, however other designs and concepts were taken on to create the final outcome chosen for that week.

Did I attend, engage and commit fully to my project?

I felt I engaged very well with my group members, responding to designs posted within the group chat giving critiques and positive feedback, attending every day we decided to meet up within University as a group, I committed well to this project, submitting outcomes for every project and offering my opinion when needed. However I do think i could have collaborated with my group more in particular during the Oxymoron project week.

How has the process helped me to develop as an Illustrator / Graphic Designer?

I feel these project have developed me as a Graphic Designer due to the fact I have worked so closely with those who study other art based degrees, learning the different approaches that different people will take to the same work has opened my eyes as to how I can approach the same work. In a way I can now look at a project from the view of multiple people after learning how the others in my group tackled the problems that presented themselves during tough times within these two group projects.

How did I consider the audience, tone and communication of the project? Did it change or evolve during the project?

The tone did not change much during our project, we knew what approach we wanted to have and I feel it stuck from week one all the way until the day of the live protest, I am very happy with the way these projects worked out and would take great benefit from doing further group worked with students from other disciplines in the future.

 

 

As a preliminary task for a field project, We were tasked with a group project. The task is to create a social campaign that serves to bring light on a mutually agreed social movement.

To begin research and idea generation for this project, the group of 5 simply discussed what issue could potentially be highlighted and how it could be brought to light.

Cycling through a plethora of concepts and initial ideas, we discovered that the theme of anti-bullying seemed to appear often as well as the group seeming most confident in proceeding on with an anti bullying campaign. However what part of bullying was to be specified?

After more thought the group were happiest and most confident in addressing the problem of students economic backgrounds should not influence the way they are treated by others, more specifically within this issue the group pinpointed the issue of individuals being “labelled” based upon the brand of clothes they are seen wearing, if deemed cheap they may be subjected to unfair treatment, discrimination and a certain aspect of isolation throughout life. Negatively affecting their health and confidence, there are real world examples of this issue causing problems as well as potential solutions to this issue, a school in northwestern England has banned the wearing of Canada goose and Moncler jackets in order to protect disadvantaged students.

After this I then moved onto researching how to create a successful social media campaign. understanding that there are many main steps to ensure that the campaign you create is effective and delivers the message successfully. Firstly the group must ensure that the goal of the social media campaign is fully understood to all group members, what impact is hoped to be achieved by the end of the project. Secondly a list of what channels to use to promote alongside what content is to be produced, this is important due to the fact that certain media will require unique pixel sizes

This idea will be presented through; A poster, video advert, a quiz as well as including a collection of gifs, viral images and the creation of a Facebook/Instagram trend. something we noticed very early within the creation process was the fact that many expensive designer brand shirt looked extremely similar to very cheap clothing, however due to the fact they simply have the designer label the person wearing the clothes is often judged differently.

Schedules are also vital within the creation of a group project, alongside vast amounts of communication between the group members in order to ensure that the different medias and channels of work link together effectively as well as the fact that colour schemes and layouts need to be similar in some respects. The supporting visual content needs to also be effective, using a consistent theme with intriguing colours, typography and illustration. Since the campaign will be seen on digital platforms it is very important to place them into context, in order for them to ensure that they worked effectively within the context they are planed to be placed within.

Finally it is vital for the members to analyse and adjust accordingly once the feedback, ensuring that the work does not appear dated or fail to reach the target audience effectively.

Naming The Social Media Campaign

Initially struggling to find an appropriate name for the campaign the group decided to name it “Materialistic Branding”, effectively encapsulating the ideals of the movement while still being punchy and memorable. However we later could find that this name could be improved and decided to re-brainstorm ideas for a name, coming up with names of “Poverty Proof” & “Materialistic Bullying”. assisting to translate the impact of the bullying aspect of the campaign. eventually finalising with the name of “Materialistic Bullying” we then moved onto creating a series of initial logo designs.

Logo Design

After deciding what the project was to be based around the group began to develop logos, each coming up with a few sketches of what the chosen logo could look like, focusing on the element of clothes within my logo concepts, as well as attempting to communicate an essence of cleanliness and clarity by using minimal shapes and including large, open spaces. Since the name of the project was materialistic branding at the time of logo creation I found it effective to include the first letter of each word and attempting to incorporate that into a design. The chosen logo would also decide the basis of the overall aesthetic of the movement, the final logo design was chosen (Displayed below)

The logo we chose utilises a modern, minimalist, two tone aesthetic, a modern look to the campaign will help to identify the target audience, which was agreed to be mainly school children as they appear most effected by this issue. The colour scheme was decided to be mainly black and white, with small inklings of red.

Within the campaign we decided to keep a main focus on the clothes labels themselves, using them as a means to edit and a full front for the campaign, the layouts of the labels could be used as an influence for posters and other promotional material, giving a certain sub conscious link in between both the campaign and the clothing labels themselves.

Roles Within The Group

My personal role within the group was to create a TV advertisement, focusing once again on the use of labels within clothes i found that there was a large amount of designer clothes that looks extremely similar to cheaply branded clothing however simply the fact that it has the designer label inside the clothing makes it worth an extremely high amount. For my video I decided to focus more on this issue and highlight this fact.

To begin the creation process I first created a brainstorm about what colours, shots and location I wanted to use. Initially I thought about using the photography studio however after thought I began to realise that the TV advertisement background would work much more effectively if it were not bright, plain white rather if it was slightly textured with shadows and other objects to throw off the otherwise somewhat boring background. For my first draft I used the graphics studio itself for filming, alongside using black jeans as the clothes. This not only gave out a heavy contrast but also kept within the colour scheme agreed within the group. alongside using two pairs of identical jeans I also created two faux clothes labels, due to the fact I was not able to use actual brand names, they were adjusted accordingly.

 

As well as only taking a short amount of time to create, I found these labels, once printed out and stuck onto the jeans were appropriate and effective for the purpose they were intended for. However I do feel they would look more convincing as clothes labels if they were either printed on cloth to give them the correct texture when filmed, or by applying filters and effects to make them appear as though cloth was used to print them on. This effect could be created in a number of ways, the simplest way would possibly be by applying a “Texturiser” filter, then proceeding to adjust the sliders until the look was deemed appropriate.

Video Filming

Previous to filming I have decided to create some pre-production files in order to allow my Advertisement to be filmed more smoothly, this comes in the form of a storyboard (Shown Below)

Created as a piece of work to refer back to while filming my advert, the storyboard contains both visual and audio information, yielding greater detail overall creating a more effective final outcome. While I do feel it is important to stick to the storyboard and the plans that i have created, it is also vital to learn to adjust to problems, accepting the fact that I may have to bend the rules created by this storyboard in order to work around potential complications.

In order to actually get the filming done for the TV advertisement I will need to use one of the DSLR cameras supplied by the University. I enjoyed filming the advertisement, giving me an opportunity to try something out of the normal in terms of graphics where large portions of work are related to a poster in terms of format and layout, dealing with the complications that came along with the filming was challenging. Learning how to use the camera was fairly easy although I did not have to alter many settings, simply change the level of focus that was applied to the camera shots. acquiring  roughly 5 minutes of footage left me with enough spare shots to be able to evaluate my work before editing it and only use the most aesthetically pleasing camera shots, these were the ones that panned steadily and smoothly in order to match the overall a theme of the video. Upon going into the filming I knew, after much discussion within the group that our desired approach was to use many visual metaphors to create a mysterious kind of atmosphere, this would prompt the viewer to wander what the campaign/advertisement is about, encouraging them to follow the links provided in order to learn more about the meanings and purposes behind the created content. I feel I have achieved giving the audience a hint at what the campaign is about without giving the entire story, prompting them to explore further using the links to the Facebook page.

The meaning behind the video focuses on the similarity of many designer brand clothes and cheaper brand clothes, the only difference being the label. As the video starts you simply only see the label, giving certain presumptions about how each of the items of clothing look, once the advertisement reaches near the end a much wider shot is used to show the jeans looking almost identical, backed up by my research I felt confident to be able to put this message into my advertisement. The tagline “their choice, not yours” help to reiterate the fact that it is your choice to wear the clothes you own with pride, not having to buy extremely expensive designer brands that look similar. As well as this, something that was mentioned very early within the creation process within the group was the correlation between the labels on clothes and the “labelling” of people, making clothes labels vital to our campaign as well as inspiring the hashtag “UnstitchTheItch”. However once the work was compiled together there was not much focus on clothes labels themselves as there was focus on simply the entire items of clothing, seeming to make the advertisement seem a bit out of touch and vague.

The final advertisement uses the colour scheme agreed within the group the white background of the graphics studio contrasted heavily with the black jeans, utilising both extreme close ups and wide shots, alongside having a large depth of field to keep focus on the clothes labels themselves. First showing the labels and then proceeding to show how, despite the jeans being from two very different brands, they are still identical in appearance, slowly zooming out further as the advertisement proceeds on. The audio of the advertisements helps to get across the effect that this issue has specific focus on children within education.

I feel this advertisement could be improved massively by simply having more camera time on the actual jeans themselves within the wide shots, helping to show the symmetry between the two pairs of clothes once the labels are ignored. I feel as though there was a distinct lack of communication within the group, resulting in a lack of correlation between my work and the majority of my group members. However I do feel that the outro screen for the video does correlate with others work more effectively than the video itself.

Our presentation was met with mixed feedback, although the imagery we have created was strong the group itself requires more coherence, this could be achieved by meeting up in uni more often as well as having more conversation within the group chat, as there was bare minimal communication, causing individuals to lose sight of the type of outcomes we, as a group have agreed to create. The feedback I got about my video specifically was that the purpose of the content was unsure, although within my group we had agreed to create almost vague content in order to lure users into wanting to find out more information. It seems this was abandoned by some without my knowledge, however the colour scheme did remain the same which my work matched up nicely with others within that area. Responding to my feedback I am going to attempt to make my video match up more closely with Ben’s by making it slightly more upbeat, increasing the pace and reducing the duration of some of the shot times as well as increasing the amount of camera time on the jeans themselves to help try and make the purpose behind the video more obvious to the viewer. However I worry that due to the next project beginning soon i may not have time to improve my work to a standard that I will be happy with.