Design Museum visit

Prior to starting the graphics rotation, we were asked to visit the Design museum particularly looking at the exhibition "Designers in Residence 2015". We were instructed to take photographs of anything we found interesting, however I did not find much that particularly related to graphics so I have included some other pictures of designs, some from the exhibition and some not, that particularly caught my attention.

In the part of the museum exhibiting the nominees for the designer of the year 2015, I was particularly interested in this project, "Designing for the Sixth Extinction" by Alexandra Daisy. I am fascinated by the natural world and the beautiful landscapes that our planet has to offer, this maybe due to my love of animals or just because the natural world provides such beautiful landscapes to draw inspiration from for my own art works.

This piece is a thought experiment in synthetic biology. "Designing for the Sixth Extinction" explores how the design of new organisms might help to maintain biodiversity in the event that we cannot conserve the planet's 'natural' species. Fungus, bacteria, invertebrates and mammals, made from non-biodegradable proteins derived from expanded DNA, would be designed to replace extinct organisms or to protect against harmful invasive species, disease and pollution.

The new and innovative drone designs by Chris Green dominated the "Designers in Residence 2015" exhibition. This particularly interested me due to the increasing focus on artificial intelligence in the news. Green puts forward the idea that domestic drones maybe introduced into households in the near future for purposes such as to ensure peoples' safety and security in their own home. The drone pictured to the right is the "Domestic drone" and aside from the features mentioned above it also has the capacity to talk back to its owner through a digital user interface, enabling the owner to remain constantly connected with their home even when they are away.

 

The drone pictured to the left is entitled the "Wild Drone". This bird-like drone is used for research and data acquisition, carrying out environmental studies to monitor habitats and determine species. The biometric nature of this drone allows it to integrate into these natural ecosystems, functioning silently in order to get close to nature without disturbing the wildlife. It utilises a number of on-board cameras and sensors to digitally detect the world and recognises patterns and behaviours.



Supporting the growth and harvesting of food within the city, the service drone takes on the role of an agricultural urban farmer. Identifying redundant roofs capes in which to grow food in the city, the drone carries interchangeable tools in order to undertake different agricultural tasks. From sowing seeds to laser weeding, precision spraying and harvesting crops, this application of drone technology taps into under utilised hots spots within the urban landscape.

The finished passport for research week

All our research and drawing experiments during the first week accumulated to one final outcome, a creative passport that documented our identities.

To replicate the front cover of a passport, instead of printing out a picture of the front, I traced over the design with a gold marker on acetate. I felt that the contrast of the two colours, black and gold was very affective, showing as much detail as possible.

For the first double page of the passport, I thought about how I could replicate the photo page and ID part of my actual passport. Writing my name, I also cut out a printed map of the UK as seen on the same page in an actual passport. To reveal my identity in detail, i decided to circle and show the countries from which my parents came from, England and Scotland. In addition in place of an ID picture in an actual passport I put a picture of my family.

To further portray my identity, on the second double page I chose to show a very important factor of my identity, my sister. To reveal an integral part of our relationship I chose to cut out a picture of us as children and stuck in a comical phase cut out from a birthday card I found, which I felt was very fitting.

For the next pages I chose to reveal aspects of my child hood by sticking in a photograph of lots of older photographs collaged together. I also stuck in a composition of lots of traced images on tracing paper and acetate layered on top of each other, which in turn portrayed the many different memories I have as a child and how it has made me the person I am today.

To continue the theme of childhood memories, I created another photograph and watercolour composition, cutting up one photograph and rearranging it so that the other lay in the middle, and i then painted what i imagined would be in the surrounding landscape.

For the next pages I decided to feature my dogs. I have always had a dog growing up and therefore they are hugely important to me. We rescued both my dogs from the charity "Many Tears Animal Rescue" and I wanted to show their early beginnings and journey into our family. To illustrate this I printed out pictures I took from the rescue website at the time of their adoption, showing their pictures and original names and what we changed them to.

To fill in empty spaces throughout the passport I extended some photographs by adding a bit of water colour to the page, as can be seen in the picture above. I felt this made the pages slightly more interesting to look at and that it also made them increasingly personal as this is a medium which I love to use.

On this page I have used different forms of decoration and ways of expressing my love for my dogs, by drawing and cutting out paw prints of different sizes with a scalpel and then filling these negative spaces with some interesting craft paper I found.

On this double page I chose to share a place that I love and have many memories of as a child. Highgate woods is a place that we have always walked our dogs for many years, thus explaining why I have chosen to include this page in my passport immediately after the pages about my dogs.

This page explores another love of mine, baking and food, but in particular cupcakes (mmm...). To present this I cut out part of the illustration for the Hummingbird bakery logo and some other pictures of cupcakes from the internet. I also flicked different colours of watercolour paint onto the page using the paint brush and my finger to illustrate the image of sprinkles that are usually used to decorate cupcakes.

Dance has always been a huge part of my life as I have been doing it since I was three. It is something that I love to do and am really passionate about, therefore I thought it was appropriate to include a reference to it in my passport.

Another activity that I love which is perhaps much more unusual is flying trapeze. Two years ago when I was on holiday in Mauritius I decided to try the activity. From the moment I was in the air and swinging from the bar I loved it. It gave me a sense of freedom, as though I was actually experiencing what it felt like to fly. To present my love for the sport I decided to paint a wash of varying blue tones in the background to represent the sky. I then traced over a picture of me executing what is called a "catch" onto acetate with a black marker. The silhouetted scene against the blue-tone wash creates a contrast which I felt would make the viewer feel slightly unsettled, perhaps echoing the feeling one might feel when trying this activity for the first time.

For the last double page I decided to include something that I feel has been engraved in my identity and that has contributed considerably to the person I am today. In the summer of 2014 I was fortunate enough to be chosen to go on a partnership programme with my school to Nicaragua, to help in a centre that provided sanctuary for disabled children in the country. As my elder sister also visited this place three years earlier I feel that it has an extra special place in my heart. Therefore I decided to include a picture of both our hand prints that we placed one of the walls at the centre as it represents the fact that, not only has the experience permanently imprinted on our characters, but a part of our identities have also been left behind in the country through our hand prints.

On the last day we were asked to present our passports to "passport control" which consisted of showing our final product to our tutor. The purpose of this was to act as a ticket into the foundation course and a medium in which to reveal and introduce others to our own identity.

If I had more time I would have liked to have done more pages on the things I like, my hobbies and on the different places I have been around the world, using photocopies of the stamps in my passport. Although I felt some pages were a bit rushed at the end due to time constraints, overall I was happy with the way my passport turned out as I felt it fulfilled its purpose in illustrating my identity.

Studio work and film viewing focusing on identity

Prior to our first day in the studio we were told to select 6 items that we felt represented our own personality or identity.

We were then set a series of drawing tasks, one of which was based on our objects. For the other we were told to use body parts such as our hands or head to draw around and then decorate with what ever we thought most revealed something about our identity.

During the afternoon of the first day we gathered in the Walker space to watch a film entitled "Dirty, Pretty Things".

This film is a gritty thriller about the lives of immigrant workers in London. It linked to our current theme as it revealed the sacrifices many immigrant workers have to make in terms of their own identity in the process of searching for a better life.

Exhibition visit: "Adopting Britain, 70 Years of Migration", Royal Festival Hall

To start of our projects on identity we were asked to go and visit the display “Adopting Britain, 70 Years of migration” at the Royal Festival Hall. The exhibition gave viewers an insight into the different types of migration to Britain that has occurred within the last 70 years and the different reasons why people would abandon their lives to come and live here.

Within the section of the exhibition entitled Why do they come here it explores the Journeys of Ugandan Asians who were expelled from Uganda in their thousands in the early 1970s by the then dictator Idi Amin, many of whom eventually found sanctuary in Leicester. It was this section of the display that particularly caught my attention as in this case the people were given just 90 days to leave their homes, and were only permitted to take one bag and £55 with them. It was this characteristic of this particular case that forced the viewers to ask themselves what they would bring with them if they had to rush to pack up their lives in one bag and leave their home, uncertain of where their journey would end. Luggage tags and pencils were left out for visitors to share what they would bring with them if they had to leave their homes suddenly. It was interesting to see what different people of differing age groups considered to be essential to them.

What one might chose to pack in their bag is of course subjective to that individual. I feel it was this factor that occurs in many forms of migration that was meant to spark us as students into thinking about our own identities and what aspects of our lives we would consider to be most important to us.

Induction day

On the morning of the induction day, we were given a small talk on what to expect during our time at Ravensbourne and were introduced to the course by being told some information on our first project which was centred around the subject of identity and the “self-being”.

After the first break we were put through a few tasks which encouraged us to talk and interact with other new foundation students. I found this quite useful as it motivated everyone to introduce themselves to the different people, making the process of making friends a little easier.

In the afternoon we gathered in the Walker space and were split into various groups/teams which we then toured around the university with. During the tour we were set a series of “tasks” that allowed us as new students to engage with our new surroundings, and telling us where to go and what to do if we wanted to do particular things around the university. This proved to be a very fun and useful way to be introduced into a new environment.

Ravensbourne summer project

Using my own picture and one of the postcards given to us, I manipulated both photographs by creating negative spaces of my own silhouette and filling them with alternative images. Standing against each other at an angle, the pictures seem to reflect one another with both images featuring a girl standing against a wood panelled wall.