Change is Important.

Change is essential sometimes to expedite success,  Throughout my process making the postcard series, I encountered a problem as my peers said my message was not clear enough and it doesn't convey a message. To tackle this I had to utilise change to create understanding between the message and the audience.

Firstly my idea was to create a photorealistic poster very close to the original, but with a twist using the imagery of the bulb to convey my message putting the appropriate bulbs in the appropriate eras.

This idea was initially thought to be educational yet funny to draw attention, and people can relate to it.

The peer feedback but then told me that the idea wasn't clear and that the whole idea needed to be revamped to a very simpler design to be able to stand out, and be very straight forward and clear, so I decided that I will be redesigning the style I'm using to a minimalist style of art to make sure my ideas make sense and still remain unaltered massively.

The minimalist style helps make the subject stand out, as well as the text. It creates a visually pleasing style that draws attention to itself due to the nature of the colours and the imagery.

Therefore I will be continuing using the minimalist theme as it helps define my work with itself without having to explain it, with strong imagery and stylisation. 

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Wacom - for a creative world.

Throughout creating the project, I began to use a Wacom tablet for easier and quicker workflow, assigning the buttons to right click and undo to help reach my shortcuts easily making maintaining workflow without having to switch between keyboard and tablet constantly. This helped me to work much quicker as well as using the tablet as a mouse as it allowed me to move to areas much quicker and work with my assets with ease.

The graphics tablets also helps to me quickly to work with finer details and create results that not only look great but create an identity. The tablets really helps me to create more accurate shapes which may not be possible or very hard to achieve with a trackpad or mouse. 

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5 Minute Neon Lights.

The mood-board is an essential part of my research development because the mood-board takes all of my research and brings it together in one place, as well as any ideas that I have generated through the way through colour pallets, typography, imagery and existing work. My mood-board uses contains artist research for Dina Goldstein, research for Thomas Edison's bulb and the history of lightbulbs as well as linking together surreal and the photorealistic imagery. I will be using this mood-board to inspire my final ideas from and take the mood-board as a base for any following ideas.

The imagery I used in the mood-board were quite specifically chosen because of the ideas I gained through my research:

1) Photographs.
Dina Goldstein because through my primary artist research. I became drawn to her work and her style, I wanted to take forward her "Gods of Suburbia" photo series and develop onto that stylisation of work of "HDR" and "High Pass Filter" photography. I was drawn to these two styles in particular because of the spectacular detail they bring into an image to create staggering results. This also resulted in the ideas of using portraits within my postcards. Other photographs included portraits of Sir Thomas Edison, and photographs of the evolution of the "lightbulb."

2) Illustrations.
I decided to use illustrations within my mood-board due to primary research from other projects, I found that photographic elements work hand in hand with illustrations considering the layout, colour and typography are of course taken into account and are harmonious to each other. The illustrations idea originally came from an infograph poster by LandRover for a short documentary video series.
Other illustrations in the moodboard include comic strips and flat/material design icons. These are there in terms of contemporary design, as material design and flat design are really popular right now due to the minimalist nature of these subgenres.

3) Sculptures. Sculptures are beautiful ways of communication, dating from the prehistoric ages. Sculptures can be very intricate and full of detail, and even in photographic form be attention grabbing. This gave me an idea of a image manipulated sculpture that is surreal and displays the history of the lightbulb. This became something people can interact with and through it being presented in a real world situation relate to. This captures the audience and any emotion driven by the imagery to be engraved into their memory creating a memorable piece. I choose very surreal or eye catching sculptures, to make sure I capture the "extraordinary" essence of the object as the brief requires me to do.Overall my mood-board as sparked many ideas as well as creating a base for my developing ideas from styles, colour pallet, to foundations for ideas that I can further develop into the final piece.

RAG: G2 - I can clearly explain my ideas and why I've particularly done what I have.

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Louise Wallace - Is getting old, getting old?

Louise Wallace is an illustrator from Chorlton, working with traditional and digital media creating commissioned portraits, working on editorial and personal gallery projects. Throughout the talk Louise explained her work and how she gets inspiration from the world and how she uses existing work and her daily life to inspire herself to produce new things. Louise’s process usually goes from

Taking photographs or sketching > Importing them into photoshop > Playing with colours and basics of design / use collage. 

Louise has previously worked with many companies and magazines throughout her years in the industry such as GQ magazine, The Body Shop, Computer Arts. Her style is a very minimalist illustrative style as seen through the 60-70's in the illustration genre.

Her work is very adaptive to the times, and as some art styles become outdated as times move on, Louise's work is consistently evolving to the news and her work is still relevant. She is always on her feet working on new projects such as the latest being a "genetics" project where she aligned a cabinet with 3 illustrations of her daughters faces so as the cabinet closes all the illustrations align and show the similarities.

She in her spare time also does commissioned portraits and designs for herself and art gallery.
The similarities between her and me are that we both collect inspiration from the world through clipping from magazines or collecting design from different sources. She also likes to use traditional media to create textures she can use in her illustrative work later on using unconventional materials.

I can take inspiration from her work by taking her technique and my digital art skills to use the hand drawn aspect of her work to create a very personal feeling postcard. I believe any sort of design should create feeling, and give some sort of engagement to the audience and I believe a more hand drawn image or the feeling of hand drawn creates a personality. I believe Louise conveys this very well and I can take this forward into my own work.

(Images from: Louise-wallace.co.uk)
RAG: G1 I have understood the task and I have given detailed information about Louise Wallace using information from what she gave me and what I have found from research.

     

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© Copyright. Can I copy that?

Copyright laws, We've all heard of them and we've all used the symbol. To the point we've all wanted to copyright things we've made or think we've "invented." Well copyright laws are actually laws that protect us from other people copying our work or using it as their own or claiming its theirs.

The law states anything you produce yourself is your property such as a photograph, or artwork, or music, but it does mean that it needs to be an original piece and not a picture or stolen version of somebody else's work. for example. A photographer's right is to take a photo of anyone in the street as street photography (unless asked not to) and the image will be their property not the subjects. This means the photographer will own the image and the rights to it rather than the subject. Of course there are exceptions to this such as if the photographer is working for a corporate identity while that photo shoot is active the corporate will own the images unless if there is a preset contract beforehand to say that the photographer has the rights to the photos.

This is common, as a digital industry specialist you need to be careful of copyright laws and need a preset contract and know what the contract contains of to know how these things work or else you can be taken advantage off.  As the author of the work, you alone have the right to do any of the following or to let others do any of the following:
- Make copies of your work;
- Distribute copies of your work;
- Perform your work publicly (such as for plays, film, dances or music);
- Display your work publicly (such as for artwork, or stills from audiovisual works, or material used on the Internet or television); 
- Make “derivative works” (including making modifications, adaptations or other new uses of a work, or translating the work to another media).

RAG123: A1 - I understood the task, I need to do more research in depth about copyright laws. I think I worked well but just need to pick up my pace at writing.

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Primary Research - Sparking Some Light.

Dina Goldstien; A photographer and photojournalist, born in Israel, 1969. Emigrated to Canada in 1976 to study art history and photography at Langara College. Once her career started she started to focus on documentary work, photography and photojournalism working editorial jobs and commissioned work for magazines and advertising agencies. Her first series of images at a public exhibition were a series of black and white portraits of people living in the West Bank and Gaza.

In 2007 she started to focus more on her conceptual work which she is now recognised for its metaphorical messages,  which have sparked endless debates and controversies as well as posts upon posts on blogs and magazines.  

Dina started creating her first tableau series "Fallen Princesses" (2007-2009) using disney princesses and showing what happened after and how their lives went downhill. The series was created as a outlook out of fairytales and to force the viewer to "contemplate real life" such as obesity, cancer, extinction of indigenous cultures, pollution, war and more. By using the princesses in their original form created by Walt Disney, this series exposed the truth about life and the consumerism in these films. 

Throughout 2009-2013 Dina worked on two projects, Firstly another series "In the Dollhouse" which worked on the same basics as Fallen Princesses but this time concentrating on the life of Barbie and Ken - acting on how Ken is always shown to be handsome but emasculated, and is exposed as cheap, and plastic facsimile. The photo series turned that around to turn it around to barbie and help find Ken his authenticity and finally realise true happiness. Also in 2013, she launcher her XX Retrospective - 20 Years In 20 Pictures gallery which displayed 20 years of her life in 20 images.

In 2014, Goldstein released her latest and third large scale series Gods of Suburbia. The work is a analysis of religious faith, modern forces of technology, science and secularism. The series plays with the native iconography to communicate how organised belief has been twisted to be driven by consumerism and greed. Below is an image from the series labeled "The Last Supper" based of the original Leonardo Da Vinci's "The Last Supper"

The Bible : Thug Life - COMING SOON! To Blogs Near You!

RAG: G2 I understood the task and have researched the artist well and her intentions behind the work. I still need to complete it and analyse the actual images and say how I can improve it.

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Lightbulb - They're brighter than they seem.

Lightbulbs! We're surrounded by lightbulbs, LCD, LED, Coloured, Incandescent, White light, UVlight, we are overwhelmed by them. There's days we spend using house lights, days we use tiny bright light bulbs in our telecommunications devices to create flashes of light to take "Selfies", we have a whole day dedicated to buying a million lights and covering your houses in them wrapping them around yourself round and round head to toes until there's no room left. Even giving little led lights to your kids for lunch! Christmas!

Okay MAYBE I'm over exaggerating  but lightbulbs are a very important creation in the history of man, we use lightbulbs big or small everywhere to the point we can see light from earth all the way from space. How did it all start tho?

In 1802, Humphrey Davy was the first to invent the lightbulb. It started out as an experiment with electricity and inventing the first battery, but unsuspectedly while connecting the wires to his battery and a piece of carbon the carbon began to glow producing a light. This was later known as an electric arc lamp but this didn't produce a long or bright enough light for practical use.

Over the next 7 decades there were many who waked the same grounds as Davey searching for what we know as a commercial lightbulb. It wasn't long until nearly 8 decades had passed that a man named Thomas Edison in 1878 started serious research into developing a practical incandescent lamp. He filed multiple u.s. patents for an electric lamp while still continuously working on better ways to create a longer and better lightbulb until he came across "carbonised bamboo filament" which could last 1200 hours. This is the first time lightbulbs were commercially manufactured in 1880 by Edison Electric Light Company.

(Thomas Edison's first commercial bulb design -1880)

So we've been using the same bulbs for 130+ years? you may be asking, Well throughout the next 100 or so years, Edison Electric experimented on the lightbulb design to create what today we know as tungsten lightbulbs in 1906. This was even further developed in 1910 by William David Coolidge who worked for General Electric improved the process of manufacturing to create the longest lasting tungsten filaments. In 1920's theres a emerge in the first "frosted lightbulb" with adjustable power beam bulbs for cars and neon lighting. Soon followed by one time flashbulbs in the 1930 used for photography. Soft light incandescent bulbs in the 40's, Quartz glass and halogen bulbs are produced in the 50's. After a long 30 years, in the 80's a new low voltage metal halides was invented. and in the 90's Long life bulbs and compact florescent bulbs made a debut.

Since the 90's new technology using lightbulbs are constantly being improved  nearly every year making the lightbulb more efficient year by year, or creating smaller and better ways of using the lightbulb.

(Evolution of Lightbulbs)

But what about the future hold? Well first of all the main problem with lightbulbs is that less than 10% of the actual electricity supplied actually turns to visible light, therefore US legislation states people have to replace incandescent bulbs for LED or fluorescent lamps due to less energy consumption. I believe in a few years the the incandescent lightbulb may get completely replaced by fluorescents or something better depending on emerging technology. This could also be replaced by a completely new invention to create light but that may mean over the next 10-50 years lightbulbs may become a thing of the past.

http://www.bulbs.com/learning/history.aspx
http://www.thomasedison.org/index.php/education/inventions/
http://energy.gov/articles/history-light-bulb

RAG: G2 - I think I preformed well in this task and I worked to my potential but I could have done better than I did. I need to be using my time effectively to finish without having to take work home. 

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