Design Practice

Back in the game once again it has been a chaotic week with lots of information to take in and being back in the studio environment. The session with Graham Tansley started again, and today we took what we had being doing back to at start and applying the knowledge we had learned to new scenarios, in a similar typographic fashion. We were looking at phonetics and trying to communicate sounds through the use of text and it charactistics such as its size, weight and position. First we tried to communicate our names by how they are said by other people, mine being a single syllable word I found quite difficult, but through emphasising the vowels and splitting the word a tiny fraction gave a good indication of how it is said. It can be subjective as different accents create different sounds.

The next part involved representing sounds, the first thing that came to mind was putting a key in a door (first one below). Aside from the fact it does look like gibberish there was logic, the first part, the keys were jingling, the second the key was put in the door and the third the turning which I think could have been held out longer as it was so quick. Apparently there were a series of books produced out of speaking phonetically so that the accent of the narrator would shine through the words, which could be interesting to look at. For the second I chose a more simple and easy example, a bus slowing into a lay-by and the doors opening. For the last we experimented more with layout and so I started to think about multiple sounds and direction, where the bus would be moving and to where it stand stationary with the engine still running. A hard task indeed, but very interesting and frustrating the way people still had no idea what you were communicating.

Having not blogged on my practice for a while I thought I'd give you a couple of updates. Firstly and most importantly about the choosing of the modules, Type or Image? I have chosen to opt for the Type module. I feel I have learned what I can from image making, through the visual language brief last year I think I have gained an understanding from the sessions on basic shape constructing to the visual exploration of what could be a line? Type on the other hand is something I never really touch upon, I have a few select typefaces as my favorites and I could work out a good layout but I want to know more and become proficient at it. I think as a career choice there are far better illustrators and image makers than myself, that is not to say I cant illustrate at all. As a professional I could work well as a layout artist providing I have a good knowledge base which would be useful to a career for the design of graphic products, editorial, even as a brand identity developer. I have also had developments in both the "What is good?" and the Enterprise & Innovation module to come.