Workshop 7 | Design Machine | Paul McNeil

Paul McNeil is a typographic designer with experience in brand and corporate communications. He currently works as a Senior Lecturer in Typography at the London College of Communication where he was Course Leader, MA Contemporary Typographic Media from 2010–15. Member ISTD. Fellow HEA.

He works with Hamish Muir and together they form MuirMcNeil. Founded in 2010, MuirMcNeil’s activities are focussed on exploring parametric design systems to generate appropriate solutions to visual communication problems.

We got a lottery ticket from which we had to choose 6 different numbers between the number 1 and 49. The numbers I chose were; 8, 16, 24, 32, 40 and 48. With those numbers we were supposed to create patterns with small black squares on a white sheet of paper with the dimensions of 21 cm x 21 cm. allegedly the sheet of paper could be completely filled with 49 small black squares. We had to make 6 times 6 compositions since we chose six numbers and there are six different procedures. This would result in 36 panels in the end.

Blocks: Construct one single black rectangle or square from the black squares with at least one side touching its edge. If one rectangle is mathematically impossible, build two rectangles.

Glyphs: Use the black squares to make six versions of a single letterform. I chose the capital E to work with.

Diagonals: Starting at the bottom left hand corner, place black squares so that they are completely connected to form stepped black diagonal stacks.

Chance: Distribute the black squares randomly to fit on the grid. Don’t cheat, avoid any subjective choices.

Even spread: Distribute the black squares as symmetrically, evenly and broadly as you can across each white template.

Faces: Compose the black squares to represent facial expressions.

We spend almost 1,5 day making those 36 compositions. This workshop is really as the title suggests; working like a design machine. I really liked for once to just follow a simple instruction which doesn’t need a lot of thinking during the process. After one procedure was done, it was interesting to take a look at how the six compositions would fit together. The faces were just fun to do, but the blocks play more with white space for example.

The second step of the project was to connect all six sets of the six compositions in a sequence. Always running from the lowest number to the highest, paying attention to orientation, without gaps between squares. Afterwards we started connecting everybody’s sets from the same procedure together, going from lowest number to the highest. This resulted in 6 big carpets with a sort of gradient of black and white.

In the end we also put those 6 carpets together, resulting in one huge carpet. It was super interesting to reflect on the patterns and shapes that were formed. Some parts of the carpet work better and smoother than others. Finally all small compositions formed one big composition.

This workshop showed that you can create something systematically by giving yourself a simple working guide. The steps of the process were easy, but the project showed that a process can be easy with an exciting result in the end. This workshop showed me a new way of approaching a project and I would like to apply this method in a project in the future. I also liked that the workshop was in the end about the total picture and not just about your work as an individual.

Project 4 | The Book Of

In this project you are asked to draw on the experience and knowledge gained in the previous projects, to research, edit, design and produce a book (a large volume) that will be exhibited publicly at a place and time to be arranged.

The publication should explore one of the themes listed below.

1. Conspiracy
2. Connections
3. Territory
4. Collections
5. Time

This project will be organized as a group work with individual contributions. The class will form five teams of four people.

I formed a group together with Joana Fernandes, Minna Miná and Teresa Marques. We got the word TIME to work with. We started by making a huge list of topics related to time. We divided the topics and decided to search for information and pictures. This project has a different approach in comparison with the previous projects, since we are supposed to create a substantial piece of work instead of a project with a more aimed focus.

1. history of devices
2. days/ years/ hours/ months/ seasons
3. how do people organise time (timetables, calendars, agenda)
4. how much time passes – experiment (WWII experiment)
5. theories about time (who created the concept of time)
6. time travel theories
7. calendars
8. relativity of time (einstein?)
9. time/ space
10. Change of summer and winter clock
11. aging relating to time
12. ditados/ proverbios
13. mythology/ religion
14. horoscope
15. work shifts – schedule – different countries
16. list of movies / books/ tv shows about time
17. time zones
18. how time affects society(ies)
19. tribes vs time
20. stars (time travels)
21. light travels
22. ages – different perceptions (teenagers fe.)
23. human time
24. celebrations related to specific time events (eg. christmas, easter chinese new year)
25. different new years at different times
26. graphic time clocks collection of clocks
27. Cultural moments of time (one minute of silence memorial)
28. where time is essential (my interpretation)

Project 3 | Final Result

Skin | Cultural Traditions

The process of this project was interesting and explorative, because of the change of the format during the process. I had in mind to assemble a book, but it was not possible because of the amount of material I collected. The final result is fine, but it could have been a bit more exciting. I think the cover of the folder is clean and nice, but it doesn’t relate to the inside of the folder. This is something that I didn’t pay enough attention to.

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Skin | Goosebumps

This version of the project was a bit a challenge for me, because some of the emotions were hard to photograph in an abstract but explanatory way. It was also interesting since it had a very different approach from the other two versions of SKIN. I do think that it could have had a very different and more interesting outcome than what it is now.

Skin | Scars

I am quite happy with the outcome of the poster for the scars. It looks very simple and straight forward, but on the other hand I think it works. The stories are still personal without having to use images because a title, name and age are written there. I chose to show all stories next to each other (like an index) so that it is easy to see where people have most scars. The result could have been a bit more exciting, with this I mean that the result is quite plain.

I have to say that I am happy that this project is over, because I was quite lost from the start. I didn’t really know where the borders were and how far we could go with the different topics. This held me back during the process. It is nice to observe that all three outcomes vary quite much from each other and they all had a different focus point. The results are okay, but I would have liked to get more out of it.

Workshop 6 | Graphic Opinions | George Hardie

George Hardie is an English graphic designer, teacher and illustrator. He is best known for the covers he designed for Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, but most of his work is very different from these designs. George is somebody who observes things and later on uses this as inspiration. With his illustrations he solves problems, presents contradictions and he creates games within his work. His work challenges you to see things in a different way.

The briefing started with a dialogue about contradictions like: rich-poor, alone-together, big-small, good-bad, etc. As visible in George’s work, illustrations can tell a message. The goal of this workshop is to create a protest board which contains a statement concerning politics or a societal matter. We were supposed to show a contradiction or opinion in a graphic/illustrative way.

My first idea was to focus on the topic of meat production. I wanted to tell in one image that we cut down trees and use a lot of water for the meat production. A lot of this production ends up in the trash, because either the piece of meat was not sold or not finished during dinner. I thought about creating an image by which a packed piece of meat is laying on a plate and next to that the same packed piece of meat is place in a garbage can. Another idea was to place a cow on top of a garbage pile with the purpose to say that cows end up in the garbage instead of in a green field. After talking to George about this, we came to the conclusion that my message was too big for just one illustration. The goal of a protest sign is to show a bystander in one fast look what the protest is about. The core of my idea was basically that trees are cut down for the meat production. So, this is what I continued working with.

The sketches I made were a bit silly, but they could make my message clear. I translated my sketches in a very direct way by which a tree is literally cut to cut the cow afterwards. After drawing the cow, I experimented a bit to see what was the best way to connect the cow with the tree. By giving the inside of the tree/cow a color gradient, the message was simple and clear.

In the end I created a very iconic protest sign. The message is clear and fun and this works. The workshop gave me an insight in the way George approaches things. A simple illustration can send a strong message. It was very interesting to work with illustration, especially since I can still learn a lot in this area. This workshop gave us the chance to look in the mind of someone who collects, observes and expresses. He had a lot of interesting thoughts and tips to share.

Project 3 | Cultural Traditions 2

Since I have way too little information to make a book in the size that I wanted, I tried to make the format of the book a lot smaller. I think that reducing the format of the book is not the best solution in this case, but I just wanted to see how it would look. I think adding the geographical locations is interesting, because it gives the stories a bit more context.

My other idea is to create a sort of folder with all the information in one. I wanted to expand the information a bit more, because in the book (first tests) the texts were a bit too general. I found more specific information about the type of scarification from different tribes for example. After trying some different ways of folding, I made a fast test to see if the format and way of folding could work in this way. I am going to divide the space in a way so that the pictures or text is not going to be on the folding line. It was good to print and see if the lay-out would work.

Project 3 | Scars 2

I gave the different categories names, so that the index would be easier to read. I placed the information in two different ways onto an A2 format to see what would work best. The interesting thing about the first version is that it is easy to understand which category has the most stories. On the second trial I think it is good that the used in a better way and the index is still easy to understand because of the titles.

I printed the second poster on vegetable paper and I think that the result is good. It is very simple, but also classic. I made some small adjustments in the organization of the personal data and I think it works. I need to make some small adjustments for the poster. The titles need some more spacing and it could be a bit thicker.

Project 3 | Goosebumps

For the goosebumps photo series I would like to show four different emotions surrounding what can cause goosebumps; temperature, fear and sexual or musical euphoria. As I wrote in a previous post, I would like the pictures to be a bit abstract and conceptual and not too obvious. In the end I would like to present the photo’s as an exhibition, because the photo’s can communicate the different emotions by presenting them like this.

I created a mock-up of the photo’s on the wall (and as a composition) after shooting a lot of different ones. The fear and the temperature photo’s are already good in my opinion. The photo’s work well together, but they need some more tweaking with the light. I chose to use two photo’s for one emotion, because I think that presenting the photo’s as a pair results in an interesting and understandable image.

I had to make photo’s multiple times for the emotion sexual euphoria. I thought I could blur the background of the second photo, but it looked disconnected and grey. Finally I chose for the two photo’s on the right to work as a pair. They have some similar use of color and they work as a set.

The most difficult category were the photo’s for the musical euphoria. I did not want to express the emotion as literal as showing headphones for example. I wanted to try to show shadows of dancing people. The first few attempts failed, so I looked online for some inspiration.

The inspiration I found was still too literal, but it gave me the idea to work with colored light. I made a lot of new photo’s again and I saw that the use of different light makes a big difference. I changed the colors of the light to green and blue in the end so that the photo’s could work in a series.

Project 3 | Cultural Traditions

In total I collected 6 different topics for the book; bodypaint, otjize, scarification, polynesian tattoos, mehndi and bindi. For some topics there was more elaborate information than for others. I tried to give the topics about the same amount of text.

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After some tests I applied the different lay-outs to all the topics. I printed the tests and I like the way it looks. It is clean and the pictures are interesting, but it is also a bit mundane. More importantly, I have way too little information to make a book. I only acknowledged this problem now because of the printing tests I think. The next step would be to try and present the material in a different way. It would also be interesting to add geographical locations to the stories to see where the tribes are situated.

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For the cover I wanted to make a patterned engraving as I showed during my Pecha Kucha presentation. I already made the tests for the cover, because I wanted to make a mold for the engraving with the CNC machine. The patterns and words on the front of the book would be inspired by looking at the different styles of skin modifications. Since I realized that I am not going to make a book anymore, this idea for the cover is canceled. Maybe I can still use some part of these ideas for the project in the end.

Project 3 | Scars

After the Pecha Kucha I decided that I needed to create a system for myself to work with. I wrote all stories on separate papers and afterwards I put them in possible categories (per person, amount of scars, age of the person, place of the scar on the body). Dividing the stories by the placement on the body seemed most interesting to me. The name and age of the person are still written next to the story, but the index system would be categorized according to areas of the body.

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From the start I said that I wouldn’t want to use pictures for the project, but I wanted to see how it would look. The picture below would not be the final lay-out, however it indicates how text would look next to zoomed pictures of the body. I don’t think it works, since it would be hard to have delicate or ‘pretty’ pictures from everybody’s scars.

I want to include the names and the age of the people next to using a title to keep the index personal. I would like to create a delicate poster since that fits the topic. I experimented a bit with different fonts for the titles and body texts.

These are some of the tests I made for dividing the stories. It is good that you can immediately see on which parts of the body most people have scars. I like the subtle look of the fonts, but the personal information (name, age) could be placed in a different way.

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Project 3 | Pecha Kucha

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After looking into the possible directions of skin I decided to focus on things related to the human skin.

The idea for my first project is to focus on cultural traditions. I collected historical information from different tribes around the world who modify their skin. I tested some different editorial lay-outs to see how many pictures I would need to complement the text.

The second idea is to create a series of photo’s which represent the cause of goosebumps. I want to try to keep the photo’s a bit abstract and not to be too straight forward. I already made a few photo’s to see if this approach could work.

The third project is a collection of the scars from the people from class. I collected all the scar stories and I started making some tests. The idea is to create a personal index system, without using images or drawings.