Research

Today I spent some time compiling research for my Industry Poster as well as my entertainment one.

For the industry one I started off as I have done in the past by finding things that immediately sprung to mind. For example:

Gears and cogs, a symbol of the industrial revolution and something that embodies the idea of industry.

blogspot.com

A tower crane

wikimedia.org - crane

There were some more but I find myself too tired to add more right now (which might also explain the short nature of this post) I will have to return to it at a later date.

Science print

Today I spent the day in the print room, luckily not hung over from the Guitar Hero event last night, which to be honest was something I sort of had expected. Then again due to so low turnout it didn't last that long, and getting drunk would not have been a good idea. Anyway the print room was quite crowded today making it hard to work efficiently, always having to wait for the drying cabinet or for a screen press.

 My completed Science poster

I finished printing at around 15:00 and having brought my war poster I was able to compare the two side by side. Keep in mind that these prints are the tests, and due to the untrimmed nature of the drafting film have not been aligned properly. However it did show the basic idea of my FMP where all 6 posters will align into one large image.

My science and war poster

The posters were deliberately done with different background colours, as this helps me choose the final colour when it all comes together, when I do the test prints in the future I will carry on with different colours.

While in the Printroom I was able to have an unofficial feedback session with Peter and Charles Shearer. They both enjoyed the concept behind the poster and the designs on them. Charles did mention that when designing the peace poster to make it very orderly, to emphasize the contrast between it and the war one (I will keep this in mind, but it will depend on how well it allows intigration with its surrounding posters). He also stated that the red on the war poster was much to dark and when combined with the black overshadowed the white, leaving the image unbalanced. He advised me to try a lighter colour, perhaps using a different colour than black and finally to experiment on different paper. Next time I will try printing the next poster on many different typers of paper to test the effect. Peter Lloyd made the same comments as Charles in terms of the War poster to do with the colour. He did inspire me to have the opposite of the science one being theology instead of a the more vauge beliefs one I had planned. I did however express my concern that I would not touch religion just to make sure it did not offend anyone. An angry external examier/public is not something I want to deal with come degree show time. I did feel that both tutors comments were fair and it left me feeling satisfied that I was able to get some positive and helpful, something I feel I have not had in a long time.

Today was a productive day, I took the evening off, playing video games enjoying the satisfaction of being almost halfway done. I cannot let myself get too comfortable though as I still have a long way to go.

Magnets and Research

Today I recieved the magnets from amazon.co.uk which I ordered to hang up my final major project. I ordered them shortly after our talk with Peter Lloyd on how to hang our degree show (here). They are a lot smaller than I imagined, and I am worried whether they will be strong enough to support my A1 posters. However having tested them upon my fridge I confirmed that 2 can support a single A1 poster, and that 4 can quite easily keep it suspended and stretched.

To put in perspective how small the magnets are I have taken some pictures:

photographs of the magnets

Small buggers arent they? I was genuinely impressed about how powerful they are, I also have to keep them far away from any electronics, as 1 of them almost wiped the memory off my camera. I got 60 of them as they were sold in units of 20, and with my 6 posters I will need a total of 48 to hang them (4 in each corner x 2 for the back x 6 for the posters).The magnets are know as neodymium magnets, and these particular ones were manufactured by Magnet Expert Ltd.

I was happy to recieve them as amazon quited up to 2 weeks for delivery, but they were very speedy about it.

FMP V

I woke up late today as my alarm clock was not loud enough to wake me, 1 cup of coffee later I sat down in the kitchen and continued drawing my Science Poster.
While drawing like this what I tend to do is have the radio running or some sort of film, but only if it is something I have already seen before. That way I can have it running in the background and I am able to follow the plot without having to pay too much attention. For example this day/night I watched Men In Black 1 and 2, as well as Valkyrie.

Beginning the second layer of the poster, after some allignement work with the War Poster.

My completed design for science

What I enjoyed about this one, a bit more so than I did with war, was the satisfaction of knowing the importance behind each scientific discovery and feeling that you know all the subtle elements in the image. I am very tired now, coming up at 03:00 in the morning. But satisfied that I am another step closer to the end.

Catalogue Photograph

Today we had a group photograph taken, which would be used for the degree show catalogue. This did not take very long, and consisted of us standing in lines in the studio with the picture being taken by Rosi, one of the photography tutors.

After that we all (the 3rd year illustration students) met for a fundraiser meeting, mainly to talk about how we were going to run Lenons on wednesday. Our tutor Derek managed to hire out the club so that me may use it to try and raise some money for our degree show. We assigned some people to make posters/fliers and a few others to hand them out. I was given the job of passing out a few in all the student dorms in the south end of Southampton.

After lunch we had a meeting with all the Illustration students about something called the Unsinkable Press, an independent small press created by the tutors.

 scan from my notebook

After introducing the press to us, they asked us if any of us had anything we would like to print there. This talk, although slightly relevant for the 3rd years, was more intended for the first two years, as they will have time to plan and create projects for the press.

Afterwards the 3rd years held a vote to decide on our identity for our degree show (as mentioned here). We were all asked to write down 3 suggestions, which would then be put into a pile, which we would all vote for later. 

scan from my sketchbook

After 2 hours of almost pointless bickering we somehow got to the word "boyant" or "boyancy". Though boyant was the one with the greatest number of votes, it was not exactly popular. The tutors will return to us when they have the print files of the catalogue, where we have one final chance to make changes. Though I am not really a fan of boyant, I was glad that we didnt settle for "unsinkable" which I feel would just be a pale copy of the tutors unsinkable press. This catalogue is ours and it should stay that way.