3D Communique 3

The third and final session from Deaks' 3D analogue communique session was focused on producing the final outcome. My time was spent sticking balls of cotton wool to fishing line in preperation for making a mosiac-like construction of the individual letters.

Given how long my original word of 'undefined' was I decided to use a shorter synonym to save time - as this was a lengthy process. I googled synonyms for undefined and settled on the word vague.

The next step was to set up the rig for suspending the balls of wool. This was done by spanning three lines of the fishing line between a wall of the studio and one of the fake wall/partitions that was hanging around the studio. The three lines were secured in place just by using the masking tape that was used to secure the fishing line to the cotton wool - as I can't really tie knot using the line.

Then I started to hang up the bits of the wool from the lines. I started off with the middle letter so that I had a better judge of the spacing between the letters. The G was also the most complex letter to sort out because of the number of components involved, as well certain areas having three different levels on top of each other. I then worked outwards from this til the word was complete. I started by attaching the wool to the lines by tying knots, but this was too fiddly and changed to using some clear sellotape to preserve the lack of definition in any of the elements.This is an almost finished - process shot, without the E on the end.

These are some of the different viewpoints that show that the amorphic art works, as the word is indistinguishable from above, below, and from either side.

From this angle you can make out each of the different letters in the word.

I would have liked this effect to be more clear, but I think this would have taken days to set up, and it would have needed to be scaled up, in both size and number. Also I would have liked to use some stronger line because with even how little a ball of cotton woo and some line weighs, when its all combined together the middle of the line begins to sag. This meant that I had to adjust some of the pieces once they were all on, as well as constantly bringing the lines back to tension every couple of minutes. There was also a couple of times were the lines fell down because they were only secured by tape.

3D Communique 2.5

After the last session of Deaks' session it was agreed that I should try testing out my idea as a kind of proof of concept.

I went about this using some cotton wool, some fishing line, some masking tape, and some of the shelf space around my flat.

I started by trying to tie the balls to the fishing line using knots, but I struggled with this as the line was fine and the cotton wool would lose its shape when you tied the line tight enough to secure the cotton wool.

My next attempt was to unroll the balls of the wool, tape the line to the inside of the wool, and then roll it back up into a ball shape, hiding the tape on the inside.

Once I had repeated this process with a few different bits of wool to have enough to make the shape of one of the letters - in this case the letter U.

The next step was starting to hang it from the underside of a shelf. I did this just by taping the top of the fishing line to the underside so that the cotton wool dropped down. I did this again and again, moving backwards and forwards to create the differing level of depths, as well as moving to the side to create the shape of the letter.

I was pleased with how this looks as it really works with the idea I was trying to work with such, similar to amorphic art, where it only really makes sense from one particular point in the room.

Here is the front shot of the experiment and it shows that the concept works, as you can clearly make out the U shape from this angle, whereas you cant from the side shot.

3D Communique 2

This was the second of this terms process and production session with Nick, which focused on developing the ideas we had in the first week, and turning them into physical specimens. I decided that I wanted to use cotton wool. I liked this idea because the nature of the wool would allow me to fluff out the edges and kind of blur out the shape of the letters, posing a question of where the shape definitively began.

I started out just by making the shape of the letters by tearing apart the cotton wool and fluffing it up a little bit, and using different bits to make up the shape of the letter. This gave two effects, it added a bit of depth as bits piled on top of each other, as well as the desired the fluffy effect.

The next step of the process was to begin to think about the next development. My idea was to take it a more 3D solution which used a twist on perspective, and anamorphism. Using string or fishing line to hang individual pieces of cotton that would only make sense from one particular view point, and would just look like pieces of cotton on string from all over.

This would involve having different levels of string set up behind each other to give depth. The cotton wool would have to be on pieces of different length in order to form the shape of the letters. If done correctly the piece should look as if the cotton wool were all at the same level, merging together to form the desired word.

3D Communique

Our first process and production session back after the Christmas holidays was with Nick.
We were introduced to the objectives/goals of the new set of workshops that I think are more of a progression of where we left off last term with Nick, in as such that we were producing 3-Dimensional analogue communiques, using the same methodology and phrase as we did last term - if possible.

Last term I used the phrase "I am undefined" and used a technique of shading in to form the body of the letters without leaving a defined edge to each of the characters.

So we spent the first session thinking of ways to progress this and scale it up to the third dimension. Continuing with this idea of leaving no definitive edge and being as vague/ambiguous as possible I came up with ideas that used materials such as smoke, fog/mist or clouds, cotton wool, shadows, pencils in timelapse to create a motion blur effect (similar to the output from last term). I then came up with the idea of using as many different media, shapes, styles, sizes as possible so that it wasn't made from just one thing. Talking to Nick about continuing the undefined message, he suggested that I perhaps use something that wouldn't be immediately obvious, and the message would only be legible from a certain perspective

I came up with different messages that used different media, just incase it became impractical to carry on the Undefined, such as 'Calorific'/'Sweet'/'Creamy' written in whipped/squirty cream, 'scrunched up' using scrunched up bits of paper, 'stacked' made up of boxes, 'more than face value' using a mosiac of small valued coins (1p, 2p, 5p etc), 'Digital' using keyboard keys, '75% water' made up of water droplets made visible with food colouring or ink, and 'rubbish' made up of litter.

Analogue Communique 3

Wednesday saw the final workshop with Deaks and his analogue communique workshop.

This saw a natural development of what we had done in previous workshops in further scaling up of the individual letters, this time to one letter per A3 sheet.


In this workshop I experimented a little bit more with some different media, I used a darker pencil to create a naturally dark tone in pencil, as well as one using black marker, and a third one in ink/paint. Whilst I appreciated that each had their own benefits, I thought using the black marker gave the best aesthetic - especially seen as some of the markers weren't as fresh and gave some faded look to it, adding more depth, and creating less definition to the bodies of the letters.

The next step was to put the complete message up on the boards, using the full 4x4 A3 grid to display the message, whilst allowing Nick to document the process taking a couple of photos for each letter that was put up. The letters were put up in a scattergun approach one at a time to give a more interesting look when the stills are put together to make a gif/video of the entire class putting up their works one by one.

Analogue Communique 2

The second workshop with Nick was aimed at developing some of the stronger ideas we had from the first session, with the scope to enlarge the designs up to a scale where each character had its own A4 sheet.

I decided that I wanted to continue with my 'Undefined' concept because I felt there was a lot more depth to that idea than the others. I started by using the same method as I did on the smaller scale of just shading out a rough shape of each of the letters, even though creating some of the curves that form the bowls of shapes like the d's, e's and a's.

Unliked development

In an attempt to develop this idea and add depth to it, I wanted to add some different areas that would be a different colour. But soon after starting this idea, I regretted it as I didn't like how it looked, it looked too patchy and didn't really add any depth to the sketches. So I decided that I wanted to just stuck to my original methodolgy.

Initial outcomes, phase 2

Soon, Nick said out loud (to the group in general or to someone sat at my table) that they didn't have to be perfect and could be ripped up or smudged as much as we wanted, and this gave me an idea to smudge some of the outside of the shape, this would soften up some of the shape, add some depth and blur the boundaries of the shape, make it slightly less defined. I liked this idea, because it fitted with the message and the aesthetic I was aiming for.

I really liked progressing with this idea because I think that it has a good message, too much of human life now is about defining something, finding labels and categorizing everything, but sometimes somethings arise that have no definition, no exact meaning or catergory.

The next stage for me was to try and make the lettering more legible, especially at a distance, as the greys of pencil lead might struggle to be readable at a longer distances. So firstly I tried to photocopy the sketches, but this had little to no effect on most of my work. So Nick advised me to scan them in and boost the threshold or the contrast in photoshop. Which is what I did my scanning them in and changing the levels in photoshop, to darken some of the greys and midtones.

I like the outcome of this step of the process as all the shapes have an increased legibility, whilst retaining some of the roughness from the sketching stage as well as some of the blurriness from the smudging around the outside of the shape.

I

a

d

Process & Production Wk1

Process and Production week 1, Analogue Communique, with Nick .

Firstly we started by taking a look at some examples of typography, and some of last years second year work from the same module, and some of Nick's work before being set the task.

The task was to come up with a piece of typographical work, using a 16 space grid that started 'I am'. The only real restriction was that it had to fit and be he start of something that could be used as a message.

I AM DIFFERENT

At first I began by using a more meaningful message. Using creating a set of off-set/split characters for the message, is something pretty unusual in the world of type, and would be a great way of saying that even thought it's a bit different it still functions and that people shouldn't be ashamed of being different if it works for them. I feel that this would look better once I get it into Illustrator to get the shear effect better.

I AM AN ICEBERG

 I am an Iceberg was my next idea, using the logic that most of what you see in a person isn't what you can see, its what you hear, what they talk about, what they care about etc... Much like an iceberg, most of what makes a person who they are is below the surface. I think that this would also look better if it was translated and vectorised in Illustrator, as it is a bit more pictorial and does feature some illustrations such as a polar bear, penguin and a submarine.

I AM SPORTY

This idea was to reflect myself a little more and is definitely the weakest of the ideas I had, as it looks the least interesting and is the least meaningful. It was inspired by the font the Premier League uses on the back of the shirts worn during Premier League games. It uses a mix of rounded edges and sharp points to reflect some of the attitudes of sport. This is my least favorite design.

I am undefiend

This is probably my favorite idea and was the most fun to sketch out, and was made just be scribbling down some shade into a rough shape of each of the letters within the phrase. Te point of it is that we spend so much time in our lives trying to fit into boxes that and sometimes its just best to be yourself and have no definite edges or shapes. I feel that this is the best idea I had in terms of delivering a message.

I AM A TRIPLET

I think this is one of the best ones in terms of style and aesthetic, the use of lines was inspired by seeing some of the work done by others, and I thought I should make one more that was closer to me as a person. I think that it made sense to use three lines to construct the shape and try to continue and warp and manipulate the line so that the entire letter form is made up using only 3 lines, because I am a triplet. The layout was also a bit more considered on this one so that the 'tri' was on the upper line on its own to kinda emphasize the tri - which means three.

Physical Studio S3 - Artist Typeface Transcription

After being inspired by the works of Josef Muller-Brockmann, El Lissitzky, and Laurie Rosenwald, and creating letterforms based on their works for the letters a,e,s,g and n, were tasked with creating full alphabets continuing this work.

Having worked on graph and tracing paper to create them, I scanned mine in to digitize them.

The next step after this was to trace over them in illustrator, to create vectors of each of the characters.

After creating the alphabets, I then went on to create posters featuring/highlighting the fonts I had made.

Physical Studio

Physical Studio Term 1 Session 1 - Creative Copy-writing 

We were tasked with crating a 2 page story using 5 stories we had found from newspapers as inspiration and what I crafted was a story incorporating fraud, assault, vinegar, and a few famous faces.

Here is what I wrote:

“Six forty, please mate” I said to the customer as I rang up his order on the till, as George (my assistant and shop hand) was putting the two portions of fish and chips, one portion of chips, and a small pot of curry sauce in a bag to takeaway. The customer gave me a five pound note and a two pound coin. Seven minus six forty leaves sixty-pence in change – an easy bit of maths for a Saturday night.

“You seen that mate?” said the customer whilst gesturing towards the television in the top corner of the shop. I turned to look at the ten o’clock news that was coming towards the end of its scheduled slot. The newscaster started with the ‘...and finally...’ story, the light hearted story used to lighten up the tone from the usually depression bombardment of depressing news stories associated with today’s current affairs. “Hertfordshire born singer George Ezra has been left slightly embarrassed tonight after [the shot then cut to a shot of Ezra’s ‘Budapest’ music video] admitting he didn’t quite know who Denzel Washington is. The singer songwriter was introduced to Hollywood actor Denzel Washington[the TV then showed some footage of Denzel Washington on the red carpet for some glitzy film premier] last week but later admitted to knowing the name but not what the ‘Taking of Pelham 1-2-3’ star looked like.” The editor of the programme then cut to a third shot, George Ezra was talking to an entertainment reporter about the meeting. He was explaining that he knew the name of the star but hadn’t seen any of his films. “All my friends and the people around me were having a good laugh at my expense about it, but I didn’t bowl up to him going “who are you”, Denzel was really nice about the whole thing.”

As the report drew to a close the director cut to a shot of the newsreader in the studio, and I turned back round to the customer who had remained behind to watch the report and gather my reaction to the story. ‘I guess it happens more than you think’ I said to the customer, ‘especially between disciplines like music, film and literature, I bet there’s load of authors I know the name of but couldn’t pick them out of line-up”.

The customer replied “yeah same here.” despite him easily being 20 or 30 years younger than me, and much more in tune with today’s popular culture. He then grabbed the bag and made a motion to leave “cheers mate” he said as he picked it up and lifted it from the counter top. He turned and took his leave of the shop, and suddenly the shop was void of customers for the first time since about 6:30, but this being London on a Saturday night it wouldn’t be too long before the footfall picks up again. We needed to take advantage of the quiet before the storm and stock up. “George; fill up the salt and vinegar bottles whilst we are quiet please mate.”

“Yeah, I will do in a minute” he snapped back, whilst moving some fish out of the fryer and into the section that keeps it hot without cooking it.

I took the opportunity to grab some more trays and bread cakes from out of the back. I picked up a big stack of polystyrene trays, comfortably enough to deal with the evening rush of boozed up costumers and clients of our fine nation’s capital nightlife recreational establishments, who happened to occasionally fancy a British food institution before hoping in a taxi and making their way home. Many chippies would have closed long before kicking out time, but I saw a niche in the market and decided to take a chance on opening my fryer later on Saturday’s to capture more of the market and make more money for myself. Initially it was slow going but it soon picked up as word spread that my establishment was the only one offering fish and chips within 5 miles.

I placed all the trays on the side of the counter next to the stack of paper used to line the trays and wrap the orders. I took a glance at the vinegar dispensers across the counter and on top of the fryers. All, nowhere near full enough, to deal with the oncoming flood of clients. “George, I told you to fill the vinegar bottles,” I said firmly and assertively, “They need to be filled before the rush starts otherwise there will be no chance to fill them!”


“I said in a minute” he retorted.
“Make sure it gets done”.



I went back to get the bread cakes. I picked up a few packs, it probably wouldn’t be enough to deal with all the traffic but they are quick enough to restock that it wouldn’t be a problem. I also grabbed the big bottle of vinegar that George was going to use to fill the rest of the smaller dispensers.

When I returned to the front of the shop there was a group of 3 twenty-something males talking to George, the three had obviously been out on the town. Slurred speech, excessive volume and rowdiness all symptomatic of the intoxication so fondly sought by today’s youth. There seemed to be a lot of fuss caused over the identity of one of the youths and his lifestyle. I approached George and asked him what they had ordered and I started processing it; putting the chips in the fryer, the fish in the batter and then in a different fryer, all whilst George was talking football with the customers. George, 22, was obsessed with Chelsea and appeared to be star struck by the names being dropped by the man in the middle of the 3 on the other side of the counter, I couldn’t stand football and much preferred following the cricket or the rugby.

Taking a moment to look up from the fish in the fryer I saw the blue lights of a police car fill the night sky. It wasn’t only me who had noticed it, everyone else had as well, including the two men who had just entered the shop from their night out on the tiles, but the most noticeable reaction was of the man in the middle of the huddle. Suddenly the joy and happiness on the man’s face was tinged with nervousness and panic as he realised what it was. Suddenly a police car slowed to a stop outside the store, and another, and another. 5 fully uniformed officers, and one in plain clothes (but with a police stab-vest other the top of his jumper) all got out of their cars and made a bee line for the front door. All the conversation in the shop stopped dead, the sound of the TV filled the store but nobody took notice of it. All attention was on the 3 officers who made it into my establishment. The plain clothed officer began talking to the man who was obviously scared by the presence of the law.

“Are you Medi Abalimba? Also known as Gael Kakuta?” The officer said.

The man nodded.

“I am DS Tom Perkins from the Metropolitan police; you need to come with me please.” Abalima complied with the officers whilst the other two uniformed officers arrested the other two people for conspiracy to defraud. The men were loaded into separate police cars as everyone in the shop watched on in stunned silence as they were all driven away. As the cars disappeared from view, it took a moment to realise what had happened.

“Right then, who’s next please?” I said allowed to get some sort of normality restored. The two men who had entered before the police had gone and stood down the other end of the store whilst the action took place. The moved up towards the counter, “two large portions of chips please mate”. George started to explain what had gone on whilst I took the chips out of the fryer and onto the trays.

“By the sounds of it, they were arrested for fraud, and the main man was pretending to be a guy in the Chelsea academy called Gael Kakuta.”

“Oh right, fooled me” said me, as I didn’t have a clue who he was.” I gave the two men their chips as George told them the cost of their order. I turned by back as George handled the money from that transaction as I began to deal with the bread cakes I had brought through, but hadn’t had the chance to deal with properly before Kakuta or whatever his name was came in.

As I was putting the packs on shelves I heard one of the men pipe up ‘you got any more vinegar mate, all these are empty?”.

I turned around; “George, I told you to fill them up”. As I continued to turn round I saw George pick up the bigger bottle of vinegar from the side of the counter, and he raised it up above his head as he turned to face me.

I could tell from the look from his face something wasn’t right.

We both continued to turn towards each other, and within a split second he was bringing his arm down, and thats the last think I can remember.



I woke up in the ambulance, where they explained that George had hit me in the head with the vinegar bottle and knocked me unconscious.

I was later informed by the police that George had been arrested for ‘a salt and battery’.

Physical Studio T1 S2 - Moodboard

We were then tasked with creating a mood board of appropriate images to accompany our story which would serve as inspiration for selecting images that would accompany the copy in newspaper or magazine spreads.

My mood board 

The focus of my mood board was around fish and chip shops, and fights as this is the main event and setting within my story, but I have also included images of the police and a few famous faces that also appear in my story.

Physical Studio T1 S3 - Layout Thumbnails

The third task of the Physical Studio sessions was to produce thumbnail mock ups of potential page layout ideas.

Firstly we had to sketch out a selection of a variety of a ideas for layouts onto a sheet of A3.

Then we took a selection of these ideas and made them full page A3 thumbnails, using grid/layout paper and tracing paper over the top. Using the grid underneath the tracing paper meant we could get the proportions right for the number of grids as well as the width of these grids and the gutter between them.

Physical Studio T2 S1 - Letterform Creation

We were supplied with a variety of different reference materials by various artist and instructed to pick out shapes and create letter forms based on the shapes we had picked out from the reference material. We were required to make 3 different styles, for the letters a, n, e, s, and g, and the results could be in either upper or lower case.

I picked out works by Joseph Binder, Wolfgang Weinhart, El Lissitzky, Lauri Rosenwald, and Josef Muller Brockmann.

The works by the latter three artists were the main inspiration behind my ideas, which I sketched down on graph paper.

For my first set, I was inspired by Muller-Brokmann's use of arc's of concentric circles which gradually extended beyond the one inside of it, and how these different segments combined together can make a shape, or in this case, a letter.

My second set was more inspired by Rosenwald's work that used perfect, concentric circles. I used sets of three or four concentric circles - which were created using a compass - to ensure that I got the proportions right as well as maintaining a perfect circle or curve for elements of the bowl, lobe and ears of the different characters.

The third set was inspired Lissitzky's work, and I wanted to incorperate the triangle in the above reference material into at least one of the my letterforms, such they are all as angular and geometric as possible. I think that this reference is clearest in the A on the right hand side of the page.

Overall, I think that the second set is probably my favourite as it looks the most professional even though the one on the left is the most fun to make, whilst the one on the right is the easiest to create.

Physical Studio T2 S2 - Making alphabets

The second session was based upon the letter form styles we created in the first session, and the task in the second session was to expand these styles and make up the rest of the alphabet using each of these styles.

Overall, I am quite pleased with how this step of the process went. The second set was the easiest set to create the rest of the alphabet because of the style was easier to replicate across the different shapes involved with the other letters. The other styles were a little harder to replicate due to the style being quite random/ dependent on the shape being created. Certain letters were particularly challenging to create, mainly the x's, s's, k's and the q's. The u's and v's were also difficult to create in a way that the two looked apart and wouldn't be confused with each other whilst adhearing to the same style.

Physical Studio T1 S3 - Layout Thumbnails

The third task of the Physical Studio sessions was to produce thumbnail mock ups of potential page layout ideas.

Firstly we had to sketch out a selection of a variety of a ideas for layouts onto a sheet of A3.

Then we took a selection of these ideas and made them full page A3 thumbnails, using grid/layout paper and tracing paper over the top. Using the grid underneath the tracing paper meant we could get the proportions right for the number of grids as well as the width of these grids and the gutter between them.