The last few weeks have been busy with the completion of my dissertation, which in turn has had an impact on my TBI project. After completing my thesis I now have a few days to really focus on my project. I want to look at the editorial environment within social media to implement awareness content on our perception of social media and how we behave. I am really interested in how we act online and feel it would be a great thing to research and work on, as the internet is dramatically becoming a part of our everyday activity. From my research already I have learnt the issues social media brings such as smiling depression to our perceived ideology of the perfect lifestyle which is influenced by famous figures or simply our social media friends.
My direction and purpose of this project is to raise awareness to those who use social media activity about the way they do so. This could be done through interactive content/ advertisement. It could possibly reflect their own behaviour through a light-humoured cartoon style, with a deeper awareness which will make the target audience reflect. A possible direction could be that the user clicks through the daily activities a said character does which is a standard behaviour of an active social generation such as myself. The user would interactive with these still images or gif animations to extend the story. Between each transition there could be an informative note which raises the awareness of the dangers or issues caused by doing a said activity (such as checking a smart device at night, this can disrupt sleeping patterns which has a wider affect on a persons body such as insomnia, memory fatigue or anxiety) I really don’t want this project to become a metal health awareness campaign because that is not the case, instead I want to make the user aware of their ‘looping’ styled behaviour and try and influence a fresh approach to the way people use social media in an attempt to bring a healthy balance between their social life and actual lifestyle. I could possibly link this to the creative industry and how this can affect their creativity by limiting their imagination and idea generation.
I had a short tutorial with my tutor today to discuss possible direction. I discussed my concept and how I could target my desired audience and what I wanted to achieve from this. We talked about augmented reality and how companies such as Pepsi have implemented their advertisement into everyday situations.
All of us know bus stops have generalised advertisement posters on the sides for us to see while we wait for a bus, however more recently we are ignoring many ways of traditional advertisement which I discussed in my dissertation. Pepsi have taken a fresh approach to this by implementing augmented reality which uses a live feed of a pavement behind the bus-stop to turn the side into a ‘window’ where the audience can see others passing by and the same goes for the traffic. However, at different moments the screen introduces bizarre scenarios such as a UFO attack, meteor crash and even escaped animals running towards the bus stop. At a first glance the audience are drawn to the sudden movement from the sky or path which is moving towards them. After the audience is aware that the animation is projected onto the screen it transitions to a pepsi advertisement. This approach to grasping the target audience proved very affective with many of those who witnessed the projections, smiling and enjoying themselves.
While doing some research on our perception of social media, I came across these hard-hitting short films which perfectly capsulate what I would like to make others aware of. It is so easy to create a different lifestyle online to ‘fit’ into societies perception of an ideal lifestyle. Where in fact, many are spending so much time on social media their actual lifestyle is affected. I’ve seen many profiles where people strike for attention, followers and likes mean everything which is bizarre as social media is relatively new, given the public interest of Facebook in 2005 and Youtube later that year.
These videos capture the emotional distress on both parties through social media and how they comfort themselves through the interest of others ‘liking’ their activity. ‘What’s on your mind?’ has a slightly dark humour to it as he goes out of his way to make his life seem great, but in the process his emotional level is shown to affect his health as he turns to alcohol. At the end, he finally opens up with his life – soon to be blocked by others because of his negative approach. I have been guilty of doing this as there are a few people I have know to only post negative things on social media all day, every day. But seeing the bigger picture and their life behind the screen does have an impact on the way I think about those affected. I would really like to create a more light-humoured approach to the subject of social perception and nudge others to realise that they are falling into the same trap of trying to be similar to other people, which in turn may make them feel more alone or ‘unsociable’.
This morning we had our final presentation on our field project, The Big Idea. The past few weeks have been slow-moving in terms of exploration within my project. However, at this stage I am happy with the quality of my work and I am motivated and exited to finish my project. I will implement Parallax scrolling within my content pages which will engage the viewer within its visually animated graphics. I feel it will also be great to experiment with new forms of communication within my final projects to make it stand out in comparison to previous years. Below you will find my presentation along with a short clip of the header pages.
At the very start of this project, We had to chose our desired word which we would research and create our own direction and outcome based on what we discovered. I chose Perception and wanted to step away from distorted reality as this was seen everywhere. I looked at a range of different perceptions and found our perception of vision and strength compared to other living creatures very interesting. It was different and took a fresh approach to perception. It reminded me a lot of the David Attenborough documentaries. I thought it would be a fantastic opportunity to look at info graphs, visual animations and let me explore different ways of presenting information. My presentation is attached above and looks at the sensation, cognition and perception process of our thinking process and how we perceive information. This research was closely linked to Plato and Aristotle’s wok on vision and reason. My initial researched looked at the literal associated reasons behind perception of the human body and the senses we have.
‘Of all the senses, trust only the sense of sight’
Plato and Aristotle closely associated vision and reason.
I was inspired by this quote I came across during my research and it has a lot of sense behind it. Many of us may experience similar situations such as rain, watching the same program or a car ride but each persons individual account is very unique. This is because our genes and our jeans. To explain, we are all born with very similar yet very different genes which affect our perception of our individual senses from sight to smell to touch. One may see the colour green as blue and another could see that same colour as red but from birth we associate a seen colour as what we are brought up to know by its given name. And by jeans, I mean metaphorically for our experiences and choices we have previously made to get to that given point in time. Our emotions and experience of a situation can change the way we perceive an event, this can be from an emotional connection to a song, the memories of a specific smell as we make connection to past events.
A personal account of this is the drink, Fanta fruit twist. I have a strong memories of accidentally getting it into my eyes when I was very little and the smell has stayed with me, during the event I dropped the bottle in the process which rolled off a bridge onto a garden below. Many years later and that garden was taken over by the council and renovated into a modern cafe known as ‘The Mill’. Which I went on to work for many years later. Small encounters like this can have strong connections to events and locations.
I think it is really interesting to explore the psychology of perception and how we perceive things in connections to past experiences.
Our next project, Competitions,has a huge selection of briefs for us to chose from. This module will help us identify what type of designer we best fit by giving us the chance to experiment with different mediums of communication. This brief allows us as the designer to communicate the message through animation, campaigns, print, digital, social experiments and even radio. This module along with Real World will account for our Subject grade at the end of the year so fully exploring different mediums through experimentation and developing ideas clearly is important.
After looking at the briefs available from D&AD, YCN, RSA and Creative Conscience, here are a selection that interested me most.
Brief – Create a functional and structural packaging solution for a new range of Saucy crispy, coated fish.
I was interested in this brief as packaging design is a relatively new area of design for me. From field in year one I worked with product designers who did a lot of packaging design which I found fascinating. The Saucy Fish Co’s brief want the designer to focus less on the brand identity and work towards the structural form of the product. This is a unique and different technique to what I’ve previously worked with and feel it will help me to understand materials used and their environmental impact. From my last project Real World and my creative teams concept ‘Sustainabox’ we researched into sustainable materials which will be useful if i decide to go ahead with this brief.
Brief – Creatively re-launch Grand Café coffee to improve engagement with current and new customers.
After looking at UCC Coffee, I found their brief fitted my area of practise better. Re-launching their Grand Café coffee would allow me to experiment with their brand identity colours and packaging. Their creative objective is to visually revitalise the brand, creating designs that will help communicate what Grand Café is and the good that it does. UCC want to move Grand Café coffee from being hidden in a cupboard underneath the counter to having pride of place on display in their customer’s outlets! I feel this brief would give me freedom to explore my creativity and allow me to demonstrate this through various mediums.
Brief – Deliver Orchard Pig as the craft cider equivalent of contemporary craft beer – we want to become the Notorious P.I.G.
Orchard Pig was another favourite. The traditional beverage Cider, was not as common in the urban cities and more known in country pubs. After looking at this brief, there was a lot that could be experimented with such as the bar equipment and touch points such as the glass and beer mats the consumer would have. I found this exceptionally fun at first but later discovered that they wanted to steer away from any form of re-branding or new designs and focus on the delivery of their products instead such as an animation, carefully placed posters and through the touch points as previously stated. I feel that the overuse of the pig identity to be demanding which I think would become flat.
Today we worked with soundscapes which looked at sound within an environment. We were briefed on a project where we were put into pairs and given recording equipment to go out into Cardiff Centre and record 30 sounds and geotag them. As the 30 were split between the groups we were given 10 sounds to record. Me and Max went out a couple times before the next meeting and recorded the sound of passing trains, traffic, crowds, water and even silence. Luckily it was sunny over the duration of this project which allowed us to spend more time exploring the parks of Cardiff which was great.
Look – Another great option I am interested in! I have always been hugely interested in modern technology and how electricity enables us to send communication instantaneously. This course lets me dive into different areas of ‘The Internet of Things’ through augmented reality, soundscape and 3d figure manipulation. I like the idea that everything in your home can be connected to make your life more efficient and accessible. However, this isn’t the ideal energy-saving way to go, nor is it beneficial to our long-term health as we still do not know the effects this relatively new technology has on our lives. Things such as WiFi, Bluetooth and other RFID signals have only been tested short term. Technology has already changed the way we think and perceive things, and our brains have been rewired from this. No longer do we look at a problem, whether it is being lost somewhere or learning a new language, and seek traditional ways to resolve this. Instead we go directly online for aid. Some of the older generations may prefer to look though book however modern technology allows us to find results within seconds.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is the interconnection of uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices within the existing Internet infrastructure.
A thing, in the Internet of Things, can be a person with a heart monitor implant, a farm animal with a biochip transponder, an automobile that has built-in sensors to alert the driver when tire pressure is low — or any other natural or man-made object that can be assigned an IP address and provided with the ability to transfer data over a network. So far, the Internet of Things has been most closely associated with machine-to-machine (M2M) communication in manufacturing and power, oil and gas utilities. Products built with M2M communication capabilities are often referred to as being smart. [source]
In this introductory session, we covered what we will be doing over the next few weeks and what software we will need to download. I am excited to start this project and hope I can make full use of the options available to me over the next few weeks. I would like to implement this into my graphics work in the near future.
On Friday, I went to London as part of my constellation. We went around as a group for the first museum which presented these large canvases which were covered in thin coloured lines. As there was no text accompanying them it was hard to depict what it represented. After looking at this type of work, images became more clear as the shading created outlines. I found out about the artists process to create these large pieces. They took a picture and flipped each segment in half and repeated until the image became indistinguishable to the eye. It intrigued me to see how you could decode each image to find the original picture.
After this gallery we went to the Royal Academy of Art where I saw Anselm Kiefer’s German romanticism work. A few of his pieces took my interest however Die Erdzeitalter (Ages of the world) made me realise the connection he tried to represent through a pile of canvases to the German movement of destroying foreign influences through books and artwork. We disbanded from the course group into smaller groups and made our way to Berlinda De Bruckyeres exhibition. Berlinda takes tree segments and coats them in a layer of dyed wax and bonds the wood with bandages/ pieces of material to represent the structure of bones. Some of these large pieces had scares or fragmentation which suggested that there was more of a physical damage which could represent a moment in time which she may have experienced. The anthropomorphic wax looked like the exposed human flesh which may represent vulnerability but also the relationship between the physical body and nature as they intertwine.
One of the more bizarre exhibitions was by Pipilotti Rist. From constellation I learnt about her wacky videos which highen your senses within an immersive environment. The space was transformed into a large screen which displayed two videos which ran alongside each other and at times it would blend and exchange components. Within the viewing space there were duvets on the floor which you were expected to interact with to watch and experience her story. This perspective was very different to sitting up or even standing. I realised that many people sat away from the screen which was in the furthest corner and instead felt comfortable to sit together as a pack and nearer the entrance. The video itself shows a relationship between the body and nature by imagery of grass and plantation alongside the skin and maze of internal veins.
For my chosen field option I got my first choice which allows me to become a part of a collaboration with other students from other courses to create our own small business. As today was our first session we were introduced to our team groups. My group consists of 4 other girls, 3 of which are international students which makes our team unique and multi-cultural. We have been asked to do 2 reflective posts per week on our group updates and progress as we only have 4 weeks to complete the whole section. We will have to sell our product within the university on the 13th of December followed by a formal presentation to a business to discuss further partnership. This will give us a chance to promote ourselves as young business representatives. As we will be selling our product within the christmas period and run-up to christmas we are marketing our product to be used as xmas gifts.
As a group we discusses our key values and listed the top 5 which we all agreed upon. Our agreed creative collective values are, Challenging Problems, Creativity, Growth, Co-Operation and Excitement. To combine these values within the company we brain-stormed on a company name which was fun, creative and reflected our qualities. After much thinking we decided to choose Paper Trail – your pathway to quality print. Paper Trail had come negative connotations when we discussed our company name with the field course, as a trail could suggest the waste left behind a product. But from this there was also a positive connotation of exploration, leaving behind a message and youthful curiosity.
After deciding the name we needed to assign each member a role within the team. The roles are as such;
Business Plan – Barbara
Finance – Myself
Marketing and Branding (Not Online) – Dwida
Manufacture and Making – Juliana
Online Social Media – Tiffany
After the basics were completed we went through the paperwork and what is expected of us and given a grant of £100 to support the start-up of our business. This will cover the costs of any prototyping, printing and materials needed including the final supply of products to sell. Managing the money will fall under the Finance role which I have been given, however I feel as a group we will equally agree on how the money will be spent.
Ben Walton 
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