It's all too much!

As if we didn't already have enough work to do we have been told that we have to make a 3d type installation and we only have 2 weeks to do it. Two weeks seems like a fair bit of time to complete a project but not when you have 3 other class projects to concentrate on, all to be completed for the same week as well as design studies work. It's all just too much, along with uni work a lot of us have part time jobs so that we can make the money which allows us to be able to get by while were at uni and it feels like theres just no time to breathe. I thought uni was meant to be fun, not right now its not!

I feel this is a good representation of how i'm feeling at the moment...

My thoughts on The consumption of design (but have probably missed the point entirely)

We were asked to read chapter four of The Culture of Design by Guy Julier and then express our thoughts on the subject. I found the reading of this chapter very intense and not particularly enjoyable, i struggled to follow what was being said but after rereading i was able to draw some conclusions.

We appear to live in a world were consumption is inescapable it surrounds us. Nothing these days is free, you can't have a good time without consuming something somewhere along the line. Even a night in consists of possibly dvds and a few drinks all of which have to be consumed, just sitting browsing the internet or watching tv also costs as you've had to pay for the license and the internet connection.

As graphic designers our role in the consumer line would be to advertise and encourage consumerism by visually communicating "amazing" products that everybody "needs" and "must" have, so i suppose graphic designers could be classed as the reason people are so addicted to consume, as they are being manipulated into thinking they have to. Despite this graphic design can't be held solely responsible as consumption doesn't just involve one aspect, as it "involves the interconnection of a range of actions through a chain of sites and times." Thus meaning there are lots of things which contribute to why and what makes us consume.
Consumption also seems to be contradictory as it can be two things at the same time "both active and passive, meaningful and meaningless" meaning it has the power to shape and change into what it needs to be at that specific time to make it more effective.

We haven't always been so obsessed with consumerism so it makes you wonder what happened which altered this world in to being so consumer driven, i suppose its the fact that people are more privileged these days than they use to be, so they have the opportunity to participate in having the new trends to appear "cool" but why? because if nobody consumed it in the first place then nobody would be any different and in doing so everybody would be "cool".

Assignment 1A-1D

For the first assignment we were asked to exchange photos of us growing up or photos from our home with another student who we didn't know and analyse the photos trying to figure out as much as we could about that person. It wasn't until i had already swapped my photos that i realised you were meant to swap with someone who had taken the same selection of photo as you, but by this stage it was too late as everyone had already swapped and i thought it would be better to do it this way than not at all.
I swapped with Sara Greenwood who studies textiles i didn't know her that well so was intrigued to know how much i could find out about her from just a few photos. As intriguing as it was i found this assignment a little weird at first as i felt like i was invading there privacy despite having permission from them to do so. I was also quite interested to find out how accurate Sara would be on her analysis of me.

While studying the photos i noticed that some were quite similar and gave off identical feels. From the photos the main points i made where that Sarah is quite friend and family orientated as there are pictures of her on holiday with her family and pictures of her at parties and sleepovers when younger and nights out. From the holidays photos i could guess that she was the eldest of two other siblings and the only girl, i also guessed that she was quite adventurous as a child as she is climbing on a fountain. She also appears to be quite caring and loving towards her siblings as she is holding and preventing one of her brothers from falling off the thing there sitting on.
The picture of her with a friends around the table suggests she was and probably still is quite girly as she is wearing a dress and has a pink princess birthday cake, her smile also suggests she was quite cheeky and possibly quite enjoyed getting her photo taken.
The picture with her friends and all the teddies on the floor with a duvet suggests she enjoyed having girly sleepovers with her friends and suggest her parents are quite laid back as they didn't mind her taken over the living room with all her friends. The teddy she is holding was probably her favourite at that time and the large TV and quite fancy fireplace suggests she is quite well off.
The picture of her dad when younger suggests she is a daddy's girl and she appears to look quite a lot like him.
The final and most recent photo of Sara and her friends at a bar suggests she like to go out, have a few drinks and have a good time with her friends, it also suggests she is still quite girly as she appears to be wearing a dress or possibly a fancy top.

After analysing the photos we were to meet up with our partners and discuss our findings. I was surprised to find that we were both very accurate in our results and everything we had guessed was pretty much spot on. I was amazed at how much you could tell about a person from just a few photos and how much your possessions and decor of a house gives away about you. Neither of us discovered anything about the other person that we didn't already know.

I found the whole process quite fascinating and definitely enjoyed taking part in it although i preferred being analysed than analysing someone else as i didn't really feel like it was my place.

Ethical issues may have arose if permission hadn't been given to publish the photos.

Ipad

After seeing peoples Facebook status's filled with comments on the ipad and hearing many people talking about it i thought i would see what all the fuss was about and checkout apples website. Not surprisingly it was the first thing i saw when i entered the website and decided to watch the video on it. On first glance i assumed it was some sort of graphics tablet but after watching the video i realised my assumption was completely wrong and that it was actually just a larger version of the ipod touch.
As cool as it looks and as fancy as it is i don't quite understand the point in it as everything you can do on it can be achieved on an ipod touch except on a bigger scale, i would understand if it was like a touch computer as then it would have a purpose of being more portable than a laptop but instead they've just made a less portable itouch. To be honest i think i'd rather stick with my itouch than forking out for a giant's sized version.
While watching 8 out of 10 cats last night the ipad unsurprisingly was a topic of conversation or shall we say the perfect opportunity for the comedians to come up with some wise cracks,
"There saying its brilliant because you can read a book on it, £500 to read a book on it, what happened to those other things we had, books, remember them?"as said by Jason Manford
"Its like someone inventing a wheel and a year later saying look i've invented a bigger wheel" as said by Jimmy Carr.
Completely agree.

Understanding Bourdieu

After Fridays lecture we were asked to read chapter 8 of Understanding Bourdieu and talk about the main points outlined. The chapter focuses on what makes art while touching on class and taste. It questions whether the talent for art is inhereted or adopted as a result of your class.
Bourdieu states that people who know a lot about art tend to be from a higher class therefore demonstrating that class could have something to with what makes someone an "artist". Despite this, being well educated about art doesn't automatically prove that you will have a talent for it or be anymore interested in the subject than someone form a lower class.
It is wondered why something is considered art and if it is because it is seen in a museum, or because the person who created it is already know as an artist or maybe because it is simply aesthetically pleasing, either way art is created to make a statement rather than to make a living, it is "symbolic rather than material".
Art is considered by the Frankfurt School writer Theodor Adorno, and sociologists of art, Arnold Foster and Judith Blau to be able to perform a "social magic" while Bourdieu disagrees and sees art as a sacred sphere of sculpture but what makes something art is clearly debatable and maybe there isn't a correct answer.

Briefs

Returned to uni on monday to receive the first of many briefs this semester, it was titled Pictorial Narration and indicated that we would receive a myth, story, tale or legend which we would then have to communicate through the use of a visual language.

After the "unlucky" dip had revealed i had the story Scott of the Antarctic i knew i had to research straight away. I didn't have a clue who he was or what he had done but after some googling, i recovered some information which stated he and some others had participated in an exhibition to be the first to reach the South pole, although he reached the South Pole sadly he was beaten by the Norwegian Amundsen and die on his return.

Once familiar with the story i had to think of ways of communicating this story visually and was a little stumped as at this stage as was slightly confused as to what was expected of me, but after talking to one of the tutors i was left with a number of ideas to choose from. This included using weather symbols, morse code compasses, Norwegian or horse/greyhound racing symbols.

I decided that using racing symbols would probably communicate the story the best as it was a race after all and Scott's team started off using ponies (similar to horses) and Amundsen's team used Huskys (similar to greyhounds) after arriving at this conclusion i am now left with how i'm going to use this form of visual communication to illustrate the story so that it can be recognised but without being too obvious.

The second brief was titled "The origin of food" and was recieved after a lecture from a member of the SCRI who are interested in supporting sustainable development and the production of healthy and natural food.
After another "unlucky" dip i was left with barley which i was then told i had to research in depth and create a mood board for the following tuesday. The research had to include something about our food source which we found to be interesting so that we could then communicate it in an A2 broadsheet . Having the mood board complete for tuesday seemed to be an almost impossible task considering it was the first week back and a few nights out were definitely deserved. Despite this i have managed to complete my mood board but i am struggling to decide which information i can take forward for my broadsheet as the product barley fails to interest me. Although it does have alot of healing properties and has been considered a super food which i suppose is kind of interesting, least i still have another day to decide :).

The third and final brief we received this week was to design a new app for the iphone, this has to be the most exciting of the briefs although it comes with a downside and that downside being this task is virtually impossible. Apple already have an app which can do pretty much anything you could ever want. Can't remember where you parked your car, "there's an app for that" , want to learn another language, "there's an app for that", want to keep an eye on your finances, "there's an app for that", need a new recipe, "there's an app for that", what to know every single cheese there is and which wines best complement it and "there's even an app for that" so as exciting as this is its going to take some serious thought and who knows i might even be able to come up with an original and useful app.

Avatar

If i was asked today the question i was asked on Friday, which was to name my top 5 films then this movie would definitely have been on that list.
I loved everything about it form the special effects to the story line itself, i think i watched most of the movie with my mouth open in awe. I was very disappointed when the movie had ended to hear the people behind me saying that they thought the credits were the best part of the movie, were they watching the same movie as me?

I was slightly confused by certain parts of the movie and struggled to come to terms with the fact you could actually transfer your mind and soul from your own body into an avatar (it is only a movie after all) but i think this made it all the more enjoyable as it made you talk about the movie long after it had finished and made the whole Avatar experience last longer.

I would definitely recommend it and in 3D as i don't know if they same experience could be achieved in 2D.