03 - CONTEMPORARY CLIP ART
My clip art category is fear, I started my research on a train. I went up and down the train asking people what their top five fears are, (ten seemed like alot to some people so after a couple decided to try and hope for five.) The results were really interesting, everyone had completely different fears, alot that I'd never have thought of. I'd really like to make a book about people and their fears as a side project, I might go for a walk in town with my polaroid camera and ask some people, I think it could look very simple graphically to highlight the rawness to this emotion and the strangeness of the interviewing situation, when I asked people their fears people reacted in very different ways, some were very open, yet others couldn't really think of any. The way that some people almost wanted to talk about their fears hinted at some level of perhaps cathartism especially as I made my way back up the train a few people stopped me and added more to their list. Maybe some people try to grasp their fears by understanding why they have them and how logical they are.
The question I asked was, "What are your top five fears within contemporary society?" The answers depended of course on the person in question, the younger people I interviewed were most concerned about not having friends, being called ugly etc, whereas the more middle aged poeple tended to be more worried about the better good of mankind, not finding cures for cancer, global warming, cash machine fraud... There were however a surprising number of people who confessed to a fear of pigeons, think I might leave that one though as I reckon those little birds have probably been around through alot of times. So after this came out with a rough shortlist:
Terrorism, Cancer, Dismal change in the world's ecology, Getting old, Obesity, Fear of technology and it's pace, Political mayhem; WW3, and Personal safety.
02 - Monoprints
Just had a little play with sketches monoprinting, got a few ideas that I now want to create on the computer, I'm still not sure what medium to create these in, the title of the brief os contemporary clip-art I therefore would like them to be practical from a clip-art use, but also have a contemporary feel to them.
02 - Marion Deuchars
Started having a look at some contemporary illustrators, checked out the websites that they suggested, really like Marion Deuchars stuff has a really beautiful and calm resonance. Picked out a couple of my favourites. I'd really like to do some screenprinting of silhouettes, might have to save that till after I've done my images.
02 - The 10.
Here are my ten black and white images for fear, I wanted them to like quite chunky and have a clip art feel to them, I like the fact that they are inclusive through style as part of a set.
02 - Post Crit
My images went down ok, Pete really liked the research and ideas but felt that my images needed work, the people in my group felt that the images would work better without type so that the images did more of the work, that is typically clip-art, I felt this was very true and although I like the typeface I think by extracting the words I could puh the imagery further and not rely so much on the semantic meaning to construct a message, I would also like the images to have a universal understanding that is common throughout clip-art. Luke highlighted that I should concentrate on the contemporary message each fear I have chosen, by suggesting things like the gun crime signs put up by the police after an incident has happened asking witnesses to step forward. I also agreed with him that a gas mask is quite a dated symbol of terrorism and a more contemporary association might be unidentified luggage. So he led me on the path to hopefully creating more successful imagery that relates to fear as something people can relate to right now, and perhaps to enable future folk to look back on fear in the early 21st century and gain a better understanding of what went on.
02 - Onwards and sideways...
So, I'm going to review my categories of fear and push further the contemporary aspect of each category, I've bought a couple of newspapers and think that for categories such as fear of technology I should look more into the fear of what technology is bringing, for example the recent aol adverts adopted a controversial angle on their concepts, by prompting audiences to
'/discuss' issues surrounding the internet as a new medium, the issues I found most contemporary and topical were concerning pedophilia on the internet, this angle has been brought to light by a series of programmes and also a advertsing campaign making both parents and chilren more aware of the dangers surrounding chat rooms. I found this old article in a Creative Review that has been quite helpful.
02 - Adbusters
I found a couple of old editions of adbusters that could help my research for the political angle of fear, they use a number of illustrations throughout their magazine that are quite striking.
02 - Another day, another crit...
Got some fresh opinions on the new imagery, the tutors and group were really positive about the changes I've made, the general consensus was that the images look alot more unique and personalised which reflected my intial research more. It seems quite evident that everyone is being encouraged to 'push it some more', I don't think we'll hear the end of that phrase....Can see why though, I much prefer my imagery and feel that they have a deeper statement that encourages the reader to think and aren't so incredibly obvious as my first set. Pete really liked the imagery of the Police appealing for witnesses sign, in particular because as the recent article in the Telegraph suggests they may be on their way out of the public eye after speculation that they increase public fear rather than helping police with said investigations. So, I am now going to create ten different images of these signs in different settings, the designs for each signs are different, as is of course the information regarding the crime. In the article there was a quite common frustration at the police for overusing these signs for incidents such as robbery, when intially they were intended only for the most serious of incidents involving murders and rapes. I could perhaps include some of the 'lesser crimes' to initiate a difference of importance within the set. So on with the next image, going to head into Brixton tommorrow morning to take photo's of some of the Gun crime signs there, Sophie and Pete mentiones one of them had been tagged which has alot of connotations that may or may not be relevant to the brief, I suppose it represents at least a few people's contemporary attitude toward fear from crime.
02 - CrimeBusters
This the article I found on how the police signs appealing for witnesses are potentially going to be abandoned as a method of crime prevention and the solving of crimes due to the public anxiety created from knowing specific crime details in that specific location.
The question I asked was, "What are your top five fears within contemporary society?" The answers depended of course on the person in question, the younger people I interviewed were most concerned about not having friends, being called ugly etc, whereas the more middle aged poeple tended to be more worried about the better good of mankind, not finding cures for cancer, global warming, cash machine fraud... There were however a surprising number of people who confessed to a fear of pigeons, think I might leave that one though as I reckon those little birds have probably been around through alot of times. So after this came out with a rough shortlist:
Terrorism, Cancer, Dismal change in the world's ecology, Getting old, Obesity, Fear of technology and it's pace, Political mayhem; WW3, and Personal safety.
02 - Monoprints
Just had a little play with sketches monoprinting, got a few ideas that I now want to create on the computer, I'm still not sure what medium to create these in, the title of the brief os contemporary clip-art I therefore would like them to be practical from a clip-art use, but also have a contemporary feel to them.
02 - Marion Deuchars
Started having a look at some contemporary illustrators, checked out the websites that they suggested, really like Marion Deuchars stuff has a really beautiful and calm resonance. Picked out a couple of my favourites. I'd really like to do some screenprinting of silhouettes, might have to save that till after I've done my images.
02 - The 10.
Here are my ten black and white images for fear, I wanted them to like quite chunky and have a clip art feel to them, I like the fact that they are inclusive through style as part of a set.
02 - Post Crit
My images went down ok, Pete really liked the research and ideas but felt that my images needed work, the people in my group felt that the images would work better without type so that the images did more of the work, that is typically clip-art, I felt this was very true and although I like the typeface I think by extracting the words I could puh the imagery further and not rely so much on the semantic meaning to construct a message, I would also like the images to have a universal understanding that is common throughout clip-art. Luke highlighted that I should concentrate on the contemporary message each fear I have chosen, by suggesting things like the gun crime signs put up by the police after an incident has happened asking witnesses to step forward. I also agreed with him that a gas mask is quite a dated symbol of terrorism and a more contemporary association might be unidentified luggage. So he led me on the path to hopefully creating more successful imagery that relates to fear as something people can relate to right now, and perhaps to enable future folk to look back on fear in the early 21st century and gain a better understanding of what went on.
02 - Onwards and sideways...
So, I'm going to review my categories of fear and push further the contemporary aspect of each category, I've bought a couple of newspapers and think that for categories such as fear of technology I should look more into the fear of what technology is bringing, for example the recent aol adverts adopted a controversial angle on their concepts, by prompting audiences to
'/discuss' issues surrounding the internet as a new medium, the issues I found most contemporary and topical were concerning pedophilia on the internet, this angle has been brought to light by a series of programmes and also a advertsing campaign making both parents and chilren more aware of the dangers surrounding chat rooms. I found this old article in a Creative Review that has been quite helpful.
02 - Adbusters
I found a couple of old editions of adbusters that could help my research for the political angle of fear, they use a number of illustrations throughout their magazine that are quite striking.
02 - Another day, another crit...
Got some fresh opinions on the new imagery, the tutors and group were really positive about the changes I've made, the general consensus was that the images look alot more unique and personalised which reflected my intial research more. It seems quite evident that everyone is being encouraged to 'push it some more', I don't think we'll hear the end of that phrase....Can see why though, I much prefer my imagery and feel that they have a deeper statement that encourages the reader to think and aren't so incredibly obvious as my first set. Pete really liked the imagery of the Police appealing for witnesses sign, in particular because as the recent article in the Telegraph suggests they may be on their way out of the public eye after speculation that they increase public fear rather than helping police with said investigations. So, I am now going to create ten different images of these signs in different settings, the designs for each signs are different, as is of course the information regarding the crime. In the article there was a quite common frustration at the police for overusing these signs for incidents such as robbery, when intially they were intended only for the most serious of incidents involving murders and rapes. I could perhaps include some of the 'lesser crimes' to initiate a difference of importance within the set. So on with the next image, going to head into Brixton tommorrow morning to take photo's of some of the Gun crime signs there, Sophie and Pete mentiones one of them had been tagged which has alot of connotations that may or may not be relevant to the brief, I suppose it represents at least a few people's contemporary attitude toward fear from crime.
02 - CrimeBusters
This the article I found on how the police signs appealing for witnesses are potentially going to be abandoned as a method of crime prevention and the solving of crimes due to the public anxiety created from knowing specific crime details in that specific location.
