365 Illustrations

At the moment I am pretty busy, doing many things so that I don't really get to design a lot. So that I have decided to draw at least one picture of anything a day. So that by this time next year i should have 365 Illustrations. I am doing this to collect Ideas and also to have a catalogue of all the things that had an impact on me for one entire year. I hope I can actually do that, at least to 70 % for example yesterday it didn't work out, but hey I am my own boss on this. The picture above is an examples.

German Literature - Poster Designs

The last couple of weeks I have been travelling around in Austria and Switzerland to work for the 100 Best Posters Design competition. My job has been to build the showcase that is shown above. The winning posters are hung into large rings, that connect similar to the system of a tent. Important was to create a space that offers enough visual space for the visitors to observe the individual posters and to have a safe stabil system. For the exhibit at the designforum in Dornbirn, Austria, a team from the design agency Saegen4 created an additional bike race to promote the opening of the exhibit and in Switzerland the 100 Best Posters were shown as part of the Weltformat Festival  that officially opened on the 4th of November and is open until the 13th of this month. After the festival I will also rebuild the same exhibition in Vienna, at the MAK were the Exhibit will be shown for another four weeks.

Working on exhibitions has always been fun for me, and this year I also really like the design of the show. Building it has sometimes been a little difficult as the rings with a diameter of 2 metres are large in space and need to be connected to stand up alone and sturdy. The design competition 100 Best Posters of Germany, Austria and Switzerland starts again with the New Year and will collect the best designs of the Year 2011. 

Wish you were here - A london based exhibition shown for a month at the George Orwell house.

Opening on the 14th of October. Everyone invited who likes arts and pubs. 

The last three month I have been travelling all around europe and also have spend a month in India. I have now, the pleasure of developing all the analoge pictures I took the last month. I have travelled from Germany all the way to Athens through twelve countries, various in eastern Europe and also like Italy, Austria and Croatia and all the way to the Bosporus in Istanbul.

Many places have made me wonder about how this world connects, I asked myself often, how people can be so different but so alike in various parts of one continent. In India I expected to explore many spiritual things,  understand another part of the world and sometimes I understood very well and often I had problems to not think with my western european mind and had difficulties approving and acknowledging what I saw. Visually, especially India had many aspects that I loved, and architectual I enjoyed visiting the past by seeing the socialist impact in eastern europe or the small alleys and river-roads of Venice. Serbia, with the war inflected past of the Kosovo conflicts impressed me with unexpected beauty and Istanbul absolutely blew me away.

The pictures above, I took quickly, and shows are few women in Haridwar, in Uttarkhand in North India. Haridwar is a rather small indian city that is located directly at the edge of the Himalaya. Pilgrims venture to wash in the Ganga river, which is here cleaner and has a strong tide as it just comes out of the mountains. Many ashrams and temples are plastered along the river and in Haridwar the community comes together in the evening hours to wash sin free and send baskets of flowers with candles down the stream of the water to wish for good luck and health. Many boys spend time in the evening looking for the money others throw into the river to worship their gods. I love the  photo of the hindu women listening to the gurus speech, because the women appears so strong and her dress and beauty combines femininity, tradition and believe. The image next to that, shows a Guru that is helping to find the right words to a hindu who is about to let his basket into the river, this is a way of getting good money as you pay the guru for his prayers. Below are images I have taken on a simple Analogue 35mm Camera, I brought one with me, but unfortunately on my first day in Dehli I dropped it in the hectic stream of poepleso that i bought a new Kodak analouge for 500 Rupees. That one broke too just after two weeks, so I got another one for another 500 Rupees ( around 9 Euros).
I do love those images, obviously not all of the 15films  I developed were great, but mostly I am very happy with the outcome.

I am currently on a ( literally ) visual research trip through the wilds of eastern europe. I am writing this from a computer in Budapest and have been so far travelled from Berlin to Dresden, Prague, Krakow, Warsaw, Bratislava, Vienna and now made my way to Budapest. I will return from this trip end of september after an entire month in India. I will try and keep things happening here, lots of peaceful travellers love.

Psychobabble Exhibition

BA (hons) Graphic Design Ba (hons) Design Final Show

‘A portmanteau of ‘psychology’ or ‘psychoanalysis’ and ‘babble’ – a form of language which misuses buzz-words and jargon from serious clinical diagnosis and applies them to more everyday subjects’.

Within the context of Graphic Design, Design and Motion practice, and the wider context in which they are situated – the term ‘psychobabble’ can help to describe the  ‘information overload’ of contemporary culture; the need for people to use digital technologies like Twitter, blogging, Facebook et al to jam the blogosphere with the insignificant details of their lives; our obsession with ourselves, the self-diagnosing of our condition and the sharing of this with an ‘on-line’ community; how we measure ourselves against the images we see around us, as the space between the public and the private begins to blur or collapse.

Many of the projects displayed here deal with how human beings communicate in an increasingly complex world  - some deal directly with psychological problems, with human interaction and perception, and many look at how to restore a sense of more tactile human qualities in a removed digital environment. 

If Graphic Designers, and designers generally, create the made world – then they have a responsibility to understand the effects of that world on its occupants, and to smooth the path of human interaction amongst the ‘psychobabble’ of  mass communication.

http://psychobabble-lmu.blogspot.com/

 

Here some Images of a little mock up, just making experiments with different types of binding. For my actual book I choose to do get a single sheet bind done by a Pro, because previously I have had the talent to mess it up at the last and so important binding stage. Hopefully they will not have  problems with the different materials I am using within my book, but I think it will go just fine. I am still working now on the finishing touches, I have this problem every time that when I think I should be finished I decide that I dont like one particular thing and then one leads to another and I end up being all over the place. However, the pages need to be done by tomorrow morning so I can get print and binding done, to be finished literally just in time to take photographs of my Presentation-ideas and put my portfolio together.

Lets call that last minute, at the end of the day, it i the week I missed when I went to Paris, but I would not miss that week for nothing, it gave me so many ideas for future projects and I had an amazing time.

For the fact that I am officially out of education (for the first time) in four nights time I think I had to had a little Parisienne-blast before venturing out in the real world.

Also, some more images of my Book during the making process, I will get the book on Thursday bounded as a single sheet bind (measurement is 22 cm to 16cm) from the Wyvern bindery and the Posters are printing right now, to be collected soon. One of the pictures shows all my sketchbooks etc, I have produced within the last 12 weeks, when everything is lined up, the mass of work produced finally shows. But for now, back to work.

Jump of the bridge.

I took some London panorama and they are surprisingly beautiful.
Last Black and White film left over from Paris, I think its a Kodak 400 2TMY Film, I much prefer this quality and the colours of this film than the HP5 film I have been using.

I visited Paris last week and even tho I had visited before I have experienced it very differently to the previous time. I asume that it has something to do with age, but I was drawn into the beauty of this city so much that the entire trip has become such a blur. The people I have met and spend time with, the things that happend there were so refreshing and beautiful that I have now, an entirely different mood than before. I am looking forward to moving on, away from University and off to some new adventures and Paris is definitely on my list somewhere, as this place, c'est magnifique. 

Vague// Design of Flyer and Model. 

Photograph taken by Jason Lake 

elastick photography uk

Grande Launch on the 28th of May 2011.

welcome to my childhood.

VISUAL RESEARCH final major

type type typewriter.

if i would' ave known you' comin I would 'ave shaved

I have started my new Photography project. As for last year when i was working on personal repetion, I am now kinda going for a similar look but for a very different approach. I have decided to go on a hunt for as many faces I can find which are the so called 'Off-license-guys'. 

University Brief:

Create a photographic essay / Record of six or more individuals within the same work environment. Think about the range of jobs, professions, age groups, gender, cultural background and location.

Self-directed-Brief

People Working in Off license shops in London.

As in many communities people who work in Off licenses have a connection to their surroundings. 

Especially in London, where People move quickly and shops come and go, it appears that especially young people create a connection to their “off-license guy”. 

Also the availability to buy objects of indulgence, such as crisps, beers, sweets or cigarettes, creates an interesting idea of consuming and connection between a shop owner and customer.
In a city that has the availability of consumption 7 days a week and variations of shops and qualities of food that is absolutely incredible, there is a certain connection we have to tend to go to the off license instead for the quick buy. I personally argue its the smalltalk and the friendly approach that we will receive from our own Guy but how would I know, I only now my guy.

Outcome:

A set of photographic images of people who work in off licenses/ convenient stores across london. Visually interesting here is firstly the range of colours within an off license, and also the cultural background and gender of the shop keeper.

Also this Project, I believe is way stronger in quantity. I am asked to produce six Photographs but I believe that having around a hundred or so is a lot stronger than, just a few.
Again, the idea of Repetition comes across within this Project, which I have looked at a Year ago about myself.

Self-directed Project Brief.

I have had the chance to live and explore two countries due to my education. Because of the choices I have made I had the chance to explore two different European cultures. Therefore my Final Major Project is focusing on the differences and similarities of the countries Germany and England and the stories and people I have experienced and met.

The aim of the outcome is determined to be both humorous and critical, as I am looking at the ideas of stereotypes, cultural differences and prejudice. As my idea evolved from personal background and experiences I am determined to find an angle of communication that is interesting to me and also exciting for others. I will be looking at visual differences, ‘What’s looks different’ also ‘How do we feel about the other’ and ‘Why do we feel this way’. 

I’d like to explore why we, sometimes unexplained, feel a certain way about another culture. My initial idea is an illustrated outcome, as I have been interested in the medium of illustration throughout my degree and also planning on keeping up working with illustration in the future. The use of illustration also represents my personal preference in design and links to my subject, which is personal and important to me. I want to create a balance between exploring the fun aspects in both cultures and also exposing a rather critical side to the portrayed stereotypes and problems between the two cultures. This I am aiming to present in an interesting mix of ideas to others, both Germans and English and anyone else who is interested in design and culture. Here is to add, that the outcome is determined to have a universal language, by using imagery, however, as I am very interested in typography both languages German and English will be incorporated.

As a starting point in visual research visiting the Goethe institute in South Kensington London, and exploring German influences in London. Also German restaurants and their owners are spread over the city, so that I have a number of places and spaces to begin gathering primary and visual research from Germans in London. For this particular research I have to gain a vast amount of primary research that I have to obtain from people who live outside of England. To do this, social networking will come in very handy as I can gain a lot of information from people in both countries quick and for free. The other part of my research is a theoretical approach; I am looking at stereotypes, prejudice and stereotyping and therefore looking at Charles Stangor who discussed these topics in a number of essays. Also the writings in Of mimicry and man: the ambivalence of colonial discourse by Homi Bhabha can give me interesting viewpoints on cultural movement, colonialism and stereotyping. I also will be incorporating insights of the historical backgrounds in both countries and how these effect our conception of their cultures. Here I have a lot of information to gather starting from the wars and the political differences in the past and in the present. I can explore subculture identities developed in Britain such as Rave or Punk and how this has become part of the German youth culture. At this stage I am able to research and include a number of essays by Dick Hebdige, Sabine Von Dirke and Mark Fenemore. Visually, any illustration, posters and design work from both countries can give me an interesting insight and will affect my work. It helps that Germany and England are both countries with a lot of good design, produced in the past and present. Resources such as books, places, articles and exhibitions to gather research of the arts from both countries are greatly available in London. I have previously researched a few artists who have worked on a similar approach due to their cultural heritage. For example; Yang Liu, who explored the differences between China and Europe in her book east meets west.

To an extent I am aiming towards a similar approach that is given in east meets west, which is mainly a collective of ideas of difference. For my work I will explore this topic further by incorporating ideas that will make the viewer laugh, reconsider prejudices and to learn exciting attributes about the two cultures.