Looking more into GIFs! Something I hadn’t really thought about making gifs using photography but finding artists like Francois Beaurain (below and featured image) I’ve decided it’s something I’m going to use for my gifs as well cause it’s super cool. Just can’t stop staring at it.
Ben Branagan, Inca Starzinsky and Sophie Smallhorn- 3 practitioners I discovered today and not being able to decide who to write about I decided to do all three.
Ben Branagan is a south London based artist and designer making really interesting collages using found photography or pictures he’s taken himself, cutting out and overlapping images to create a sort of surreal vibe where you are looking into several dimensions at once.
Nearly there! I now only have one spread left and then I’m sending this to print (might redo the cover though). When placing images for the Kickstarter case study and the crisp vibe they gave off (seen below) I realised I needed to re-arrange some things in my design for the rest of the book to fit this theme as I really liked it.
There is so much colour in my work otherwise that I thought having red as chapter dividers and the book’s main colour might not be a good idea. So I changed it to black instead and at once it got more cohesive which is good. Plus the patterns and type I painted feels more like Japanese calligraphy and I really like that. Thing is, now my red cover doesn’t really match anymore so I might have to think some more about that.
What my app idea is lacking and what I have been struggling to come up with is how the user will interact with it. I have gone through so many ideas (help!) yet none of them have really involved any interactive aspect and has mostly felt like a presentation of my findings and work. To tackle this problem I am now thinking about letting the user build their own picture of a place from the pictures I have taken in the form of collages. You will be able to save these collages to a gallery and make several different versions from the same picture.
Placing conversations in the places I found them may not be working out for me. These images are two of my outcomes and I liked the result for about three days but now, not so much. I feel like I need to develop this idea more because it is just too one dimensional. The photographs aren’t really working as I would like them to because of the poor quality of my camera and the visuals doesn’t seem inventive enough.
So, I have decided not to do the photographs like this. Instead I want to make my app more focused on type and text, perhaps with a few images as well but very abstract and made from cut out paper like what I did in this post because I enjoyed that very much. I want to incorporate poetry more somehow and make the conversations communicate more by themselves.
The opposite of what I had planned, my mapping of conversations has had to be done a bit backwards. Instead of first finding conversations and then exploring the area around it in search of a good photograph – I have had to do all the photographing at once. I wanted my images to be kind of high contrast between shadow and light which means I have had to time my work to London’s weather. I need sunlight. The lack of time I’ve had to focus on this has also forced me to change my approach. Maybe for the better!
The other day I went on a photo safari through parts of London I like – a walk I will have to do again but listening at different places instead of only seeing.
If you know how to look, you can basically place your surroundings in a grid anywhere. Last Friday, using the outside and inside of buildings as a base- I created posters working with the grids I found looking at my photographs. A really fun exercise that got me thinking more about layout with text and how we can alter blocks of text by changing the tracking to get more control and a pleasing result.
Earlier this week, I dove further into researching for my “Map of Me” project- this time focusing more on what type of imagery I want to use when photographing areas in London. My initial idea was to take pictures that show an overview of the place I was at listening to conversations, having the pictures black and white to give the text more focus but thinking about it more and researching architectural photographers I now really like the idea of focusing on how I take the photo as well in terms of capturing interesting angles and shapes to tap in to the tone of voice and feeling of that particular building or place.
After finding these photographers inspiring I made a mood board to sort my thoughts out. Each person is represented by two images each:
When designing, most people probably do the work subconsciously (thinking about shape, form, colour, pattern, emphasis, proportion). And sometimes, not thinking about what comes naturally, for me at least, can be in your way as I find I often over complicate things in my head instead of just doing something really simple, really fast.
Working fast and creating many posters that incorporates the different design principles and elements of design has kind of changed the way I look at a project- it doesn’t have to take forever to create something (in this case posters). And although the aim was producing 50 posters in 5 hours and I only got like 7 done, I really enjoyed this and the particular way of working- restraining yourself a bit in terms of what you’re allowed to use to convey a message forced me to simplify my ideas and think outside the box.
Making a film through still images is an easy way to create a video sequence and until today- wasn’t really a technique I’d used before. It is actually an interesting way to create narrative and story. The Kuleshov Effect explains why putting images together in a certain sequence is the base for film making and how powerful a tool editing is. “Through the choices in how shots are organized and sequenced, filmmakers can create new meaning by juxtaposing unrelated images.
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