Greta

After listening to and watching many interviews and TED talks mainly with designers and creative practitioners, I realized that sure, they are saying interesting things that, sure apply to design and are well put-together and thought out speeches but the inspiration for me to continue what I’m doing didn’t seem to come through enough. Below are a few of the ones that stood out..

HOWEVER when it was mentioned to us that the inspiring person didn’t have to be a designer exactly, I started thinking of other people that might be able to inspire me somehow. I’ve been obsessed with the lead singer of The Strokes, Julian Casablancas for a very long time and watched a rather recent NME interview with him and this is where I got my inspiration for the kinetic typography brief from.

The part I focused on was from 1.10 to 1.27 in the interview.. because even though he’s talking about making music, one can apply this to graphic design very easily and he is so right and I love him. He is just so calm and yet reasonable when talking, not caring if he makes mistakes when talking and it seems as if he could be talking to anyone..

Here is the very rough, and to be continued piece I made (put on your sound..)

nevermind having a hard time uploading it!

Since the brief was to do something in a postcard format, I had my mind set on some sort of image you’d want on your wall, etc. I’ve collected more than a few postcards over the years and rarely are they something I wouldn’t hang up in my room.. therefore I never send postcards hahaha.

That’s some work, trying to impress and please 50 odd people. The image I used for my main one and the on I did 50 editions of was of the Queen. She symbolizes power, thus relating to our brief: Library rules. Librarians need to have that status of power and respect within the library . I printed the first set below, but the postcard would only be half of it…

I also wanted to do a set of postcards, where there would be a theme or motif running throughout maybe a set of 5 but that didn’t work out.. here are ones I started out on doing, where the only thing they have in common are the white pyramid/triangle type lines..

The one on the left is supposed to be about keeping your cheers/celebrations to yourself whilst in the library (might need some text because the picture doesn’t really speak for itself) and with the one on the right I wanted to remind people that even though the stairs to the library at Chelsea can be a bit tiring, it is worth checking out. There is so much to offer up there and most people don’t take advantage of these resources we have!

From the presentations we did about passions, partners were set in a way where we could collaborate into making a joint shrine of the two passions. Tineshia and I were partnered, her passion being Jesus and mine beards, how convenient!

This collaboration didn’t end up quite the way we intended to.. we made a beard that one is able to wear, and took not enough photos of people wearing them..

Throughout the process of designing to manifestos (one original and one re-designed previously written), I became quite comfortable with using InDesign. It all just happened while I was trying things out and once you know what you want, it is possible to achieve, you just have to be patient.

The one above was my personal manifesto, which talks about how obsessed with time we are these days.. I was advised to take the hourglass illustration out of it during the crit, which I thought was a good suggestion because even without it, the shape of the text indicates what should be drawn around it..

Was a lovely day out with the GDC1 group and our Comic Sans wooden letters. I was a bit disappointed however that when we had taken pictures in a safe and probably not much more that 100-metre radius from Chelsea, everyone was ready to go home instead of actually trekking around London finding places to take the letters. I was quite happy with the photos I got, of which not many are posted here. The last few are taken on the rooftop of my house where we (Jessie, Laura, Yasameen and I) thought would be a nice place to photograph our letters.

We got into a bit of trouble placing them on the front steps of our neighbouring Tate Britain…

Comic Sans family chilling at the bus stop..

Jessie,Laura and I:

The first day of the brief, we were put into groups to explore each others’ passions. When Jack kept on going on about his passion for gadgets and Yasameen about hers for shoes I started to wonder what on earth my passions included.

Beards (more specifically musicians with beards) have been a big favourite these past years… starting off with Devendra Banhart, ooff.

Members of Akron/Family..

(ex) Port O Brien members..

Ever since I left Moscow, Russia after having lived there for a good five years..  I realized how much I missed it and especially the markets where I raided the old and dusty postcards and posters for sale. Just writing about it makes me want to be standing in freezing Russian winter flicking through old, dirty postcards and most of them still with writing on them.. aaaah.

Last but not least is Iceland… and as cliché and partriotic it sounds I love everything about it.. the nature, people, buildings and isolation of it all.

“We are all a big research group, learning through exploration”

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BRIEF: You are to produce a symbol which communicates interaction, as seen in your presentation. You may use image, type or combination of both. The design is to be black and white only. You are to produce two different sized versions on a single sheet of A4 white paper, landscape format; the largest of which should be 150mm on its long side; the smallest should measure 35mm on its longest side. There should be two lines of copy in 9pt Helvetica, in the bottom right-hand corner which explains the ethos of the design. And your name.