Secondary Research

In continuation to the Primary Research brief, we have been asked to look into a certain type of footwear we find interesting. I have chosen the football boots as my footwear.

The main purpose of the football boot is grip and stability on the pitch and nowadays boots have a variety of changeable studs and blades designed for different pitches and weather types.

The first evidence of the existence of a boot especially for football, was found in the 1500s and were found to belong to Henry VIII. Football then lost popularity until the late 1800s where the game remerged along with the first mass produced boot. The boot was all leather with 6 studs, and they stayed this way until the mid 1900s.

example of an early football boot.




As the years passed, different manufacturers appeared with new designs and unique features, but none of these really challenged the dominance of adidas and Puma. In 1995, the first Adidas Predator was released, this boot has gone on to massive success, and is still being redeveloped and re-released nowadays. The main boot manufacturers now are Adidas, Puma and Nike, although smaller companies have a big say in the market.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xiEzBniB88 - History of the Adidas Boot.

the latest Adidas Predator.
http://soccerreviews.com/news/history-of-the-adidas-predator/
here is a in-depth history of the Predator.



The future of football boots
Football boots are now starting to be aimed at certain players and roles. A Canadian company called Concave have released a boot that increases the 'sweet spot' of the ball by 400% and stats have proved that this improve the power and accuracy of a strike.

Concave boot

Primary Research

The brief has asked us to look at shoes and find an illustrator/designer we like the style of. I have come across a Yorkshire artist called Mark hearld. He studied at both the Glasgow School and Art and the Royal Collage of Art, before graduating as an illustrator. he has taken inspiration from Edward Bawden, John piper and Picasso.

This is my favorite piece by Hearld. he tends to use a variety of materials in his artwork and this is no exception. To create the buildings in the background he has used newspaper.

In addition, we were asked to photograph a range of different footwear in a variety of backgrounds. Here are some of my favourite images ;

Explaining to a Martian

The brief asked us to create a piece of infographics for a Martian to understand. From the list of subjects, I decided to focus on a hair dryer. I started the project by drawing simple human figures, I used the far right characters for my project.

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After decided on my characters, I started drawing very simple layouts and ideas.

For the next stage, I upped the level and detail within the designs. By doing this, I got a few ideas to start developing. My early ideas all included lots of arrows which I thought were taking the attention away from the images. At the bottom of the page, I have started using different ways of showing which direction to go in.

I continued developing an idea, and started to add in colour. I needed a way of showing the passing of time whilst the hair dryer is on. I choose to use a blue and orange to show the heat of the dryer building up, I have also used a rising sun to show the morning passing.

When I reached this stage, I felt the layout wasn't working as well as it could. At the bottom of this page, I have started to follow a different composition.

I felt that this was looking a lot better, and by using colour, I decided on my final piece.

Variations on a theme

The asked asked us to fill 100 boxes with different views and uses for a certain item. My item was a traffic cone.

Close Cropping

I have come across a photographer called Neil Downie. He won a competition at the end of 2010 for his photgraphy across Vietnam and the picture below is his winning photograph.

In this photo, by cropping the photo across, he has given the impression of width. The boats in the photo are the darkest parts, therefore the eye is immediately drawn to them before you notice the background. Unfortunately, I was unable to find a lot of Neil downie's work.

In the same competition, Capt, Jack Leggett came third with this photograph. By using a pillar crop, he shows the height of the columns and the depth of the corridor, giving a completely different aspect to the image above.

Little Boxes - The Tactile Word

As a continuation of my research, i started to look into Post-Modernist designers and artist, and especially British artist, Damien Hirst. Hirst has received a lot of praise and criticism for his work over his career, mainly due to some of the choice of materials he has used. A number of his most famous pieces contain animals, and I find these incredibly interesting to look at, but they still make me feel like its slightly cruel, taking a wild animal out of it's habitat and exhibit it for everyone to see. 

The physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living (1991).









I find this the most interesting out of all of Damien Hirst's pieces. He had a Tiger Shark caught by fisherman, and had it sent to him before placing it a tank full of formaldehyde. The Shark had to be replaced in 2006 after the original started to decay. This leads to the question, Is this still the same piece of artwork ?. The replacement shark had formaldehyde injected into the body of the animal to help preserve it.

 Above are pieces by Hirst including a cow, a sheep cut in half and a unicorn.

Little Boxes - the Tactile World

In the Architect category,  I decided to look at Michael Graves. Born in 1934 in Indianapolis, he grew up with a passion for painting and drawing. He has designed the Swan and Dolphin Resort, at Walt Disney in Florida and also the St. Coletta School in Washington.

The St. Coletta School has a philosophy that all children are special, and now they have a very special building to learn in. One of my favourite pieces by Graves is the Hotel Michael. Named after the man himself, this is a 470 room luxury hotel and even has its very own gift shop selling only work from michael graves. His famous teapots can be seen on the walls in the image below.

The ESPA Spa and Beach Hotel was is situated in Singapore, offering a luxury getaway from the ordinary. With the setting this makes me think of sailing down a river through the forest and coming across a tribe settlement, not exactly what i'd expect from a place like Singapore.

Design in Context

My decade was the 1940s.

Colour

For the new brief, I continued looking at Harry Pearce and how few colours he uses in his work, but can still give a just as impressive message across. The piece below was his work done alongside Angus Hyland for re-branding Co-op.

 Once again, he only uses 3 colours for this piece, but by using colours that don't clash against each other, it works really well.

Below, is another example of only three colours

I also started to look at Domenic Lippa, and just like harry Pearce, he does a lot of pieces containing very few colours.

Typography

After the lecture, i started looking at Typographic Conundrums by Harry Pearce. I've picked out my favorites ;

2s company, 3s a crowd

Actions speak louder then words

Chip off the old block

Fingers crossed

Fish out of water

Continued looking at Harry Pearce and came across this. Using the same colour schemes as his typography conundrums book but has included an image aswell. The title works so well.

Self Portrait

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