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.