Y3S1 Creative Process Journal

WEEK 11 – STUDIO PROCESS Re-Moodboarding Based off the keywords ‘sovereignty’, ‘authority’, ‘government’, ‘people’ and ‘futures’ the following reference images, in addition to the earlier ones on ‘superior’, were sourced to give the look and view of the key visual. Key Visual References

Key Visual Colours/Treatment Key Visual Typography

WEEK 11 – STUDIO PROCESS KV Testing With what I had in the moodboards, I went on to sourcing for more 3D models and was arranging them in the Mao communist era manner.

The use of a gradient mesh to signify the ‘unknown’ within the futures as a web of uncertainty was something that I felt was still a wise aesthetic choice and wanted to keep, and hence it was modified to look like this.

WEEK 11 – STUDIO PROCESS KV Testing In illustrating these unknown futures about the humans, the gradient mesh was imposed onto the 3D modelled human figures. Because of such an effect, I was looking through the paper swatches and found a reflective holographic paper that would make the design really pop stand out and have a voice of its own, making keen references to Metahaven in the anti-establishment with the pattern in the typography as well as ultra-serif typfaces that are brutalised and bevelled.



WEEK 11 – STUDIO PROCESS Progress & Reflections I think that these are the iterations that I have equally enjoyed making and liked making thus far in the entire process leading up to this. I have always associated the visuals of ‘futures’ with hues of colours and portals of seas, and the iterations with Metahaven’s intentions bind well in creating that semi-eerie, offputting look and feel despite all that coloured imagery, is one that I definitely feel that was worth accomplishing. I was also glad that my previous education in art history has also led me to the right references to justify my art direction of the project. I am also glad for following about 3K people on instagram because by far that has been my most direct access to know what is out there, and as cliche as it is I feel that designers need to learn to keep up with the times, making their aesthetic choices relevant to their art directions. I am also glad for the many advice that peers and Stan has given in order to reach this stage of the project. I don’t know if it is 100% effective as a means of representation, but I’m glad this was my level of competency as of now.

WEEK12 – Working Towards DISSERTATION Workcheck CLASS A. We were informed during dissertation class that there would be a Week 12 peer-to-peer evaluation that would be carried out by 2nd Markers, and we would have to showcase our degree of work by then. It can be incomplete or experiments by artefacts or some test- prints that we want to make. The workcheck seeks to look for fixes in the overuse of technical jargon, sound research methods and progress within the studio project. B. Stanley provided some comments after the results of the RPO came in. - improve on your RPO and notice the recatagorisation of your RPO into the Dissertation - content: see whether your lit review makes sense and how you frame your argument - structure & clarity: check for grammar and clarity - employ sound research methods - note referencing, formatting and structure

C. Structure and Content of Dissertation (an aid) Chapter 1: Background - to respond and improve - state research objective - Lit Review: expand from RPO - Gaps in Literature: explain what is missing and needs to be discussed in Chapter 2 - Key Research Inquiry: to articulate key research question and sub- questions by taking lead from the subtitle of the paper Chapter 2: Participants - be as detailed as possible about them: who, credentials, positions, experience - Research methods: describe the strategy toawrds method, describe how you gain access to the people in your interview Chapter 3: Discussion - defined by subquestions or key findings that were not pre-empted - discuss why they are still valuable research. if primary research does not align with assumption, critically analyse why, is it representative of everyone else (why not and why yes?), cross check with credentials of person) Chapter 4: practical and objective issues you have encountered in your primary research, e.g. bigger pool of survey interviewees? or was it hard to get input from people as they are renowned/busy? Chapter 5: Your stance vs Evaluating whether it works

WEEK 12 – DISSERTATION CLASS Questions D. Questions asked by the floor 1. When we encounter new freadings, how do we infuse them into the paper in the best way?: - under the lit review 2. What happens when the original participants end up not being interviewed? Do we include them in the sub-sections or remove them but note that reaching them was a problem in the limitations of research?: - List in Participants, clarify in Limitations as an issue 3. When you break down questions in chapter 3, how should you go about doing it?: - have guiding questions, why are their views a problem and compare and articulate it against your views - in limitations, mention assumptions and further research needed to facilitate the outcome of the research - it’s ok if the results do not agree with your research but mention the next step you’d take to make sure it is addressed 4. If charts are referenced again heavily, should we reintroduced them in the paper?: - yes, but same figure number

Quick View of the Framework Booklet - Week 12 I did not think that the spreads behind this publication was worth documenting because it is a poor representation of what I have in terms of how it is accessible to the audience, despite being loaded with content. I feel that the concept of design’s utility of being applicable to the audience has been passed down to us as a mantra of sorts, and in this I failed by making another booklet that only perhaps researchers would pick up to reference. Beyond beauty, beyond content, I feel that accessibility in means of production is something I am also learning to pick up as a budding designer. I might not be perfect at it now, but as long as I give each day a new effort and attempt I can only be sure that I will get better, not just at ‘making designs that pop’ but making designs that people can relate to.

SCANS OF THE FLIPBOOK - Week 12



WEEK 12 – STUDIO CLASS Progress & Reflections Likewise for the reiteration of the flipbook, I feel that right now the means of treatment and production are limited to what I have. I feel like it’s a period of much needed transition, and perhaps this realisation doesn’t have to come from me but someone who sees this project in a different light. A new perspective that can really stretch the project to its potential in terms of its deliverables. Especially when the topic I am dealing with is information-laden and the outputs will tend towards thick modes of publications. I also feel like I need to be more confident and daring in trying for different methods and not hold on to my ideas or what I have produced so far, for if you don’t stop trying you will only get better at what you do. Just another day, Noah. Push forth.

WEEK 13 – STUDIO PROCESS Feedbacks from 2nd Marker in Week 12: - premise of study (frameworks) that provides for the context needs to be state explicitly - biblio-reference all your sources - do not cannibalise your work from dissertation to studio - general lack of CPJ content and content in work Assessment Briefing - if extension needed, email Yasser/Stanley by 8th Nov Friday, before 1600hrs - 5 marks deduceted for each hour past deadline Submission Details 27th November (Wednesday) Room closes at 1000hrs Online submission by 0900hrs Print Submission Form BADC5A Marking: 27th November Debrief: Tuesday, 3rd Dec at D501, 2pm

WEEK 13 – STUDIO PROGRESS Clarifying Submission Checklist

WEEK 13 – STUDIO PROGRESS Stanley, on Progress

WEEK 13 – STUDIO PROGRESS Art Direction and Narrative Stanley emphasised that as we are working towards our submissions, it is important to start establish interesting ways of saying things, especially with people’s engagement with your work, having different ways of visualising the hefty amount of information. 1. Breakdown of information in different formats Given the visual textures of the artefacts in the mandatories list thus far, the setup looks very much like pieces that exist in a gallery. Rethinking them along such lines, the collaterals would then be items and documents that would go in an exhibit: - Flipbook - bitesized information, change to exhibition brochure to set ‘exhibition’ content and context - Simplify the brochure booklet into each brochures talking about one framework each - Simplify the content of the framework vinyl into essential content - Have a artist’s statement as writeup to establish gallery setting - Have white wall-panels to establish white walls of gallery

Sketch of Desk Setup

WEEK 13 – STUDIO CLASS Progress & Reflections Surprisingly after the group consultation with Stan and peers, the content that I needed was already in place. What I needed was a clearer art direction in narrating my collaterals in a more connected manner, so that it made more sense to the viewer. I thus decided, because of the pristine quality of my works and artefacts, to propose the setting of which the exhibition of the ‘framework’ with relation to climate change will be. The brochures and catalogues are all collaterals that is a subset of the exhibition which is a precursor to a workshop that I will eventually hold in the next semester to gather speculative imaginings from the said target group. I also thought of the format of how these brochures exist, and an exercise docket that contains the exercises to the framework would exist in. I was happy with this set of directions and decided that I would keep to them leading up to next week’s consult with Stan before the production stage.

Group Consult!

WEEK 14 – Consultation with Stanley STUDIO PROCESS With the coding workshop with Andreas, after a few rounds of coding and sketches, I have arrived at an outcome that is illustrated in process on the right. The outcome was initially meant as a means to mirror the key visual treatment, but with that Stanley and I sat down to think about it’s relevance to the project as shown below:

Initially the idea I had for this interactive piece was to rehash the treatment behind the key visual. However, Stan recommended that it be a statement piece than anything else. It is a live stream that is representing the dehumanisation of the human in the age of the Anthropocene, with the static treatment as another means of seeing ourselves as less-human as we become more susceptible to the forces of nature. In that same sense, I inverted the hues to show blacks as whites because that takes away more of the element of the human (as you can see in the first picture as compared to the rest.)

The choice of the colour swatches was not limited, given the nature of the key visual. They however, had to be synonymous with each other in establishing a harmonious colour palette. Stan and Bridget commented that the red was too harsh and out of place, and with the key visual it just looks too much. Hence, the final colours used were:

I had also chosen for a rainbow- holographic paper stock to push for the limits of how the key visual would look on print. Stanley’s comment on it was that the KV was too overpowering with alot of details going on, with a deficit in attention span from the user as to where to focus on. I thus made reductions to some elements and arrived at this conclusion: In all honesty, I felt that is it wasn’t printed on holographic paper it might have look ‘oh-kay’ and just nice because as a layout it is perhaps well-resolved, but I see it’s potential in the voice of Metahaven’s justification and it was why I had decided to stick with this print treatment.

WEEK 14 – STUDIO CLASS Progress & Reflections After the consultation of my test prints with Stan, it felt like everything clicked and made sense, especially with the whole idea of using the exhibition as a narrative to guide the audience around my collaterals. Stan was approving of my art direction, especially with the halftone treatment being a synonymous treatment in saying what was mentioned with the interactive piece of dehumanising the image of the human. These set of prints also aligned with what I had pictured of the brochures as when I had purchased the papers in the first place: this was a rare occurrence that I could picture how my outcomes would turn out! Perhaps my worries at the start were unfounded but necessary to push myself with anxiety to the current state of the project.

WEEK 15 – Working towards Submissions STUDIO PROCESS What Stan had wanted for us to do was to set up a schedule for us to work towards on a daily basis (Techne: Task Modularisation!). I felt that this was (really really really) extremely helpful because 1) I knew my pace in working and 2) setting time constraints pushes me to work harder in meeting the deadline. It is however flexible, sometimes when I do need time for something important I do give it a little more breathing space, however I have managed to finish my tasks on time! I thus have planned for this week to be working towards finishing production so that I can take the early two days of next week to myself after these hectic 16 weeks. The schedule is attached in the next spread!

SCHEDULE Schedule in working towards s

- 19 DAYS submissions in these 19 days!

WEEK 15 – STUDIO PROGRESS I have first decided that two of the brochures will be in darker colour and printed on white ink. I printed a staggered sheet of pages as a guide for how to format the FA document on illustrator (for white ink is printing via spot colours and requires a specific swatch to process!) I then went ahead with the test prints of all the brochures but forgot to scale the ones in illystrator down, and they came out at a larger scale than the other regular brochures. An earlier test print of the intended colours on the different stocks that showed that red was too stark.

Production Documentation The exercise docket came out looking good because of the test prints made earlier with the other colour stocks. The vinyl stickers turned out well, but required too much technical effort and time to complete. I spoke to Stanley about it and he mentioned that it is perfectly for some experiments to not turn out the way we meant for it to be, it is part of the design process and we should adapt to change. I hence thought of another way to reproduce the writings on the wall with one single sheet of transparent sticker-paper so that the workload is minimised. I got the help from the printer owner in mounting the sticker, which was good because I am a little of a klutz with trasnferring material.

WEEK 15 – STUDIO PROGRESS I test printed the sheets where the halftone of the white ink would be to make sure that the end results would not be of a inverted contrast and of the accurate one one the left of the image. I printed the exhibition catalogue to later realise that it’s art direction was lacking of the arrows (which meant futures) that was present on the other brochures. It felt jarring and weird for it to not be a family. At the same time something about the colours felt missing. I worked on the artwork again and reached the final outcome that would be shown in the next pages.

Production Documentation After a (hefty) sum of money and hours of waiting at the print shop, the prints came out surprisingly as expected. I ran another round of prints taking into consideration of a ‘package’ that would be distributed to ‘visitors’ of the exhibition (package on the next page).

WEEK 15 – STUDIO CLASS Progress & Reflections By the time I am writing this, I am at the end of week 15. What is left is the setting up of the ‘exhibition space’ and putting things in order and after which I would be done. I am also left with formatting both the interactive work on the iMac together with the mandatory 3 video so they work synonymously on the screen. Honestly, in terms of personal expectations, as much as I anticipated that there would be many panic attacks and cases of breakdown and redoing of design collaterals, I feel that it has been an extremely humbling experience getting to work with the best lecturer I have been under for both guidance and dad jokes (!), but more importantly for a overarching figure that never pulls a Rick Astley on us. I have learnt so much and the long nights helping peers with their works have let me become introspective in my own judgements in an attempt to genuinely help them with their process. It has been a wonderful experience, I really could not have been more blessed to have gone through this semester. I genuinely hope that the tenacity exists through semester 2 and leading up to the graduation show. I want to be the best version that I am. PTL.