: Image Making Through Type : Research & Process

Get inspired !

There is so much stuff on Pinterest that really opened my eyes to the possibilities. Naturally I made a board and saved everything that resonated with me. Most of them I try to derive textural and technical qualities. From there I have to weave in an additional layer of context to whatever profession I chose to portray.

We were tasked to complete an in-class assignment. The parameters were loosely defined, revolving around the concept of cubism. I tried my best to combine the shapes from the pictures, and develop a line drawing. Then I painted in photoshop using light and dark shapes, trying to mimic a cubist approach at the same time, intent on portraying multiple viewpoints at the same time. It was pretty experimental, but definitely made me loosen up a little.

In-class assignment, exploration of cubism

I am not really a paper and sketch kind of guy, so I try to jump in straight and start making simple prototypes whenever I can to just test out ideas.

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Let’s get to work !

Copyright Lawyer

I tried to come up with a highly ‘conceptual’ idea, one that is less literal and more ‘poetic’. I started with the idea of scanned images of objects. I loved the visceral quality of these grayscale images. Looking at some of these objects, I thought of how some of these objects are intellectual properties in their own right. Then I connected the dots and somehow came up with the highly abstract idea of portraying the copyright lawyer with these images. The result is shown below, but upon consultation it was deemed too gimmicky and a little cheesy. I agree. Moving on…

Ingredients

Copy-right-Lawyer?

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Fabricator -> Cook

I love my tools and hardware. I also love these images where people layout all kinds of items systematically to form text. It’s really neat. But conceptually I am not very sure if there is anything to offer other than being eye-candy. I did a mockup, and decided maybe I won’t pursue it after-all.

Found Object Letters @ DIY Home Design

http://eyeondesign.aiga.org/the-secret-to-making-highly-shareable-social-vids-and-gifs-one-letterer-has-the-answer/

by Joseph Alessio

My crappy mockup

Attempt at making something

At this point, I thought of doing something with food instead. So I went to the supermarket, looked around and grabbed some corn, capsicum, mushrooms, tomatoes and some other stuff. Then I whipped up something for dinner since I was all alone at home. Yes, I know I am a messy cook.

Ingredients prep

Messy cook

Not exactly appetising, but it gets the job done..

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Webmaster

Ok, I am back at trying to be more poetic in my concepts, and this time, I try to ‘weave’ the idea of spider web and electronics together to depict a webmaster. Yes, I know… Did a small patch of mockup, it was pretty, but decided to leave it at that.

by Stephencdickson

Looks like spiderman’s

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Mastermind

Moving on to become more literal and less poetic, I next came up with the idea of a mastermind. I was first inspired by the “Hypno” font, courtesy of Martin. This idea of a maze and organised straight lines really resounded with me, thus mastermind was born. I made it in the shape of a brain, for obvious reasons. After several tortuous hours of drawing maze lines, I ended up with a plain-looking set of lines in illustrator. Very disheartening. But photoshop came to the rescue, and a bit of layering magic, masking and effects fiesta sealed the deal.

https://www.behance.net/onssmhirsi

by Onss Mhirsi

“Hypno” Font by Martin Malacek

Creating the maze in Illustrator

Highly uninspiring …

Thank you photoshop !

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Programmer

I love coding, so this one was on my plate right from the start! I thought the idea lent itself pretty well, code does look like something with all the indentations going on. I try to put in as realistic a code as possible, and only ‘cheat’ a little to construct the letters. The highlighting of keywords in the code editor also adds a nice touch of visual interest. My second attempt, upon consult, wasn’t very clear, so I tried my best to make the letters come out better in the final iteration. Fingers crossed..

First attempt

Second attempt

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Furniture Maker

This idea was born from seeing an image in google image search…

I have 2 of these at home !

Yes, Ikea furniture. And their world famous manuals. That is how I came to realise that I have to make a piece of furniture that literally spells my name. A chair would be nice, with assembly instructions included.

The parts are modelled in CAD, so that I don’t have to do isometric drawings in Illustrator. And I might decide to go into business some day, so… As a bonus, I think the design could actually work for real …

The Classic Ikea manual

More Ikea manual details

Creating the models in CAD

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The Grand Finale

 


Overall, I am quite satisfied with the end results. I managed to try a mix of analog and digital processes. I think the end product is a little rough on the edges, but I kinda like that aspect of it.

Post-presentation Reflection

Very humbled by the overall positive response for the peer critiques 🙂 Very glad everyone loved the Yikea one… My personal favourite as well, Cheers!

Throughout the duration of this project, I feel that I have gained more appreciation for the difficulty of embedding concepts with symbols/shapes/lines, etc.

I find it illuminating that even though this assignment has a rather rigid set of rules, they provide an opportunity for practising how to develop an idea with clarity, and relevance, in relation to the job title. And as seen from above, trying to weave additional layers of context or meaning to the pieces is a formidable task in itself :p

One of the main hurdles for me is trying to not be too straightforward or obvious ; I try to make the results not appear overly staged, as well as possess a certain amount of charm(rawness?).

Of all the works that were presented by my fellow classmates, the ones that really resonated with me were those that had an element of interactivity to them. I think through interaction we can derive a deeper sense of meaning to perhaps promote a certain idea/message. Case-in-point would be the brilliant observation made by Brian, 🙂 , regarding the photographer piece by Carol. Shariffah’s optical illusion piece elicits joy, and Wende’s invisible ink mechanics really impressed me, in part due to its underlying simple mechanics. Doing interesting things with simple ideas are really hard to do.

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Sources

Ideation Sketches for drill design

Ideation Sketches for drill design

Legos are fast, easy and fun for making scale prototypes. The blocky shapes forces me to focus more on big shapes and form too. Big picture stuff. Perfect for ideation. Building these help me to get a general sense of the scale of grip in proportion to my hands. You can also mix and match with other materials.


Sketch phase

Time to do some real work. At first it felt like it was really hard to come up with 40 sketches, but I got down to it anyway. After the 10th sketch, it felt much better. After a while I realized that it was really all about fitting a few components in different ways to; motor, vents, lights, grip, battery, chuck etc.

I try to think in terms of ease of use, functionality and overcoming issues with existing designs. Then I try to let myself go wild. You can see some of the designs are pretty rad. Also, I try to think in terms of different market segments: domestic, industrial, serious hobbyist and even some high precision designs too.

Sketches Pg1

Sketches Pg2

Micro-Project 3: Together Split

Write a description of the work, where it was performed, its objectives and outcome, and your overall experience of the work.

For this piece, we wanted to explore the mechanics of using technology to exert control remotely.

Inspired by the project Telegarden, as well as due to time constraints, we devised a scenario that allows two people to control what is happening on a third screen via the familiar mechanism of a game controller. Enqi and Amanda each took separate control of my movements and actions, by observing my point of view via a group chat on Instagram. It was perfect as I can easily see their instructions as well as they mine. In a way, there is a sense of transposing of the digital to analog here. By that I meant the input was analog at the start, then ‘converted’ into digital signals as a live chat stream,  transferred to my end, where my brain interpreted the visuals and ‘instructed’ my limbs and hands to react accordingly. In a surreal sense, this experiment can be deemed slightly more advanced in mechanical terms than Telegarden as software’s visual interpretation capabilities have not caught up with its creator’s for the time being. That could also be the probable reason that such applications are still limited in scope.

Another fascinating aspect was even though the interactions between us were near real-time, there was still inevitably a slight delay, so my response trailed behind their instructions occasionally. This shortcoming is partially compensated by anticipation and prediction by all parties. Such is the case when dealing with remote real-time systems.

Lastly, during the brief journey around the ADM campus, I encountered a strange sight of several students being wheeled around on several push carts. This amusing encounter was directly observed by my comrades as well. Similar in nature to Telegarden, participants are transported, via the Internet, to another location while experiencing its sights and sounds. Technology has enabled us to widen our experiential possibilities even to places that are outside our reach. This seemingly simplistic and limited form of setup does not seem to decrease the immediacy as compared to an in-person experience. Projects like this and Telegarden allow its participants to observe, act or experiment from a safe and familiar place.

 

Of all the 3 Micro-Projects,

Which project did you feel you had the most creative control? Why?

I felt that it was the second project that allowed for the most creative control. In essence, the work had predefined parameters that are set by the artist, which closely shapes how the process unfolds and in which direction the end result is steered towards. The main objective was to collect opinions of a given question, and the expected end result isn’t exacting. Although one could also argue that the first piece is similar in nature, I think the key difference is the first piece had comparatively loosely defined parameters that allowed for more spontaneity and individual expression. Even though the second piece called for participants to express their opinions in a multitude of ways, this flexibility is being expressive in visual terms and not so much of expression of ideas or creative thought. Essentially, my group was in control of the key idea, and the participants are merely acting as highly chaotic inputs in generating variation.

 

Which project had the most unpredictable outcome? Why?

The first project called for each artist to make individual contributions, with the end result aggregated and thereby unpredictable. As the input is highly individualistic and involves a sizeable number of participants, I feel that its safe to say that the unpredictability factor increases in tandem. There is also no fixed objective per se for the piece. It is designed to be conversational and reflective, and by perusing the participants’ observations, we can get a sense of how every individual’s takeaway differed.

 

Which project best illustrates the concepts of DIWO & OpenSource? Why?

I feel the second piece best illustrates DIWO and open source as it utilises participation and the contribution of ideas(abstract, literal, visual and many other forms). In the open source movement, a key aspect is the collective contributions of many individuals that make up a piece of work, be it software, hardware, art, music etc. There are also opportunities for remixing, which is also an open source ingredient, should the participants choose to do so, in the second piece. Technically, participants can cut and paste each other’s content and modify as they see fit. The second project closely resembles  any one of the millions of projects found on Github, where any user can contribute improvements. The spirit is also largely community-driven and self-less in nature; for the greater good. Interestingly, the end result is an assemblage of probable definitions of ‘what a designer is’, presenting a bewildering range of attitudes and aesthetic sensibilities all at once. Open source projects like these are great because they are backed by passionate contributors from all corners of the world.